In the words of the great thespian Keanu Reeves, "Whoa..." So today, Microsoft and Nokia, two of the mega powerhouses in the world of mobility announced a deal where the two companies will work closely together to develop Symbian versions of the venerable Office application suite, as well as Office Communicator Mobile, and provide tie-ins for SharePoint, System Center and continue the support of the ActiveSync protocol.
The announcement and ensuing discussion was quite interesting, but my jaw hit the floor around 49 seconds into the conversation.
Before I talk about the jaw dropping part, let me get through some of the more "boring" parts. Overall, I think this is a great move on Microsoft's part.
While Microsoft has seen better days from a mobility perspective with its Windows Mobile platform, other parts of Microsoft have done some great things to stay not only relevant, but dominant in the mobile realm. Let's look first at the team responsible for ActiveSync. ActiveSync is THE standard protocol for corporate email on Windows Mobile (duh!), Android, iPhone, Symbian and webOS. That's 5 of the 6 major platforms. That's pretty damn good, because when you think about it, it's really a two horse race between Microsoft and RIM for corporate mobile email protocols. For the record, I don't think our friends in Canadia will be licensing that any time soon.
Microsoft is now in the process of (or at least trying) replicating the same success it has had with ActiveSync for Office...and don't forget Office is 1/2 of the Cash Cow team it has. Now, Office will be fully supported on two platforms. I won't be surprised when we hear announcements from Microsoft that it has struck similar deals with Apple, Palm and perhaps even Google. Heck, if they did the deal with Google for ActiveSync, what's to stop them from doing it for Office? Not much I suspect. The big question I have though is what this means for the folks over at QuickOffice that are selling a competitive product for more than $ 0.00 - they're obviously going to need to provide a better mousetrap or are going to have some troubles to deal with.
So pushing Office to a gagillion (how big is a gagillion?) devices. Got it. Same thing applies to Office Communicator. Unified Communications is a pretty hot area, especially when you make it mobile. Fixed UC will also be a two horse race, this time Microsoft against Cisco. This deal takes a pretty good shot at Cisco.
I also liked the angle about tighter integration with System Center. My sense is you'll see a revised edition of System Center Mobile Device Manager (who the hell does their branding!?!?!?!) that can also do Symbian devices. At least this way, Nokia can kind of get back in the game after dumping IntelliSync. Take that BES that can only do BlackBerry MDM! Now, imagine if Microsoft can strike deals with the other platforms. That creates a potentially huge headache for the smaller mobile device management companies. Nothing was said about that during the call, so that's me just speculating.
There was a guy at the end of the call (around 9:20) who asked if this deal was aimed at Apple. Dumb question, sorry. I hope it was a canned question. This is squarely aimed at BlackBerry. For Nokia especially. So now let's go back to what I talked about at the beginning. My jaw hit the floor at about 46 seconds into the discussion:
"We will jointly design a range of new user experiences for future Nokia devices. We have already identified several areas of future joint exploration and we will bring together our teams to design these solutions to meet the future needs of mobile professionals."
OK, maybe I'm the one who's hitting the crack pipe today, but I read two things between the lines of that statement:
- Nokia may develop E series devices running the Windows Mobile operating system
- This is the first step in a much broader joint venture where you'll see Microsoft and Nokia working together to develop Windows Mobile 7. Ya, you heard me bub.
Now I know this is HIGHLY speculative, and I am not just trying to stir the pot here, so hear me out. As I mentioned before, Windows Mobile has seen better days. So has Symbian candidly. Now I know there's no way Nokia would admit this (especially with today's announcement), but did you see the article in the German edition of The Financial Times that suggests Nokia was thinking about dumping Symbian. Symbian certainly needs a revamp - especially in the UI (I really find it awkward). I also read somewhere that it has as many lines of code as does Windows XP. That's crazy!
So what if these two power houses collaborated to create a new version of Windows Mobile...call it maybe version 7? Nokia has some great experience in industrial design. Other than the Zune HD, Microsoft could stand to benefit from their experience. Microsoft has all the street creds for enterprise users. Hell, they should OWN the enterprise mobility market but have been so slow to react historically that they let the market get away from them (to date).
My sense is both companies need something this extreme to get back in the game. What do you think? Am I the one who should be giving you the dealer's name today?
