Orange and Nokia have announced today that the partnership between them has been extended with the offering of a new, simple-to-use email service to consumers, namely the Nokia Messaging by Orange, a co-branded solution that will come to a series of Orange Signature devices, aimed at providing mobile email to all mobile phone users but also to professionals.

The new built-in push email is expected to come with the Nokia E75, as well as with a range of other Nokia devices, and Orange customers in the UK will be the first ones to enjoy it this summer, while countries like France and Spain will follow shortly after.

Olaf Swantee, senior EVP of Orange's global mobile business, commented, “It was only a few weeks ago that we announced our strategy to make mobile multimedia a mass market phenomenon. This extension to our partnership with Nokia shows how serious we are about bringing mobile multimedia to every customer. With our leadership in innovation, proven expertise in convergence across our fixed, mobile and broadband networks and knowledge of our customers, we think this offer will help increase consumer appetite for mobile email.”

The new service will allow Orange customers to aggregate and manage multiple email accounts on the same device through the Orange homescreen, no matter where they are. They will be able to set up the service quite easily, and they will be offered the possibility to directly access up to 10 personal email accounts, so that they can read, send, forward and reply to emails, while also accessing subfolders, download and read attachments or attach files to emails.

“Orange is the first operator group to announce a European-wide offering of Nokia Messaging to their customers and we are very pleased about this extension to our service collaboration. The agreement on Nokia Messaging will boost the adoption of mobile email service and makes it easy for consumers to activate the service on-device and at Point-of-Sale. We believe that mobile messaging is for everyone, not just for a certain segment of the consumer market,” stated Kai Oistamo, executive vice president, Nokia.

Nokia Messaging will come on Orange in several major markets during the ongoing year, according to the two companies. Furthermore, the bundling, pricing and attractive tariffs will be announced locally across the Orange footprint. Nokia and Orange signed a three-year agreement back in February 2008 so as to meet demand for multimedia on mobiles. The agreement covers services in areas like music, games and maps across a range of Nokia devices. The partnership will be expanded to eight countries and will include up to 30 Nokia devices in the Orange Signature offering this year.

“Orange and Nokia have worked jointly as a team during those past months to provide the best of breed services to Orange mobile customers based on each company's assets and service platforms. This new milestone will strengthen our partnership with Nokia and underline our commitment to provide additional value to Orange customers. This will pave the way to new opportunities of partnerships between the two companies in the coming months,” said Raoul Roverato, EVP of Orange's New Growth Businesses.