Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

Microsoft and Nokia had a teleconference earlier this morning and revealed some interesting, albeit expected, piece of news. The two companies are partnering to develop Office Mobile, Office Communicator Mobile, SharePoint, and Microsoft System Center for Nokia’s Symbian operating system. It is interesting that Microsoft is working with Nokia and not the Symbian Foundation on this endeavor, however it does hint that this will not be available for Samsung, Sony Ericsson, or other manufacturers of Symbian devices. There were hints that this will be an online experience, which raises questions whether this will be strictly for Symbian, or if it will be platform independent, and whether MS Office Live will be supported. Of course seeing this in action will be pretty exciting.

I must say, I’m pretty excited about this little bit of news, and the biggest reason being that it would appear that Symbian, or more specifically Nokia E-series, will be better positioned for the corporate environment. This will give RIM a run for its money, however I imagine that Microsoft will do all they can to protect Windows mobile in this sector, and I can’t really blame them for it. I would, however, like to see an improvement in Nokia’s Microsoft Exchange Server client before they go on to Office and SharePoint (the biggest beef being, of course, email handling – no HTML, folder sync, etc.).

This also seems to correspond to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint becoming closer integrated, so not much surprise to the move. What does surprise me, however is that Microsoft is not partnering with RIM, given the number of BlackBerries out there in the corporate world. I suppose that would require extensive BB Server modifications, whereas Symbian can use the protocols provided by Microsoft.

On the side, Nokia did comment that they will be working with Microsoft on “future user experiences” for Nokia customers, and that they are “deeply committed to Symbian,” and have no plans in developing Windows Mobile devices (thankfully). the future user experience could also mean that they will bring this over to their Maemo platform for Internet Tablets, which would be quite nice given the larger screen and keyboard.

I am very excited to see where this will lead, and whether I will be able to start pointing out more Nokia models in my office.

Update:
Reading over the article from GSMArena.com, I saw the best explanation why this move will appeal to corporate clients, and frankly, why I am so excited about it:

• The ability to view, edit, create and share Office documents on more devices in more places with mobile-optimized versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft OneNote
• Enterprise instant messaging and presence, and optimized conferencing and collaboration experience with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile
• Mobile access to intranet and extranet portals built on Microsoft SharePoint Server
• Enterprise device management with Microsoft System Center

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)
and: GSMArena.com (read)