14 DAY TRIAL // Finnish mobile-phone maker Nokia is reportedly getting ready to have the Near Field Communications (NFC) technology available on all the smartphones it would push to the market starting with 2011. The announcement was made by the company's Executive Vice President for Markets, Anssi Vanjoki, during a keynote presentation at the Mobey Forum's 10th anniversary workshop in Helsinki on Thursday.
Anssi Vanjoki, responsible for consumer insights, sales, marketing, manufacturing and logistics across all Nokia products and services, did not offer specific details on the upcoming smartphones Nokia was preparing for the market, a recent article on NFC World states, citing Liisa Kanniainen, executive director of the Mobey Forum.
However, it seems that the leading mobile-phone maker is set to announce all the necessary details on the new smartphone models “in due course.” Among the details that Vanjoki did unveil, we can count the fact that these devices would arrive on shelves with support for all open business models. Moreover, the handset vendor should make available a set of tools for third-party application developers.
The upcoming Nokia smartphones with NFC should include support for the Single Wire Protocol (SWP), as well as for other secure element formats. Most probably, this would include MicroSD cards, along with the SIM cards as in the SWP model, and embedded secure elements. The inclusion of NFC on these smartphones should offer users the possibility to make payments through simply waving the device near a compatible reader.
Nokia has been an active company in the near field communication technology area for quite some time now, yet it has raised concerns lately regarding its commitment to the solution. Earlier this year, reports emerged on Nokia canceling the production of its 6216 Classic NFC phone (with support for the SWP standard), a move seen as a sign of the company pulling back from the area. Various handset vendors are working on making payments tied to the device, and not to the SIM card, as service providers want.