Quickoffice, Inc., which provides mobile office productivity software and solutions, has entered into a multi-year agreement with Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) that includes the Quickoffice software platform on all future Sony Ericsson smartphones.

With the pact in place, customers will have fast and easy access to their native Microsoft (News - Alert) Office files and will be able to open, view, edit and create documents directly from their Symbian UIQ smartphones.

Quickoffice will also provide Quickmanager, an on-device e-commerce portal, to Sony Ericsson’s growing base of smartphone customers that allows users to upgrade their on-device software over-the-air, and provides mobile consumers and business professionals with the latest applications.

This agreement will also allow both companies to collaborate on future new and innovative productivity solutions for mobile professionals.

“This agreement with Sony Ericsson is a testament to our product quality as well as the ever-increasing depth and breadth of our solution offerings,” said Gregg Fiddes (News - Alert), VP of sales and strategic partnerships at Quickoffice, in a press release. “Quickoffice develops software and services based on our years of experience in partnering with the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers, such as Sony Ericsson, and the feedback we receive from them is invaluable to our end-users.”

UIQ-based phones were developed by Quickoffice to take advantage of the significant next-generation usability advancements the UIQ platform offers.

Benefits include extensive personalization possibilities, a richer user experience and ease-of-use. The user can now perform several tasks simultaneously, such as downloading emails and writing notes.

“It is of great value to UIQ Technology (News - Alert) to have such a partner as strong as Quickoffice create solutions that extend the reach of the office. Mobile business professionals now have anytime, anywhere access to their Office files and other important content,” said Carina Lindberg, head of partner management at UIQ Technology.

“Quickoffice offers Sony Ericsson a leading and cost-effective solution to meet our customers’ demands for Office document viewing and editing on our Symbian UIQ phones,” said Nicklas Sivander, head of Symbian Product Management at Sony Ericsson. “This advanced Quickoffice software platform will give our consumers a richer user experience, while improving their productivity and lifestyle.”

Privately held, Quickoffice, Inc. is based in Dallas, Texas, with offices in London, England and Ottawa, Canada enhances users’ lifestyles and increases mobile productivity by virtually eliminating the need to rely on a laptop when accessing Office content away from home or office.

The software enables mobile professionals to benefit from optimized handling of all important Office document files and now offers a wide range of robust features and services, which include multi-lingual spell check and superior document ‘round-trip’ capabilities to retain file formatting and maintain data integrity.

Quickoffice’s robust software product line-up includes Quickoffice Premier, which allows hi-fidelity viewing and editing of Microsoft Office documents, Quickmanager, which is an embedded e-commerce application that allows for over-the-air upgrades and purchases, and Quickaccess, which provides for remote access of PC-based content. Quickoffice Premier has been thoroughly tested by and ships through major operators such as Vodafone, Orange, China Mobile (News - Alert) and Cingular and also ships worldwide as a built-in solution on tens of millions of smartphones.

Quickoffice Premier, which is available in almost 50 languages, has been a top-selling mobile office application since its initial market introduction in 1997.

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Anil Sharma is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.