Nokia and Microsoft Sign Definitive Agreement

Nokia  and Microsoft today announced the signing of a definitive agreement on a partnership that will result in a new global mobile ecosystem, utilizing the very complementary assets of both companies. Completed ahead of schedule, the definitive agreement is consistent with the joint announcement made on February 11.

In addition to agreeing to the terms of their partnership, including joint contributions to the development of the new ecosystem, Nokia and Microsoft also announced significant progress on the development of the first Nokia products incorporating Windows Phone. With hundreds of personnel already engaged on joint engineering efforts, the companies are collaborating on a portfolio of new Nokia devices. Nokia has also started porting key applications and services to operate on Windows Phone and joint outreach has begun to third party application developers.

Stephen Elop, President and CEO of Nokia Corporation said:

At the highest level, we have entered into a win-win partnership . It is the complementary nature of our assets, and the overall competitiveness of that combined offering, that is the foundation of our relationship.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, said:

Our agreement is good for the industry. Together, Nokia and Microsoft will innovate with greater speed, and provide enhanced opportunities for consumers and our partners to share in the success of our ecosystem.

The relationship is structured around four broad areas:

One:

A combination of complementary assets, which make the partnership truly unique, including:

  • Nokia to deliver mapping, navigation, and certain location-based services to the Windows Phone ecosystem. Nokia will build innovation on top of the Windows Phone platform in areas such as imaging, while contributing expertise on hardware design and language support, and helping to drive the development of the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft will provide Bing search services across the Nokia device portfolio as well as contributing strength in productivity, advertising, gaming, social media and a variety of other services. The combination of navigation with advertising and search will enable better monetization of Nokia’s navigation assets and completely new forms of advertising revenue.
  • Joint developer outreach and application sourcing, to support the creation of new local and global applications, including making Windows Phone developer registration free for all Nokia developers.
  • Opening a new Nokia-branded global application store that leverages the Windows Marketplace infrastructure. Developers will be able to publish and distribute applications through a single developer portal to hundreds of millions of consumers that use Windows Phone, Symbian and Series 40 devices.
  • Contribution of Nokia’s expertise in operator billing to ensure participants in the Windows Phone ecosystem can take advantage of Nokia’s billing agreements with 112 operators in 36 markets.

Two:

Microsoft will receive a running royalty from Nokia for the Windows Phone platform, starting when the first Nokia products incorporating Windows Phone ship. The royalty payments are competitive and reflect the large volumes that Nokia expects to ship, as well as a variety of other considerations related to engineering work to which both companies are committed. Microsoft delivering the Windows Phone platform to Nokia will enable Nokia to significantly reduce operating expenses.

Three:

In recognition of the unique nature of Nokia’s agreement with Microsoft and the contributions that Nokia is providing, Nokia will receive payments measured in the billions of dollars.

Four:

An agreement that recognizes the value of intellectual property and puts in place mechanisms for exchanging rights to intellectual property. Nokia will receive substantial payments under the agreement.

With the definitive agreement now signed, both companies will begin engaging with operators, developers and other partners to help the industry understand the benefits of joining the new ecosystem. At the same time, work will continue on developing Nokia products on the Windows Phone platform, with the aim of securing volume device shipments in 2012.

The scale of the mutual commitment from both companies is significant and is in keeping with the intention to build a new ecosystem based on a long-term, strategic partnership.

Source: Nokia


    • I think its true. Nokia with S40, Symbian and Meego will gain more market share. No one like windows phone. Even when it was launched it lost 1.7 market share. Symbian and MeeGo are much better than windows phone.

      • Symbian is better than windows !!! u must be joking ..
        symbian is better than windows 6.5 ..
        but windows 7 for mobile is reasonably good OS .. written from scratch by MS .. far better than symbian ..
        symbian is so 1990s OS ..

        have you ever personally tried it ? or you are against windows because of pakistani mentality to be against every successful entity ?

        reviews aside I have personally used symbian, windows 6.5 and 7, android and iOS ..
        windows 7 does lack in some features + apps compared android but it is far more stable than android .. like iOS
        symbian is not even in the competition ..

      • Instead of guessing and assuming, why not READ their site policy?

        http://www.nokia.com/site-terms

        The use of press releases and other documents classified as public is permitted in public communications if the source for the information has been stated.

        It is pretty standard. Other places:

        http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/IntellectualProperty/Copyright/default.aspx#E4B

        Permission to use Documents (such as white papers, press releases, datasheets and FAQs) from the Services is granted, provided that (1) the below copyright notice appears in all copies and that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear, (2) use of such Documents from the Services is for informational and non-commercial or personal use only and will not be copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast in any media, and (3) no modifications of any Documents are made.

        Lastly, please familiarize yourself with the Berne Convention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works

        Pakistan is a signatory, and has been since 1948. What does it mean? ANYTHING YOU PUBLISH IS AUTOMATICALLY COPYRIGHTED unless you declare it to be in the public domain. ALL WEB CONTENT comes under the Berne Convention, which is why if you look closely at many terms of service pages on websites of large companies, they explicityly explain what you can and cannot do with their content.

        • “Instead of guessing and assuming, why not READ their site policy?”
          .
          Tho phir tum kya karo ga?

          • You are acting like Sore Loser. I corrected your misconceptions and taught you (and others) in the process. And your reply?

            You may have an education, but not where it matters.

      • What a strange thing to say! Did you, Ahsan Javed write the above? It says “By Ahsan Javed” so it implies that you did. But you just copied all the content from elsewhere.

        I have never seen any RELIABLE or REPUTABLE place where PR is copied without attribution. Unless maybe in local newspapers.

          • Dont avoid the issue. Just few weeks ago people were complaining about Telenors ads on plagiarism. Well guess what – copying like you did is another form of plagiarism. Even if grades are not involved.

            Even if you tried to rewrite in your own words it would be better because then you would also exercise your creative right side brain.


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