Nokia - The OVI Store

On Tuesday 17 November 2009, Leeds Metropolitan University’s Rose Bowl hosted the opportunity to meet Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer. The event was organised by Screen Yorkshire and supported by Innovation North, Game Republic and The Leeds Business School.

A huge range of delegates were in attendance, all wanting to hear more about what the Nokia OVI Store could provide for the regional industry. The Nokia OVI Store is the Nokia ‘app store’ and boasts some impressive statistics, over 4.5 million members, 1.5 million unique visits per month, and 5.5 million page views per months.

Nokia began by emphasising their keen interest to engage with developers in the region. The first speaker and Nokia’s business man, Benjamin Roszczewski, kicked off the presentations by talking about Forum Nokia. The aim of Forum Nokia is to accelerate development, provide technical support and business opportunities for developers.

With a large proportion of the audience already aware of the project, questions were invited from the audience. Developers were particularly interested in the security around the publication of ideas online. Nokia responded with reassurance regarding the processes and legally-binding None Disclaimer Agreements that support future ideas and innovation. Competing against Apple, who are criticised for a lack of transparency in the application process, Nokia highlighted their process as being simple and easy.

Nokia was swift to boast about the OVI Store’s compatibility with different hand sets, and the selling of apps preloaded onto the user’s device that develop future connections and services from developers, Nokia and the operator. Until this point, much of what Nokia had talked about had been already undertaken by Apple and Google Android. The Unique Selling Point of the Nokia OVI Store is to offer personally relevant content to the user dependent on their location, expectations and information according to their interests.

The Marketing Director for the UK, made it clear that to see the current aims and future developments of OVI Store, more people need to be using the OVI Store. Better, more competitive content would help to further engage consumers. The type of apps that Nokia is eager to include are in social media, news and business areas, apps that are fun and useful and also ’stupid’ ideas.

For the opportunity to talk one on one about the OVI Store, further meetings for designers and developers are planned to take place in January or February. Watch this space!

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