Nokia begins rolling out Microsoft Office to Symbian handsets

Having already started to roll out Microsoft business apps to its newer Symbian-powered smartphones, Nokia has today announced that it has started seeding Microsoft Office — including mobile versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint — to Belle-enabled handsets.

Microsoft Office was previously limited to Windows Phone smartphones but as a result of the collaboration between Nokia and the Redmond-based software giant the Nokia 701, Nokia 700, Nokia 603, Nokia E7, Nokia X7, Nokia C7, Nokia Oro, and Nokia C6-01 will now be able to take advantage of the productivity apps.

Currently, they will be available via a Nokia Suite update, but the Finnish mobile giant says that they will become available to download on the Nokia Store in the coming weeks.

Nokia details the features available to Symbian device owners:

If you’re a Word user, you’ll appreciate the fact that with Word mobile, you can save or send documents while preserving tables, SmartArt and charts, or the pinch/zoom functionality to easily view and edit documents.

In PowerPoint mobile, you can edit presentation texts and speaker notes, or use the Outline view to quickly browse through slides. With Excel mobile, you can create charts, or insert formulae and view rich data and charts from anywhere.

In February, Nokia began rolling out Microsoft business apps to Symbian Belle-enabled handsets. While users weren’t able to edit Office documents on the go, they still had access to Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Document Connection, Microsoft Lync 2010 Mobile and Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer, which enabled the creation and sharing of other files and data.

Given that the previous apps required the Symbian Belle update, we imagine it will be the same for Microsoft Office. Nokia doesn’t state that in its post, however.

Nokia N8, Nokia E6 and Nokia 500 will have to wait for the apps to become available but the company says that its new 41-megapixel Nokia 808 PureView will come loaded with Microsoft’s full suite when it launches.