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"Microsoft and Motorola attacks Nokia's position"

(From the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten in my translation)


"Microsoft and Motorola will now enter an alliance to break Nokia's dominance on the market for mobile phones

The two IT giants will go public, Monday, to announce a strategic alliance that could mean a loss of market share to Nokia, on the attractive market of mobile phones

The collaboration is based on Motorola producing a series of phones and pocket computers based on Microsofts mobile phone system. The first of such phones will be available for sale in Denmark by fourth quarter, Motorola promises.

The so-called Smartphones can be used to read e-mails, enter the internet and check the calender. For that, Microsoft and Motorola expect that a great share of the buisness customers will relatively quickly adapt the new phones.

Quest to weaken Nokia

"Our analyses show that the persons who have a smartphone, use the phone far more than the more traditional mobile phone owners. They do that because they have greater versatility" Bjørn Conquist, the Nordic marketing boss of Microsoft, says.

Increased use leads to higher revenue for the hard pressed mobile operators, who have vested interests in promoting new advanced phones to their customers.

"We believe it will be an asset that a phone with Microsoft software can immediately communicate with several of a buisness' IT systems" Bjørn Conquist explains.

Microsoft has built in mobile phone access as standard in all future versions of the mail system "Exchange" which is the most used amongst companies anywhere in the world.

At the same time, some of the largest mobile operators have said they want to weaken Nokia's strong position.

"Vodaphone and Orange have both announced that they want to reduce Nokia's dominance on the terminal part. They'll do that by favoring other phone products on Nokia's expence" explains John Strand, the mobile phone analyst and director of Strand Consult.

When the new phone will go on sale by the start of October, it will happen first in tight collaboration with Orange in the UK and AT&T in the USA.

Threat against Nokia

Motorola also does nothing to hide that it is Nokia that is in their cross hairs.

"For Motorola, it is Nokia that is the strongest competitor. Collaborating with Microsoft will be a powerful weapon in the competition with Nokia" says Jakob Cederquist, regional Information officer at Motorola

According to John Strand of Strand Consult, the new collaboration is a very serious threat to Nokia.

"On sight, Nokia could end up as the mobile markets answer to Apple or Wordperfect. Nokia's market share will stagnate and possibly fall in the coming couple of years" John Strand says.

On the world market, Nokia has a market share of 36%, while Motorola has a share of approximately 15%.

It was not possible to get a comment from Nokia.

http://www.jp.dk/itogc:aid=2013084/

(link will outdate within 24 hours)