Handango joins Nokia’s Preminet

Wireless content aggregator and distributor Handango became the first outside content company to join Nokia’s new Preminet service, adding its 11,000 Symbian OS and Java titles to the vendor’s new application catalog.

Preminet, launched last week, is Nokia’s answer to the fragmented application space—a unified set of testing tools, distribution platform and client software acting as a one-stop shop for carriers looking to launch mobile data services of any of Series 60-licensed device as well as Nokia’s in-house data handset lines. The platform leverages applications created by the thousands of developers in Forum Nokia as well as third party content from distributors like Handango.

From hosting, to settlement to provisioning, Preminet is remarkably similar to the distribution service Handango offers, starting with the Palm OS and moving into Symbian and Java devices. With that business model mind, Handango and Preminet seem positioned more as competitors than as partners, but Handango vice president of marketing Clint Patterson said the two companies have a long relationship and could accomplish more working with instead of against one another.

“We believe in the Preminet model,” Patterson said. “We’ve been doing it for four years. We’re still the dominant provider of Series 60 content in the market, but we think without a doubt that Nokia will have some success in this market, and we can learn a lot by working with them.”

Handango, however, won’t just be lumping its own content in with Forum Nokia media. Patterson said Preminet’s carrier customers can choose to compliment Forum Nokia content with Handango’s own library. While Priminet will distribute the content from its master catalog, Handango will handle the applications on its side of the house and any mobile commerce originating from them. To make the two content distributions gel, Handango will optimize its data feeds to be compatible will Nokia’s purchasing client, which plugs into a carrier-branded content portal users use to find and buy content.

Forum Nokia director of platform solutions Steen Thygesen said integrating outside aggregators into Preminet is an important step that reinforces Nokia’s claim that it is trying to push an open wireless data platform. “Working with Handango delivers on Nokia’s promise to offer an open, flexible content delivery solution that operators can customize to meet the needs of their end-users,” Thygesen said.