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.

It looks LG is preparing to launch the successor of its popular mobile TV-enabled Env model in the near future. Apparently, the image above represents the upcoming VX10000 phone, which according to the logo on the left is heading to Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless. Are we about to see the introduction of wide mobile TV? Or the large screen is destined to be used for some PIM software and possible enhanced web browsing experience? Seems promising, what do you say?

[Via: slashphone]

Here’s something for those of you owning the high-end smartphone or an expensive fashion phone like Vertu or Mobiado. It’s obvious your device needs an appropriate good-lookin, high-quality headset. The recently announced Sennheiser Communications’ FLX 70 could do the job. Actually, it does the job FLAWLESSLY. There’s the advanced DSP based noise management system built inside this stylish baby, ensuring highest possible audio quality. In addition, Sennheiser Communications invested an extra effort to make the FLX 70 as ergonomic and comfortable as possible. Price is still not disclosed, but prepare to sell both leg AND arm in November, when this headset hit the stores. Or, go for something more affordable, as I do.

Few days ago, Reuters ran a story speculating that Redmond-based empire may be interested to acquire Research In Motion (RIM). While this appears to be pure analyst speculation, it’s important to note that shares of the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) maker did experience a 3% increase, following the release of the news story.

Apparently, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) may want to do this so it could match Google (NSDQ: GOOG), who may release its own phone — or at least the mobile OS. On the other hand, acquisition of the handset maker could translate as knife in the backs of Microsoft’s partners who make their living by selling Windows Mobile-powered smartphones. The compromise solution seems to acquire RIM and get rid of their handset business — i.e. buy a market share. Or simple invest more in product development and marketing, and soon you won’t even think about RIM.

Friday is a good “ranting day,” isn’t it?

[Via: Boy Genius Report]

A Chinese handset maker have managed to make a device which resembles some of the popular business-centric smartphones with full QWERTY keyboard. No slide-out mechanism, this device looks like a one of the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) or HTC smartphones — and possibly has some similarities with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E61(i)/E62. That being said, I’m not going to classify this as a ripoff, as many devices on the market today have a similar keyboard.

Interesting thing to note about this phone is that while it originates from the “world’s fastest growing economy”, it doesn’t use some Chinese mobile OS, but Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Windows Mobile 5. There’s also the 200 Mhz processor, 2 MP camera, 128 MB FLASH ROM, 64 MB RAM, and the microSD expansion slot — all packed in a familiar form factor which measures 116X64X15 mm and weighs 110 grams.

Now that I’m thinking, this may end up as a great device, especially if it gets priced as we expect it to… Two more pictures after the break.

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Just when we thought the Nokia N73 Special Edition for Middle East and North Africa markets is the single best looking Nokia (NYSE: NOK) smarpthone, the Finish handset maker proved us wrong. As you can see from the picture above, Nokia’s “ultimate challenge to the digital camera” exists in all white and it’s beautiful. Apparently, the device has been spotted in Taiwan and at the moment retails for about $420. I wonder why it took so long for Nokia to release this?

[Via: CellPhones.ca]

Following Canada, EQO decided to send its guerrilla fighters towards Mexico. And they’ve managed to free yet another country…

Now Mexicans can also benefit from the low-cost phone calls, while IMing with their buddies on MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Talk, ICQ and Jabber at the same time. Apparently, EQO will save users in Mexico up to 95% on calls and 70% on text messages. Using EQO, calls from Mexico to US cost 2.3 cents per minute, while texting costs 10 cents per message. And let’s not forget – calls between two EQO users are free, wherever they are.

Guess you’re wondering why we keep reporting on every tiny tidbit coming from EQO? I know, we love them — they provide a great service, you should definitely try out.

With HTC’s recent product launches, we couldn’t imagine their portfolio getting any more amazing. So it’s a good thing we didn’t have to imagine the new HTCmail service from, well, HTC. It looks like the smartphone manufacturing powerhouse is getting into the email-game to help promote the mobile productivity of their smartphone lineup. We missed the announcement, it was understandably overshadowed by HTC’s launching of the HTC TyTN II (Kaiser).

The HTCmail service is a fully hosted, secure, managed email solution that’s based on Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Hosted Exchange. With real-time access to up to five separate email accounts, you no longer have to worry about making all your email accounts play nicely with your mobile device. HTCmail simply aggregates all that email and delivers it to your mobile phone through Outlook 2007. And, on top of email, HTCmail will sync your calendar and contacts on the go.

The new service will work on all HTC smartphones and is expected to go live across Europe in September 2007. HTCmail will offer 20GB email storage and a 20MB send email size limit – impressive by any standard.

The recent trend for mobile phone manufacturers seems to be to offer more and more web-based services. We gotta say, it’s a good thing. Offering new services to help consumers leverage the power of their expensive smartphones seems like a good way to get the end-user more involved and enthused about their gadgets. Bring on the web-services!

Source

As if to make up for all those trademark shirking, innovation lacking knock-off factories in China, we find this Chinese GPS phone that doesn’t even have a name. This thing doesn’t purport to be any sort of name-brand phone – it’s just a run-of-the-mill Chinese phone, but with GPS. Oh, and it only costs about $130USD! At that kind of price point, we’d can’t imagine why any and all Chinese citizens wouldn’t be trekking around the countryside with their GPS phone in hand (okay $130 is a lot of money, we’re just making a point).

The mystery GPS phone comes packed with Chinese obligatories like the gaudy speakers on the backside, the silk-screened touchscreen, and dual-SIM capability. It’s just too bad that this GPS phone is custom tailored to China’s GPS system – which means we’ll never see functional GPS on this thing Stateside (or any side outside of China, for that matter).

Keep reading for more pics.

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Could these be actual live spy pictures of a Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) K900 Cybershot cameraphone? We certainly hope so, this thing is as sleek and sexy as it is, well, sleek and sexy. And, with a Cybershot camera packed in there, the SE K900 will be a definite winner.

Now, if only those pictures below weren’t so damned blurry/overexposed/horribly lit, we could actually get our hopes up on this thing. But, it does look just like the computer mockup of Sony Ericsson K900 Cybershot that you see to the left.
Real or fake? You decide – we’ll wait on more solid images to pass judgement. As much as we’d like for this thing to be more than some enthusiast’s Photoshop exercise, it’s just too shady to be believable at this point – but we hope we’re wrong.

[Via: Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]