Nokia phones are on track to carry support for Microsoft's PlayReady DRM technology by next year, to help tackle the growing desire for multimedia content on mobile phones.

"People are increasingly using their mobile devices for enjoying digital content, such as music, games, videos and photos," said Ilkka Raiskinen, senior vice president of Multimedia Experiences at Nokia.

"By adding support for Microsoft PlayReady technology, we are enabling service providers to offer a wide range of content and create truly compelling experiences across mobile devices, personal computers and online services. We plan to support PlayReady across a range of S60 and Series 40 devices starting in 2008."

The technology supports a wide range of audio and video formats including Windows Media Audio (WMA), Windows Media Video (WMV), AAC, AAC+, AMR and H.264.

As part of the agreement, Nokia and Microsoft will also collaborate on finding ways to make it easier and faster for users to access a range of content using mobile devices.

Nokia hopes that by supporting PlayReady, it will be easier for content owners and service providers to offer premium digital content by increasing its range of DRM protection options.

"Through our collaboration with Nokia, we aim to deliver a compelling platform that offers consumers seamless access to virtually any type of digital content they want," said Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of the Consumer Media Technology Group at Microsoft.

"Nokia's breadth of offering in this space, coupled with core digital media technology from Microsoft in the form of PlayReady, will bring new mobile entertainment scenarios to life for millions of consumers around the world."

Microsoft released the PlayReady Porting Kit for mobile devices in early August 2007, and expects the first services using the PlayReady technology to appear in 2008.

In addition, PlayReady is designed to be fully backward-compatible with Windows Media DRM 10, which means that devices supporting PlayReady can access existing Windows Media DRM-based content as well as new content services.