Microsoft Apps Coming to Nokia Phones via Symbian

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Microsoft is launching a new platform for smartphones, but it won’t be for Windows Phone 7. In partnership with Nokia, Microsoft is offering a Symbian software update called Microsoft Apps, which includes productivity tools for the latest Symbian smartphone versions.

Nokia is giving smartphone users an incentive to buy (or at least stick to) Symbian. With its new Symbian Belle platform, users can download productivity applications that are right at home in the enterprise environment. These include a universal messaging service, mobile presentation platform, notes synchronization and documents via SharePoint.

The free application suite will initially roll out 4Q of 2011 and will include the following applications.

• Lync 2010 Mobile is a unified messaging service that combines SMS, IM, presence indicators and meetings on-the-go.
• PowerPoint Broadcast lets users broadcast presentations directly onto mobile phones.
• OneNote combines note-taking with clipping, and synchronizes with Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud-based storage.
• Document Connection lets users view attachments and documents on their smartphones and share these via SharePoint.

Aside from these initial updates, Microsoft is also rolling out another update in 2012, which will add OneNote synchronization with SharePoint. Microsoft will also release Word, Excel and PowerPoint as native Symbian Belle apps.

While Nokia has made a big move to the Windows Phone 7 platform, it seems the company is not yet ready to fully leave Symbian behind as a platform. Nokia says they will continue support for Symbian until 2016. The Nokia and Microsoft partnership also seems to be paying off in this way, since it’s the first time Microsoft has ported native Office apps outside of the Windows Mobile and Windows Phone platforms.

This move is likewise seen as an attempt to attract current Symbian Anna users into updating to Symbian Belle. Meanwhile, Nokia is likely to be focusing on the business and enterprise market, given the known potential for enterprise apps such as collaboration, unified messaging and virtualization.