Yahoo! and Nokia to Deliver Integrated Web Services - The UpStream

The talks last week about Yahoo! teaming up with Nokia turn out to be true this week, as the two companies announced their partnership that will further a connection between mobile users around the world.

Building on more than five years of collaboration, Nokia and Yahoo! (R) will leverage each others' strengths in e-mail, instant messaging and maps and navigation services, to provide consumers with access to world-class experiences on both PC and mobile devices.

As part of the alliance:

• Nokia will be the exclusive, global provider of Yahoo!'s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo! properties, branded as "powered by Ovi."
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive, global provider of Nokia's Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services branded as "Ovi Mail / Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo!"
• Nokia and Yahoo! plan to work on ID federation between their services, beginning by making it easy for people to use their Ovi user IDs across select Yahoo! properties to easily access the online content and services they need.

Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was very excited about this partnership:

Delivering great user experiences - both online and on your mobile - is what this alliance is all about. We're enabling millions of Yahoo! customers in key markets including North America to discover the unique capabilities that Ovi Maps brings. Similarly, Yahoo!'s online expertise will bring exciting mail and messaging enhancements to millions of Ovi Mail customers across almost every country around the world, many of whom will have their first Internet experience on their mobile.

Certain co-branded offerings will be available later this year with a full global line launching in 2011.

This alliance should put Nokia back in contention with the big handset manufacturers here in the States; Nokia already has a stranglehold on the European market. Hopefully this will also bring recognition back to Yahoo's struggling set of media software and offerings.