Lower roaming costs and new services in the pipeline…
“Yahoo said it has inked a deal with T-Mobile, the international carrier that will make Yahoo oneSearch the exclusive search engine in T-Mobile’s 11 European markets…”
San Francisco — Yahoo!, a leading global Internet company, announced on Tuesday that it has agreed to enter into a new strategic partnership with “T-Mobile” as its preferred mobile search provider to millions of consumers in Europe, ending the operator’s existing relationship with Google for mobile search.
“The agreement supplants Google as T-Mobile’s mobile search services provider in Europe, and sets the stage for ‘Yahoo! oneSearch’ to become the exclusive mobile search service for T-Mobile customers from April.”
This means that Yahoo, despite its well-documented problems and its perennial also-ran status in PC-based search, will grab a major mobile prize from the clutches of search king Google. The exclusivity means that Yahoo will displace Google as T-Mobile’s preferred search engine.
The move was seen by many as a minor coup for Yahoo, which is competing with Google and Microsoft to win the loyalty of a growing number of mobile Internet users. Others noted that mobile search is in its infancy and said the field is still wide-open.
Marco Boerries, executive vice president of Connected Life at Yahoo, said: “We are integrated at the operator level, so we understand location, and we can prepare just the right results. It is search designed with the mobile web in mind.”
“T-Mobile’s decision to work with Yahoo! is a clear demonstration of the strength of our industry-leading mobile search service and our ability to work with partners to give consumers the best possible mobile Internet experience,” says Boerries.
“Soon we will bring this compelling experience to T-Mobile’s millions of consumers across Europe.”
“Yahoo unveiled its revamped oneSearch mobile Internet platform a year ago as promised and have constantly worked to establish Yahoo! as the starting point for the mobile Web and the firm’s chief executive Jerry Yang showed off improvements at the Consumer Electronics Show last month in Las Vegas.”
oneSearch is crafted to efficiently deliver relevant Internet search results to mobile devices.
“Well done Yahoo for knocking Google off the Web n Walk home page,” wrote John Delaney, an analyst for Ovum, commenting on the announcement.
“Today’s announcement will be an important boost to Yahoo’s position as the operators’ friend in the hazardous world of the mobile Internet,” said. “Yahoo is doubtless taking much consolation from this.”
Web n Walk is T-Mobile’s mobile Internet offering.
“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,” says Christopher Schläffer, Group Products & Innovation Officer, T-Mobile.
“With Yahoo!, we combine our joint innovation power to bring the mobile Internet even closer to our customers. Schläffer called oneSearch, the best search product on the market, is a prime example here.”
The deal, which kicks in at the end of March, bolsters Yahoo’s lead over Google in the emerging and potentially lucrative world of mobile search, and the attendant revenue-generating mobile search advertising market.
T-Mobile customers in 11 European countries will see Yahoo’s mobile oneSearch by default on their phones. oneSearch is designed to make it easy for mobile users to get relevant search results and navigate through different categories within search results.
T-Mobile has also expanded its social web services by partnering with popular online communities, including Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, and Bebo Messenger, Mail, Weather and Finance.
“Yahoo now counts 29 operators around the world as oneSearch customers.”
The operator has unveiled plans to launch mobile instant messaging services in partnership with Windows Live Messenger, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.
In order to encourage customers to access these services anywhere and at anytime, T-Mobile has lowered roaming charges for data usage in Europe.
“We are moving away from the web to something new,” said Schläffer.
“We are going to push the answers to the screen from a federation of content sources including the device portal, local search and people and community search.”
The deal appears to mark a strategy change at T-Mobile. When the operator launched Web‘n’Walk, the service was designed to mimic the Web by minimizing T-Mobile branded services and prominently offering Google, Delaney said. Since then, it has evolved to add more T-Mobile services. It is not clear yet which strategy end-users prefer.
“The risk is that T-Mobile will discover that its users really preferred it when T-Mobile gave them access to the Web, and then got out of their way,” Delaney said.
The main advantage of this optimization is that users will be able to access their favorite sites with one click from a personalized homepage of the Web ‘n’ Walk portal.
“It is important not to overlook the fact that the Yahoo deal marks an important shift in T-Mobile’s approach to its mobile internet service,” added Delaney.
“T-Mobile is at least the twenty-sixth mobile carrier to sign a major deal with Yahoo.”
Google has existing relationships with more than nineteen mobile carriers around the world. Many of the carriers have relationships with both portal firms but Yahoo, a notoriously carrier-friendly firm, is ahead in the mobile arms race.
While the T-Mobile/Yahoo deal is a blow to Google, the search giant had a significant mobile win of its own this week. Nokia announced on Tuesday that it will add Google search in addition to its own search offering on select phones. Nokia plans to extend the offering to more phones in the future.
“Yahoo is doubtless taking some consolation from having cocked such a high-profile snook at Google. And justifiably so,” said Delaney.
The announcement comes as Yahoo asserts its independence and commitment to improving profitability in the face of a bid by US software colossus Microsoft to take over the veteran California Internet firm.
On Monday, Yahoo’s board of directors rejected a 44.6-billion-dollar buy-out offer from Microsoft, saying it “significantly undervalues” the company.
Microsoft says it intends to pursue its bid for Yahoo, and analysts are watching to see whether Microsoft will raise its bid or attempt a “hostile takeover” by trying to rout Yahoo’s board of directors this summer.
So far, the market for branded search services on mobile phones like those from Yahoo and Google is still wide-open, said Mike Wolf, an analyst at ABI Research. The search providers are increasingly interested in mobile because there is strong growth in mobile Internet usage, he said.
Success in the mobile Internet is important enough that Wolf believes that Yahoo’s track record in the mobile market was a factor in Microsoft’s decision to try to buy the search provider. “Mobile is probably at least a consideration in the acquisition attempt,” he said.
Meanwhile, Yahoo announced Tuesday it has bought online video platform specialty firm Maven Networks for 160 million dollars and made a “strategic partnership” with German-based T-Mobile.