3GSM CANNES-February 23, 2004- Nokia today announced a strategy for extending mobility to businesses of all sizes. Jorma Ollila, chairman and CEO of Nokia, and Mary McDowell, senior vice president and general manager of Nokia's new Enterprise Solutions business group, outlined the plan in a press conference here, where the company also announced a new enterprise-grade Communicator platform (see separate release), as well as important new alliances with leading enterprise players.
"Every company, regardless of size, business philosophy, or geographical location, will benefit from mobility," said McDowell. "Nokia's approach is to take the best in mobility and marry it with the best of the IT world. We are selling productivity through enhanced mobility to businesses, and to the operator, we are offering a unique opportunity to increase revenues and addressable market size."
The company already sells a full range of complete mobile voice, connectivity, and security solutions to businesses and institutions. These include enterprise optimised remote access gateways that integrate with leading mobile and fixed devices.
"In any organisation, there are different types of users ranging from the high-end power user through to the basic user," McDowell stated. "Business mobility solutions to date have really only penetrated the high end-user community, which represents less than five percent of the average workforce. When only a small portion of the workforce has access to effective enterprise mobility solutions, return on investment (ROI) and operator profitability can't reach their full potential. "
McDowell cited other critical success factors for growth. "With a variety of devices, networks, operating systems and applications, it is little wonder the majority of companies lack general mobility guidelines or a comprehensive management system. The diverse needs of the enterprise customer aren't easily met by a one size fits all' philosophy. Nokia offers a holistic gateway and device platform based approach, where we can deliver both real productivity enhancements for users, and cost control and security for IT."
McDowell also reaffirmed Nokia's long-term goal of becoming "the leader in enterprise mobility." The shortest path to that end, she stated, involves migrating Nokia's current leadership in enterprise voice to focus on application mobility, cost-efficient mobile voice, and secure mobile connectivity.
Near term, McDowell said Nokia's opportunities included increasing device penetration and driving business ROI by delivering Nokia's 6800 family of optimised devices, bundled mobile and fixed business solutions, value based services, business applications, mobile email and Personal Information Management (PIM), and web-enabled services-all while providing secure Intranet access. She also said the company was eager to start pilots of the new Nokia 9500 Communicator.
Beyond the enterprise customer, Nokia believes mobile operators stand to gain the most when business mobility takes off. According to the company, carriers will benefit from a larger addressable market, increased average revenue per user, compatibility and interoperability, roaming and inter-connecting networks, different service and alliance models, and higher device volumes. Operators will also be the clearinghouse to deliver a single bill and service level. Nokia business optimised devices, enabled with email, PIM, and calendar functionality provide operators with an opportunity to significantly expand the emerging mobile email market while growing the overall market.
From Nokia's point of view, collaboration will be key. "Nokia's success in the enterprise market clearly depends on our ability to work strategically with the right players," McDowell stated. "We're present at several layers of the IT stack, but Nokia needs to be competitive at each layer, alone or in collaboration."
As part of this strategy, several Nokia alliances that support the new Communicator platform were announced or reaffirmed at 3GSM, including:
- A joint development plan with IBM to sell wireless solutions that enable greater workforce mobility (see separate release)
- Compatibility with Cisco's wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 infrastructure and its many enterprise features. "With the Nokia 9500 Communicator handsets embracing the Cisco Compatible Extensions program, Cisco and Nokia are working together to deliver highly secure voice and data over wireless LANs, enabling more enterprise customers to reap the many benefits of going wireless." said Bill Rossi, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Wireless Networking Business Unit.
- Collaboration with Symantec on a security client for the Nokia 9500 Communicator and other business devices. Nokia is working closely with Symantec to deliver an integrated client solution for Internet security that will provide an antivirus micro engine, firewall service, updating services and centralized over-the-air management. "Internet security is at the core of widespread enterprise mobile adoption," said Matthew Moynahan, vice president of product management, client and host security at Symantec. "Nokia's plan to offer Symantec's integrated client security solutions on its Communicator platform will provide customers with much of the confidence they require to capitalize on creating an enhanced mobile workforce. Symantec is proud to be part of the industry leading team with which Nokia is collaborating."
- Collaboration with Computer Associates to provide streamlined management of mobile devices, including automated configuration and inventorying-as well as support for the Nokia 9500 Communicator as an enterprise platform for CA management applications. "CA customers are starting to use Nokia business solutions in a broad range of business contexts," said Louis Blatt, senior vice president, Unicenter enterprise management. "As a result of our collaboration, these customers will be able to reap maximum benefits from mobile technologies while minimizing their total cost of mobile infrastructure ownership."
- Continued collaboration with Oracle to develop mobile enterprise solutions, including joint development of open solutions for Oracle's Collaboration Suite, 9iAS Wireless, E-Business Suite, and compatibility between Nokia business devices and Oracle server platforms. "For over a year, Oracle has been working closely with Nokia to optimise the synergy between Oracle Collaboration Suite and the Nokia Communicator offerings," said Jacob Christfort, CTO and Vice President of Product Development, Oracle Voice & Mobility Products. "The latest Nokia Communicator offers exciting new functionality which will benefit users of both Oracle Collaboration Suite and Oracle E-Business Suite, as well as developers using the Oracle 10g Platform."
- Continued collaboration with Hewlett Packard to enable bluetooth wireless connectivity to peripherals such as printers and projectors.
- Collaboration with SAP on SAP® solutions for mobile business on Nokia's Communicator platform. "SAP recognizes the enterprise-class smart phone capabilities of Nokia's new Communicator platform. We are confident that Nokia Communicator platform can address an increasingly important user segment in professional business environments," said Peter Kirschbauer, Member of the Extended Management Board SAP AG. "Together with Nokia we look forward to investigating the new opportunities arising from the new platform."
Further, Nokia said it is continuing to work closely with other leading enterprise vendors to bring mutually beneficial enterprise mobility solutions to market.
Symbian will also continue to be a key collaborator. "The powerful and purpose built for mobility Symbian operating system is making it possible to bring enterprise grade software applications to the mobile environment," said McDowell. "At the same time, we will continue to support open standards and all our products will interoperate with other technologies and platforms, allowing mobile connectivity solutions to connect enterprise users to their personal and company information in a secure way."
"Nokia is serious about business," said McDowell. "Enterprises are clearly demanding mobile services. Wireless access to corporate networks, the emergence of broadband and wireless LAN, the maturity of new wireless devices such as the Nokia 9500 Communicator, the market maturity of technologies and services are all converging into a clear opportunity for the entire business mobility ecosystem. This is a tremendous opportunity to unlock business mobility for Nokia and its partners.
About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia is dedicated to enhancing people's lives and productivity by providing easy-to-use and secure products like mobile phones, and solutions for imaging, games, media, mobile network operators and businesses. Nokia is a broadly held company with listings on five major exchanges.
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