Nokia Wants In on RIM’s BlackBerry Success

The AP is reportingthat the Finnish company Nokia’s new application, Nokia Business Center, will join rather than replace the existing lineup of mobile e-mail and productivity options available on Nokia devices. Those include BlackBerry from Research in Motion, GoodLink from Good Technology Inc., and applications from Seven Networks Inc. and Visto Corp.

With corporations paying monthly fees of $45 and more per employee, the mobile e-mail market stands as one of the more lucrative untapped opportunities in the wireless industry.

One key difference compared with BlackBerry and others, yet similar to the Microsoft approach, is that Nokia Business Center does not rely on a data center to steer message traffic between the devices and the corporate network. That effectively cuts out the middleman.

Nokia is the first major cell phone maker to jump into the mobile e-mail market with its own brand and service. As with all mobile e-mail services, cellular carriers charge separately for the wireless connection.

–Janice Brand