Nokia Partners With Yahoo On Maps, Chat and Email Services
Nokia Corp. and Yahoo Inc. has teamed up today to worked jointly on their chat, email, maps and navigation services in an effort to boost their respective positions in the mobile phone market.
Nokia and its mapping subsidiary will power Yahoo's maps and navigation services, while Yahoo will become the sole provider of Nokia's Ovi mail and chat, which is a platform to deliver maps, music, downloading programs and other services.
Nokia and Yahoo will also work on an "ID federation" that will let users sign into Yahoo and Nokia services with the same login name.
With this Nokia will rise to become the exclusive, global provider for yahoo maps after integrating its Ovi maps services across Yahoo, then this mobile giant would be designated as "powered by Ovi," Nokia's Internet service brand.
While Yahoo will lead to become the global provider for Nokia's Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services, and would be branded as "Ovi Mail/Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo."
The launch of these selected services will be taking place in the second half of 2010, and the global roll-out is expected to happen next year, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, chief executive of Nokia and Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, said during a press conference today.
"Yahoo has a strong record of implementing these [chat and mail] services on mobile devices," Kallasvuo said.
"Many of you know that we haven't focused a lot on our maps platform. This alliance changes that," Bartz said. "By using Nokia's maps … it'll be a much richer experience for our users."
With this partnership, Nokia and Yahoo hope the alliance will improve their profiles in the industry. The new joint venture with also pave the way for both the companies to establish and expand their presence in the developing world, Bartz said, where more and more people are accessing the Web for the first time on a mobile device.
"Nokia has, by far, the strongest track record of any mobile device maker in these markets," Bartz said. "When partners like Nokia join with us in the developing markets, we see significant growth. We're also seeing huge increases in these countries year-over-year that demonstrate their appetite for mobile usage and their appetite for internet services."
Kallasvuo agreed. "There is a generation of people growing up who are connected solely through their mobile devices," he said.
