Nokia and Yahoo allied to fight Apple and Google

29th May, 2010 by adina
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An expected alliance was formed including Nokia and Yahoo to allow them completing each other’s services. Thus, as a part of this deal, Nokia will provide all mapping and navigating services needed by Yahoo through Ovi Maps, while Yahoo will power both Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat.

The two companies are also planning to unify their sign-in procedures, allowing an account holder on one of them to be able to sign into the other one. Nokia is to make the first step into the new direction by having its Ovi logins working on certain Yahoo sites.

Dual-branded services will be visible starting with the second half of this year, but the union between the two companies will be more obvious with a global rollout in 2011.

Rumors about this alliance were heard for months, even years, and are probably the result of the struggle both companies lead in their respective markets. Nokia insisted on self-developing services, which has supported Ovi Maps but has neglected messaging, where many users prefer to use Google, Yahoo or other platforms that are device-independent. Yahoo has a smaller impact on the mobile area and was passed by Google, which has control of mobile search and e-mail.

Both companies have mostly struggled in smartphones, where Nokia has lost ground to Apple, Google and Research in Motion, while Yahoo is frequently secondary on devices such as the iPhone. Android has brought one of the deepest blows, because its selling advantage is extremely tight integration with Gmail, Gtalk, Google Maps and other important Internet services.


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