GLOBAL – Great news for business users! From this week, you’ll see the first instalment of productivity apps from Microsoft – christened Microsoft Apps – arrive on your Nokia Belle smartphone for free. Not only the new and exciting user interface with six home screens, new widgets and a whole host of exciting enhancements, Belle power users also reap the full benefit of the Nokia and Microsoft partnership with these business-friendly applications.

The Nokia Belle update now makes it possible for just about anyone with a Belle phone to stay productive and connected to their work environment from just about anywhere.

David Mason, who heads the product marketing team for Business Mobility, had this to say:

“The idea of IT consumerisation is no longer just an idea – it’s real and happening everywhere around us. People are making their own choices when it comes to deciding which smartphone they want to carry – at home and at work. And there’s really no need for a separate phone just to check your work email. With all the right security policies, great devices and the right apps – especially when they were developed and tested by Microsoft – both you and your IT manager can stay happy.”

Here’s what’s included in the first instalment:

Microsoft® OneNote™ enables you to create rich text notebooks using words and images. These notebooks are automatically synced with SkyDrive, so you’ll never lose an important note again, and you can access them from all your Windows-enabled devices.

Microsoft® Document Connection provides a single view to all documents in your device, attached in your emails and in SharePoint. See all your important documents in one glimpse and filter them by person, time and document type to find the one you are looking for.

Microsoft® Lync™ 2010 Mobile gives you the ability chat with your colleagues using IM. Want to chat with the whole team? The multi-party chat is perfect for the job. Always keep the team up-to-date with your presence (online, offline, busy, and so on).

Microsoft® PowerPoint® Broadcast lets you share your PowerPoint presentations from your PC via your phone. You can also combine these with Lync audio messages, too.

With support for 48 different languages, wherever you are in the world, you’ll be able to stay productive on your Nokia Belle smartphone.

Microsoft Apps are available for the Nokia E7, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia X7, Nokia Oro, Nokia 700, Nokia 701, Nokia 603 right away, and later for Nokia N8, Nokia E6 and Nokia 500. The new productivity apps will be delivered to your phone via the software update app on your phone, and only once you’ve updated to Nokia Belle. So keep your eyes peeled for the notification.

Also watch out for more exciting business news on the next instalment of Microsoft Apps in the coming months. For the first time ever, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be made available as native applications in a smartphone, outside Microsoft’s own platforms.

Will you be downloading these apps? Let us know, in the comments below.