Nokia Pushes A Barrage Of Wireless Concepts

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October 28, 2003 (2:35 PM EST)

Nokia has unveiled a barrage of wireless concepts and mobile phones ranging from phones with wide color touch screens, FM radio capability and built-in cameras to a new developer platform designed to take advantage of the new faster networks Nokia says are being rolled out by service carriers.

An in related news, Opera Software announced an update -- Release 6.1 -- to its browser, adding that it enables users to view the full Internet using Opera's Small-Screen Rendering (SSR) technology. The browser is downloadable from the Web for use with phones based on Nokia's Series 60 platform phones.

At its Mobile Internet Conference in Nice, France, on Tuesday Nokia introduced new mobile phones including the 7700 wide color pen touch screen media device packed with features including music and video playback and streaming, a VGA camera, and FM radio. The device has 64 MB of main memory and slots for additional storage as well as a bluetooth handset link. The 7700 works on GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 networks and its worldwide delivery -- exclusive of the Americas -- is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2004. While Nokia occupies a dominant position in the GSM wireless world, it lags somewhat in the more advanced segments of the CDMA wireless universe, which is strongest in the Americas.

The conference provided a launching pad for Nokia's new Enterprise Solutions unit. The operation unveiled two messaging devices and its vice president of marketing Dan McDonald offered some insight into the directions Enterprise Solutions will take with its Wireless Accelerator technology. "With Nokia Wireless Accelerator," said McDonald, "a fast and dependable wireless access solution is readily available to corporate networks, even in the absence of a high-speed connection."

In a statement, Nokia said the technology "is a fully integrated component of Nokia IP Security Platforms and Nokia IP VPN solutions and... works transparently with existing services." The technology features a capability for compressing wireless data for fast transmission. As for the two business-oriented messaging devices -- the 6810 and the 6820 -- the phones have qwerty keyboards for ease-of-use in text messaging.

Nokia also took advantage of the conference to promote the substitution of mobile voice, particularly in business applications, for fixed or landline-based voice. The company said mobile service operators could use mobile voice applications to raise their overage revenue per user by as much as 50 percent. In a statement aimed at business users, Nokia said: "The Nokia Mobile Business Voice solution can enable enterprises to save up to 25 percent in their total telephone costs by substituting mobile for fixed service."

A Nokia executive a the conference was quoted by Reuters news service as predicting that half of all voice call minutes could be carried on mobile nets by 2007, versus some 20 percent today.

Another feature endorsed at the conference was a "push-to-talk" capability that allows users to talk instantly with selected colleagues or friends by pushing a single button.To be available in the first quarter of 2004, the feature has been tested in more than 20 trials including some in North America.

The firm also divulged a roadmap for its Developer Platform 2.0 Series 90 aimed at mobile software creators. Nokia indicated that its 7700 media device was a harbinger of what it wants to see in future iterations of the Series 90 phones. The Series 90 platform includes a suite of APIs for C++ and Java applications. The company said more than 1.25 million software developers have registered to develop software for the firm's mobile phones.