Services are future, Nokia chief tells conference

NEW PHONES, new services and new markets were explored at Nokia World 2009 in Germany this week.

The two-day event revealed just where Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, is planning to go with its future business.

Services are the future, chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told delegates at the conference. Over the two days, those present got to see exactly what he was talking about, with two of the services, lifecasting and Nokia Money, being demonstrated.

Lifecasting has the mobile maker linking to social networking site Facebook. It lets people publish their location and status updates to their Facebook account from their mobile device home screen. The application links to Nokia’s maps feature to pinpoint a user’s location, and provides extra information such as the weather and other location-based data.

While lifecasting may be a natural progression, Nokia Money may not be quite as obvious. It was Nokia’s investment in mobile payments firm Obopay that helped the firm move into financial services, opening up mobile payments to those who are under-served by existing financial services.

The service allows people to send money to others through their mobile phone number, and those who are not part of Nokia Money will be able to access their cash at one of the network of Nokia Money agents that the firm is working to establish.

“Nokia is not becoming a bank,” said Gerhard Romen. The difference is clear: the service will be run in association with banks, but Nokia’s focus is firmly on convenience for customers. Nokia Money is to be launched next year.

Services may be the future for Nokia, but the mobile manufacturer still needs the hardware to back them up. The conference unveiled a host of new mobile devices, including new music mobiles due to be launched by the end of the year – the X3, X6, 5230 and the N97 Mini.

The X6 will be available with the Comes With Music service in a widescreen touch-controlled device that has been optimised for watching videos and TV. The X3 is the first series 40 Ovi Store enabled device, with a 2.2 inch screen, and it supports up to 16GB of storage through microSD.

The 5230 will take advantage of the Comes With Music service in certain markets, and builds in a new version of Ovi Maps and GPS.

The N97 Mini is Nokia’s bid to get its device into markets that it may have missed. Executive vice-president of markets, Anssi Vanjoki, said it was making products and services available to the masses and not just “the elite”. Nokia hopes the N97 Mini will find its way into the pockets of “young explorers”, evident from the link- up with the Lonely Planet guide.

The Nokia Booklet 3G and the N900 had already been unveiled to the world’s press, but the event provided a first chance to get a detailed look at the specs and the devices themselves.

The Booklet, a portable netbook computer, is a new departure for Nokia, and promises a lot – up to 12 hours of battery life for a start. It will use Windows 7 rather than an open platform, and has a 1.6Ghz Atom processor.

Mr Kallasvuo described the Booklet as a “great example of the convergence of mobility and computers”.

The N900 is the first device with cellular capability to use Nokia’s new Linux-based Maemo platform. The device is not Nokia’s first bid to build what it refers to as an “internet tablet”, but is the first one from Nokia to include mobile phone capabilities.

The N900, capable of multi-tasking in a similar way to a normal PC, comes with Wifi and is compatible with 3G networks.

Jonas Geust, vice-president of Nokia N series, does not believe that the N900 will cannibalise the market for its Booklet. “They will complement each other,” he said.

Applications for the N900 will be sold through the Ovi store, but because it is based on open source software, Linux applications can be ported over to Maemo, and developers can formulate their own applications for the device.