Ovi is new brand name from Nokia

OVI - MEANING DOOR in Finnish - is the new brand name which Nokia has launched today for its Internet based services. It looks suspiciously like the portals which mobile network operators already offer.

The site is already up and running and shows how Ovi will kick off with four basic elements - photos, maps, music and games.

Of these four, Nokia was already offering a maps and guides service for owners of the N95 which has GPS built-in.

The biggest news surrounds the new Nokia Music Store which should be open for business in Q4 2007. Initially it will be confined to Europe.

The company dodged questions about how much individual tracks would cost but claimed that its portfolio will kick off with millions of songs from both big name artists and independent bands.

The store is believed to utilise the technology Nokia gained when it acquired Loudeye in 2006. Loudeye is believed to have a catalogue of around 1.6 million tracks.

The first phones to feature Nokia's Xpress Music facility which will be compatible with the Music store are the Nokia N81 and Nokia N95 8GB multimedia model which are due out before Xmas.

What Nokia didn't make very clear is how tracks on its Music Store will be protected from piracy, although the INQ thought there was some mention of Windows DRM.

The purpose behind Ovi is to put all the kinds of services which a mobile phone user would want in one place. Included in this is access to all the usual social network sites and photo sharing sites.

Nokia hinted that it had shared its plans with its major customers - the mobile network operators. How they will react to a major threat to their own portal businesses is anybody's guess.

Nokia is probably willing to take the risk given the concessions that Apple is purportedly extracting from its network partners in Europe. µ

L'INQ
Ovi