News
Orange and Nokia sign content deal
Tim Green May 22 2008, 11:00am
Orange and Nokia have combined to launch content services, but the deal appears to fall short of the full Ovi suite.
In a statement light on detail, the partners said they signed a three year partnership, which will add ten Nokia handsets to the Orange Signature range with ‘the addition of music to a combined offer of games, advertising, maps and location based services’. The agreement will kick off in H2 2008 across nine major markets.
Orange customers using the new handsets will get direct access to the Orange Music Store, both Orange and NGage games, as well as Nokia Maps. All these services will be integrated into the Orange user interface, providing one click access to information and entertainment.
It’s not clear whether the handsets will include new Nseries models. If so, this would represent a minor climbdown by Nokia, which has always insisted that these phones would pre-load all Ovi services regardless of the operator’s stance.
So far Nokia has signed up Telefonica, TIM and Vodafone for the Ovi offering, adding T-Mobile earlier this month.
Nokia and Orange will work jointly on marketing of the devices and services. They aim to create 10 million active Mobile Maps users on Nokia devices within the Orange footprint by 2010.
"We are pleased to create this strategic partnership with Orange and believe that the combination of Signature and Ovi services will extend and enrich consumer choice," said Kai Oistamo, EVP of devices at Nokia, said: "We also expect our close collaboration to extend beyond the initial focus areas of music, games, maps and advertising to include other services over time."
