UK to pioneer Oracle and Nokia mobile link

The UK will be the first country to benefit from a deal between Nokia and Oracle to offer enterprise mobile connectivity packages.

The companies hope to make it easier for enterprises to make their mobile devices in the field more secure and easier to manage.

By linking Nokia's devices with Oracle's Collaboration Suite, the deal will give businesses the option of offering mobile workers voicemail, email, calendaring, file management and content search capabilities through a single connection.

Customer pilots in the UK will start in the second quarter of this year before Nokia and Oracle extend the service to other parts of the world, the companies said at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes.

The deal is similar to the one signed by Sony Ericsson and IBM which focuses on the latter's recently launched P800 smartphone.

Sergio Giacoletto, executive vice president of Oracle, Europe, Middle East & Africa, said: "The European workforce is becoming increasingly mobile.

"To remain productive, employees need instant access to corporate email, calendar and files wherever they are."

The first Nokia phones to use the Oracle package are the 6800, 3650, 7650 and 9200 series of handsets.

Erik Anderson, senior vice president for business applications at Nokia, explained that it will be a modular offering enabling businesses to choose which applications are important to their workforce in the field.

Oracle also announced that Alcatel will be using its middleware to make it easier for mobile operators to offer tailored services to customers.

In addition, Nokia confirmed that it has shipped 10,000 of its 3G 6650 phones to operators around the world for non-commercial trials.

The 6650 offers network speeds of 384Kbps, which is well below the maximum 3G specification of 2Mbps.