Ovi (Nokia)

Ovi by Nokia (Finnish: ovi "door") was the brand for Nokia's Internet services. The Ovi services could be used from a mobile device, computer (through Ovi Suite) or via the web. Nokia focused on five key service areas: Games, Maps, Media, Messaging and Music. Nokia's aim with Ovi was to include third party developers, such as operators and third-party services like Yahoo's Flickr photo site. With the announcement of Ovi Maps Player API, Nokia started to evolve their services into a platform, enabling third parties to make use of Nokia's Ovi services.

Ovi was first announced in 2007 and was a move into the world of Internet services and applications. It was initially available for internet-enabled Nokia feature phones and S60 smartphones, and also accessible via the web and on PC. Throughout its lifetime it faced strong competition particularly from Apple's App Store. As of January 2012, there were exactly 10 million downloads every day, also 158 developers reached over 1 million downloads for their Applications.

On 16 May 2011, Nokia announced the discontinuation of the Ovi brand and the services rebranded under the Nokia brand. The transition began in July 2011 and was completed by the end of 2012. Most of the constituent services were subsequently either closed or integrated into Microsoft's own services after its acquisition of Nokia devices and services division in 2014.

Ovi was announced on 29 August 2007 at the Go Play event in London. The public beta was released on 28 August 2008. Nokia has acquired key building blocks for Ovi over time. These include intellectual property (IP), patents and core components such as synchronization. Acquired IP, patents include companies such as Starfish Software, Intellisync, NAVTEQ, Gate5, Plazes and others. Other components have been developed internally. On 20 May 2009, at the Where 2.0 event in San Jose, CA, USA, Nokia announced the release of the Ovi Maps Player API, allowing web developers to embed Ovi Maps into a website using JavaScript.

The Ovi Store was launched worldwide in May 2009. Here, customers could download mobile games, applications, videos, images, and ringing tones to their Nokia devices. Some of the items were free of charge; others could be purchased using credit card or through operator billing in selected operators. The content in Ovi Store was sorted into the following categories:

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