Nokia, Microsoft Expand Mobile Email Alliance

Nokia announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its alliance with Microsoft, enabling another 80 million Nokia smart phone users to access email and other services via Microsoft's Exchange Server. The announcement was made last night just before the start of the CTIA tradeshow in San Francisco.

"Nokia owners whose companies use Exchange can set up Mail for Exchange for free on their devices in various ways without paying additional services or subscription fees," the company noted in a statement.

The deal expands on a previous Nokia/Microsoft agreement, and will bring the ActiveSync license to all 43 Nokia smart phones that run on the S60 Symbian operating system. (ActiveSync is the software used to enable Exchange support.) Nokia will also add this functionality as a standard feature to forthcoming N-series and E-series smart phones.

While Nokia is hugely successful worldwide, its smart phones have not taken off in the US because of their lack of support for Exchange. Phones running Windows Mobile, a Microsoft design, and RIM's Blackberry have proven far more popular there.