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On August 29, 2007, Nokia Corporation (Nokia), the world's leading manufacturer of mobile phones announced the launch of its new internet service, branded as 'Ovi', in London.
The launch of Ovi heralded the diversification of Nokia from a pure maker of mobile phones to a provider of a range of internet and software services. Ovi means "door" in Finnish, and was expected to provide its users access to a range of services like the existing Nokia map services, the N-Gage gaming platform and the 'Nokia Music Store' (NMS).
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Ovi was set to be positioned as an umbrella brand for services provided by Nokia as well as services from third parties such as Yahoo, Inc.'s (Yahoo) Flickr. Mobile and PC users could access Nokia's online music store, play games, share photos and navigate city maps and guides through Nokia maps.
The add-on Nokia software applications for business users would also be available on this new internet service. One of the major highlights of Ovi was the new NMS which was directly pitted against Apple Inc.'s (Apple) iTunes. The NMS was a digital music library that could be accessed through a PC or directly from a Nokia mobile device.
Here users could browse, purchase or download songs in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. Individual tracks were priced at €1 while albums and monthly subscription for PC steaming were priced at €10. Nokia's offerings came as no surprise for analysts as the global handset major had acquired digital music distributor Loudeye for about 60 million dollars in 2006.
Nokia had already signed a deal with four leading music labels of the world. A key differentiating factor for the Nokia's new internet service was the new and unique user interface that it offered. Users could search for the music they wanted with recommendations and instant play-lists. It offered millions of tracks from around the world.
User would also have a choice to access local music in addition to the international tracks. The N-Gage gaming system which was also made a part of Ovi was an attempt by Nokia to enter the mobile gaming space which it lost to Sony's Play Station portable (PSP).
The N-Gage gaming zone of Ovi provided access to games like The Sims Pets, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, EA Sports FIFA 08, World Rally Championship and Crash Bandicoot. The trial versions of these games could be downloaded from the web and purchased later if the user liked it.
Nokia contended that, with Ovi, its customers would be able to better access their existing social networks and content as a result of the bundled services, and the company was planning to introduce many more services in the future. Ovi would be launched in Europe in the fourth quarter of 2007, and in Asia in 2008.
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