Skip to main content

GLOBAL – At the center of our planned partnership with Microsoft is a great opportunity: create the world’s largest, most innovative and rich network for content and services. The measure of success will be how quickly we move to drive critical mass, advertising and monetization opportunities for our partners and fantastic experiences for our consumers.

A quarter of a million people sign up for Nokia services every day, and we have evolved and shaped the experience based on what we learned from feedback, how we leveraged our assets, where we saw the opportunities to differentiate. We have a potential partner in Microsoft to bring a next generation platform, enabling us to bring truly innovative services not available from competitors. There is a real alternative for the “third horse” that our CEO Stephen Elop talks about.

Let’s look at some of the possibilities. Our expertise and success with Ovi Maps can help us realize new opportunities beyond navigation and localized content. We can make online advertising mobile, local and contextual through the search offered from Bing, and the ad-services available from Microsoft AdCenter, combined with our own location-based advertising assets.

Look at our momentum from Ovi Store. We took it to 190 countries and more than 30 languages and tripled consumer transactions when we implemented operator billing. Now we could integrate that experience with Windows Marketplace, improving the consumer experience and leveraging our collective knowledge to make it easier for developers to share and upload content and track.

Look at the consumer implications based on what Microsoft brings. We could incorporate branded service and product assets such as Zune, Xbox and Office 360 for more innovative consumer propositions. Microsoft’s track record in software, search, entertainment and other services will enhance the consumer value proposition at the center of this planned ecosystem.

We have the chance to make these ideas happen. It starts with what each side brings: complementary assets, global reach, trusted brands, innovation and consumer understanding. Realizing the opportunity means we have to buckle down, believe, and deliver on the potential.

Tuula Rytilä-Uotila is Nokia’s Vice President, Location