The announcement that Vodafone has agreed to distribute a range of Nokia devices carrying Nokia’s Ovi Internet service represents a major breakthrough in mobile entertainment.
Ovi offers users of Nokia devices access to the Nokia music store, games, mapping and social networking services hosted and delivered directly from the handset manufacturer.
Until now, major operators been reluctant to make access to third-party services that might compete with the operator’s own service available from pre-installed handset icons. Increasingly, however, they are taking a more open approach and are partnering with major brands such as Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo!, giving users access to familiar services to encourage take-up of mobile broadband.
While small operators have promoted OEM services, the majors have always done their own thing and kept the device manufacturers at arm’s length. This deal is the first indication that this attitude is changing and that major operators realise they need to engage the device community to deliver the end-to-end experiences that users want.
This change has allowed Nokia to take a significant step forward in emulating Apple to become a major content provider in its own right. What we need to see now is how Nokia will execute that strategy and provide the ease of use and PC integration of the service already offered by Apple.
In the lead up to Vodafone’s announcement, Analysys has previously indicated that, rather than Apple or Google, Nokia with Ovi is the one to watch for online mobile content. We anticipate that following this deal, Nokia’s Ovi will be broadly accepted by operators as an integral mobile content service, and as a result, will firmly establish Nokia as a leader in this market.
