We reported last week that this would happen, and frankly you could have guessed as much, but now it’s been made official: Nokia (NYSE: NOK) today outlined how it planned to slowly drop its Ovi mobile content brand, in favor of Nokia branding, in the lead-up to a new set…

Operators have been relatively late to the app game, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to make up for lost time by doing anything and everything they can to make a splash in the apps market. They have tried to get in on the app store craze on their…

A lot of people have been sharing a table that was released yesterday showing Nokia’s Ovi app store with a commanding lead in China—an edifying counterpoint to those who like to say, categorically, that Nokia’s in decline. But news coming in this week from titans like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is looking to give its Ovi Store a leg-up, and AT&T (NYSE: T) is happy to oblige. The pair has teamed to offer $10 million in cash and prizes for a new developer contest. The amount on offer through the Calling All innovators contest is actually $4…

Ovi Store has managed a reasonably stuttering start. The app store doesn’t even ship on some versions of the flagship new N8 smartphone and must first be downloaded and installed, one Nokia (NYSE: NOK) representative told me at Nokia World. Nokia’s media VP George Lindaros acknowledged at Nokia World: “It’s…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is bringing in-app purchasing and advertising to apps downloaded from its Ovi Store, as the handset maker tries to increase revenue to developers and itself from the apps craze. It also says it will itself absorb the cost developers usually incur for “signing” submitted apps.

Most media owners are strong believers in a strategy of “any-and-every-platform” ubiquity. But, for this season’s mobile strategy, the makers of the UK’s popular X Factor TV show are launching an “exclusive” app only on Nokia’s Ovi store.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is getting ready to re-brand its unlimited-free-music service Comes With Music as part of its Ovi services suite, after failing to make much of a success of it in its two years.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has always touted the millions of phones it has in consumer hands—68 million alone for smartphones—as one of the main reasons why developers would want to create applications for the Ovi Store. But it appears that developers just don’t care how big the Finnish phone maker’s base…

Nokia’s defensive move to make its Ovi maps and navigation free is already seeing strong customer response. Since launching Jan. 21, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) said today that people have downloaded the service 1.4 million times, and the one million mark was hit in just a week. The rate of downloads…

More details are emerging on the sort of content that Nokia’s upcoming Ovi Store will be carrying. In an interview with Reuters, Nokia’s head of entertainment business Tero Ojanpera says the store will include video content, although it is not planning on a more full-featured video service. “Movies will be…

Nokia will shut down its popular Mosh service as it rolls everything into its Ovi Store. “There is no official date for closing Mosh, but Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is expected to launch its Ovi store in May, merging its software Download! store with Mosh and widget service WidSets,” reports Reuters.…

Redwood City, Calif.-based Qik, which allows users to stream video from their handset to the web, said it has been chosen to receive prominent placing on Nokia’s upcoming Ovi Store. It also said it being integrated into Nokia’s Ovi Share service, which will allow users to post their videos directly…

Nokia has said that it will keep its N-Gage store for the time being, even though “Our goal in the medium term is really to converge everything into a single distribution channel,” Marco Argenti, Vice President for Media, told Reuters. The Ovi App Store will sell mass market games, with…

At Mobile World Congress, where the ham is salted and the food mostly in bite-sized tapas, I got to dive in deep with Nokia’s VP of Product Development for Media George Linardos, on the just-announced Ovi Store, which will serve as the app-distribution mechanism for developers on Nokia (NYSE: NOK)…

A slew of announcements from Nokia: — One sign-in for Ovi.com: Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has combined all the sign-ins for Ovi.com and for its media sharing service, finally getting rid of what was one of the biggest, most annoying hurdles of its internet services, reports Reuters. Ovi.com, which means door…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) plans to snap up more firms as it continues to build out its internet services, according to the Finnish handset maker’s internet head Niklas Savander, who told Reuters in an interview that it was “absolutely not yet where we need to be” with its current level of…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) said today it is adding new features to Ovi as it continues to reinvent itself as a services company rather than focusing itself as being a handset manufacturer. Now, people using Ovi will be able to back-up their contacts, calendar, notes and tasks between their phone and…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has announced plans to add a mapping service (Nokia Maps 2.0) to its Ovi portal at the end of May, unsurprisingly based on technology from its incipient acquisition of Navteq. The new version will let people get maps for routes rather than just street maps, as well…