Nokia accelerates drive into content and services business

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:19:01 -0400

Having revealed that its Ovi apps store had already attracted thousands of developers and content providers wanting to sell their content in its online store, Nokia has also announced a slew of other service products in its fight-back against Apple and RIM.

Regardless of Nokia's view that Ovi could reach over 50 million consumers when it launches next month, the company seems determined to push forward on a wider front by providing services developed internally. Firstly, its Point & Find application--which allows people to access information and services through the Internet by pointing their mobile phone camera at "real-life" objects--has now entered into a Beta test phase in the UK and US.

In the UK, Turner Europe is using the service to allow users to point their camera phones at various Cartoon Network related objects to access show or product information on their phones. An additional edge to Point & Find, according to Nokia, is that it integrates GPS, thereby supporting location-based capabilities, such as the movie-finding service.

The firm also said it now supports Hotmail using the Nokia email messaging service, which would join Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, Gmail, and others available on Nokia handsets.

Lastly, a prototype of the Nokia photo browser has been released that will enable users with new ways to browse photos. The app includes "Face browsing," which uses face detection technology to find people's faces from pictures and allows them to flick on them to view them more closely. Another feature is the "MagGlass" magnifier, which gives a magnifying glass effect for image zooming.

For more on this story:
Mobile News, Mobile Today and Cellular News

Nokia plays iPhone catch-up, and looks for future investments

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:41:44 -0400

The launch of remote synchronisation and file management by Nokia is an attempt by the company to offer similar applications to Apple's iPhone. This step-by-step approach to upgrading Nokia's Ovi service -- albeit still far behind Apple's MobileMe offering, is being promoted by the company as a safer route forward than Apple's bug-ridden big-bang approach.

Nokia's VP of product and portfolio management, Jussi Nevanlinna, said, "Our stepwise approach to rolling out and integrating these and other elements of Ovi lets us learn and adjust according to the feedback we receive from people."

The company has also made clear it wants to broaden its working relationship with the social media site Facebook, while admitting it was also talking to many large social networking firms to enable and improve access to their sites from Nokia phones.

While Nokia has not declared subscriber numbers for its Internet services, the revenues generated in Q2/08 were nearly €120 million, up 42 per cent from the previous quarter. Given this growth, the company is strongly rumoured to be looking for further acquisitions to speed up the deployment of new services and improve the overall features and capability of its mobile Internet offering.

For more on this story:
- go to The Register

Related articles:
App Store frustrations bedevil iPhone developers. MobileMe story
Nokia to Demonstrate Latest Elements of Ovi. Nokia Ovi story