Microsoft Brings Office to Nokia Symbian Smartphones

Owners of Nokia Eseries will be the first to benefit from a global alliance signed between Microsoft and Nokia designed to bring the Redmond company's mobile productivity solutions to the mobile phone giant's Symbian devices. Marking a first in terms of the scope and nature of their joint endeavor, the two companies revealed that the partnership was set up to kick up a notch the enterprise-grade solutions for mobile productivity. In the video embedded at the bottom of this article you will be able to see Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Nokia Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Öistämö discuss the new alliance.

“With more than 200 million smartphone customers globally, Nokia is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer and a natural partner for us,” Elop noted. “Today’s announcement will enable us to expand Microsoft Office Mobile to Nokia smartphone owners worldwide and allow them to collaborate on Office documents from anywhere, as part of our strategy to provide the best productivity experience across the PC, phone and browser.”
Nokia smartphone users will be able to leverage not only Microsoft Office Mobile products, but also Microsoft business communications, as well as collaboration and device management software. More specifically, the partnership will focus on bringing Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile to Nokia smartphones as soon as 2010, allowing users to enjoy instant messaging, presence, conferencing and collaboration capabilities. In addition, the Redmond company will also work to ensure that Nokia devices will permit users to view, edit, create and share documents via Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote products optimized for mobile phones.
The collaboration work between Nokia and Microsoft will ensure that corporate portals developed with SharePoint Server at the basis, both intranets and extranets will be accessible from mobile phones. And to top it all off, enterprise grade device management will be available with Microsoft System Center.
“The scope of the alliance between Microsoft and Nokia, and potential value for the enterprise and individual is significant,” added Stephen Drake, VP of Mobility & Telecom at IDC. “By bringing Microsoft’s productivity solutions to Nokia’s large customer base, the two companies should be better able to serve the needs of the growing mobile worker population, which IDC estimates to reach 1 billion worldwide in 2011.”

Windows Mobile Is Dead, Long Live Windows Phone

Redmond-based software giant Microsoft decided it was high time to put an end to the Windows Mobile nomenclature for its operating system for mobile phones, and will have the platform under the name of Windows Phone. It seems that the company plans to clear up any confusion that might arise connected to the current naming, thus introducing the new brand that has been rumored/expected to be announced for quite a while now.

According to the news, the change will not affect only the Windows Mobile 6.5 flavor of the platform, but the Windows Mobile 7 iteration too, as well as the older versions of the OS, at least all that come in the 6.x scheme. The Redmond company also says that the brand “reflects the upcoming desktop operating system release where people away from their PC can have the same experience everywhere.”
On the other hand, there are also those who suggest that Microsoft might be trying to detach the upcoming operating system flavors from the negative publicity that the Windows Mobile brand has seen over the years. According to The Inquirer, the move towards the new name will get somewhat official tomorrow, when a video that will deliver a preview of the final version of Windows Phone will also become available.
Microsoft's operating system for mobile phones will most probably represent the same thing for users out there, regardless of the name under which it will come towards them. For what it's worth, the Windows Mobile name is reportedly worn out, so a major change was needed. In case the user experience that the upcoming Windows Phone OS will deliver will rise high above what the older flavor was able to offer, then Microsoft has made the move at the right moment. Hopefully, all the goodies it has been rumored to include will be there, and the rose will smell sweeter.