Nokia extends IBM Lotus email access to S60

Today, Nokia and IBM announced Lotus Notes (which has 140 million licensed users) support for all S60 3rd Edition-based phones. 'Lotus Notes Traveler' can connect to corporate email accounts via Lotus Domino Server, and provides real time access to email, calendar, address book, journal and to-do list data. Availability is December 2008.

An alternative option is CommonTime's mSuite 5 which we wrote about recenetly. The provision of Lotus Notes on S60 devices give Nokia another string to its enterprise bow. It provides support for mobile access across a range wide of systems.

However recent Nokia devices do not support Blackberry's software or services which puts Nokia at a significant disadvanatge in companies where Blackberry servers have already been deployed. With Nokia providing fierce compeition to RIM in the device space (Nokia E63 and E71) it seem unlikely that the two companies will renew their earlier co-operation.

Here is an extract of the press release on the availability of Lotus Notes support.

Nokia and IBM today announced IBM Lotus Notes support for a number of Nokia's S60-based mobile phones, meaning that millions of Lotus Notes users are now able to access email with their Nokia devices.  This 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.

With this announcement, 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 is another strong affirmation of our business mobility vision, which is to establish partnerships with the world's leading enterprise vendors. This collaboration means nearly 90 percent of business email can be mobilized with Nokia devices, without needing to purchase additional servers, middleware or licenses. With the presence, position and technology that IBM have in the corporate email market, they are an essential partner for us in enterprise," says Soren Petersen, senior vice president, Nokia. "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."

"We are excited about IBM's growing relationship with Nokia and what this does for the build-out of the mobile Web," said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president of IBM Lotus Software.  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.   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."

This announcement is a major development in IBM's efforts to expand mobile support for the Lotus software portfolio.  The ability to connect securely to business email is an example of Tomorrow at Work, an IBM initiative that examines a changing work environment and anticipates trends in technology, business, society and culture.  Other IBM Lotus technologies that can be mobilized for anytime anywhere work include Lotus Sametime for instant messaging and unified communications, Lotus Connections for enterprise social networking and Lotus Quickr for social content sharing. "

Published by Steve Litchfield at 8:58 UTC, November 21st

Categories: Software, Events
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition

Main Navigation

Advert

mobile.allaboutsymbian.com