• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 12, 2009

Taking aim at the BlackBerry's dominance among business users, Nokia and Microsoft Tuesday announced a broad alliance that will bring the software giant's popular Office suite to Nokia phones.

Under the agreement, the companies will collaborate on the marketing and development of Microsoft Office Mobile and other Microsoft business software for the Symbian operating system used to run Nokia phones. The first Microsoft Office product to ship on Nokia smartphones next year will be the Communicator Mobile instant messaging service.

That will be followed by the full range of Office software including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. It will also include mobile access to corporate intranet and extranet sites built using Microsoft's SharePoint technology for creating shared workspaces online. Nokia's E-series phones will be the first to feature Office products.

Nokia and Microsoft also promised to develop new applications geared to Nokia smartphones and to eventually look beyond the business market to create consumer-oriented mobile products as well.

"Together with Microsoft, we will develop new and innovative user experiences for employees of small and large businesses alike, ensuring Nokia's smartphones are an integral part of the office and home-office environment, and addressing the significant opportunity in mobile enterprise productivity," said Nokia's Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Oistamo, in a statement.

Nokia is the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, with a 38% share of the market as of the second quarter of 2009. It also leads the smartphone category with a 41% share. But challengers such as Research in Motion and Apple have narrowed the gap in smartphone share in the last year through their respective BlackBerry and iPhone models.

The BlackBerry, in particular, has long been the device of choice for business users because of its email software and other enterprise-focused services, and appears to be the most threatened by the Nokia-Microsoft partnership. But given the long-term nature of the alliance the companies have embarked on, the balance of power in the market for business mobile users will not change overnight.

Rumors emerged this spring that Microsoft Office would also be coming to the iPhone -- based on comments made by Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft's business division, hinting that the company will eventually release a mobile version of Office for the Apple device. But no formal effort has been announced yet. The spread of Office on smartphones would also help Microsoft to blunt the challenge from Google Docs through the search giant's Android mobile operating system.