It has been almost a year since Nokia and Yahoo! announced that they have entered into a global strategic alliance, which will see the two companies combining their strengths in e-mail, instant messaging as well as maps and navigation. 

 

The first fruits of this partnership have now appeared, with Nokia’s Ovi Mail email service, as well as its Ovi Chat service, now being powered by Yahoo!. The Finnish manufacturer is now starting to migrate Ovi Mail users to the new experience.

 

What does this mean for Nokia Ovi Mail users? “You get a faster and more powerful Mail experience with new features that make your email experience better. In addition, Chat users will be able to experience Chat on the web for the first time! And last but not least, if you’re a Mail or Chat powered by Yahoo! user, you can use your Nokia or Ovi account to log in to other Yahoo! services like Yahoo! News or Finance,” stated a post on the Nokia’s Ovi blog.

 

Mail powered by Yahoo! is already operational, with Nokia stating that users will be able to utilise the new functionality right away, but they might not see all of their emails or contacts immediately. “Don’t worry because all of your data is safe. The reason you won’t see it yet is due to the fact that so many Mail users and emails are migrating over, that it will take several days to a couple of weeks for it to be completed.” Users will receive an email from Nokia when their data has been fully migrated to Yahoo!

 

 

 

In related news, Nokia will be hosting a big event around Symbian in London next week Tuesday. According to Engadget, this event might be about the forthcoming (and much needed) update to the Symbian mobile operating system (OS).

 

At the beginning of the year some leaked info and pics concerning an update to Symbian hit the web. This showed amongst others, a small bar at the top of the display, which merges key data (including battery power and signal strength).

 

Apart from the new info bar, there are Android-inspired soft buttons (one of which is a dialler) at the bottom of the screen, remaining there while users flick through the various home-screens. Flexible widgets, as opposed to the one-rectangular-size-fits-all ones currently available on Symbian^3 operating smartphones such as the E7, as well as a thin pull down status bar (again, like Android has) are also slated to be included.

 

Hopefully next week’s announcement will be about this firmware update and not just a new device release, since Nokia’s hardware seems impressive, but is let down by a lacklustre (burning) platform. 

 

 

 

 

According to Bloomberg, Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC’s market value this week exceeded Nokia’s. This after HTC’s shares climbed by 5.3% on Wednesday, taking the smartphone- and tablet maker’s market value to $33.8 billion, pushing past the Finnish giant’s $33.6 billion market value. 

 

Last year Nokia’s (then) executive vice president and member of Nokia Group Executive Board, Anssi Vanjoki, had much to say about the company’s Android-adopting competitors, comparing them to Finnish boys who ‘pee in their pants’ in order to keep warm during the cold of winter. Meaning that these companies seek temporary relief, but will inevitably be worse off in the end. 

 

We’re quite sure HTC will now disagree with its Windows Phone OS-adopting competitor.    

 

 

Microsoft has announced via the Office for Mac blog that it will be releasing Office for Mac 2011 Service Pack 1 (SP1) next week. This update will bring with it increased stability and security, as well as some new features to the suite. The latter includes improved Outlook syncing support by enabling calendar syncing between Outlook for Mac and Apple’s Sync Services. This means users can sync their Outlook calendar as well as contacts, notes and tasks with any service or device that supports Sync Services, the likes of Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

 

The company’s Office for Mac Team also stated that as of 5 May MobileMe will no longer sync with MacOS Sync Services. How will this effect Mac users? “If you sync your iPhone or iPad calendars with Sync Services (ie via iTunes over a cable), your mobile device calendars WILL be synced with Outlook 2011 SP1. If you sync your iPhone or iPad calendars with MobileMe, they will NOT be synced to your Outlook 2011 SP1 calendar, because of the broken link between MobileMe and Sync Services.”