GLOBAL – It’s been a milestone year in Nokia’s evolution with CEO and President, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, announcing a fresh direction for Nokia that has already seen it beginning to move from being a handset company to an Internet services company.

Understanding the scale of the opportunity

LONDON, England – I just picked up on a report in the Economic Times in India about some stats revealed at Nokia World (which I missed, entirely – shriek!) First, the numbers. Nokia plans to have mobile email on some 400 million handsets in the next 24 months. It also plans to sell 300 million GPS-enabled handsets in the next 18-24 months. Let’s put that last figure into perspective. Sales of stand alone sat nav devices in Europe and the USA for 2008 are expected to top out at about 30-40 million units. Let’s assume Asia does a similar number, to give a total of about 60 million units for 2008, and something similar in 2009, given the global slowdown. Nokia, on its own then, is predicting to double even the most ambitious estimate of standalone sat nav sales. Am I the only one who finds that pretty exceptional?

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Navigating technology

LONDON, England – We got our first satnav back in 2003. It was one of the first affordable in-car units and served us well until we offloaded our car earlier this year. Since then, we’ve been without satnav. For me, it hasn’t been a problem. Since getting an N95 last year, I’ve become increasingly reliant on its navigation abilities and more than once it’s got me out of a jam (not necessarily a traffic jam, more a “where am I?” jam). Last week the next version of Maps was revealed and boy has it moved on since the original. Terrain, 3D view, faster, more points of interest, it’s now genuinely something dedicated satnav manufacturers need to start worrying about. But there’s one thing standing between me and dropping dedicated satnav for good. My wife.

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Nokia Maps matures with Ovi fusion

BARCELONA, Spain – Today sees the newest installment of Nokia Maps emerge with Ovi integration and stacks of smart guidance upgrades. Building on the context aware roots of the previous incarnation of Maps, this latest version has evolved to expand on the original vision and include more social mapping tools and introduce a new cross-platform twist between mobile and PC.

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Cool survey results from Nokia Maps guys!

COULD BE ANYWHERE - The Nokia Maps guys commissioned a really smart study into navigation and maps, where 12,500 people in 13 countries were asked about their sense of direction and navigation habits. In one finding, they saw that one in ten people find it impossible to navigate around London. Plus, to make it worse, one in three Londoners admit to deliberately giving people the wrong directions.

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Nokia E63 triggers double-take

ESPOO, Finland – Deja vu kicks in when you first lay eyes on the new E63, which comes as little surprise considering it has been built on the same well-postured backbone as its sibling the E71. But despite sharing the same skin (although the E63’s has a pinch more colour in its cheeks), these Eseries devices are far from twins.

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Nokia Games Summit showcases Nokia Maps gaming concept and loads more!

ROME, Italy – Undoubtedly thumbs will be worn down to the bone at the Nokia Games Summit which kicks off next week on Wednesday 29 October in Rome. It’s here that this year’s winners of the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge will be announced – Nokia’s open games development competition that’s in search of innovative concepts for new mobile games. The shortlist of finalists has been revealed, with some interesting concepts bubbling to the surface, featuring ideas such as games that use Nokia Maps, and even a title that sees your mobile phone’s camera connected to your TV for fun-loving purposes.

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Niche vs Mass-Market: What Nokia is up against.

ESPOO, Finland – I was at a great seminar the other day by one of our executives who has long been in the phone business. He had a great story in response to the usual questions of ‘when is Nokia coming out with <insert latest tech craze here>?’.

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The blog in my pocket – it’s alive!

LONDON, England – At first I didn’t think anything of it. Whilst secretly I was hoping that someone might actually visit, with no visitors in the 15 minutes or so after I set the post live, I kinda gave up on it. But a few hours later, I took a look at the log, and lo and behold, I’ve had a whole bunch of people come to look at The Blog In My Pocket. Well waddya know! Having simply put two rather feeble blog posts on, I figure I better do some more, so here’s an update from my brand new, pet project.