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 24th
May 2010
Yahoo! and Nokia today announced a widely anticipated
strategic alliance allowing the two companies to share technologies.
This move can either be seen as an interesting and
dynamic collaboration between the two companies, or alternatively
an act of desperation between two companies that are beginning to
struggle against fierce competition.
The main features of the alliance are that Nokia will
provide Ovi branded maps and navigation for Yahoo!, and Yahoo! will
provide email and chat for Ovi. Both companies are also working
towards a single sign on for both Ovi and Yahoo! which will make
integration work more smoothly.
Yahoo!'s range of Internet properties are quite
broad, and apart from email, messaging and search, Yahoo! also owns
Flickr and its own advertising network that could probably be leveraged
into Nokia handsets. Even though Yahoo! has struggled lately, it
is still a much more popular service than Ovi ever will be.
The move unites Nokia and Yahoo! against a common
competitor in the shape of Google, which has hooks very deeply into
Android, and it will also bolster the companies against the expected
onslaught from Windows Phone 7 later this year.
We should see co-branded offerings later this year
with a full global rollout expected during 2011.
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