Microsoft Office Coming to Nokia Phones...But Without Word?
    
		It's all good news on this mid-August day, right? Microsoft, in a bolt  of wisdom, has signed a deal with Nokia to offer Office on Nokia handsets. 
Finally, Microsoft is admitting that Windows Mobile isn't ever going to  be what Windows is on the desktop. Not even close, in fact. (Well, OK, Microsoft  is still giving Windows Mobile lip service,  but let's face it -- the mobile operating system is something of a dud and is  getting less popular, not more.) 
In letting Office break free from the shackles of Windows Mobile,  Microsoft, with Nokia (which runs its phones on the Symbian mobile OS), can  launch an assault on the BlackBerry (in fact, that's an actual headline in The New York Times)  and carve out a profitable niche in the mobile market with a product everybody  knows and lots of people love. So, that's all good, right, partners? A nice  little moneymaker there?
Um, maybe. Or maybe not. Because, as you might have read by now, a judge  in your editor's home state of Texas  has banned sales of Microsoft Word as part of a ruling in a patent case.  No, seriously! Not only does Microsoft owe the perhaps appropriately named i4i Inc.  $290 million, but the judge in the case (which i4i obviously won) has stopped  sales of Microsoft Word in the U.S. 
Or he will, anyway, in 60 days, when the ban will take effect -- which  means he probably won't because Microsoft will surely appeal the ruling and  will likely win. So, Microsoft mobile partners and Office fans, you'll probably  be free to buy and sell Word and the rest of Office for a Nokia cell phone (or  for anything else that runs Office) for the foreseeable future, even 60 days  from now. And that is some good news on a mid-August day.
What's your take on Microsoft's mobile strategy? Is the Nokia deal the  end of Windows Mobile? Should it be? Sound of at [email protected]. 
 
	Posted by Lee Pender on August 13, 2009