Ovi (Nokia)
Ovi by Nokia (Finnish: ovi, lit. 'door'[1]) was the brand for Nokia's Internet services. The Ovi services could be used from a mobile device, computer (through Ovi Suite) or via the web. Nokia focused on five key service areas: Games, Maps, Media, Messaging and Music. Nokia's aim with Ovi was to include third party developers, such as operators and third-party services like Yahoo's Flickr photo site. With the announcement of Ovi Maps Player API, Nokia started to evolve their services into a platform, enabling third parties to make use of Nokia's Ovi services.[2]
Developer(s)
February 2010 (Public beta)
April 2013 (Stable release worldwide)
S60
Series 40
Maemo
PC (through Ovi Suite)
Web
Online mobile store
Ovi was first announced in 2007 and was a move into the world of Internet services and applications. It was initially available for internet-enabled Nokia feature phones and S60 smartphones, and also accessible via the web and on PC. Throughout its lifetime it faced strong competition particularly from Apple's App Store. As of January 2012, there were exactly 10 million downloads every day,[3] also 158 developers reached over 1 million downloads for their Applications.[4]
On 16 May 2011, Nokia announced the discontinuation of the Ovi brand and the services rebranded under the Nokia brand. The transition began in July 2011 and was completed by the end of 2012.[5] Most of the constituent services were subsequently either closed or integrated into Microsoft's own services after its acquisition of Nokia devices and services division in 2014.
History[edit]
Ovi was announced on 29 August 2007 at the Go Play event in London.[6] The public beta was released on 28 August 2008. Nokia has acquired key building blocks for Ovi over time. These include intellectual property (IP), patents and core components such as synchronization. Acquired IP, patents include companies such as Starfish Software, Intellisync, NAVTEQ, Gate5, Plazes and others. Other components have been developed internally. On 20 May 2009, at the Where 2.0 event in San Jose, California, US, Nokia announced the release of the Ovi Maps Player API, allowing web developers to embed Ovi Maps into a website using JavaScript.[2]
Services[edit]
Ovi Store[edit]
The Ovi Store was launched worldwide in May 2009.[7] Here, customers could download mobile games, applications, videos, images, and ringing tones to their Nokia devices. Some of the items were free of charge; others could be purchased using credit card or through operator billing in selected operators. The content in Ovi Store was sorted into the categories: Featured (previously Recommended), Games, Personalise, Applications, and Audio & Video. The Ovi Store replaced the older Nokia services Widsets, Download!, and MOSH.[8][9]
Ovi Store was intended to offer customers content that was compatible with their mobile devices and relevant to their tastes and locations. Customers could share recommendations with their friends, see what they are downloading, and let them see items of interest.[10]
For content publishers, Nokia offered a self-service tool to bring their content to the Ovi Store. Supported content types included: Java ME, Flash applications, widgets, ringtones, wallpapers, themes, and more for Nokia Series 40 and Symbian S60 devices and also Symbian^3. Nokia offered a 70% revenue share of gross sales, net of refunds and returns, less applicable taxes and, where applicable, fixed operator billing costs.[11] The daily number of downloads reached 10 million in August 2011.[3] There were 116,583 apps as of December 2011.[12]
It was renamed to Nokia Store in 2012. The Ovi Store also looked different on Symbian handsets to suit the new brand transformation - it was blue instead of green and the Ovi store was the third biggest mobile download site on the market (behind Apple's App Store and Google Play) in 2012. From 2014, developers were no longer able to publish new apps and app updates for the Symbian and MeeGo platforms to Nokia Store.[13] Microsoft officially stopped accepting new applications to the Nokia Publish service and new registrations to the Nokia Publish and Nokia Developer websites since 18 February 2015,[14] and officially retired the Nokia Developer site in March 2015 and encouraged developers to go to the MSDN and Windows Developer site to develop applications for Windows Phone and Windows.[15]
Microsoft discontinued Nokia Store in 2015, and users were transitioned to Opera Mobile Store as the new application store for legacy Nokia devices.[15]
Publishing content[edit]
Publishers of content, or Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), may join the Ovi programme for a fee of 1 €. Nokia keeps 30% of the developers' revenue from sales of their product. However, if the product was purchased using Operator Billing, then between 40%-50% of the price paid by the consumer is first given to the operator.[35] Content which the publisher develops was reviewed by Nokia before publication. Symbian, Java and Flash lite applications must be Symbian signed.[36] Symbian Signed is the signing programme administered by the Symbian Foundation. Applications could be signed for free as part of the Ovi programme.[37][38]
Discontinuation[edit]
In May 2011 Nokia discontinued the OVI brand in favor of the Nokia brand. The decision was taken to avoid brand confusion.[39][40] As part of Nokia's new range of Windows Phone smartphones, Ovi became less important as it used Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace.
Most of the constituent services were either closed or integrated into Microsoft's own services after its acquisition of Nokia devices and services division in 2014.