Nokia: Ovi Store 'outpaced' by iPhone's App Store
updated 07:50 am EST, Fri December 11, 2009
Nokia plans Ovi Store revamp next year
Nokia's Ovi Store for mobile apps has been trounced by Apple's App Store, the former's media group product lead George Linardos admitted on Thursday. Created as rival to the iPhone's portal, Ovi is now acknowledged as having been 'outpaced' by the App Store as its tendency to crash, its slow speed and its lack of features to match Apple's have left it behind. The executive noted that the current Ovi incarnation was primarily meant to integrate Nokia's disparate services and wasn't ready for the iPhone's approach.
"The world changed radically around us," Linardos told the Financial Times.
Many of those problems, however, are being targeted with a major revamp of the Ovi Store planned for the spring. The interface should make it easier to find new apps and will include a Genius-like system that recommends apps based on what friends have downloaded. It's also due to catch up and implement in-app payments, which have been present on iPhone apps since June.
The upgrade will be timed with multiple important changes to Nokia's strategy. It will finally see a major update to the interface of its phones when Symbian^3 arrives in the first half of next year and brings multi-touch. Also, the Finnish firm plans to halve its smartphone line and avoid a chronic weakness in its approach to releases, which has often involved releasing multiple phones in a given category that are only slightly different from each other.
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Joined: Nov 2008
Nokia seems to be forthcoming to
admit its deficiencies and is at least trying to do something to correct its mistakes. Unlike Microsoft's Ballmer, always saying that everything is just fine and competitors are not hurting them at all. Nokia is a very large company and due to it's mass it probably will have to do everything slowly to correct its course. Undoubtedly the cellphone business did change radically in a short time and Nokia was caught off-guard especially if it tried to follow a long-term business plan. Since Nokia realizes this and admits it will do its best to fix things for investors, then that's a start. At least Nokia isn't in denial like certain companies whose market share is plunging.