Nokia has struck a deal with IBM to provide Lotus Notes across a number of its S60-based smart phones, creating an immediate market of 80 million mobile phones.
The deal also represents a significant market opportunity for IBM Lotus Notes, which has 140 million licensed users, with many Nokia customers now able to purchase Lotus Notes and access its collaboration capabilities on the go.
More than 80 million people – the number of Nokia S60 3rd Edition devices shipped globally – can connect to corporate email accounts via Lotus Domino Server software, known as Lotus Notes Traveler.
This software provides real-time access to email, calendar, address book, journal and to-do list data, and will be available for Nokia devices in December 2008.
According to IBM’s Institute for Business Value, this year, for the first time, more people in the world will have a mobile device than a land-line telephone.
IBM predicts one billion mobile web users by 2011, and a significant shift in the way the majority of people will interact with the web over the next decade. In fact, mobile devices now outnumber television sets, credit cards and personal computers.
“This collaboration means nearly 90pc of business email can be mobilised with Nokia devices, without needing to purchase additional servers, middleware or licenses,” says Soren Petersen, senior vice-president, Nokia.
“With the presence, position and technology that IBM have in the corporate email market, they are an essential partner for us in enterprise.
“People need to be connected to their email, information and network when they are out of the office, and that has to be done conveniently and on their terms. Lotus Notes Traveler for Nokia devices is a great example of that.”
IBM has been working to expand mobile support for the Lotus software portfolio and other IBM Lotus technologies that can be mobilised for anytime, anywhere work, including Lotus Sametime for instant messaging and unified communications, Lotus Connections for enterprise social networking and Lotus Quickr for social-content sharing.
“We are literally freeing millions of people using Nokia’s Symbian platform from having to rely on a desktop or laptop to access their important business communications,” explained Kevin Cavanaugh, vice-president of IBM Lotus Software.
“Working with the market leader like Nokia is a natural fit for attaining IBM’s goals of maintaining the flow of business, regardless of time, distance or location – all for no additional charge for both of our companies’ current customers and a new opportunity for new customers.”
By John Kennedy
