First announced in February 2008, this three year agreement was formed by Nokia and Orange to meet growing demand for multimedia on the mobile. It combines and integrates the best available services from both companies in the areas of music, games and maps across a range of Nokia devices. The successful alliance will expand the portfolio to eight countries and will include up to 30 Nokia devices in the Orange Signature range in 2009.
Launching first in the UK from this summer, followed by France and Spain, Orange customers will be able to take advantage of built-in push email on the forthcoming Nokia E75 and a range of Nokia devices.
Olaf Swantee, Senior EVP of Orange's global mobile business, said: "It was only a few weeks ago that we announced our strategy to make mobile multimedia a mass market phenomenon. This extension to our partnership with Nokia shows how serious we are about bringing mobile multimedia to every customer. With our leadership in innovation, proven expertise in convergence across our fixed, mobile and broadband networks and knowledge of our customers, we think this offer will help increase consumer appetite for mobile email."
Raoul Roverato, EVP of Orange's New Growth Businesses, confirmed: "Orange and Nokia have worked jointly as a team during those past months to provide the best of breed services to Orange mobile customers based on each company's assets and service platforms. This new milestone will strengthen our partnership with Nokia and underline our commitment to provide additional value to Orange customers. This will pave the way to new opportunities of partnerships between the two companies in the coming months."
Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Nokia said: "Orange is the first operator group to announce a European-wide offering of Nokia Messaging to their customers and we are very pleased about this extension to our service collaboration. The agreement on Nokia Messaging will boost the adoption of mobile email service and makes it easy for consumers to activate the service on-device and at Point-of-Sale. We believe that mobile messaging is for everyone, not just for a certain segment of the consumer market. "
Orange customers will be able to aggregate and manage multiple email accounts while on the move via the Orange homescreen. This service is easy to set up and enables people to directly access up to 10 personal email accounts, letting them read, send, forward and reply to emails, view subfolders, download and read attachments and attach files to emails directly on the Nokia device.
Orange and Nokia have agreed to launch Nokia Messaging in several major markets during 2009 with bundling, pricing and attractive tariffs announced locally across the Orange footprint.