Nokia Sells a Whole Lotta Phones, Soon a Whole Lotta GPS

Well in case you weren’t already aware, Nokia is quite bullish on LBS these days. A new article out today has Nokia saying that half of the phones it sells will have navigation built in by the 2010 and 2012 timeframe. The company will sell nearly ½ billion phones in 2008 according to estimates and expects 35 million of those to come equipped with GPS (7% of current phone sales). “You will see few N or E series phones without GPS” according to Michael Halbherr, the head of LBS at Nokia. The N series sold 38 million phones and E Series sold 7 million phones last year. The company also expects all phones to have some level of coarse location awareness through either wi-fi or cell tower positioning schemes soon. As you might expect, Nokia seems to see the handset as the center of the LBS universe with storage and processing speed on the handset allowing the phone to provide much of the necessary capabilities for LBS directly rather than being heavily dependent on the phones wireless data connection to off load work to the network, which “overloads the network and degrades the consumer experience” according to Halbherr.

Hmm to throw a GPS chip in 250 million phones at $4 per chip would set them back $1 billion a year, looks like they could just buy the leading GPS manufacturer, SIRF, outright for less than half of that right now!
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Maps and more: Nokia revamps its location-based experiences

A better UI for more devices and more coverage illuminate Nokia's navigation plans

Helsinki, Finland - Speaking at the Canalys Navigation forum in Barcelona, Michael Halbherr shared insights about the current state of navigation and plans for updates and improvements for Nokia Maps. Launched in February of this year, the Nokia Maps mobile application and the Nokia Map Loader for PC's have each been downloaded over 1 million times.

A key point highlighted by Halbherr, head of the location-based experience team in Nokia Multimedia was the evolution of Nokia Maps from the first version, announced in February, to the next phase, which is available for download today. "We have taken a lot of the consumer feedback that we received when we launched Nokia Maps and are feeding that into the next versions of the product," said Mr. Halbherr.

The updated Nokia Maps application has a new streamlined user interface with improved nearby search and detailed categories. "Many people were saying that they didn't know how much data they were using, so we have added a data download counter in the map view. We also added a GPS status indicator so that you know when your device is connected to the satellites." The updated version also comes with a bonus three-day trial Navigation license free of charge*. "With this trial users can try out the service over a weekend holiday or a short business trip and discover the convenience of having a personal navigation device integrated into their mobile."

"Speaking of streamlining things," added Halbherr, "We are happy to report that we have a new and improved PC Map Loader available for users to download." The Nokia Map Loader is used to conveniently side load maps on to the device before you need them. "The improved Map Loader transfers the maps up to 10 times faster than the first version and enables downloading the voice guidance files."

Both new versions of Nokia Maps and the Nokia Map Loader are freely available to download* for selected devices at http://maps.nokia.com/

Nokia is also updating the map coverage during the second half of 2007 to bring the total number of countries covered to over 150, with more than 50 of them navigable. "Our goal is to have the world covered," exclaimed Mr. Halbherr, "We want our navigation customers to feel assured that when they travel abroad, their Nokia device has the relevant maps for them. A map is like an insurance policy against getting lost, you need it most when you are lost, and when that happens, it is invaluable."

Nokia Maps is being integrated into Ovi. Ovi is the door to Nokia's Internet services, including the Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps and N-Gage games. It will also be an open door to web communities, enabling people to access their content, communities and contacts from a single place, either directly from a compatible Nokia device or from a PC.

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The Closet Ovi?

Nokia announced yesterday a relaunch of their Club Nokia online portal, now to be called Ovi, is on its way later this year. It’s designed to sell content and services and of course create a community for Nokia phone owners... declaring that "selling devices isn't enough any more".

Ok well you learn something new every day... Ovi means "door" in Finnish. Let’s think about what else we've learned, particularly from the walled garden approach to content.

AOL did it very successfully for many, many years. In fact it is still successful to this day with the walled garden approach , although that may be more likely due to the fact that its nearly impossible to cancel the damn thing... but that’s a different story.

I think things will be significantly different this time around with mobile, while on the surface the mobile internet may look a lot like the tethered internet of 1994, don't expect a mobile walled garden approach to succeed for very long, here is why...

Online life outside the AOL compound in 1994 WAS a little scary, connections were unreliable and slow, finding sites was more difficult you had to truly "surf" from link to link to find stuff and frankly there wasn't nearly as much quality stuff out there.

Fast forward to 2007, well let’s summarize it like this... you can attend college, meet your husband/wife, buy groceries, watch TV, get a mortgage and do pretty much anything else online. In other words the Internet has developed from the simple and scary unknown, to just an extension of many people's life, with tens if not hundreds of thousands of online companies developing new products and innovations every day.

Ok so back to Ovi... so I understand why Nokia would want to build Ovi. Digital content is a lucrative business and there are obvious reasons to try to strengthen and extend the relationships they have with their customers and make some extra money at the same time. It's also promising that the press release mentions enabling customers to "access their existing social networks" ... but let’s hope that opening this closet "door" to the Nokia walled garden doesn't mean closing the front door for Nokia users.

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