Orange kneecaps Nokia

And good luck with the portal, guys...

Orange UK disclosed the details of its Christmas range of handsets last week - giving the bum's rush to two of the biggest phone manufacturers.

Nokia and Motorola are both conspicuously absent from the new line-up (details here). Sony Ericsson is favoured with three Walkman-branded phones, the W910i, W580i, and the budget W200. Samsung features, as does LG's pink Shine, and Orange has already revealed the first of a new range of own brand phones called "Berlin". But there's nothing from the number one and number three manufacturers.

Orange has already indicated its displeasure at Nokia's bid to capture service revenues with its new Ovi portal - these are services that operators such as Orange reckon are rightfully theirs. After all, when you buy a Samsung TV, you don't expect to watch a Samsung TV channel...

Nor is Orange alone. Industry watchers are keen to see how the operators will retaliate to Ovi, with Nokia's attractive new music phone N81 perhaps the first casualty. 3 UK is already carrying it - will the others ensure the N81 sinks without trace?

As recently as April Nokia and Moto commanded 54 per cent market share between them. ®