Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone giants has made its navigation service, Ovi Maps and sat nav software free of cost from 21st January 2010. Users can download this new version from Nokia’s website. Through this move, Nokia heightened its competition against the strong players like Google.
Initially, Free Nokia Ovi Maps Service will be available only in ten Nokia mobile phones including, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia X6, Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia 5800 Xpress Music and Nokia 6730 classic. Eventually, other Nokia mobile handsets will get the compatibility. Besides, from the month of March, Nokia will start shipping new GPS mobile phones with pre-installed Ovi Maps.
Analysts at CCS Insight says that Free Nokia Ovi Maps will be a major threat to predominant players such as Google Maps navigation, TomTom, Garmin and so on. Specifically, Nokia Ovi Maps offer turn-by-turn voice guidance for 74 countries in 46 languages. The traffic information in ten countries and the detailed maps of over 180 countries are provided as well. These prove to be more global than Google Maps Navigation, as Google offers navigation only in one country.
Another tempting feature of Nokia Ovi navigation is the free access to Lonely Planet Travel Guide. According to Tero Ojanpera, the Executive Vice President of Nokia Services, Nokia Ovi navigation services consume less bandwidth and have an efficient network utilization. He said that this can transform the mobile navigation market overnight.
With free Ovi Maps and GPS software, Nokia is predicting a major sales boost. The competition in the smartphone market will intensify in 2010.
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