With all the noise Apple is making around the 3G iPhone, Nokia has been making tremendous waves recently that should leave the company in an interesting position to maintain its relevance and spot as a major player in the mobile market. One of its primary new initiatives is Ovi, geared at providing new Internet based services to mobile devices. They have also been on an acquisition spree to strategically expand the range of its businesses. It will be interesting to see how Nokia is able to integrate these various components into a cohesive customer experience. Here is a quick rundown of some their major announcements over the past year:
1. Comes With Music
For starters, they will soon be releasing their "Comes with Music" initiative, a subscription music service that will waive the fee for the first year with purchase of a new Nokia music handset that supports the service. The big attraction is that for the first year, a customer can download as many tracks as they want and store them on their PC even after their subscription expires. There is a hot debate on the "catch" to this. There must be some sort of DRM that limits the amount of songs you can download, otherwise everyone can go out and buy a huge hard drive and go nuts. In any event, Nokia can now have a stronger hold on the customer experience by selling the hardware and supporting it with music content.
2. Navteq Acquisition
Acquiring the leading map information service in the world leaves Nokia with a wide range of possibilities. It can now create a more tightly integrated GPS/phone product so consumers can have a compelling GPS experience on the one device they always have with them. This, together with the fact that Garmin is coming out with its own phone, Nuvifone, means we can expect GPS to take a more prominent position in marketing messaging around new phones going forward. Up until now, most of the hype has been around music.
Beyond just the device implications, Nokia now broadens its services business by generating revenue from all the various products and services on the market using Navteq maps. Now even if someone doesn't purchase Nokia hardware, they could still be a Nokia customer.
3. Enpocket Acquisition
The next strategic move was the acquisition of Enpocket. With this move, Nokia is adding the ability to have stronger control on mobile ad delivery to handsets. Given the expected growth in this market, Nokia is further differentiating its revenue sources as well as providing itself a way to enhance their relationships with carriers and content publishers.
Nokia has made many other moves, especially in the social media realm in acquiring startups such as Plazes and Twango to add social networking applications to its portfolio. I am personally excited to see what type of user experience Nokia can now create with all of these various services in one device. It's safe to say the device wars are certainly going to heat up over the next few years.
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