Today’s joint announcement from Nokia and Microsoft sheds some light on the handset maker’s strategy for maintaining its market share in an increasingly competitive smartphone market. The partnership, which will bring Microsoft Office Mobile and several additional Microsoft services to Nokia’s smartphone portfolio, gives Microsoft’s enterprise software greater presence in the mobile market, while better enabling Nokia to target enterprise smartphone users. 

For Nokia, the move marks an effort to strengthen its position against other smartphone vendors, who have been chipping away at Nokia’s leading share of the smartphone market over the past several quarters. "This announcement is the next step in an ongoing effort by Nokia to enhance its overall smartphone offering. Initial improvements included new form factors and more diverse input methods, and today’s announcement shows Nokia’s focus is extending to really addressing the needs of enterprise users", noted IMS Research Director, Bill Morelli. "This is a key development for Nokia, particularly as they look to become a greater competitor to RIM in the North American enterprise market."

This announcement is also notable in that is highlights Nokia’s continued commitment to the Symbian platform for their smartphone portfolio. Rather than adopt a number of platforms to diversify their devices, Nokia appears to feel that the Symbian platform is entirely capable of meeting the demands of enterprise users.

For Microsoft, the announcement validates their position as a leading provider of enterprise software and services in the mobile space. However, it also highlights Windows Mobile’s difficulty in gaining momentum in the highly competitive smartphone space. “It is unclear how today’s announcement could be good news for Windows Mobile. Licensing their enterprise software for Symbian is clearly a win for Microsoft as a whole, but it seems to come at the expense of one of Windows Mobile’s greatest selling points, namely tight integration with the Microsoft’s enterprise tools,” commented IMS Research analyst, Chris Schreck.

Nokia expects to begin shipping devices with Microsoft software in the beginning of 2010. It will first appear in Nokia’s E-Series devices, before being incorporated across a broader range of Nokia handsets.