Nokia mobile services and applications - Essay Example

Nokia Mobile Services and Applications In addition to its popular handset and smart phone range, Nokia offers various mobile services applications including mobile music, games, maps, photos, email, SMS and conversation. Additionally, Nokia’s mobile services are offered worldwide with territory specific applications and applications tailored to business needs. For example, Nokia Call Connect for Alcatel co-ordinates the power of desk phones with features of Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX or Office infrastructure.

The functionality provided by this enables continuous communication with employees and customers regardless of location and facilitates the reality of achieving a mobile office. Furthermore, Nokia’s business mobile solutions include the following:1. Nokia Call Connect for Cisco2. Nokia Configuration Tool3. Mail for Exchange4. Nokia PC Internet Access5. Nokia Mobile VPN6. Nokia Suite Enterprise Edition. Furthermore, Nokia has a partnership with Microsoft to offer business productivity and mobile office solutions.

With regard to social mobile services, Nokia has developed numerous mobile services applications as part of its “mobility in society drive”. The purpose of these services is to increase accessibility to mobile services and applications in emerging markets and to marginalised sectors of society. The mobility in society drive includes the following categories: 1. Education;2. Nokia Data Gathering;3. Accessibility; 4. Mobile Financial Services; and 5. Ovi Life Tools. The education tools of Nokia are intended to increase ways for student accessibility to learning.

A prime example of this is the Nokia mobile learning for Mathematics in South Africa through collaborations with the South African government and the Nokia Siemens Networks. Another educational mobile service is a partnership with the Pearson foundation to provide schemes where students between 11and18 can use mobile devices and services to film, mix and edit through collaboration. The Nokia data gathering solution is targeted towards helping organisations accurately collect data on vital issues such as disease outbreaks or disaster relief initiatives via mobile.

The data gathering software is open source and available for everyone free of charge and can be used for multiple purposes such as questionnaires, surveys and GPS geo-tagging. Accessibility mobile services provided by Nokia have been developed to service the more marginalised aspects of society. Nokia states that approximately one fifth of the world’s population lives with a recognised disability and there is also and increasing ageing population. Therefore, Nokia has developed mobile services to address accessibility concerns such as enhanced voice functions, a Braille reader and video calling enabled with sign language calls.

Nokia is also leading the way with financial service applications with its Nokia Money service. This enables users to manage money through checking their balance, paying bills and topping up credit. The financial services applications are a direct result of increase in mobile users and Nokia consumer research has indicated that many consumers in emerging markets have indicated that they would like to connect to the internet via computer. As a resultNokia has developed the “OVI life tools” mobile applications to cater to specific requirements intimidated by Nokia’s consumer research.

The Nokia OVI life tools include the following: 1. Life tools for agriculture to provide farmers with up to date information on weather prices and product availability.2. Life tools for education- these include mobile language lessons and exam preparation tests.3. Life tools for health- here the service provides daily updates tailored to the individual’s specifications and needs. 4. Life tools for email – the Nokia OVI email enable users to create a mobile email account without ever using a PC.

On the other side of the spectrum, Nokia offers numerous tools for developers where users can design and develop applications (apps) using Nokia’s tools. Furthermore, for Canadian and American developers there is a chance to win a share of $10 million in cash, marketing and devices for designing an app or a game using Nokia’s tools. Source: www.nokia.com accessed December 2010.