by Paul Gibson
Home >> Never Say Never
In a recent article published in the popular business periodical Forbes, Nokia announces their latest business strategy: to create a platform to systematically control and dominate the telecom market by offering direct downloads from the web to your mobile phone.
Currently the mobile phone market offers downloads of music, video games, etc. via personal computers. A perfect example of such technology is the Apple iPhone, which offers music downloads from their iTunes. Nokia has introduced Ovi, the company’s new internet services platform, which will bypass a personal computer and offer downloads from the internet directly to your mobile phone. While the product has yet to be launched, the technology is a huge advance in accessibility.
To insure a healthy share of the potential market, Nokia has already signed deals with four main music labels: Warner Music, Sony, Universal and EMI.
In addition to their new strategy, Nokia also plans to restructure the company into three main divisions to meet up with the expectations created by their new business model. One division will focus exclusively on design and manufacture; another on sales and marketing; and a third will concentrate on supply and distribution.
The target date for launch of the Ovi is some time in the fourth quarter (October). But Nokia is not predicting a sales explosion any time soon. The new Ovi will have to replace the older, less advanced Nokia phones which number about 900 million. The company has made an ambitious plan to replace these phones with their new N81 Ovi phone in just two years time.
But the price tag of the latest phone is less than desirable. If you want to get your hands on the N81, it will cost you a hefty 350 euros. If you require more memory, that price may rise up to 550 euros, depending on your personal needs.
The interesting and well-kept secret is that those who just wish to navigate in Google and access their hotmail would access the Internet via their Nokia Web browser. (Sound familiar?)
The business plan is both daring and unnerving. Nokia Maps will offer a free map service for over 100 countries. Music downloads will be available for a cost of one euro per soundtrack and video games will cost anywhere from 6 to 8 euros. With this provocative and risky gamble, Nokia hopes to quickly spread their business across the board, sparking the interest and business of telephone operators around the world.
Released under the following licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeriv
You are free to copy, distribute and display the contents of this article but you must give credit to and mention the original author. You are not allowed to use these contents for commercial purposes, and you may not modify them to make any derivative works.
For full licence description, go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.1/es/deed.en
Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2007-09-11 10:00:00 +0200
Copyright (C) ITT (http://www.itt.es) and Planet Lingua (http://www.lingua.es)
We have more weekly letters by Paul
Poll for this weekly letter
I believe that Nokia will obtain the following share of the music, video, and download market:
Licencing
You are free to copy, distribute and display the contents of this article but you must give credit to and mention the original author. You are not allowed to use these contents for commercial purposes, and you may not modify them to make any derivative works.
(click the above link for more information)
Add a comment
mmm… that sounds really strange for me. Maybe I haven’t understood but… are they sure that people want to pay by so many downloads? I guess that a company like Nokia doesn’t decide this kind of innovative stuff without studying very very well the market (global market, indeed), but I think that people more and more want to get free things from everywhere.
E.