The adoption of mobile devices by individuals and businesses as part of their bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies is making it an essential part of almost everyone’s life. This adoption is expanding further as businesses take up mobile platforms to get the attention of all these users.
The agreement between Avanade, a managed services and technology solutions provider, and Nokia’s new line of Lumia smartphones will give large enterprise customers applications and services for mobile solutions.
According to Avande’s own survey, executives with duties to decision making have pointed out more than half of their employees use their smartphones for personal tasks, and more than 40 percent of them also would like to bring their own device to perform business related functions.
Some of these functions include content creation, customer relationship management (CRM) and other mission-critical tasks.
Integrating all of these components so they can work seamlessly with the organizations IT requires different sets of technologies, applications and security protocols.
The package the two companies plan to develop will give enterprises Windows Phone and Microsoft infrastructure the capability of supporting the new Nokia Windows Phone 8 device, the Lumia.
"There is a significant gap in the market for a new class of business-focused mobile services and solutions. Avanade and Nokia are working together to fill this gap; integrating Nokia Lumia smartphones built on Windows Phone 8, with business applications such as Microsoft Office, CRM and access to company information to improve collaboration, productivity and sales," said Ian Jordan, executive vice president of Sales, Marketing, Innovation and Alliances at Avanade.
Avanade was founded by Accenture LLP and Microsoft Corporation in 2000. This type of access to technology gives the company the ability to offer services that would otherwise make it more difficult for other companies.
The mobile solutions it provides uses Microsoft Office, Exchange and SharePoint environments.
"The growth in the use of consumer devices at work has created opportunities for businesses, but also vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. Working together, Nokia and Avanade will create business solutions to meet the needs of the enterprise, as well as delivering the exciting user experience which people expect from today's leading smartphones such as Nokia Lumia," said Niko Mykkänen, global head of B2B Sales at Nokia.
The smartphone market is currently being dominated by Samsung and Apple. While Nokia was the world dominant standard mobile manufacturer, the market is rapidly shifting to smartphones and is striving to rapidly play catch-up with these companies.
Its strong base of previous global domination will still give it some clout when it pursues the mobile-ready business solutions market.
Edited by
Braden Becker 
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