Co-operation brings open access to services
Telefónica and Nokia have announced they are working together to accelerate the adoption of new Internet services on mobile devices by providing Telefónica customers with easy access to both Telefónica and Nokia Internet services. The collaboration includes areas such as menu customization, technology and billing co-operation.As part of the collaboration, Nokia will customize the new Multimedia Menu to provide easy access to Telefónica services.. Similarly, Telefonica customers will be able to access all Nokia services through the Multimedia Menu.
Julio Linares, General Manager for Coordination, Business Development and Synergies, Telefónica S.A. said; "We want to provide our customers with an unparalleled mobile experience and by working with partners like Nokia, we can ensure that they have access to the best in Internet services. Our customers can take advantage of Telefónica's high quality mobile broadband network to access both Telefónica and Nokia services, as well as other third-party applications, and I'm confident that this will drive a dramatic increase in user uptake of these new services over the coming years."
Said Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager Nokia Multimedia; "We're extremely excited about this collaboration as I believe it can pave the way for a new way of working throughout our industry. Ease of use has always been at heart of Nokia devices and this collaboration is an important step in creating the same experience for Internet services. Nokia devices and services are based on open standards, which makes it easy for us to work with forward thinking operators such as Telefónica to provide consumers with choice regarding which Internet services they want to access from their mobile device."
We've long heard about using your mobile to connect to the net but the most prohibitive factor has always been the cost. And even if you're lucky enough to have an understanding company footing the bill, the quality of services and sites suited for browsing by mobile have always been a bit, er, crap. So this dfeal between Nokia and Telefónica will hopefully address the issue of cost, allowing more users to access the net over their mobiles... which in turn should drive a new breed of genuinely useful, mobile-friendly sites.
But is this all just another gimmick? The last big phone 'revolution' was in multimedia, with the your phone being a video player and music centre all in one, (other than adverts with David Beckham strolling around with a map on his phone), and that hardly set the mobile world alight apart from loads of low quality happy slapping videos being used as evidence in several assault cases.
Perhaps Apple's hugely successful iPod killed off mobile phone-based multimedia before it even got started? So now it's time to look elsewhere for extras features at an affordable price?
Personally, whilst I like to see integration of several functions into one device, the basic problem will always be the same, dedicated devices always do the job better. Still, possibly cheaper net access is a step in the right direction of bringing sensible extra functions to your mobile.
