Proving the old adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Nokia has teamed up with Microsoft, to releas enterprise mobile software meant to threaten the likes of RIM and maybe even Apple.
The Microsoft Communicator Mobile software is the result of a team-up from back in August 2009 between the Finnish phone giant and the Redmond software firm and is allegedly a useful tool for business people to see whether or not their colleagues are available and allowing for via e-mail, text, phone or IM.
“This application really provides a much more efficient way to work with others as you can see if someone is busy or available, and the best way to start a conversation with them,” says Ukko Lappalainen, Vice President at Nokia.
“It also meets all of the requirements for enterprise: cost effective to implement, secure, familiar and reliable.”
Nokia says it will also be offering a version of Microsoft Office running on several of its enterprise orientated phones later this year.
“Our alliance with Nokia aims to bring the Office productivity experience to the millions of people using Nokia smartphones around the world,” said Kirt Debique, general manager at Microsoft.
Of course it also seems dead set on bringing down Blackberry dominance in the enterprise smartphone segment, as both Microsoft and Nokia have lost enormous market share in the business handhelds market to RIM.
Apple too has left Nokia hurting with its iPhone smartphone trouncing any innovations the Finnish phone maker could produce.
Nokia says owners of a number of Symbian based Nokia E series smartphones can download the English version of the software as of Wednesday from Nokia’s Ovi Store.
The software will initially run on Nokia E52 and E72 phones with other handsets to follow.
Microsoft Communicator Mobile was previously available on phones running Java.
