Ovi by Nokia is the brand for Nokia's Internet services. The Ovi services can be used from a mobile device, computer (through Nokia Ovi Suite) or via the web. Nokia focuses on five key service areas: Games, Maps, Media, Messaging and Music. Nokia's aim with Ovi is to include third party developers, such as operators and third-party services like Yahoo's Flickr photo site. With the announcement [1] of Ovi Maps Player API, Nokia has started to evolve their services into a platform, enabling third-parties to make use of Nokia's Ovi services. It has some significance in that Nokia is moving deeper into the world of Internet services, where head-on competition with Microsoft, Google and Apple is inevitable. Ovi is the Finnish word for "door".[2] As of July/August 2011, there were exactly 10.0million downloads every day[3], also 158 developers reached over 1 million downloads for their Applications.[4] On May 16, 2011, Nokia announced that the Ovi brand will be discontinued and the services rebranded under the main Nokia brand. The transition will begin in July 2011 and Nokia said it intends to complete the rebranding of the Ovi services by the end of 2012.
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Ovi was announced on August 29, 2007 at the Go Play event in London.[5] The word "ovi" means "door" in Finnish. The public beta was released on August 28, 2008.
Nokia has acquired key building blocks for Ovi over time. These include intellectual property (IP), patents and core components such as synchronization. Acquired IP, patents include companies such as Starfish Software, Intellisync, NAVTEQ, Gate5, Plazes and others. Other components have been developed internally.
On May 20, 2009, at the Where 2.0 event in San Jose, CA, USA, Nokia announced the release of the Ovi Maps Player API, allowing web developers to embed Ovi Maps into a website using JavaScript.[1]
Nokia Ovi Suite allows Nokia mobile users to organize and share their photos and PIM data between their PC and their handset. It is the next generation of Nokia PC Suite and eventually Nokia Ovi Suite will become the only computer application offered by Nokia. The current commercial version of Nokia Ovi Suite is 3.1.1.85.[6] A Mac OS X compatible version was announced in November 2008, and has been "expected soon" ever since.[7] Instead, Nokia phones can connect with Mac computers via Apple's iSync application.[8]
Ovi Sync allows the synchronization of contact and calendar data between Nokia Symbian phones and the Nokia Ovi data center. Synchronization is initiated on the phone and is bidirectional.[9]
Ovi Contacts is the address book section of ovi.com and allows contact information to be viewed and modified. Nokia has announced on the Ovi website that web access to contact information will be discontinued on January 25th, 2012. However, Nokia is stating that Ovi Sync will function after this date, allowing Nokia Symbian phone users to continue to transfer phone contact data to and from Nokia data center servers. As a result of the discontinuation of web access to the contact data as well as their transition to Windows Phone 7 devices that synchronize data with Microsoft Hotmail, in late 2011 Nokia added the capability to download all Ovi Contacts information in CSV format for importation into another online contact provider. Nokia has stated that this download capability will remain via URL contactsui.ovi.com even after web access to contact data has ended.[10]
Ovi Calendar is the calendar portion of Ovi. It was designed to be synced with the calendar on Nokia Symbian phones via Ovi Sync. Web access to Ovi Calendar ended on August 31, 2011. Ovi Calendar data can still be exported in iCalendar format at calendar.ovi.com. Nokia has stated it will continue to provide this download capability even though web viewing and editing of calendar data has ended, and Ovi Sync will continue to synchronize Nokia Symbian phone calendar data with their data center servers.[11]
The Ovi Store was launched world wide in May 2009.[12] Here, customers can download mobile games, applications, videos, images, and ringing tones to their Nokia devices. Some of the items are free of charge; others can be purchased using credit card or through operator billing in selected operators. The content in Ovi Store is sorted into the following categories:
Ovi Store is intended to offer customers content that is compatible with their mobile devices and relevant to their tastes and locations. Customers can share recommendations with their friends, see what they are downloading, and let them see items of interest.[13] For content publishers, Nokia offers a self-service tool to bring their content to the Ovi Store. Supported content types include: Java ME, Flash applications, widgets, ringtones, wallpapers, themes, and more for Nokia Series 40 and S60 devices and also Symbian^3. Nokia offers a 70% revenue share of gross sales, net of refunds and returns, less applicable taxes and, where applicable, fixed operator billing costs.[14] Ovi Store replaces the older Nokia services, Widsets, Download!, and MOSH.[15] The daily number of downloads reached 10 million in August 2011.[16] Despite the recent decision for Nokia to use Windows Phone 7 as their primary Operating system, Ovi store will still be available to present and future Symbian phones, whereas Ovi store and Windows Phone 7 Marketplace will be merged on the Windows Phone 7 platform</ref> There are 116,583 apps as of December 2011.[17] The Ovi store also now looks different on Symbian handsets to suit the new brand transformation. It is now blue instead of green and the Ovi store is now the 3rd biggest App store on the market. (Behind, the App store (Apple) and Android market.)
With the Ovi Maps Internet service, customers can browse places from all over the world, plan trips, search for addresses and points of interest, and save them on Ovi. Ovi Maps for web can be used on any browser and any operating system for PC or Mac. To install the Ovi Maps plug-in that enables more features, one needs to have either Microsoft Windows XP/Vista with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and later or Mozilla Firefox 3 or later, or Apple Mac OS X with Safari 3 and later.
If the Ovi Maps 3.0 application (formerly known as Nokia Maps) is installed to your compatible Nokia mobile device, you can synchronise places, collections, and routes between Ovi Maps and your mobile device. You need to have a Nokia account to be able to synchronise.
Using Nokia Ovi Suite or Nokia Map Loader on Microsoft Windows XP or Vista, users can download and preload map data and navigator voices to their mobile device. This allows customers to save time and money as little data is required to be downloaded over-the-air during operation. Map data can also be downloaded without Nokia Ovi Suite or Nokia Map Loader by pointing a web browser to the map file locations.
Ovi Mail is an email address designed for access from Nokia mobile devices and compatible desktop browsers. The beta phase started on December 2008, and became available to all Ovi users on February 20, 2009. 1 million accounts were activated in its first six months, 650,000 on mobile devices.[18] 5 million accounts were activated in its first year.[19] According to the Ovi Mail website, Ovi Mail is popular in Indonesia, South Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil and India.[20]
Over 35 different S40 and S60 phone models support Ovi Mail. The web mail works with standard browsers such as Opera, IE 6, IE 7, Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 and Google Chrome and is currently available in 15 languages - US English, UK English, Indonesian, Malay, Bengali, Filipino (Tagalog), French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil),Chinese(Simple), Portuguese (Portugal) and Spanish (Spain).
In 2010 Yahoo and Nokia made a strategic agreement for Yahoo to replace Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat with Yahoo mail and chat products.[21] The migration began in the spring of 2011.[22]
Newer Nokia phones ship with instant messaging (IM) software. Apart from using accounts with other popular IM service providers (e.g., for the ICQ network), a user may also use his Ovi account to send and receive instant messages to and from other Ovi users.[23] Depending on the user's tariffs for sending SMS text messages vs. connecting to the Internet from the mobile phone, using instant messaging can prove to be either significantly cheaper (volume-based data plan) or significantly more expensive (time-based data plan).
Ovi Share is a media sharing website. Originally called Twango, the site allows the upload and storage of photos, videos, etc. Users can upload media directly from Nokia mobile phones through the Share Online 3.0 application, or can alternatively use their PCs.[24]
Ovi Files was a service that allowed users to remotely access, send, and create an online mirror of files stored on their Windows PC and Macintosh computers from any mobile or computer web browser. Supplemental features enabled users to upload content to their remote computer and preview Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF documents without the need for a browser plug-in or locally installed application.
Ovi Files was based on the "Access and Share" service created by Avvenu Incorporated, which Nokia acquired [25] in 5 December 2007. Originally a premium service, Ovi Files was made free of charge in July 2009.[26] The service closed on October 15, 2010.[27]
Ovi Music Store allows purchasing of music directly on a mobile device or via PC. It contains over 11 million tracks. Download of Ovi Player software for PC is available from http://music.ovi.com/
The store is currently available in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom with more countries launching regularly.[28]
Nokia Comes With Music is currently available in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.[29]
Nokia Ovi Player, previously known as Nokia Music PC Client, is the music management and playback software for PC. Download of Nokia Ovi Player is available from http://oms.ovi.com/in/en/. Click on "Download Ovi Player" in the "Nokia Ovi Player" section.
Nokia Ovi Player allows user to download tracks from the music stores and provides easy transfer of tracks to supported Phones and MP3 Players. Nokia Ovi Player supports Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) and will be able to transfer audio tracks to any phones or MP3 players supporting MTP over standard USB.
Publishers of content, or Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), may join the Ovi programme for a fee of 1 €. Nokia keeps 30% of the developers' revenue from sales of their product. However, if the product is purchased using Operator Billing, then between 40%-50% of the price paid by the consumer is first given to the operator.[30] Content which the publisher develops will be reviewed by Nokia before publication. Symbian, Java and Flash lite applications must be Symbian signed.[31] Symbian Signed is the signing programme administered by the Symbian Foundation. Applications can be signed for free as part of the Ovi programme.[32][33]
In May 2011 Nokia announced that it will discontinue the OVI brand in favor of the Nokia brand. The decision was taken to avoid brand confusion.[34][35]