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Yahoo has been working hard on its mobile search and developer products to narrow the gap with Google and is now expanding its mobile voice search capabilities to a range of Nokia and BlackBerry smartphones.

The closeness with Nokia fuels persistent speculation that the world's largest phonemaker, in its quest to morph into an internet services company, should work closely with Yahoo, in opposition to Google, rather than trying to do everything itself. And as some analysts are calling for a renewal of Microsoft's failed bid to acquire Yahoo for its own web services activities, the search company might find Nokia a more useful ally, as the mobile platform becomes the center of the quest for growth among internet giants.

Among other joint activities, Yahoo and Nokia have now optimized Yahoo oneSearch 2.0 for Series 60 handsets such as the N95 and N96, which can now use voice recognition via a home screen shortcut. Once installed, users can then speak to find stock quotes, sports scores and other information. Other enhancements are search assist, spelling suggestions, and real time related concepts for more refined search results.

The Yahoo Go 3.0 software platform will also integrate voice search, and can be downloaded to Nokia Series 40 low end smartphones as well as the S60 high end models, as well as to some BlackBerry models. Initially, the voice technology is available only in the UK, US, India, Singapore, the Philippines and Canada. Yahoo recently signed a deal to be the default mobile search provider for AT&T phones, and the voice capabilities will be supported when AT&T launches the 3G BlackBerry Bold.

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