Nokia (NYSE: NOK), the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, and America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), the world's leading interactive services company, today announced plans to develop a version the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) application for a variety of Nokia's wireless handheld devices.
Under this agreement, America Online and Nokia will work together to develop an AOL Instant Messenger application that will enable live "real time" communication between users of Nokia's wireless devices and AOL's community of approximately 100 million instant-message users, anywhere, anytime. AOL Instant Messenger users can communicate with friends, family, and colleagues on AOL and on the Internet.
This agreement will offer users of Nokia wireless technology an additional, easy-to-use communications feature, and will help extend the AOL community's access to wireless devices. Delivery of the new application in select Nokia products in North America is expected during the second half of 2000.
The two companies also plan to collaborate on supporting the AOL Instant Messenger and future wireless extensions of many AOL online services and Web properties.
AOL Wireless, a significant component of the AOL Anywhere strategy, will bring AOL's most popular features and services to a wide range of wireless devices. AOL's 21 million members and tens of millions of users of its other Web brands will be able to easily extend their interactive experience to the wireless platform in a convenient, easy-to-use and valuable way. Users will be able to check their e-mail, exchange Instant Messages, and access AOL's other popular and consumer-friendly features and brands.
"The combination of the Internet and mobility will transform everyday life, giving users a new found freedom through intuitive, personalized and location-based applications and services," said K-P Wilska, President, Nokia Inc. (Americas). "We are excited to be working with AOL to bring instant messaging to the wireless world, and to provide this unique service to both of our customers."
"A key part of our AOL Anywhere strategy is to bring many of our most popular products and services to different devices and interactive platforms, including wireless communications. We are pleased to join with Nokia, an industry leader, to work to develop applications to make AIM, one of the easiest, fastest ways to communicate in cyberspace, available for Nokia's wireless devices," said Bob Pittman, President and Chief Operating Officer for America Online.
The new application will be optimized to take advantage of AOL/Tegic Communication's T9 predictive text input technology, an enabler for AOL Instant Messenger services on cell phones and other mobile devices. The Nokia 7100 Series phones already utilize T9 to assist in quickly choosing the right word for a short message (SMS). The predictive text input method is considerably faster than the ordinary way of entering text
[ Home | Contact | MobiChat | Experts database | Let's do it ]
Comments to the content of this page can be posted on the MobiChat discussion group