NOKIA’S CEO stood up to competition from the computer world yesterday, giving credit where credit’s due – but keeping his poker face firmly held.

Admitting that rivals Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM had raised the bar considerably, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said that having the mightiest companies in the world as your competition is a little mind-boggling.

Nokia, which holds a 40 percent share of the global mobile phone market, is used to competing with the likes of Samsung, Motorola, LG Electronics and Sony Ericsson, but the newcomers to the mobile feast have made the industry bigger and better.

Although slightly wary of the growing competition, Kallasvuo applauded RIM for the creation, and continued development of the Blackberry and its strategy of providing complete solutions for managing corporate email securely.

And in answer to all of this competition for the contents of the corporate communication coffers, Nokia has recently struck a deal with Microsoft to deliver this type of email service itself. Kallasvuo is therefore positive Nokia can quickly overtake the upstarts in this sector. "We will exceed the RIM client in some months with a very good e-mail system,” he promised.

Kallasvuo also gave Apple a slice of his compliment pie by saying the company had done the mobile phone industry "a big favour".

Although the CEO took his metaphorical hat off to Apple, he shortly followed this by saying that, "Of course we need to be able to respond to any competitor and we will."

Google seems to worry the Nokia main man the least, as the world changing Internet behemoth was shrugged of as too much of a newcomer to affect the mobile industry just yet – although we think he’ll be keeping a close eye on Googantua and its Android phones in the future. µ

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