Nokia and Yahoo strategic partnership for web services

Published by Rafe Blandford at 15:01 UTC, May 24th 2010

Nokia and Yahoo have announced a global strategic partnership which looks to enhance the companies' respective services across both the PC and mobile devices. Nokia will become the global, exclusive provider of mapping and navigation services across Yahoo service (powered by Ovi) while Yahoo will become the global, exclusive provider of Nokia's Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services. Nokia and Yahoo plan to work on ID federation, the first stage of which will be the ability to use Ovi ID to log into select Yahoo services.

The first implementation will appear in the second half of 2010 in selected markets, with the global roll-out happening in 2011. Both companies will continue to use their respective brands and distribution channels. However, the strategic alliance will see Nokia running the back end of Yahoo's maps and navigation related services, while Yahoo will run the back end of Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat.

"Delivering great user experiences -- both online and on your mobile - is what this alliance is all about," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia. "We're enabling millions of Yahoo! customers in key markets including North America to discover the unique capabilities that Ovi Maps brings. Similarly, Yahoo!'s online expertise will bring exciting mail and messaging enhancements to millions of Ovi Mail customers across almost every country around the world, many of whom will have their first Internet experience on their mobile."

 "What a combination," said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo! "We're excited to expand the reach of our best-in-class Mail and Messenger services, bringing personalized experiences to more people across the mobile web, particularly in emerging markets where we are seeding the next generation of Yahoo! users. At the same time, we believe Nokia's strength and continued investment in maps and navigation will greatly enhance our existing products, enabling us to focus on areas that are core to our business."

Nokia see the alliance as "a logical  move by two companies who will be working together to offer consumers the best possible experience". A key piece of thinking behind the alliance is that there is "a lot of 'complementarity' between Yahoo and Nokia: distribution (web versus mobile), geographically (USA versus rest of world), investments (mail and chat versus maps)". 

Yahoo has struggled in the last few years in the face of competition from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and many others. Nokia faces increasing competition in the high end mobile space and is widely perceived as having faced some trouble in executing its service strategy. However, there's no doubting the scale of Yahoo and Nokia - globally Yahoo has 586 million unique visitors, while 1.2 billion people use a Nokia device. The alliance may not immediately impact on high end users - the 20%, but could have far reaching implications for the majority market - the 80%. That fits in with the DNA and strategy of both companies, which take a horizontal rather than a vertical approach.

The Maps portion of the deal helps Nokia leverage its Navteq asset and should help build awareness of the Ovi brand in the US market. The alliance may also prove to be particularly significant in developing markets. It is worth noting that the majority of Ovi Mail's 9 million users have signed up to the service on the phone for what is typically their first email account. 

The scale of the two companies is evident in the statistics above.

News Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hardeep1singh Read the article. Yahoo is the second most visited website in America with 4.4 billion visits and an average of 28.4 visits per user per month.

Yahoo is a zombie company, they'll be gone inside of a few years. Microsoft just took away their most valuable component---search. Nokia may as well have aligned themselves with Netscape or Lycos. Remember them?

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Originally Posted by Jimmy1 Maybe it's only anecdotal Rafe, but nobody I know, from work or friends/family, uses Yahoo. Aside from Flickr, Yahoo is seen over here as a fading light in the search market. 'Google' has essentially become a verb, while in e-mail, Yahoo has a reputation for being a spam repository. Plus, most people here don't know Ovi is Nokia. American users won't get the association or linkage. They're better off using the Nokia name, which has more awareness (see: 'The Nokia Theater' in Times Square, NYC). Not sure, what Nokia could be getting by tying themselves to the Yahoo sinking ship; they were very nearly just almost bought up by Microsoft, who by the way, is powering their search engine. Yahoo is now a glorified portal like AOL, another fading light. I just can't see how this deal makes any kind of strategic sense for the gang in Espoo, unless they're planning on heave-ho-ing their Ovi Mail service overboard. They don't need Yahoo's help in emerging market exposure, they already have that sewn up; Nokia needs U.S. market exposure help, and this isn't it.

I hate comments like these, as if there is only one vendor in a market, and everyone else is a loser. Gimme a break about nobody is using yahoo - half of my online chat contacts still use Yahoo, and yes, their Flickr site is a pretty big boon, as every photog hobbyist I know uses it. I only know 1 person using google chat. As the article states, their still #2 in the US for traffic. And you use the Nokia Theater as an example of more successful brand building?? I normally criticize Nokia's moves, but this is seems like the logically correct choice for the two of them for establishing presence. I can understand if you're skeptical about Yahoo for picking Nokia based on Nokia's poor software engineering track record, but to criticize the alliance without seeing any results seems like just a load of hot air from you.
-Gene

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy1 Yahoo is a zombie company, they'll be gone inside of a few years. Microsoft just took away their most valuable component---search. Nokia may as well have aligned themselves with Netscape or Lycos. Remember them?

You still obviously can't read :banghead:. Yahoo is the second most visited domain in the US. You may not understand this, but the number of normal people visiting domains like http://omg.yahoo.com/ is unbelievable. They are tracking over 20 million uniques a month and growing.

Really sounds like dead to me.

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Originally Posted by Unregistered Two failed companies. Good luck, you'll need it.

Please explain what two companies have failed and why?


You can't explain?

Thought not.

You too Jimmy1, completely baseless armchair BS.

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Originally Posted by Unregistered Two failed companies. Good luck, you'll need it.

Awww...you sounded soo smart..Go pat yourself on the back now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy1 Yahoo is a zombie company, they'll be gone inside of a few years. Microsoft just took away their most valuable component---search. Nokia may as well have aligned themselves with Netscape or Lycos. Remember them?

Yup..sure..just like a lot of expert analysis a couple of years back predicting Nokia gone in about 2 years. I'm really having fun with all these comments. In 'a few years' time, I'll be quoting each and everyone of these idiotic, arrogant comments. Please do keep spouting nonsense armchair heroes!

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Originally Posted by Ammar_Dento Agree with J D Flickr is way better than Ovi share. Cant wait to see Microsoft Office and Yahoo mail integrated in an E9 with S^4.

IMHO, that is what Nokia needs to do exactly. Ignore the trendy (!) idiots and go with raw numbers. Shipping a business phone? Integrate MS Office web services. Add Flash Desktop version, add whatever thing is popular and likely keep popular in future.

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