Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK-messageboard) today took a great leap into providing mobile Internet services with a new brand, new devices, and the handset vendor's first new services. (See Nokia Launches Internet Services.)

    The world's largest handset maker will offer mobile Internet services under the brand, Ovi, which is Finnish for "door." With Ovi, Nokia means to provide access to users' existing social networks and Internet content as well as a gateway to Nokia's Internet services.

    The first services within the Ovi brand are a mobile gaming service called N-Gage, the Nokia Music Store, and an updated version of Nokia Maps, which was launched earlier this year for the N95 handset. (See Nokia, Vivendi Partner and Nokia Buys gate5.)

    "Today, we're constantly thinking beyond the device. The device itself is not enough," says Nokia president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. "By intergrating services tightly into our devices we bring simplicity and ease of use to users to take full advantage of the mobile Internet."

    Some operators are likely to view Nokia's services as a threat to their own Internet services.

    "Operators are quite likely to negotiate tough with Nokia for revenue share on such services," says Mark Burk, industry analyst at M:Metrics Inc. "And if that doesn't work, they'll ban the Nokia service and use their own."

    But as Unstrung Insider's chief analyst Gabriel Brown points out, operators have not done well with their own mobile Internet services so far.

    "Operators have had their chance and largely failed to deliver mobile Web services," says Brown. "It's not surprising Nokia wants to forge its own initiatives now."

    KallasvuoinsiststhatNokia's services strategy will help operators deliver services rather than compete with them directly on their patch.