Nokia means business, becomes more aggressive at courting enterprise

Nokia has been delving in both the consumer and enterprise market, but has never really tackled the business sector with full force. The company then chose to back Microsoft and build hardware running Windows Phone. This gave Nokia numerous possibilities, one being stronger foundations for heading into the enterprise market and snapping up businesses.

What better way to get in bed with companies than partnering with the software giant that provides backend solutions?

ZDNet has ran a rather interesting report that looks into the enthusiasm displayed by Nokia since the company made the switch to Windows Phone. We've covered multiple companies working with Nokia and its Lumia family of Windows Phones, including UK estate agents Foxtons, Coca Cola and KONE. Nikio Mykkänen, global head of B2B sales at Nokia, had the following to comment on Nokia's venture with Microsoft:

"Windows stands for business in different sizes of companies. That for me opens up different opportunities: opportunities to work with Microsoft, their partners, their salesforce.  We don't have that many sales guys — they do. And they have relationships, they have history, they have services, they have licences, even hardware in those companies — that's clearly opening up a big door for us to those enterprise customers."

It has been reported that Nokia is also looking at partnering up with companies like SAP and IBM to further help get its products into the business market - the Finnish manufacturer doesn't simply wish to rely on consumers. It's almost alien-like to talk about Windows Phone and Nokia taking on the enterprise market as this has been an area of strength for BlackBerry.

Analyst firm IDC also suggests the mobile enterprise app market will grow at a staggering rate of 25 percent per year over the next handful of years.

There's another change taking place in the workplace too, BYOD (or bring your own device). This enables employees to essentially bring their own hardware, which could be seen as a negative for Microsoft and partners since mindshare is still locked onto Android and iOS. That said, again looking at the partnership Nokia has formed with Microsoft, the latter company has its own tools and services that enterprise already utilise - this gives the manufacturer a slight edge in negotiations.

Be sure to check out the full report over on ZDNet, it's well worth the read.

Source: ZDNet