Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has just announced the rebranding of their popular Ovi brand based service to ‘Nokia Services’. Ovi means ‘door’ in Finnish. Nokia started the Ovi branded service way back in 2008 to bring N-Gage, Nokia Music and Nokia Maps under one umbrella. (The first two services are no longer available). Ovi branded sevices later expanded to include few more. Nokia’s EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Jerri DeVard has stated that, starting this summer (July), all the Ovi branded services will be known as just ‘Nokia Services’ and the transition will continue though 2012 as well.
Jerri explains that the reason behind this Nokia’s decision is to “reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify their brand architecture”. The services that are offered though Ovi branding will however continue and stay as they are now. If you are a Nokia user, it won’t matter much to you, other than the new service names like Nokia Store, Nokia Maps, etc. (Which were previously called Ovi Store, Ovi Maps). If you are buying a new Nokia handset this year, you may not see the rebranding as it is only expected to be included in the handsets to be sold in 2012, of course in the upcoming first Windows Phone 7 powered Nokia handset as well.
[Source: Nokia Conversations]