Google, Yahoo score customer wins: Google snares Nokia, Yahoo steals T-Mobile

Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. each announced impressive wins at Mobile World Congress 2008 last week, but it was Yahoo’s news that raised eyebrows in the mobile search space.
Nokia Corp. said it will begin to include Google’s technology with its own mobile search application “in select markets,” integrating the offering on the Nokia N96 and N78 – which were announced last week at the show – as well as the 6220 and 6210 Navigator.
The deal builds on an existing relationship that has seen Nokia integrate Google’s search engine on Internet tablets.
While the collaboration initially is limited in scope – affecting only a fraction of the three dozen-plus devices that feature Nokia Search – the Finnish firm said it plans to make Google search available to customers in more than 100 countries and 40 languages.
“Providing choices for our consumers is an important driver in Nokia’s Internet service strategy,” said Ilkka Raiskinen, Nokia’s VP of software and services. “This integration allows our consumers the ability to use the innovative search technologies (that) have made Google almost synonymous with Internet search.”
Far more interesting, though, was Yahoo’s win – which amounted to a loss for Google. T-Mobile International announced plans to make Yahoo its exclusive mobile service in Europe at the end of March, saying it will offer Yahoo’s oneSearch to its customers as part of its web’n’walk service. The companies also announced plans to offer Yahoo services such as e-mail, instant messaging, weather information and the photo-sharing application Flickr.
The move effectively ends a 3-year-old relationship between T-Mobile and Google that had seen the Internet giant power web’n’walk since the offering came to market. And it gives Yahoo access to nearly 90 million wireless users in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria and eight other European markets.
“As a pioneer for the open mobile Internet with web’n’walk, we give our customers instant and direct access to all available Internet services, such as information, content and communities,” said Christopher Shlaffer, T-Mobile’s group products and innovation officer.
Onlookers were quick to credit the success of Yahoo’s oneSearch and Go offerings with helping to secure the deal. But others suggested T-Mobile’s move had more to do with Google’s aggressive plans in mobile – and Yahoo’s willingness to partner with carriers – than any differences in products or services.
“All operators want a large slice of the mobile advertising pie,” the London-based search engine marketing agency AccuraCast noted. “Google has played hardball, and severed a few relationships along the way. T-Mobile’s decision to drop Google and partner with Yahoo has likely little to do with Yahoo’s superior mobile search product offering and more to do with a strategic move to decrease Google’s dominance in mobile.”