Nokia Offers Free Lumia Smartphone Trial To UK Businesses

Nokia is offering UK businesses the chance to try a number of its Lumia smartphones in the workplace, as it seeks to expand its presence in the enterprise mobility market ahead of the £4.6 billion sale of its devices and services business to Microsoft.

As part of the #LumiaBizTrial programme, qualifying IT and business decision makers will be provided with a selection of Nokia Lumia 925, 625 and 520 devices to show the benefits of the Windows Phone platform to the enterprise, at every price point.

The Finnish manufacturer claims its B2B market share in EMEA has risen to 12 percent and says it wants to increase this further this year, by tempting SMBs, large enterprises and public sector organisations.

Nokia for business

The copmpany is banking on the fact that the “majority” of businesses currently operate in Microsoft environments and that the familiarity of the Windows platform, along with associated applications, will encourage UK companies to take the plunge.

“The Nokia Lumia product range is the obvious choice for businesses looking to optimise their mobile strategy in a cost-effective way,” said Adrian Williams, director of business sales, UK & Ireland at Nokia. “Each phone connects to employees’ SharePoint, Lync, SkyDrive, Outlook and Office already in use, so they can pick up the work they started in the office right where they left it.”

Microsoft will hope that any enterprise push will improve Nokia’s handset fortunes when the takeover is completed. Nokia’s most recent results show that sales of its mobile devices fell by 29 percent year-on-year as it struggled to compete with rival platforms such as iOS and Android.

Redmond is likely to be concerned about the figures, despite the relative success of its mobile OS. Nokia is the most important manufacturer of Windows Phone hardware and has contributed to the operating system’s popularity in Europe, where its market share is higher than ten percent in some countries.

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