Orange, the pan-European operator controlled by France Telecom, has chosen Nokia and Ericsson as its suppliers of MMS technology.

Both companies have entered into framework agreements which give them the opportunity to pitch their products to the 22 companies in the Orange group. Ericsson’s first deployment will be with France Telecom. It will supply an MMS platform, integration and support services. Nokia is yet to make a customer announcement. The news will come as a blow to messaging infrastructure providers CMG and Logica, which dominated the SMS market. They have been facing increasingly stiff competition from Nokia and Ericsson, which are anxious not to miss a market opportunity for the second time.

“This agreement demonstrates the trust shown in our solutions by another major mobile operator in the world. We are pleased to be in a position to contribute with Orange Group to the success of MMS and Mobile Internet. Moreover, the contract with Orange France reinforces Ericsson’s position on the French market,” said Guy Roussel, President of the Global Customer Unit France Telecom Group, Ericsson. Pertti Melamies, Vice President, Nokia Networks, commented: “MMS is the first true multimedia application of the mobile industry and a first step towards the third generation. We are excited to bring it to reality now with Orange, an operator recognized by the industry for its forward thinking and continuous development of wireless applications.”

Insight

Nokia and Ericsson have emerged as the strongest players in the MMS infrastructure business. They were determined not to let IT services companies such as CMG and Logica dominate the market as they did with text messaging and have leveraged their positions in network equipment to win clients.

Dedicated providers of messaging platforms may see conditions improve as smaller operators start to deploy MMS and the overall size of the market increases, but Nokia and Ericsson already have a substantial lead. It seems likely that the likes of Logica and CMG will either exit the business altogether or put their messaging divisions up for sale.