Nokia's no white knight for Yahoo despite the logic

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Nokia's no white knight for Yahoo despite the logic

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 16 April, 2008

READ MORE: Nokia

Throughout the stand-off with Microsoft, Yahoo has actually been shining in terms of new launches for the mobile world where both companies see growth opportunities, and last week it added voice-enabled search to its mobile platform. The new service is available on an initial trial basis as a download for the Blackberry but will become a general feature of version 2.0 of OneSearch, which will be available to phone makers this summer and should represent a major challenge to Google, which Yahoo is consistently outclassing, in product functionality terms, in the mobile world.

OneSearch was launched in the first quarter of 2007 and the new release, unveiled at CTIA show, improves on the original with voice enabled searches, as well as features that deliver more information to queries than just links. To use the voice feature in OneSearch 2.0, a customer pushes the call button on the handset and says a word or phrase to gain search results - during the CTIA demonstration, saying "British Airways 287" got arrival times, and "3600 Las Vegas Boulevard" got a street map and directions. Yahoo also claims to give fuller answers than just web links - asking the question "where's the best place to play craps in Vegas?", the service offered postings on the topic from the Yahoo Answers forum. Other results included news stories, graphics, and other content, and for searches on people's names, their listings in social networking sites.

As well as deals with phone makers and carriers, which should put OneSearch on the front screen of various handsets, the new service can be accessed via Yahoo's or third party portals, and as a web download. It will generate revenue via advertising, and last August Yahoo bought German advertising specialist Actionality, which has software that inserts ads in content for mobile devices.

Nokia, which is also working hard to introduce advanced features, such as sophisticated location tie-ins, to its mobile search engine, was nevertheless the first major to commit to support OneSearch 2.0, which will run on its Series 60 smartphones. This highlights the fact that there is more synergy than rivalry between Yahoo and Nokia, as the latter ramps up its plan to become an internet services company. If it were not for Nokia's cultural aversion to major take-overs, and the impact an acquisition would have on its financials and the balance of its business, the Finn would be a logical white knight for Yahoo. It would achieve its aims of releasing a full spectrum of web services and functions far more rapidly with Yahoo's products and brand on board, and Yahoo has some advanced technology in the mobile market, including in areas like widgets that are dear to Nokia's heart. It has also made more progress than Google in signing strong carrier relationships, especially in Asia, and these could also be of high value to the handset maker.

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