Press Release: Nokia rebuilds Ovi platform, rebrands ‘Here’ maps back to ‘Ovi’ Maps, Nokia Music to ‘Ovi Music’

Nokia rebuilds Ovi platform for Nokia Lumia devices.

Espoo, Finland – Starting with the Nokia Lumia 520 and 720 devices reaching availability in April, the first Nokia services on these handsets will be rebranded back to the iconic ‘Ovi’ services in a transition expected to continue into early 2014. Each of the services under the Nokia and ‘Here’ umbrella will simply be rebranded back as Ovi, with no planned disruption to the service roadmaps.

Nokia’s EVP of Sales and Marketing, Chris Weber, explains the transition:

“Ovi is the simple, memorable Finnish word for door that complements our family of Windows powered Nokia Lumia products. These windows and doors are harmonious connections for our users’ connected lives. The Ovi brand reinforces our commitment to connecting people with the door of opportunity and the services most important to them”.

Nokia Collection, Nokia’s branch of Lumia unique and exclusive apps currently found in the Windows Phone store will be rebranded to ‘Ovi Collection’, promising to strengthen the compelling Ovi brand experience across our suite of apps including: Ovi Store, Ovi Drive, Ovi Glam Me, Ovi Music, Ovi NFC Writer, Ovi Pulse Beta, Ovi Reading, Ovi Trailers, Ovi City Lens and Ovi Transit.

Ovi Store exceeds over 20 million downloads a day and continues to grow rapidly for Nokia consumers looking for applications, games and other content. Nokia wants Nokia Lumia owners to capitalise in the new Ovi Store experience for their Windows Phone applications. The new Ovi Store for Nokia Lumia comes without data restriction, enabling larger downloads over 3G previously only possible over WiFi. Ovi Store will eventually replace the Windows Phone store for all Nokia Lumia devices by the end of 2013. Windows Phone Developers and publishers for Nokia Lumia will have access to Ovi Store’s global reach and rapid growth for driving downloads and potential monetization opportunities.

Dean Pattrick, Nokia’s Head of Entertainment, details the shift to Ovi Music:

“The rebranding to Ovi will help shift focus back on to the content and services we provide, and away from the provider (Nokia); with this we can move forward and make Ovi Mix Radio and Ovi Music more accessible and welcoming to other OEM’s and hopefully in the future other Platforms. With our opening of the API’s last month we got some excellent feedback from both developers and consumers; so we want to take Ovi music to the next level by allowing app developers on other platforms such as Android take advantage of our stellar services”.

Nokia promises to strengthen the Ovi apps for Windows Phone, with upcoming apps such as Flipboard, Snapchat and Vine to be released within the upcoming weeks.

Launch from Nokia on Vimeo.

Tags: April. the first

Category: Nokia