Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz will announce a partnership Monday with Nokia that will put Yahoo search, email and other functions in the hands of at least some customers of the world’s biggest–for now–smartphone maker.
That was the bare-bones report filed today by All Things Digital, and FT colleague Andrew Ward and I have confirmed it, without getting much more in the way of details.Ms Bartz is scheduled to hold a press conference at 10 am Eastern time in New York. Yahoo and Nokia had no official comment.
Among the known unknowns is how many models of Nokia phones are involved and how big a suite of Yahoo services will make appearances on them. It’s also unlikely that the financial terms will be disclosed on Monday.
The fit does make sense. Mobile and international operations have been two of Ms Bartz’ major priorities. She told the FT earlier this year that she was more interested in getting in front of mobile phone users in the developing world, many of whom only access the internet via handheld devices, than in competing head-on with Google and Apple in the race for super-duper smartphones.
Nokia is putting more effort into phones that browse the Web and offer applications. But the universe is rapidly moving towards more fully functioning phones and that’s where the advertising money is going as well.
So the Yahoo-Nokia image that comes to mind is that of a couple of wallflowers at the high school dance, eyeing the clock and each other, and deciding they might as well have one go before the music stops.
We’ll be there on Monday to see if that’s unfair.
