Nokia set to connect businesses

Enterprise Solutions division sets up new unit to target business mobile data market

Nokia has created a new unit to attack the business mobile data market (CRN, July 21).

Nokia Enterprise Solutions will co-ordinate the efforts of the company's various business divisions, including Nokia Internet Communications, which makes firewall and Secure Socket Layer accelerators, mobile terminals and software such as Nokia One.

The group will begin financial reporting in the first quarter of 2004.

Dan MacDonald, vice-president of product management and marketing at Nokia Internet Communications, said the move was a logical progression for the firm.

"This is not a scenario where we are working from scratch. All the parts are already here," he said.

"When you get a group of IT directors together in a room and ask them if they are under pressure to mobilise their company, they say 'yes'. People want to do it, but there is no one for them to go to."

Keith Yaxley, sales and marketing manager at reseller Data2Hand, welcomed the move. "This is something we were screaming for three or four years ago, simply because it seemed so obvious," he said.

Yaxley left Nokia to set up Data2Hand, which specialises in enterprise mobile data solutions. "This is a great opportunity, but Nokia Internet Communications is the only group in Nokia that has a traditional channel," he added.

Mobile operators and vendors are showing increased interest in the channel as a means of selling mobile solutions to enterprises. Ericsson also said it will step up its mobile enterprise drive in the UK later this year.

Nokia's Internet Communications' business unit has its headquarters in the US and other elements in Europe. It is unclear who will head the new division. No large-scale redundancies are planned, according to Nokia.

MacDonald denied the move was aimed at spurring operators into producing more business-specific offerings.

"There are three groups of people enterprises can go to: manufacturers, operators and integrators. We intend to involve all three," he said.