Partnership between Nokia and Microsoft
- In London, Nokia and Microsoft announced the extension of their strategic partnership to design a new worldwide mobile ecosystem. Together, they will create innovating mobile services and products for consumers as well as for operators and developers. Existing common offers will be proposed on new markets and, for this, the two companies bring together key assets.
- Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as main platform for its smartphones and add in its competitive benefits (image, design and manufacturing quality, languages support, etc.). This collaboration will broaden available ranges of prices and segments.
- Microsoft’s browser Bing will be implemented on Nokia devices and so will Microsoft’s advertising system adCenter. Nokia Maps will be integrated in Microsoft’s maps offers, the results of which will be returned by Bing and adCenter.
- Nokia’s application store will be integrated into Microsoft Marketplace. Several billing agreements have been set up by Nokia to expend customers’ payment ability in countries where credit card use is not very developed.
- Finally, Microsoft’s development tools will be put at the disposal of third party developers on Nokia Windows Phones.
- These two partners originally were leaders in their respective industries; both now have to face ground-breaking rivals. Google and RiM (Research in Motion, BlackBerry’s manufacturer) for mobile OSs; Apple, Samsung and, yet again, RiM for mobile devices (such as smartphones). According to Gartner, Nokia used to hold nearly 50% of the market but went down to 36% in 2009 and 29% in 2010. The use of smartphones and tablets to access the Internet should overcome the use of computers (laptops and fixed workstations) this year, but Microsoft only benefits from 2% shares in mobile OS market.
- The two partners try to make it up with their rivals in the field of high technological innovation, where most of the value is added: applications, contents, etc. However, other manufacturers, such as Huawei, made other decisions and carry on targeting the needs of less wealthy populations. Their business models target traditional yet ever developing needs: for instance, the use of mobile phones as means of payment, a piece of a less big, but faster growing segment.