Innovate And Dominate

When you hear the phrase "tech-market domination," you probably think of Microsoft. But in the world of mobile phones, the name is Nokia: depending on whose numbers you believe, the Finnish giant sells up to a whopping 40% of the world's consumer cell phones, almost 180 million last year. Yet even mighty Nokia risks developing an achilles' heel — namely, the soon-to-be-hot corporate market. Fortune 500 companies are desperate for phones that double as computers so travelling execs can tap into corporate data from afar. "It's an important growth market, and Nokia is worried that the PC guys like Microsoft are coming into that space as computers and phones converge," says London-based International Data

	Nokia is worried that PC guys like microsoft are coming into [its] space as computers and phones converge. — TIM MUI, analyst, International Data Corporation

Corp. analyst Tim Mui. IDC forecasts that in Europe alone, business users will buy 60 million phones this year.

So what's Nokia doing about it? This week, chief executive Jorma Ollila unveils a prototype of the Communicator 9500, a device that ties more neatly and swiftly into corporate IT systems than any gadget Nokia has offered to date. Among the 9500's selling points is wi-fi circuitry that allows users to connect to the Internet in wireless hot spots and securely link up with business networks. Nokia will even trot out some major companies that have agreed to kick the tires on the new devices — DaimlerChrysler for its German sales force, Pfizer for its Finnish sales force and Ricoh for its French force of copier repairmen.

It's a risky announcement. After all, the gadgets won't be ready for trial until the summer, or for general commercial use until late in the year. "We usually don't jump the gun" with product announcements, Ollila told TIME, but he's doing so this time because the corporate market will take center stage at this week's 3gsm World Congress in Cannes, and Nokia doesn't want to be left in the wings.

Nokia's eagerness to grab the spotlight shows how badly mobile vendors want to get inside the minds — and budgets — of corporate buyers. One high-ranking mobile-industry executive tells Time that Microsoft and operator behemoth Vodafone are working out a deal to sell Microsoft-based phones to corporate customers, and could announce their alliance this week. (Neither Vodafone nor Microsoft would comment.) Nokia needs to keep a step ahead of Microsoft, which is making slow but steady progress trying to work a pared-down version of Windows into smart phones that could do what Nokia claims the 9500 does.