The Running Commentary

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Nokia OVI Store worth a closer look

I had the privilege, several weeks back, of meeting the team behind Nokia OVI Store in South Africa.  I was hosted by Doron Faktor, OVI Music Store Editor, and had an amazing evening hearing about what they have achieved. I had read the press releases and marketing hype around the OVI store beforehand, but experiencing the excitement first hand somehow enhanced all of these statistics.

Fundamentally Nokia have made significant improvements and enhancements to the store, to be expected but still great to see. Browsing around the store is easy and the interface is quite user friendly. As a music nutter I was pleased to hear about the over 7 million music tracks available for download. Significant to the South African market was the introduction of operator billing in June this year. This introduction has seen the growth of downloads of applications explode. While this option does not extend to music just yet I am sure that in time it will.

Changing the download format for music has also meant that the store has become fairly OEM independent.  Some may argue that this endangers the brand. I hold that view that it will enhance the brand as people have a great experience in the store. 

Further opportunities, to benefit from the OVI Store, arise with selected Nokia devices, The Nokia N8, which I am currently reviewing, is delivered with 6 months unlimited downloading of music and you also have ability to renew subscriptions if you wish. The snag for the “comes with music devices” are that the subscription is still limited by DRM, this means that effectively you have to get creative if you want to move the music across platforms

Nokia have become really creative in attracting developers to create apps for the store and I am sure that we are going to see this number and variety of apps increase. If I have one comment it is that some apps lack the styling and finesse of those in the iStore. Will we see the OVI store surpass the Apple Store? I am not sure but only time will tell. I do believe though that the OVI store offers fantastic value.

Check it out

MusicnokiaNokia N8OVI StoreTracks

Mike • October 29, 2010


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