Nokia, the world's largest handset-maker, on Monday said it will terminate its development and marketing of “behind-the-firewall” business mobility products and focus instead on partnerships with firms such as Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco to attract business users.
The move is a departure for the Finnish company, which in its effort to extend its business beyond just the turbulent handset market, has moved inside the “carrier firewall” by equipping its phones with mobile applications for consumers.
Nokia was one of the first handset makers to break the carriers' once-firm control of what applications were preloaded on mobile phones by loading mobile apps of its own choosing on its phones.
In its consumer business, Nokia has also eschewed partnerships with established mobile companies and has both invested in and acquired promising software startups involved in emerging mobile disciplines such as location-based services. (see Nokia Woos VC-Backed Startups, Nokia Adds $150M for Startups, Apple, Nokia Battle for Mobile Startups)
But that strategy apparently will not work in the mobile enterprise sphere.
“Enterprises really expect that mobility is just an additional element to their existing infrastructure, so what we want to do is make sure our devices are optimized for talking to the IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco back-end solutions,” said Kari Tuutti, a Nokia spokesman.
“We don't think it will be feasible for Nokia to compete with these companies,” he said.
Once limited to just email, enterprise mobility is benefiting from a rash of new developments such as location awareness, smartphones, 3G networks, smarter application design, and cloud computing, which have made it more attractive to businesses.
It's what Eb Keshavarz, AT&T's vice president of business development, called “the perfect storm that is making mobile applications a reality.”
The enterprise mobility sector is becoming crowded. RIM, Nokia, Apple, Motorola, IBM, Microsoft, AT&T, and Verizon are all marking their turf. (see It's War: Nokia-Microsoft vs. RIM-MySpace, Nokia Dials Microsoft Exchange, AT&T Enters Mobile Business Cloud, IBM Tunes Mobile Web for Business)
“Customers are going to look to multiple vendors for mobile solutions and that is going to create some strange bedfellows,” said Shawne Robinson, IBM’s product manager for mobile and wireless. “'Coopetition' will rule the day in the mobile enterprise space for the foreseeable future.”