While the iPhone may be the apple of everyone's eye, Nokia says that its main goal in partnering with Microsoft is taking on BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.
"This is really about creating a formidable challenge for RIM rather than anyone else," Nokia executive vice president Kai Oistamo said in a conference call Wednesday.
Andersson
(Credit: Nokia)As first reported Tuesday by CNET News, Microsoft and Nokia are working together to bring mobile versions of the software maker's Office programs onto Nokia phones running the Symbian operating system. The companies said Wednesday that the collaboration also extends to Microsoft's unified communications and System Center management tools.
In an interview, Nokia executive vice president Robert Andersson said that RIM has an almost dominant position in the North American market for mobile e-mail. "That's the application where they really are strong," he said.
By bringing the full Office suite to Symbian, Andersson said, Nokia hopes to do RIM one better. "What we are bring with this collaboration is a much deeper much richer experience."
But the fruits of the partnership will take some time. For next year, the companies are committing only to bringing a version of the Communicator instant messaging program to Symbian.
"The first deliverable is next year," Microsoft corporate vice presidentTakeshi Numoto said in an interview. "We're not really talking about things beyond that."
Given that, it seems reasonable to think it could well be until 2011 before the mobile versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and OneNote make their way onto the first Symbian phones, and even then the rollout will start with just the E-series of devices.
Microsoft and Nokia started discussions about six months ago, but the work has centered on finalizing the business details.
"We just basically signed the contract a few weeks ago," Andersson said. "Getting the big teams on board is only beginning now."
Numoto
(Credit: Microsoft)Andersson said the partnership will involve hundreds of dedicated workers from the two companies.
For Microsoft, the move helps the software maker in its goal of fending off competition from Google and extending Office from the desktop into the larger world of Web, PC, and phone. "Extending that reach to 200 million Nokia smartphones was a natural for us," Numoto said.
Numoto tried to downplay the impact that the collaboration would have on Windows Mobile, which competes with Symbian-based devices. Until now, one of Windows Mobile's selling points has been that it is the only phone operating system with mobile versions of Office, though other phones have third-party tools that let users view and edit Office documents.
"We truly believe and are committed to Windows Mobile," Numoto said. "We are excited about Windows Mobile 6.5 coming this fall... As you know, in the technology industry there is always an element of collaboration and competition."
For its part, Nokia said it is committed to Symbian and has no plans to start offering Windows Mobile phones.
"There are no such plans," Oistamo said on the conference call.
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Microsoft and Nokia--still significant rivals in the cell phone business--said Wednesday that they are deepening their work together.
As first reported by CNET News on Tuesday, the partnership means that a mobile version of Office will show up on Nokia cell phones. In the past, the only phones with mobile versions of Office have been those running Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system.
The two companies said they will start to work immediately to bring Office Mobile as well as Microsoft's communications and device management software to Nokia's devices based on the Symbian operating system. Although they hope to eventually get the software running on a range of devices, the partnership will start with Nokia's business-oriented E-series of phones.
Nokia and Microsoft are both trying to improve their mobile position amid greater competition from the likes of Apple and Google.
Executives from both companies are about to discuss the deal on a conference call which will be covered live here.
8:11 a.m. PT
"Work is already under way," Microsoft's Stephen Elop said, adding that the companies expect a mobile version of Microsoft's Communicator product will be available for Symbian next year.
8:12 a.m.
"We're only starting to scratch the surface," said Nokia Devices executive vice president
Kai Oistamo. "This is much more than putting Microsoft Office on Nokia smartphones." The companies are also working on bringing access to SharePoint and other of Microsoft's tools to Symbian phones.
Nokia is also renewing its license to Microsoft's ActiveSync technology as part of the deal.
8:15 a.m.
Of course Nokia and Microsoft do compete in some areas and will continue to do so, Elop said. Microsoft is committed to Windows Mobile, Elop said, while Oistamo said that Nokia remains committed to Symbian (despite some recent reports to the contrary).
We both believe strongly in our respective strategies but we also believe in this partnership, Elop said. "One size does not fit all," he added.
8:18 a.m.
On to the Q&A portion. The first question is about Apple, naturally.
Oistamo said that the deal is not really about the iPhone.
"This is really about creating a formidable challenge for RIM rather than anyone else," Oistamo said, referring to BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.
8:23 a.m.
The version of Microsoft Office and other Microsoft software for Symbian will be tailored to those that make sense on their phones, Elop said. Oistamo said that the Microsoft software shouldn't require more expensive hardware than Nokia was already planning on bringing to market.
8:26 a.m.
Will Nokia make Windows Mobile phones? "There are no such plans," Oistamo said.
8:29 a.m.
Not sure if its just me or everyone on the phone call. But my line just went silent.
8:30 a.m.
Back now. Not very impressive to have a conference call drop from two leaders in telephony.
"Should have been using a Nokia cell phone," Elop recovered nicely.
8:32 a.m.
Questioner asks why this shouldn't be seen as a sign Windows Mobile won't dominate the smartphone market. "There will continue to be competition around Windows Mobile," Elop said. "By no means is it an acknowledgment of what you described."
8:34 a.m.
Elop clarifies that this deal relates to full mobile versions of Office--not Microsoft's browser-based Web applications. And, it will include OneNote (in case anyone was wondering).
Call ends.
I'm talking with some executives in a few minutes. If anyone has questions that didn't get answered, shoot them my way. Ina (dot) Fried (at) CNET (dot) com.
Microsoft is expected on Wednesday to announce a partnership with European mobile giant Nokia to help get its Office software onto that company's mobile phones, CNET News has learned.
With the next version of Office, Microsoft is trying to expand its desktop hold on the productivity market into one that spans the PC, Web, and phone, and this deal is seen as a significant move in that last category.
The software maker has already said that, with the next version of Office, it plans to offer browser-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Those programs will be able to run inside Safari and Firefox in addition to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. That means that Office, for the first time, will run on Linux-based machines.
On the phone side, Microsoft has shown the ability for Office 2010 documents to be displayed on a variety of mobile phones. So far, the only phones that have their own native versions of Office have been those running Microsoft's Windows Mobile software.
Microsoft is looking for ways to strengthen its Office franchise into one that maintains its relevance and market share even as the PC becomes just one of many devices people use to access their information. Office is also vital to Microsoft's fiscal health, with much of the company's profits still coming from Windows and Office.
Microsoft released a technology preview of the PC-based Office 2010 applications in July, although it has yet to start publicly testing the browser-based versions. The final version of Office 2010 is due next year.
Although Nokia and Microsoft have long been rivals in the phone business, the two have also struck deals at times. Nokia already has a license that allows its phones to connect to Exchange Servers using Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol. In 2007, Microsoft also struck a deal with Nokia to have Windows Live services run on the Finnish company's phones.
The deal comes even as Microsoft is trying to figure out how to keep its Windows Mobile operating system in the game amid stiff competition from Nokia in Europe as well as Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry, and an emerging threat from devices running Google's Android operating system.
Expanding Office to other mobile devices may help that business, but at the same time takes away one of the areas where Windows Mobile had a leg up on rivals--its direct compatibility with Office.
Update: The two sides aren't talking details, but they have confirmed a press conference on Wednesday to discuss an alliance. It will start at 8 a.m. PT and CNET will have live coverage.
Also, as TechFlash's Todd Bishop points out, Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has scheduled an announcement for Thursday. Do you think we'll see Office for the iPhone this week?
Sample JavaScript using JQuery.
(Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft said Sunday that it plans to ship the JQuery JavaScript library with its Visual Studio developer tool suite.
The software powerhouse said that jQuery would be one of the libraries used to implement higher-level controls in the ASP.net Ajax Control Toolkit, and would also have a role in new Ajax server-side helper methods. The 15KB JQuery JavaScript library will be distributed as is, with no forking, and files will continue to adhere to the JQuery MIT license.
In addition, Microsoft said that it would contribute tests, bug fixes, and patches to the JQuery open-source project and that later this year it would extend product support to JQuery.
The announcement came in a blog post by Scott Guthrie, a vice president in Microsoft's developer division, who described the library's attraction:
A big part of the appeal of jQuery is that it allows you to elegantly (and efficiently) find and manipulate HTML elements with minimum lines of code. jQuery supports this via a nice "selector" API that allows developers to query for HTML elements, and then apply "commands" to them. One of the characteristics of jQuery commands is that they can be "chained" together - so that the result of one command can feed into another. jQuery also includes a built-in set of animation APIs that can be used as commands. The combination allows you to do some really cool things with only a few keystrokes.
Guthrie also pointed to a newly posted tutorial on Scott Hanselman's Computerzen blog about integrating JQuery with ASP.net Ajax.
Writing on the JQuery blog, John Resig said that mobile phone heavyweight Nokia also is adopting JQuery as part of its application development platform. As is the case with Microsoft, he said, Nokia isn't looking to make any changes to the library, and its developers will contribute to the JQuery project.
Resig, a lead developer of JQuery, wrote:
Nokia is looking to use jQuery to develop applications for their WebKit-based Web Run-Time. The run-time is a stripped-down browser rendering engine that allows for easy, but powerful, application development. This means that jQuery will be distributed on all Nokia phones that include the web run-time......The jQuery test suite is already integrated into the test suites of Mozilla and Opera and this move will see a significant level of extra testing being done on Internet Explorer and WebKit - above-and-beyond what is already done by the jQuery team.
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