Nokia has struck another high-profile operator content deal, this time signing a three-year agreement with France Telecom’s Orange to bring the Finnish vendor’s mobile maps and games services to Orange customers in nine European countries, including the UK, from this year. The two companies are aiming for 10 million Orange customers using Nokia’s mobile maps by 2010. However, according to a Guardian report, the deal is a “step back” for Nokia as it does not include the full suite of Ovi mobile services. Orange will share revenue with Nokia and the agreement will see the latter’s mobile maps co-branded with the operator’s name. While Orange and Nokia will sell their own games under their own brands, the deal does not incorporate Nokia’s music service. Orange customers buying any one of ten new Nokia handsets in the second half of this year will have one-click access to Orange’s music store, which has about a million tracks.

A separate Reuters report today claims that mobile operators are not happy with Nokia’s push into mobile services, despite tier one players such as T-Mobile, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and Vodafone already having signed up for Nokia’s offering. The report cites T-Mobile chief executive Hamid Akhavan stating: “My life would be simpler if they would have not come to my space. It is still not the happiest thing to have someone try and take your cheese away.” Earlier this week Nokia revealed it has invested “hundreds of millions of euros” in its new software and services strategy, but does not expect to see a return on investment until 2010.