Microsoft and Nokia team up to offer Windows Live on S60 devices
Microsoft and Nokia are set to announce a new agreement that brings Windows Live services to selected Nokia S60 devices. From today, customers in 11 countries will be able to download the new Windows Live suite …
Context & Ripple Effects
The deal extends a distribution strategy Microsoft has been building since its mobile search collaboration with Sprint in November 2006: rather than waiting for users to reach its services through a browser, it strikes carrier- and device-level agreements that put Windows software directly on phones it does not make. The Nokia agreement, confirmed by both companies on August 22 and picked up the same day by InfoWorld alongside Microsoft's own announcement, applies the same playbook to the world's largest smartphone platform.
For Nokia, the move is a services answer at the device layer: S60 ships in volume across dozens of models, and bundling a branded consumer suite — Messenger, Hotmail, Spaces, Live Search — gives operators in the 11 launch countries a ready-made value-add without Nokia having to build each service itself.
First-order effects
- Customers in 11 countries can download the Windows Live suite onto selected S60 devices starting today, giving Microsoft direct-to-consumer reach on hardware it does not control and giving Nokia's operator channel a branded services bundle overnight.
- Windows Live Search gains placement on S60 handsets, putting Microsoft's search client in front of a mobile audience it previously reached only through carrier deals like Sprint's.
Second-order effects
- Every other handset maker selling into the same 11 markets now faces the question of which web-services suite to preload or certify on its own devices, turning services bundling into a competitive line item alongside camera specs and battery life.
- Operators in the launch countries gain a new lever in handset negotiations — exclusive or promoted access to the Live suite — shifting bargaining power toward whoever controls distribution of the services layer.
Third-order effects
- If web-services firms keep buying their way onto rival smartphone platforms one deal at a time, the durable structure is an industry where the services layer is licensed across competing operating systems, weakening the assumption that an OS owner automatically owns its devices' default services.
- For Nokia specifically, hosting a partner's flagship consumer suite on S60 sets a precedent for deeper platform-level alliances between device makers and software companies — a direction whose endpoint neither company has yet spelled out publicly.
The trend: Mobile is becoming the primary distribution battleground for web-service providers, who increasingly license their suites onto third-party handset platforms rather than relying on browsers or owning the OS.