14 DAY TRIAL // Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is determined to launch its own application portal in the near future, following a trend started last year with the release of Apple's App Store and continued by companies like Google (Android Market), RIM (App World) or Microsoft (Windows Marketplace). The Nokia Ovi Store is expected to be launched on multiple markets, yet it seems that it will not feature carrier billing support, at least not in the United States.
According to the company, the application portal, which is expected to include around 20,000 items at launch, will have carrier billing in eight other countries in which it will be released, and in the future it should include the same feature in the US as well, at least this is what the mobile phone maker is working on. It seems that Nokia sees operator billing as one of the most important features of the software portal, as it would be able to boost sales high in the sky.
“When we start locally with credit card billing and then we move to operator billing, we see a 70 percent lift in sales literally over night,” says Nokia’s VP of product management, George Linardos. In addition, he also says that the company will not take all the revenue for itself; some of it will go to the carriers as well. “That means there’s a cut taken out,” he adds. Unfortunately, he doesn't unveil any details on when the Ovi Store will be launched, only mentioning that it will come “Very, very soon.”
In related news, we learn that Nokia has confirmed that it plans halting investments on Ovi Share services, as the company is trying to rely more on third-party APIs for more established sharing services to be added to Ovi, and does not intend to work on the development of the service by itself. According to Engadget, a Washington-based office working on Ovi Share services will be closed, and the company officially stated that halting development of Ovi Share is in accordance with the plans it announced on April 28, which involved certain changes in its services, as well as discontinuing "investments in some legacy systems."