Nokia's Ovi Maps to drive Yahoo navigation services

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Yahoo confirmed details of their rumored worldwide strategic alliance during a New York City media event Monday morning, touting plans to leverage their respective strengths in messaging and location solutions to provide services spanning the mobile and PC platforms. Per terms of the deal, Nokia is now the exclusive global provider of Yahoo's maps and navigation services--Yahoo will integrate the handset maker's Ovi Maps solution across its properties, branded as "powered by Ovi." At the same time, Yahoo will become the exclusive global provider for Nokia's Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services, now rebranded as "Ovi Mail/Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo." Nokia and Yahoo also announced plans to establish ID federation between their services, making it easier for consumers to leverage their Ovi user IDs across select Yahoo properties.

Nokia and Yahoo said their co-branded services will begin to roll out during the second half of 2010. Global availability is expected by next year.

Earlier this month, Nokia announced that more than 10 million consumers have downloaded Ovi Maps since the free turn-by-turn service went live in January. Ovi Maps is now available across more than 70 countries and in 45 languages.

For more on the Nokia/Yahoo alliance:
- read this release

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