Motorola, Yahoo Strengthen Partnership

By Ed Oswald | Published July 20, 2006, 11:32 AM

Motorola said Thursday that it had struck an agreement with Yahoo to distribute its Yahoo! Go for Mobile application on millions of new cellular phones produced by the company. Starting in the first half of next year, the service would be pre-loaded on capable handsets, the companies said.

The deal marks the second with a major phone manufacturer who will carry the service. In January, Yahoo forged an alliance with Nokia to make Yahoo! Go available on the company's phones worldwide.

Yahoo! Go allows consumers to access their Yahoo! Mail, Photos, Address Book, Calendar, Messenger and Web, Image and Local search, as well as customized news, weather and sports from a mobile phone. The service was first announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Devices with the software would appear in several markets across the Americas, Europe and Asia, the company said. The agreement is an extension of another first announced in July of last year, when the companies started working on making it easier to use the Internet on mobile phones.

"This agreement is an important next step in showing the world the best of what can happen when Motorola's Seamless Mobility meets Yahoo!'s Connected Life services," Motorola's coporate product vice president Scott Durchslag said.