Nokia opens door to mobile Web services

Almost lost among the slew of devices Nokia launched this week was word of a new portal platform, dubbed Ovi, that the vendor will use to launch mobile Web services, including gaming, social networking and more.

Finnish for “door,” Ovi is the overarching brand name for Nokia’s Web services offerings. Initially, Ovi will include revamped versions of existing Nokia services such as its N-Gage game service, Nokia Maps and the newly announced Nokia Music Store, the latter a direct competitor to Apple’s market-leading iTunes Store. Ovi is also envisioned as a Nokia user’s interface for existing Web services such as Facebook, Flickr and MySpace.

As one proof point of Nokia’s interest in delivering Web services, the vendor announced it was relaunching its N-Gage gaming platform as an online service that will work with any Nokia phone rather than requiring N-Gage-specific hardware. Nokia is also extending the gaming service with new social network elements, enabling gamers to play against friends and track scores online.

Nokia said it will launch Ovi in English in the fourth quarter and in other languages in 2008.

Additional details about Ovi were scarce, but Nokia stressed it would be an “open environment” integrating Web and mobile user interfaces and an array of services and social networking features.

Nokia recently announced a developer release of “Mosh,” a social networking service and user-generated content platform for Nokia mobile users.