My Interaction with Mr. Anssi Vanjoki (EVP of Nokia)

Yesterday evening, I attended the CEO forum organized by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Whole event was very well organized and most experts from the telecom and mobile field in general were there among the attendees. Mr. Anssi Vanjoki (EVP of Nokia) was the key speaker for the event.

 

He presented Nokia, from where it started, what it is today and where the whole company is heading to. It was a great presentation and I am giving in the following few lines, the summary of what I got out of the whole presentation and interaction with him.

 

Nokia when it started had launched a big mobile phone which people used to keep as a status symbol as every single piece used to cost around Euro 9000. Whereas today, the size is much smaller with better features and comes in merely Euro 20 each. Earlier, the mobile device was used only for calling and recieving. But today Nokia’s business revolves around much more than just voice. In fact voice is just an add-on feature on top of everything else. Today Nokia’s business revolves around internet, navigation, videos, photos, applications, games, music etc.

 

Vision of Nokia and also their promise is – A World Where Everybody can be Connected.

 

Key trends in todays world are:

 

1. Social Networking – driving new communications behavior.
2. Context – creating next generation web (connecting place, people, time).
3. Context – webNG (sharing – contacts, locations, time, online or mobile status etc.).
4. Point&find – search the world around you – matching real and virtual info to share and transact.

Consumers drive Nokia’s thinking. Context is at the heart of Nokia and thus they have launched OVI. People expect complete solutions like synchronization in between mobile, web and desktop. Here OVI comes in. Eg. Maps from the world can be downloaded on ovi on desktop to mobile free of cost. Nokia comes with music, download all that u can consume in an year into OVI and onto your mobile, all free of cost. People will be able to browse the photos in 3D environment inside OVI. OVI is the next major innovation platform where developers and operators are invited to make applications.

 

Qt – environment is yest another innovative platform being developed by Nokia where any application that runs on symbian will also work in any other platform entertaining Qt – environment.

Dream WiMAX Phone Coming to Russia

Imagine having access to broadband speeds on your phone without the need for a WiFi hotspot. Yes, such a phone is soon going to be launched in Russia. Dates are not know however, according to floating news, it will be soon enough. In addition to a WiMax radio, the device will have WiFi, tri-band GSM, microSD, dual cameras, 3.5mm audio, an A/V plug and a gargantuan 850 x 480 screen, which should blow the iPhone away.

You can read the full story here.

gPhone or G1 – Google’s Android-based phone emerges

Well…here comes G1 – Google’s Android phone from T-Mobile USA. This is the iPhonesque phone from Google running its Android operating system and manufactured by HTC of Taiwan. Incidentally, it is also the first Android phone, Android being the Open Source Mobile Operating System being promoted by Google via its Open Handset Alliance (OHA).

G1 is available from T-Mobile USA from Oct 22 for $179 (with a 2 year contract) but the carrier is pre-selling the phone from today.

Take a look :

Google phone G1

 

Google G1 (photo by Mark Lennihan)

It looks nice. Does it compare with iPhone. It comes close but still does not beat iPhone sleekness. What about software ? We still need to see if the Android and all the Google apps loaded on it do any magic beyond the benchmark set by iPhone and its amazing software and application ecosystem. Android is supposed to create a great mobile software ecosystem similar to Apple and its iPhone environment.

For those who were holding out on buying an iPhone could take a shot at this one. But we doubt any iPhone owners out there would switch. iPhone 3G is just too good. Well we will see once we see adoption of the new Google phone. This is supposedly running the Google’s new shiny Chrome browser (actually Chrome Lite – mobile version of Chrome).

Some key Android features : openness – developers can develop application extensions to Android using its publicly available API. The G1 comes with maps, e-mail (gmail), instant messaging, music player and a camera. There is an Android Application store similar to the iPhone App Store. Google’s USP against the iPhone seems to be openness and willingness to let developers work more freely with Android as compared to the Apple’s tighter control over the iPhone application ecosystem. It could be a double-edged sword. Openness has its pros and cons. As to iPhone App Store, since its launch in July, users have downloaded more than 100 million applications for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Google has run Android developer challenge contest to get developers to create more Android apps.

For more details on G1, go to T-Mobile G1 site.

Welcome to the world of superphones. Superphone – a term informally being used for the ultra smart and ultra sleek new smartphones. This is a new world. We love this, finally mobile world is coming around with some cutting edge device and software innovation. Next we await the BlackBerry Bold – RIM’s answer to the iPhone and Google phone.

One thing is for sure. The new superphone world belongs to Apple, Google, RIM and Nokia. What about the rest ?

From a mobile OS perspective, there is a fight between Android, iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile, LiMo etc. Talk about fragmentation. Alas, if only developers could find a truly universal Mobile development ecosystem but without a PC-kind of monopoly.

MT

Android Market announced…

Only concern about the Android Market will be licensing, security and stability of the apps…

Google’s Android developer community has announced Android Market, a service.

Similar to the Apple App Store. As per the post on Android Developers Blog, the Android Market is an open- content system that will help end-users search, purchase, download and install featured apps and other software directly to Android-based phones and devices.

 

Initially, An+droid – based handsets will feature Android Market beta version service commercially. Google will host the content from developers with rating and feedback system. At the Android Market, the content developers will have freedom to make their content available openly unlike the Apple App Store, which has monitored and controlled membership as well as posting. Apart from that, support for free applications would also be available.

 

Only concern about the Android Market will be licensing, security and stability of the apps.

 

Android Market beta version will have free apps and also subsequent firmware update that will provision the phones for other paid versions in future.

 

The mobile operating system is really picking up now. After Apple App Store and Android Market, what next? Perhaps a similar service might be started by Symbian when it goes open-source, Microsoft for the Windows Mobile or Research In Motion.

 

Whenever Android-power handsets are available in India, developers and users will be able to enjoy the open environment of the Android Market.

 

Vishal