Microsoft Communicator comes to Nokia phones

First fruit of Nokia-Microsoft partnership integrates Nokia phones with Microsoft messaging platform

Nokia's enterprise handsets now link with Microsoft's messaging server

Nokia and Microsoft have announced the first fruit of their partnership, a port of Microsoft's Communicator Mobile to Nokia handsets, enabling mobile users to get the same messaging and presence capabilities available on PCs with Office Communicator.

Available to download now from Nokia's online Ovi Store or the Microsoft Store, Microsoft Communicator Mobile for Nokia is supported initially on the E72 and E52 smartphones.

Nokia said that it will also ship preinstalled on these and future enterprise handsets, including the recently announced E5, but will not be back-ported to earlier devices such as the E71 and E63.

The new client has exactly the same capabilities as Communicator Mobile on Microsoft's own Windows Mobile platform, according to Jacob Jaffe, head of Microsoft's Information Worker business group.

"It's the same experience across different platforms, with presence and instant messaging now available on Nokia devices. It illustrates our commitment to productivity across the PC and mobile," he said.

While it is a free download, the client is designed to work with Microsoft's Office Communications Server for messaging and presence.

The partnership between Microsoft and Nokia was announced last August, and has been viewed as a move to counteract RIM and its BlackBerry devices that are commonly used by executives in many enterprises.

However, a close partnership with Microsoft might also boost Nokia's penetration of the US business market, where the firm has so far been less successful than in other global regions.

Microsoft Communicator comes to Nokia phones

First fruit of Nokia-Microsoft partnership integrates Nokia phones with Microsoft messaging platform

Ukko Lappalainen, Nokia's vice president for business smartphones, said that by integrating closely with Microsoft infrastructure, customers can cut out the need for a middleware platform such as BlackBerry Enterprise Server and get the same capabilities at a lower overall cost.

"Instead of building middleware, we connect directly back to the enterprise messaging and communications servers. It's simpler, has fewer points of failure and costs less," he said.

Nokia already licenses Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol, and E-Series handsets can already link directly with corporate mail systems based on Exchange Server.

The two firms have already pledged to deliver versions of Microsoft's Office Mobile applications for Nokia handsets in the future, so that workers can freely exchange documents between PCs and mobile colleagues with Nokia phones.

Nokia and Microsoft declined to give much more detail on this capability, but Jaffe said that the applications would be comparable with Office Mobile 2010 for Windows Mobile, which is still in beta and due to arrive later this year.

Lappalainen also said that the firms were looking at joint innovation in technologies that will help to mobilise the workforce.

"Suppose you could start taking notes on your handset, and when you get back to the office, the document is already synchronised there, ready for you to pick up where you left off. Those are the kind of capabilities we are looking at," he said.