Acquisition Fever in Instant Messaging Field: Nokia buys OZ Communications

Nokia today announced that the Finish company will acquire OZ communications, a Canadian IM mobile client and gateway provider.

Nokia buying OZ Communications a few days after Jabber Inc acquisition by Cisco is a sign that instant messaging battle is reaching an unprecedented level, especially among telco players.

The goal of the two operations is obviously different. Cisco wants to boost its unified communication platform. It is a move to take a bigger share of the Enterprise Instant Messaging market.

Nokia is not targetting the corporate market but indirectly the end user market through mobile instant messaging. Nokia is thus becoming a player that can act as intermediary for access to large instant messaging network on mobile (for example MSN, AOL, Yahoo!). The Finish company thus become a major player between mobile carrier (and thus users) and instant messaging networks.

This is an interesting operation, as Nokia now has a strategic position and can use this situation as an advantage to promote its own mobile service platform called OVI.

The news has been covered by ZDNET Uk: Nokia boosts comms platform with Oz purchase