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Nokia & Yahoo: The tired and the very tired?

Rumours have been hitting the airwaves — well, the internet-waves, anyway — of an impending announcement from Nokia and Yahoo next week. Alex over at PhoneDog picked up the story along with TechCrunch, both pointing out that AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher reckons the big announcement will feature Yahoo and Nokia getting into bed.

The TechCrunch post gives a little more detail:

According to Kara Swisher’s sources, Yahoo will be announcing a deal with Nokia that will build Yahoo email, search, and other applications into their devices. At first glance, this is a very big deal. Nokia, after all, is still by far the largest mobile phone maker in the world.

Yahoo is tired, very very tired. Their email is a piece of shit — indeed I’ve had to stop using it because, well, I’ve had too much email. It’s completely unusable. This is despite paying the $25 or whatever it was for a premium account. Utter rubbish. (I made the mistake of using it as a backup for my main mail account. The system generates an error when I try and search 250,000 emails. Ridiculous.)

Yahoo almost got it with Yahoo Go, years ago — when they created a native application for Nokia devices that integrated all their services into a nicely designed app. Everything from photos to contacts to email. It really was a super building block. Then, of course, they canned the service, turning the next versions into a series of mobile web links.

Total bollocks.

A quick glance across the Yahoo Mobile page reveals a few interesting offers — Yahoo Mail on your Nokia, Yahoo’s iPhone app, Yahoo’s BlackBerry App and Flickr for iPhone. Not bad, not bad. Nothing that’s causing me to lean forward with interest or excitement though.

Yahoo and Nokia together is a highly unfortunate match. Indeed I’m even more skeptical of Nokia’s future than I was 2 weeks ago at the moment, especially after Android’s ridiculous gains recently.

I look forward to seeing what the two firms can jointly vomit out the door — but I most definitely am sitting here with arms crossed not looking impressed. I hope it’s not just a ‘all Nokias will now default to Yahoo Search’ announcement too.

3 COMMENTS

  1. I have to admit Ewan, I feel the same as yourself, and the only benefit I could possibly foresee is some kind of flickr / Ovi Share integration.

  2. Is someone really expecting this to be some ground breaking?

    I'm not, and I think that I'm in the majority.
    So why do people act like it would be better if these companies didn't make any deals?
    If Nokia makes it easier to use Yahoo e-mail etc. isn't it just good for both companies?
    Sure it won't be a game changer, but neither was Nokia adding Michelin or Lonely Planet to maps
    What if it is just like the recently published Microsoft communicator app?

    They were all nice additions to the existing. They all gave users more options, or made something a bit easier to do. Good for the customer, Nokia and Michelin/LP/MS.

    “Yahoo and Nokia together is a highly unfortunate match. Indeed I’m even more skeptical of Nokia’s future than I was 2 weeks ago at the moment, especially after Android’s ridiculous gains recently.”

    Ewan, is your view about Nokia's future just background information for the story? It this is the case, good. That's why I'm reading this blog. I also would have to agree because of that Android bit.
    Or is your view somehow affected by this story?
    If that is the case, I understand that too. You are hoping for BIG news, news that would make a difference.
    In that case Yahoo and Nokia might not be the ideal couple.

    But really , what at this point suggests that there would any BIG news coming.

    It has a fancy name “Project Nike”. Nothing would be better, than if there would be something big.
    That would be a pleasant surprise. Prove me wrong and make it something important. Please.
    Nokia didn't send any press releases. (or did I just miss them?) This wasn't mentioned in Nokia conversations.
    At the moment it looks like it's bigger for Yahoo than Nokia.

    So I'm asking anyone who likes to answer it: What about this is bad news?
    Is it a bad thing if they announce something nice and small? ( new Yahoo Go )
    Is your disappointment with this news just because there's some underlying expectation that these two would separately announce something that would take them again to the cutting edge in public consciousness?

    OK. I agree that it's fun to whine about stuff. I'm doing it right now, and seems that all the tech blogs are doing that too. Not just with this story, but pretty much with everything.

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