Blackberry dealt a major blow as O2 Germany dumps their Blackberrys for Windows Phones
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A month ago we wrote that Telefonica would be throwing their weight behind Windows Phone in an effort to break the iPhone/Android duopoly.
Today in a leaked internal document we are now seeing the first fruit of this effort, with the news that O2 Germany will be dropping all their own Blackberry BES phones for Nokia Lumia 520 and 925 handsets.
The move, which is effective immediately, will see all sales reps carrying Nokia Lumia 520s as their work phone, while store managers and above will get Nokia Lumia 925 handsets, and will see O2 save more than 250,000 Euro ($330,000) in fees to Blackberry.
”With the new mobile service control we now use our internal strategic cooperation with Microsoft to save time and high costs," explained Mario Buchner, Executive Assistant to MD Corporate Affairs & Strategy for Telefónica Germany. "For the next year we are saving more than a quarter million euros due to the elimination of BlackBerry."
Good compatibility with Microsoft’s office products also helped convince O2.
"The integration of Windows products in our System landscape is very simple, "explains Alexander Hofmann, Group Manager Platform Deployment in ST in the document. This is reflected in the smooth synchronization of Calendar entries and e-mails, but also the unrestricted access to all Office applications. So you can on the Windows interface, for example, open and edit PowerPoint documents or ExceI tables. The widely-known problems in representing and editing Office documents with iOS and Android devices does not exist with Windows Phone.
O2 Germany has just purchased E-Plus, making it Germany’s largest carrier and giving it 45% market share. The move to replace their internal systems will also help them sell Windows Phone to consumers and other businesses.
Telefonica’s other operations in U.K., Germany, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Chile are expected to follow suit soon.
See the leaked document after the break.
Thanks to our tipster.
