Can Nokia recapture the mobile initiative from Apple and Google?

How Nokia plans to serve the travel industry to retain its position as the mobile industry leader When Nokia introduced a free map and navigation service for its handsets earlier this year, it aptly described it as a landmark move.

"Navigation on your Nokia. For free. Forever." That's the message from the company to its customers.

In early February, Nokia stated that Ovi Maps with free navigation crossed one million downloads in a week and the company is averaging a download a second, 24 hours a day.

The new version Ovi Maps is a key part of Nokia's strategy to lead the market in mobile maps, navigation and location-based services.

The service stores maps on the phone, cutting down the need to update and download new ones over the network. Ovi maps was to be initially made available on 10 handsets. As per the information available, the company has already sold 83 million phones that can use the service, which can be downloaded for free from its Ovi application store. From March onwards, all new Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones will include the new version of Ovi Maps, pre-loaded with local country map data, with high-end walk and drive navigation and access to Lonely Planet and Michelin travel guides at no extra cost.

"Satnav devices were never the best travel companion, due to their size and limited connectivity. In contrast, Ovi Maps is the perfect home for travel content, and this 'mashing-up' of travel content on our maps will only increase in the future," says Robert Rogers, senior product manager, Nokia, who is scheduled to speak at EyeforTravel's Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2010 (London, June 17-18).

In order to know more about the latest trends in this arena, EyeforTravel's Ritesh Gupta spoke to Rogers. Excerpts:

For mobile developers and publishers, Ovi Maps represent a significant opportunity. There are already several applications including ones from Lonely Planet, a location aware interactive travel guide, and the CarTrawler car rental application that gives Nokia phone users access to the largest selection of car rentals. How do you think Nokia is placed today vis-a-vis its competitors to capitalise on opportunities in the travel industry?

Nokia is in a great position to offer a compelling platform for the travel industry. Through our Ovi services, which allow easy access to key functionalities both on PC or mobile, we are able to give our partners in the travel space presence via both channels. Given that travel is generally planned on a PC, but it's your mobile that ultimately takes the trip with you, I think this is a key differentiator.

Nokia has recently launched a free map and navigation service for its handsets that analysts believe could challenge standalone satnav devices. Can you elaborate on your plans for preloading the new Ovi Maps and its integration with travel guides?

It can't be understated how important the free navigation announcement is for the success of location-based services, not only on Nokia devices, but on mobile devices in general. The adoption of the new Maps software has been fantastic thus far, and this will only accelerate once the software starts shipping pre-loaded on a wide spectrum of devices within the next few months. Satnav devices were never the best travel companion, due to their size and limited connectivity. In contrast, Ovi Maps is the perfect home for travel content, and this 'mashing-up' of travel content on our maps will only increase in the future.

What according to you is critical when it comes to making mobile an integral part of leisure of business travellers' travel planning and booking process?

First, it should be stated that mobile will likely not be the preferred planning and booking environment in the near future, at least not in Europe. In Asia this could be a different story, as the mobile Internet is for many the first Internet they experience.

There are certain rules that I think need to be followed in the implementation of mobile travel services. Given that the user is likely on the go, could be incurring roaming charges, and might very well be in a bit of a bind, mobile travel information and booking services need to be quick, easy, and light on data transfer.

Streaming videos will not be well received by a stressed businessman who just got stranded in a foreign city and is looking frantically for an available hotel for the night in the area. And although travel planning will not generally be done on a mobile, the fruits of that planning will increasingly be accessed on the mobile, so this information should seamlessly pass to the appropriate services on your device.

What according to you are the new trends as far as the development of applications or tools, which facilitate travellers' planning and booking process, is concerned?

I think the travel information importing services like TripIt & Tripcase are huge time savers, and open the door for many other complementary context services. For example, if your flight is delayed and you are going to be late for your meeting, why not automatically prompt a message to the attendees letting them know about this? All of this information is in your phone, so its just about bringing it together for the user so all they have to do is click 'send'.

How has Nokia been working with travel content companies, intermediaries and hotels/ airlines to penetrate further in this market?

In addition to the initiatives already mentioned via our maps application, travel is one of the key verticals in our overall 3rd party strategy. You will see an increasing number of travel apps populating the Ovi Store (where apps can be discovered, downloaded, and installed on Nokia devices), not only for North America and Western Europe, but also for Asia, Russia, and South America, where Nokia has very high market shares.

The Ovi store is a great opportunity for travel companies to engage with new customers, as it is a truly global mobile distribution channel, with over 180 countries now accessing it in over 30 languages.

Can you provide an insight into the major challenges faced by Nokia and Expedia in the development of the recently announced hotel booking service?

We don't have any specific comments at this time, as we are still rolling out the service, but it is a very good learning experience for both sides.

Can you elaborate on Nokia's next generation maps platform, which allows 3rd party applications to run on top of your maps?

The Ovi SDK (Software Development Kit) started with access to our future maps platform or maps player, but will soon allow access to many more 'players' or mobile functionalities, including calendar, social phonebook, and presence (ie show my location).

Our aim with the Ovi SDK is to make powerful tools available for developers to quickly create great apps with a minimum of 'heavy lifting'. There is no complicated coding; if you can make a website, you can create a great Ovi app.

How do you assess the current innovation especially in location-based services and its utility especially for travellers be it for travel planning and booking? For instance, Priceline recently came up with the latest version of its Hotel Negotiator App which allows travellers to point their phones in a desired direction. When the radar detects an individual hotel, it displays a price and star level.

I think location-aware applications have only just started to show their potential.

Up until now, in-destination booking was done either over the phone or by walk-in, and there was very poor visibility and transparency into what was available for the mobile traveller. Location-aware apps, in particular those using augmented-reality literally surround you with real-time results. I think this will greatly increase traveller spontaneity and adventurousness.

Rogers, along withover 100 otherspeakers, is scheduled to present alongside Google, Blackberry and Facebook at EyeforTravel's Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2010 (London, June 17-18).

For more information, click here:
http://events.eyefortravel.com/tds/index.php/agenda-overview