Nokia News & Articles

Since 2004, Plum (news, site) has banked on a more intimate setting. From the initial napkin sketch to their first step into the Web 2.0 world as a micro-social network, the 10-person company has kept it small and simple.

Whether or not that will change now that they’ve been acquired by Nokia, we’ll have to wait and see.

The mobile telecommunications company announced last week that they’ve attained certain assets of Plum, but details beyond that are still being kept under wraps. All we know as of today is Plum will reportedly continue to operate as if unchanged.

Says Plum’s co-founder and CEO, Hans Peter, “We would like to thank our loyal users for helping us reach this important milestone and look forward to continue on this exciting journey with you.”

Keep tabs on the journey here.

It is now official. Microsoft and Nokia have formally announced a new, groundbreaking partnership that will see the creation of a set of productivity solutions designed specifically for a mobile workforce.

The partnership involves the design, development and marketing of a set of productivity, collaboration and communication solutions for Nokia smartphones, starting with the Nokia Eseries.

What are some of the solutions that will be included in this new mobile partnership?

• Create, edit, view and share Office documents including mobile-optimized versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote
• Access to SharePoint based Intranets and Extranets
• IM, presence awareness, conferencing and collaboration using Microsoft Communicator Mobile
• Device Management with Microsoft Systems Center

Nokia is the largest smartphone provider with over 200 million customers worldwide, so it does make sense that Microsoft would choose to partner with them to push their mobile solutions to the world.

What is good to know is that there will be dedicated mobile teams within each company working on these mobile solutions and that they are not just an extension of existing product teams. We would expect this means a true effort to deliver truly mobile software.

Mobile solutions have a specific user experience that needs to be considered. Many vendors are already developing mobile-optimized versions of their applications, including business apps for the iPhone.

With explosive growth of the mobile workforce, Microsoft may be primed to take the lead thanks to their partnership. Of course it won't hurt Nokia either.

If anyone was in any doubt that competition in the mobile web market is really beginning to heat-up, then yesterday’s release of three new widgets by Nokia (news, site) that will convert web code and scripts created on PCs into mobile applications will fix that.

Possibly concerned that it might be losing out in the battle to win the hearts -- and pockets -- of a market that is increasingly looking to the mobile web, Nokia is hoping these widgets will attract web developers to extend content to the Nokia platform.

Qik, the popular mobile video streaming service, has excited BlackBerry users by releasing a client for the BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Pearl. Having Qik on your mobile phone turns your phone into a mobile video streaming device.

Qik users can employ the service to show videos from conferences and events, as well as to reach out to friends and colleagues.

Gartner has listed Vignette in the leader quadrant of their 2004 Magic Quadrant for the Smart Enterprise Suite (SES) market. According to Gartner, leaders exhibit strong market visibility in multiple geographies, consistent financial performance, well-integrated functionality, good customer support, and the most comprehensive and scalable products.

Smart Enterprise Suite is Gartner's concept encompassing functionality offered today by portals, team collaboration, and enterprise content management, and was first identified in May of 2002.