Long time rivals in the mobile phone arena Nokia and Microsoft have agreed on a partnership that might result in Microsoft's Office applications appearing on Nokia phones.

The agreement, which is yet to be officially announced comes as Microsoft sees its dominance being increasingly challenged by competition like Google Docs that allow web-based office application access. With phones getting better and more "web-friendly", users are using their phones to view, edit and transfer official documents, spreadsheets and presentations, right from their phones. So, it was only a matter of time when Microsoft had to partner with Nokia, arguably the worlds largest manufacturer of mobile phones.

On the flip side, Nokia too is facing the heat from newer rivals and software platforms like the iPhone and more recently, Google's very own Android platform. Interestingly, Microsoft and Nokia too compete with each other, albeit indirectly if you add in Windows Mobile, Microsoft's smartphone OS platform to the list of competing mobile OSes. For the same reason, it is widely expected that this co-operation will only exist for MS Office access on Nokia phones and nothing beyond that.