Ovi: Nokia’s first step thru a door that leads to a strange new world
By Stefan Constantinescu on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 10:22 AM PST In Nokia, Ovi
The image above of Nokia (NYSE: NOK) CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo standing in front of a room full of press proclaiming that devices are not enough is a sight that sent shivers down my spine. When you take into consideration how the company has made revenue for the past two decades, on mobile devices, you realize that the next transition is about to happen and you’re witnessing history. The first thing people are going to ask is why bother Nokia, you’re already on top of the world right now in the mobile sector?
The old saying goes that to understand and predict the future you have to be a student of the past. I like to correlate Nokia’s history to that of a being a Finnish citizen. In 1865 there were no telephones and the primary form of communication was via text printed or written on paper. Fredrik Idestam setup a factory in Southern Finland on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids and later the Nokianvirta River. He wanted to sell paper to the Finnish people and reap the benefits of this ever increasing demand.
In order to make paper you need to cut down trees and for the Finnish citizen that meant work in the forest. In 1890 people didn’t own vast amounts of clothing like we enjoy today, so it was only logical to make boots out of rubber that would keep you dry and clean. With that in mind the Finnish Rubber Works was started; to not only provide equipment for the workers, but for the machines used to make the actual pulp and other industrial products.
Now there are all these Nokia employees cutting down trees and making paper, they are friends and want to keep in touch, but how do you do that in 1912? You start the Finnish Cable Works and lay down the start of a communications infrastructure. People also need power and what better way to insulate cables than with rubber, the same rubber you’ve been making for the past 14 years.
For the next half century things are going great. Finnish people are cutting down trees wearing Nokia boots to make Nokia paper that will probably have information written on it at night time thanks to a light bulb powered by a Nokia cable. With all this data now floating around there has to be an easier way to store, locate and manipulate it. Computers are the wave of the future; the world realizes this and companies begin pouring tons of money into research and in 1960 Nokia begin selling computers to fill these new demands.
The paper producer, cable maker and electronic equipment manufacture didn’t become an official corporation until 1967 when Björn Westerlund was to be its first president. This company is so big that the Finnish people sitting at the top of their respective departments need some way to communicate while traveling around the country. In 1981 the Nordic Mobile Telephone company is created and one year later the first car phone is release by Nokia, the Mobira 450.
Rolling around in your Mercedes with a phone must have been awesome sight to see, but what about something to carry around with you no matter where you are? In 1987 the Mobira Cityman 900 was released and it was the first mobile phone to weigh under a kilogram coming in at only 800 grams with a price tag of close to 4500 Euros. As time went on these things obviously got smaller and cheaper and more capable; the regular Finnish man, woman and child could now keep in touch, regardless of location.
20 years later, on August 29th, Ovi was announced and with that the next page of the Nokia story is ready to be written. Phone calls and text messages are fantastic and have served us well for a long time, but people want to do more with their mobile and this is where the future is heading. No longer are we communicating via text or speech, instead we share photos, movies, music, games, people want to share their lives and the uptake of Web 2.0 services in the past few years proved this. To my disappointment the major news outlets aren’t taking this seriously while on the opposite end of the spectrum I can’t stop thinking about what this will mean for the future of services and the telecommunications industry as a whole.
Ovi will launch and give people a music store, videogames with N-Gage and mapping data. It will let you integrate with the communities you and your friends already use and more details will be given out over the course of 12 months. Resistance will be met; the services industry is something operators have a grasp on and they will not give up their revenue streams without a fight to the death. Sales to operators are a major source of income and why Nokia has no market share in America. In the states people are nickel and dimed to death with charges for anything and everything. Features that regular unbranded devices come bundled with are intentionally being removed to increase an operator’s bottom line and Nokia frankly doesn’t want to play by those rules.
Ovi puts the ball in Nokia’s court and it will be a game that will end in either a stunning victory or a horrible defeat. Here are some of the things I am looking forward to:
- Make push email something easy for all consumers, no need to keep it corporate
- Give me my data regardless of the device or network I’m using to access it
- Back OpenID and encourage the industry to adopt it so we can finally have one login to rule them all
- Work with Adobe and their new AIR platform to create a desktop application that is the central hub to the data on your device there eliminating the need to worry about porting for Windows, Mac, Linux (Maemo?), etc.
- Create an online interface that makes Outlook Web Access look like a joke
- Make keeping track of my friends easier
- Make Ovi something for every level of device, because at one point in the future the N95 will be considered an obsolete piece of plastic that deserves to be in the museum
Ovi was personally my favorite announcement at the Go Play event. It came out of nowhere, it partially gave us a glimpse into the future, but most of all it gave me confidence that Nokia “gets it” when it comes to future usage patterns of mobile devices. Operators becoming pipes will do more good for this industry than anyone can imagine, after all the ultimate platform for innovation is the internet.
Expect more coverage of the Nokia Go Play event thru out the weekend.
Was expecting something from you. Keep it coming!
Isn’t this earth pic also on the iPhone?
Dunno… well its a pic of earth
guys it is called the blue marble, it is one of the most famous pictures ever taken, everyone has been using it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble
can we please talk about ovi now
what do you think?
Best part what i have seen (wasent there
) was indeed ovi was a pleasent suprise. Because on the device side they came with the devices that where expected to be released + the xpressmusic phones thought if possible N95 8 Gb seems even better than i expected and my expectations wherent that low to start with. Some might say that they should have introduced N82 too, but event was music oriented wasnt it (hint the name 
) They where on right tracks what i listened ,integrate and make it easier with example music store.
Stefan, this is one of the best editorial pieces that I’ve read from you. You managed to completly channel your passion for those things Nokia, and also make the reader consider a perspective different than their own. Kudos, and thanks for raising the bar.
In response to your article, I can see some of Ovi being successful, but not as much so in the US. Unless Nokia is about to make the biggest marketing push of anything ever, most in the US will not see or reap the benefits of this integrated platform. It would also help if Ovi makes an appearance on lower end handsets as well as the more notable N-series ones. That kind of penetration, along with appropriate and carrier dependent/independent marketing, will make for a better chance of things. The price point of these mobiles will be an issue for a while yet, but I am sure that enough will get out there that will at least make other offerings step up.
The key to this being a success, seemless user experience. That end Nokia doesn’t control as easily as the rest, and it will be a biggie.
“The image above of Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo standing in front of a room full of press proclaiming that devices are not enough is a sight that sent shivers down my spine.”
Were you watching the same web-cast I was? I thought it was a Red Army training camp video. (Right down to copying superior US technology with the UI demo). Of course Nokia is far ahead in phone functionality right now but the video did not give that impression. However I give them points for being earnest.
I am not an Apple cool aid fan either – I don’t like the Jobs on high approach but at least its a bit smoother.
I somewhat agree with Antoine that mind-share/thought leadership will split down along geographic zones with Apple having more mind-share in the US and Nokia/SE dominating in Europe.
“Right down to copying superior US technology with the UI demo” ?
Even the fact that most phones use gsm technology is an example of superior European technology. In case you dont know, nokia developed a touch screen phone platform called the series90 back in 2004, they discontinued that later for further development, this was obviously it.
And btw that touchscreen iphone uses is finnish made. Thought that company who invented it went bankrupt
Great piece Stefan. I’m totally with you on Ovi, it was my favouite part of the launch. The total integration is a massive thing and if it works, it could be the most important thing to happen in this industry for a long time.
Just like OPK said ‘Devices are not enough’.
Hope your flight back was OK mate. It was great meeting you, and I hope we get chance to hang out again sometime soon. We’ll hit Topman again for some 10 minute shopping
I hope that Nokia get it I really do! But I’m not quite as convinced as you Stefan, time will tell I guess.
What did you think of London?
Stefan- as others have said- this is clearly your best
editorial ever, and your passion and vision for Nokia
comes shining through. Ovi is the next beginning of
something great. I think it’s a shame that more
attention isn’t being placed on this new direction. I’m
truly excited for what’s to come and to watch the
global sized battle that I assume Nokia is going to be
in for with the service providers. It will be a great
time watching this play out. I don’t think the general
mobile population has much of an idea of how world
changing this could really be. Fantastic time for Nokia
USA to get off it’s ass and make a go at this continent
too for once!
Too bad that there are iTunes, Youtube, Flicker, Gmail, Facebook etc. Nobody needs this rubberboot.
Too bad there is microsoft, we dont need apple, too bad there is audi we dont need toyota, too bad there is… Whatever. Some people.
The target segment of Nokia can never “compete” with that of what Apple is targeting. Yeah, Nokia may have opened another service which will no doubt be successful, but it will “in no way” eat out any part of Apple’s share market.
We don’t need Ovi to be able to share photos, use maps, play games or use any other services. We have browser and we can access whatever we want.
I see Nokia going into the services business as a wrong step. They have never been good at it, let’s admit it, their web presence is quite bad.
Stick with devices, that’s what you are good at.
II think it’s a little bigger than that… Not
everything is a response to the great Apple.
Sorry to double post- didn’t see Adam’s comments before. In reference to them- we didn’t NEED Nokia to pioneer things like GSM and bluetooth, but I think we can agree that things are better since they did, right?
Nokia didn’t pioneer GSM or Bluetooth. Quit drinking the Kool-Aid, pseudofinn.
This was an awesome piece of writing Stefan. I also believe Ovi will be a world-changing phenomenon. It may take some time to be understood and widely accepted, but in the end, I think it will be looked back on as the turning point for where the mobile industry is headed.
Paulo
While nokia did not invent neither one of them, the first call ever made on a gsm network was in nokia’s network http://www.nokia.com/A4303010 and even though ericsson invented bluetooth (http://mysite.du.edu/~ccfergus/bluetoothweb/history.htm), when the bluetooth sig was first created, it included nokia.
Nokia’s own wireless technology called wibree has been merged with bluetooth (http://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/Technology/lowpower).
According to the definition of the word pioneer found here http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/pioneer, it wouldnt be wrong to say nokia pioneered those 2 standards
Xp | qX-
Thank you this is exactly what I meant. I never said that Nokia created either technology, though it’s common knowledge that they were more than just a little involved. Nokia was quite instrumental in the creation of both technologies- I guess I assumed most readers here would have known the history- especially those who seem to be referencing Nokia’s history with regards to them never being “good at services”.
Can we reference Apple’s history with mobile gadgets with respect to the Netwon, and say that they never should have created the iPod, or the iPhone? I think there’s just a simple lack of vision here.
And thanks again for the link to the definition or the term “pioneer”. I’m wondering if english is not Paulo’s first language…? I’ll put down my kool-aid when he puts down his pipe. Best to know your history before you spin off to insult people, I’d imagine…
At any rate, thanks for setting me straight about Nokia, Paulo!
Looks like Nokia fanboys are dumber than Mactards.
Giving credit to a company doesn’t make you a fanatic, saying a company will fail based on a service or a product not released yet makes you an ignorant person at best, especially when that company happens to own a big segment of the market it focuses on.
How does me knowing the history of what I’m talking
about equate to me being “dumb”??
My apologies to Stefan for this great article being sidetracked by ignorant people like this…
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