O-V, by Nokia

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (YTT)Past, Present, Future (PPF)All this acronyms are making OV by NK make TPO A-Okay :)

Ovi spells Fun & Simplicity! Entertainment on the Go! PC & the Web in a phone. Sharing. Backup?Did you know Nokia was a name of river? Can't imagine a company in Malaysia known as Gomb, from the river Sungai Gombak :)Can't imagine that Nokia has grown from a paper company to a rubber company, to currently, the worlds largest manufacturer of mobile terminals & networks.

Spelled Ovi (please look up a Finnish dictionary), and no this article has not ended!"Ovi" for you non-Fins mean "The Door", funny how articulate Nokia can be when trying to re-brand existing products like Nokia Music Store (iTunes wanna-be), Nokia N-Gage (something I would like to see more of in months to come) & their new TPO*; Nokia Maps for N-series phones & 6110.Here's my personal rating (based on years of experience working with Nokia phones):1) Nokia Music Store - 30%2) Nokia N-Gage - 92%3) Nokia Maps - 32%Here's some basic reasons why Ovi will die a natural death like MOSH, etc or may not?

1) Based on user dynamics, I think Nokia will do well, if music content are embedded into handsets before it ships to end users. But by setting up its own Music Store, it not only is going up against big boys like iTunes by Apple. But it's also scratching the doors of Mobile Telecommunication Operators with a 50cents coin! And it is leaving a line on their paint jobs! Operators who have setup their own music stores like T-Mobile International, Vodafone & Virgin, etc will be putting up a tough front (maybe not even offering Ovi-enabled Nokia phones in their lineup), as it will eat into their content-based ARPU. I don't see Nokia & mobile operators sharing revenue when it comes to music downloads. Everybody wants the whole pie and nothing less.

2) This is the best thing that ever happened to Nokia. Realising early on in 2002/2003 that games & mobile phones are fused was the best thing that Nokia has ever done. And to see the current N-series phones utlizing the same engine & hardware specs to get ready to battle N-Gage Arena games are a blessing! Nokia Arena (yet another brand name by Nokia), never really took off with slow GPRS bandwidths & high data charges. With lowering bandwidth cost (mostly unlimited usage) & higher bandwidth (speeds reaching 1.2Mbps on HSDPA), Nokia Arena is ready to take on the online battle. And it makes total sense selling games on N-Gage and having them backed up on Ovi, just in case, you misplace you current handset :) A username & password will allow you to download/re-install the game you have already bought & profiles/game saves :)

3) Sucks big time! Have you tried using it? It's so difficult to navigate through the icons & menus. Moreover, with its free 3 months and maps that you have to purchase, its a rather big turn off to use its voice guided navigational feature. Who wants to buy navigational features when GPS is meant to navigate a user, NOT simulate a route?! To add to the misery, there's this fuss about reloading Nokia Maps Loader AFTER you have purchased the phone for additional maps; It's really a big turn off! Nevertheless, credit is due as its a simple blessing to finally get GPS embedded into Nokia phones these days. Gone were the days where you had to carry a separate GPS device (ie. Garmin or O2 with an external bluetooth GPS device). Strategically, it would make sense for Nokia to partner GPS specialist like Garmin or localised mapping companies like MapKing for Asia region. But, having 2-3 radios on (Bluetooth, GPS, 3G, etc) simultaneously would be quite taxing on the battery, hence Nokia would have lotsa work to make their batteries longer lasting!To sum up all of Nokia's Brands... Whatever happened to Nokia Point, MOSH and the many other Nokia TPOs? Would Ovi suffer the same fate of merely being another "sleeping partner"? We'll let you decide.Nevertheless, whatever said & done, I think Ovi & Jussi Nevanlinna needs to step up a beat. As its all down to education, end-user training & gaming events.Needless to say, Ovi's backup feature for contacts, games, music & files has always been around (even in Malaysia), read Jumbobox (2004-2005 product) by Unrealminds (now defunct & bought over by MonsterMob