Back from Nokia Mobility Conference

Thomas Husson | November 04, 2005, 06:55 AM

I spent the last 3 days in Barcelona attending the 10th annual Nokia Mobility Conference. It was named "Avenues to revenues" using the following images : applications road, e-mail street and mobile TV avenue...Not sure, I would have put it in this order. Anyway, the idea was that in a converging world, there is money to be made by all stakeholders from record labels and broadcasters to Internet players, which were well represented at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya.

Interestingly, on the mobile music panel chaired by the colourful Mark Selby, there was a record label veteran (Ted Cohen from EMI), an artist and producer (Dallas Austin), an Internet speaker (from MSN Entertainment), a leader in the entertainment law and obviously a Nokia representant (Jonas Geust, VP Music). Seems to me a mobile operator representative was missing. Or is it only a glimpse on future OTA revenues...?

But let's go to the key take-away from the NMC: the widening of the NSeries portfolio of multimedia computers (expression used by Nokia's management) with the launch of 3 new devices : N92, N71, N80.

A few comments:

- NSeries is a new brand for high performance multimedia devices. Each phone from this category offers an excellent performance be it to capture and share pictures and videos or simply to browse the Internet. There are outstanding smartphones, but each of them has a dedicated and enhanced multimedia feature. N90 will be dedicated to a high-quality picture & video experience (with Carl Zeiss Optics), N91 will be a music-enhanced phone (seems to me a partner with a strong music brand is still missing) and N92 will be a TV-enhanced device. Smartphones are increasinlgy segmented to meet customers needs. Surprisingly, there is no gaming device integrated in the NSeries. The N-gage (2M units shipped worldwide when 6M were expected) follows a separate strategy so far.

- the N92 is the world's first integrated DVB-H mobile device (roughly 600 euros unsubsidized). Nokia's signal to the market is clear : we are now ready and waiting for you to roll-out DVB-H networks and to find some spectrum available. A poll was conducted within the audience and to the question "when will DVB-H become a reality", 70% of delegates answered in 2006 or 2007. Is it because TIM and Mediaset committed themselves to launch a DVB-H service next year? Depends what you define by reality, but I do not expect any mass-market adoption anytime soon.

- the N80 is the world's first UPnP handset (roughly 500 euros unsubsidized). UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play and is a standard required for an interoperable network in the digital home, which enables automatic discovery and remote control of devices, including networked devices and services, such as network-attached PCs and printers, internet gateways, and consumer electornics equipment. An intersting application could be to view automatically on your TV pictures and videos captured with your mobile. However, I will let my colleague Nate Elliott (who recenlty launched our new European Digital Home service) comment this launch.

- the N71 will offer an open multimedia experience (roughly 400 euros unsubsidized). It supports the new Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map. Using Nokia's words this translates as follow : "featuring a semi-transparent zoomed-out overall view of the Web page, users can quickly orient themselves and intuitively navigate to all corners of the site as well as see the Web page as it was originally designed. Futhermore, the new browser enables RSS feeds, so users can subscribe to their favorite Web sites and receive regular updates".

A few other innovations were launched. Nothing impacting revenues on the short term but a clear commitment from Nokia to remain a leading player in the emerging new multimedia world. When boundaries are blurred, a leader has no other choice but to innovate.