Nokia and IBM announced that they will together provide end-to-end secured business applications on advanced mobile handsets targeted at the enterprise market. IBM Global Services will act as a system integrator of Nokia’s Mobile VPN solution for Symbian OS-based mobile handsets worldwide.Nokia’s Mobile VPN solution consists of Nokia Security Service Manager (NSSM) and Nokia Mobile VPN Client for secure over-the-air provisioning of Mobile VPN client software and policies for Nokia’s Symbian OS-based mobile handsets.

IBM Global Services will offer the Nokia solution to the fast growing enterprise market, fulfilling customer needs with a service portfolio that includes installation, maintenance, financing and consulting services. Drawing on its extensive mobility expertise and leadership in the wired Internet security market, Nokia offers mobile security solutions to extend secure network infrastructure to mobile terminals. The Nokia Mobile VPN Client is a standards-based IPSec VPN client supporting both legacy and PKI authentication. NSSM is an open standard, over-the-air provisioning system for mobile security applications, such as the Nokia Mobile VPN Client and for third party applications in the future.This open architecture underpins Nokia’s ability to offer inspired, human centric and trusted technology.

The solution allows advanced mobile handset and laptop users to share the same network security infrastructure for enterprise access. This provides advanced mobile handset connections with the high level of security and systems management capabilities that the enterprise customers have, today, in their traditional IT environment.

Ericsson and Telenor Mobile have signed a global framework agreement for Multimedia Messaging Services solutions, the technology that offers enhanced messaging capabilities such as color pictures, photographs, sounds, animations and audio clips.The agreement involves all Telenor Mobile operations in Europe and Asia. Ericsson will provide the MMS platform and related systems as well as network integration services. With this deal, Ericsson further strengthens its position as the global leader in MMS A number of the Telenor Mobile companies have already launched MMS, however, this global framework agreement will enable MMS services to be distributed more easily across the Telenor Mobile group.

The solutions open up opportunities for a series of new services and will increase traffic.“We chose Ericsson as our vendor because of its strong position on the MMS market, both technically and commercially. By choosing one MMS platform, we will be able to develop the MMS market in a cost efficient manner by distributing products and services to our customers word-wide and with limited development cost,” says Arve Johansen, President and CEO of Telenor Mobile.

Lebara Mobile launched its UK service and provided details of the best-of-breed organisations it is partnering with, including Vodafone UK, Phones 4u, Data Select, Alphyra, Epay and PayPoint, to provide low-cost Pay As You Go international calls from mobiles in the UK from as little as 4p per minute, using a SIM-based service.

Focusing on ethnic communities based in the UK, Lebara Mobile Pay-As-You-Go SIM cards, top-ups and handset bundles are now available giving UK customers the ability to make low-cost international phone calls directly from their mobiles. Compatible with all standard UK GSM handsets, customers can take advantage of low-cost local, national and international calls from their mobiles in the UK.Lebara Mobile now provides low-cost SIM-based mobile services in seven European countries: the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

In 2006, Lebara was named as the fourth-fastest growing private company in the UK by The Sunday Times in its Fast Trak 100 listing, 2006′.UK mobile network operator Vodafone UK will provide the network infrastructure for Lebara Mobile customers to make calls in the UK. For global reach, calls are passed to the Lebara Mobile international switched network, and routed seamlessly to their destination.

Vodafone UK notched up its second MVNO contract in as many weeks on Wednesday, announcing the launch of Lebara Mobile, which is targeting the UK’s 1.5 million strong migrant worker community.The SIM-only prepay service will be provided to customers under the Lebara brand and will be made available through outlets targeted specifically at the migrant community.

Customers will be supported by own language customer service before and after the purchase.Tim Stone, director of new business development and wholesale at Vodafone UK, said: “In March we set out the Vodafone UK strategy to drive revenue growth and, as part of this, our ambitions to grow our wholesale market share.”Stone reckons that the migrant market in the UK could be worth up to £500m.

Lebara already has operations in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain and Norway.But until Lebara unveils its pricing structure later on Wednesday, it remains to be seen how the offer competes with Vodafone’s own migrant targeted tariffs. From September, Vodafone UK Pay As You Talk customers were able to make calls to friends and families in 16 countries for just 5p per minute.

Prepay customers are able to make the 5p per minute calls from the UK to landlines in China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Lithuania, Latvia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Thailand and Turkey. Calls made to mobiles in these same countries cost 15p per minute.At the time, Vodafone said there were an estimated 5 to 7 million people from international communities living in the UK.

Finnish handset manufacturer Nokia will continue its push into the services space with the launch of its UK-based Nokia Music Store on Thursday.The company will make millions of tracks from major artists and independent labels available alongside interactive features such as personal track recommendations and a favourite artists search and discovery function.

Users will be able to access the Nokia Music Store via their desktop computer or directly from Nokia devices beginning with the Nokia N81 and Nokia N95 8GB, both of which launch alongside the music shop.Individual tracks will cost 80p per track and albums start at £8.00. The store will also offer a monthly subscription for PC streaming for £8.00.The move is in direct competition with Apple’s iTunes store and precedes the launch of the European iPhone by days.

But music software firm Omnifone is keen to crash Nokia’s party and is also having a launch bash in London on Thursday for its MusicStation platform. MusicStation has already been picked by Vodafone to offer unlimited track downloads, straight to the mobile, for £1.99 per week. But we’re also promised that there will be more: “It will also have a very aggressive pricing model, which has yet to be announced and will be very threatening to O2 and iPhone,” the company said.