“The vitality of the joint strategic alliance between Microsoft and Nokia comes from being established on their top capabilities of advanced technical capacity, wide geographic presence and the largest clients’ segment among both IT and handset clients. These facts give the two companies a leading role in providing solutions which understand the users’ changing business needs and the demands of their lives,” said Samir Noman, president, Microsoft Arabia in a press conference held in Riyadh to announce the launch of the new services.
Imran Mahmood, GM, Nokia Saudi Arabia & Yemen spoke on behalf of the mobile giant at the media event. He commented that Microsoft is seeking through this new alliance and its new services to continue supporting the business sector with the most integrated IT productivity solutions available to mobile devices.
“Companies don’t need to invest in revamping their IT infrastructure to adapt to the new services provided by Microsoft and Nokia. We believe that this will lead companies to achieve higher levels of competitiveness,” Mahmoud said.
According to Mahmoud, mobile is a big trend, and mobile productivity is one of the biggest opportunities and challenges for businesses today. Direct access is proving more and more successful, and as companies move from simple messaging to other areas such as document sharing, meeting collaboration and device management, it is expected that the benefits and synergies will multiply. 
“This application really provides a much more efficient way to work with others as you can see if someone is busy or available, and the best way to start a conversation with them,” said Mahmoud. “It also meets all of the requirements for enterprise: cost effective to implement, secure, familiar and reliable.”
Microsoft Exchange Mobile for Nokia devices, supported by Microsoft Communicator, Office Mobile and SharePoint Mobile enables people to see their colleagues’ availability, and click to communicate with them using the best method, from IM to email, text to phone call. The names and status of colleagues are embedded directly into the device’s contacts application, enabling people to update their own presence, start and join instant messaging sessions, and begin calls directly from the contact card.
This new application, available initially for the Nokia E72 and Nokia E52, adds to the work Nokia is already doing in optimizing direct access to email and other personal information with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. The companies plan to deliver the application pre-installed on select Nokia smartphones in the future and will be supporting additional devices, including the recently announced Nokia E5.