Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is happy to leave mobile web search to the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Yahoo’s of the world, according to its head of search Jussi-Pekka Partanen. As he notes, transplanting the internet search experience to the mobile web is not the Finnish handset giant’s focus when it comes to mobile search, as there are other issues—such as location based services—that the company is better equipped to tackle. mocoNews.net recently caught up with Partanen, who outlined the challenges of the mobile search today, and what Nokia is working on for the future.

More from the interview after the jump...

— State of Mobile Search: If you talk about overall search then it’s still very early days for mobile search, though lots of companies are demonstrating the value of it with various use cases. But consumers haven’t really adapted it in real life big time, so its still very early for the business. But what’s interesting to see is the different domains emerging for mobile search, such as location based services. That could be one of the key areas that in real practice might drive mobile search to the next level.

— Wired internet vs. the Mobile Web: We’ve seen great adoption rates in people using location based services and search as part of our Nokia Maps product. Basically, on devices with GPS, you stand with your handset, get a GPS fix, and type in keyword to get back all the relevant information around you. When you use your PC, it’s about looking at the past or the future. With your mobile you are standing somewhere in the middle of something and you want to have immediate access to something that may not be as comprehensive as what you want to have on your PC, but will give you some quick facts, some valuable information that you just happened to need at that point in time in that location.
 
— Nokia’s Current Mobile Search Focus: I would call it information discovery strategy, whether it’s on your PC, on your mobile, or some other terminals we are doing. When you are providing internet services, of course, it always starts with discovery. We are concentrating now on location-based search, and also on on-device search.

— Mobile As Remote Control: Being able to search your PC and other connected home media devices from your mobile will be a very important use case in the future. People will have more media stored in their mobile device, but they will store and record a much bigger part of their lives into different connected media devices that they have at home. The mobile phone is your personal device through which you can or should be able to access all this information. Today, the information is still fragmented into these silos [of different devices], but we have a unique opportunity for bringing everything into single user interface on your personal mobile device, so that it becomes your remote control to the important information or media in your life.

— Peer-to-Peer Mobile Data Connectivity And Search: Peer to peer search is another interesting dimension. Nowadays you are already connecting [with friends and contacts] through voice calls. The next phase is how we can connect people to each other through peer to peer data connectivity which would allowing you to share things with each other not only through online sites like MySpace and Facebook, but to allow you to share the important pieces (songs, photos, other media and information) of life on a live basis so that people will always have live access to the data that sit in these devices, including your mobile or your PC, or other home connected device, so that it can be accessed through this search interface.

— Nokia’s Handset Dominance: It gives us a strong position, but of course, that only takes you so far. Getting the distribution and the products out is a good starting point, but you still need to be able to prove the value of the services to the consumers. You really need to solve the problem of real consumer adoption, that is you do something that is so valuable that people are not only trying once or twice, but coming back to the product every day.

— Google: Friend or Foe? Web search is not something that is in our focus; we have taken the approach of partnering there. We know that there is a certain amount of consumer demand for these big search brands, whether its with Google, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) or Baidu (NSDQ: BIDU) in China, and we have decided to fulfill that demand by offering these different alternatives, so its up to the consumer what he/she wants to use, we really see these complementing our services.

— Operators: Operator portals still attract people to their [portals], but at the same time there is a pretty strong trend of people going beyond the walled garden, and going to internet services. The control that operators have is really becoming more and more marginal and it’s becoming a game where you really need to provide strong focused consumer services with a good brand. Nokia is supporting them with some of their efforts and of course, providing our own services to consumers. I believe in consumer choice—consumers choose and you really can’t force them to use something that is not providing the value. That’s something we’ve already learned from the operator walled garden; yes, you can create lots of great strategies on tying the hands of consumers into something, but they will always rebel and go against you.