"Forum Nokia has a lot of dialogue with operators," Epting said. "We found that they are grappling with the cost of rolling out content to their subscribers. We're helping them overcome that barrier and delivering something that they can really use."
Preminet is an end-to-end application delivery platform that combines a unified testing and certification program on the developer's side, a master content catalog and application management and delivery platform in the middle and a flexible carrier-branded handset client on the carrier side. Nokia officials said Preminet would streamline the content delivery process, providing a library of trusted content from Nokia's sizable developer community and a means to aggregate and deliver quickly and uniquely, said Steen Thygesen, who heads up the new Preminet service.
Thygesen said carriers can combine their own content and that of other aggregators on the master catalog and deploy these applications in specific bundles targeted at different market segments - perhaps a content package for gamers or one targeted at suburban soccer moms. Because the client and the delivery platform are tightly integrated, carriers can add or drop individual applications with little hassle, allowing them to quickly address changing trends the market, Thygesen said.
"There's no limitation of what could be available to the end user," Thygesen said. "Carriers can refresh content continuously through [Preminet]. To go out and source all of that content from individual developers would be very labor intensive."
While there are other content delivery platforms in the market, none have the scale and scope of Nokia, which has access to an enormous pool of Forum Nokia developers. The market has been characterized by fragmentation for so long that, according to at least one developer, Nokia's initiative "brings sanity" to the market.
"We spend nearly as much time, energy and money dealing with fragmentation issues than we do building applications," said Marc Jacobstein, president and chief operating officer of Digital Chocolate, a mobile gaming and entertainment content developer. "We have to deal with numerous distribution channels, different testing standards and multiple user experiences. [Preminet] frees us up to concentrate on our applications."
Jacobstein said the developer-to-carrier ratio is rapidly growing, and getting face time with any given carrier is becoming more and more difficult. With gigantic corporations like Disney repurposing content for mobile, small operations are having trouble even getting noticed.
"For a small developer, it often amounts to cold-calling carriers," Jacobstein said.
Furthermore, the market those developers are pursuing is still nascent. Carriers still receive 95% of their revenues from voice services. The promise of wireless data may be big, but it's still only a potential market. The developer community may be feeding off that potential, but for now, they are all competing for a small piece of what is actually a tiny market.
While Nokia may be addressing a need in the content industry, it certainly isn't doing it for free. Nokia is running Preminet on a revenue sharing model, giving Nokia a 10% to 20% cut depending on whether carriers adopt a wholesale or retail business model. But Nokia has built a lot of flexibility into the system: The client software is free, and Nokia is charging only for Forum Nokia content, allowing carriers to distribute their own content off the platform after paying initial setup fees. Nokia's initial launch today will open with a content catalog of more than 100 certified applications, with more becoming available weekly as Forum Nokia guides its developers through the testing and certification process. The program is designed to initially support applications Series 40, Series 60 and Series 80 Java and Symbian devices, but Epting said the program could be expanded to include other handsets and middlewares if there was a demand.
While few disagree that there is a need for a centralized content platform in the industry, not everyone agrees that Nokia should be the one to deliver it. Microsoft runs its own certification service and hosts a master catalog of content called Mobile to Market. The difference is Microsoft doesn't charge for its platform, said John Starkweather, product manager for mobile and embedded devices for Microsoft.
"We don't want operators to feel we're being heavy-handed so we offer the service up without charge," Starkweather said. "The strategy behind easy access to a platform is great. It's the execution where it gets sticky. Nokia seems to want to own everything from the handset to the customer relationship."
A few years ago, Nokia raised hackles among the carrier community when it launched its own content portal - Club Nokia - as a means of delivering ringtones and other content directly to consumers. Nokia's reasoning at the time was the same as it is now: It was spurring a lackluster market, said John Jackson, wireless analyst with the Yankee Group. After carriers' own ringtone businesses got off the ground, Nokia shut down the service.
"But some people felt it kept Club Nokia alive and kicking longer than it should have been if Nokia was just trying to spur the market," Jackson said.
Other moves by Nokia have generated suspicions about Nokia's overall goals in the industry. Earlier this year, Nokia unsuccessfully tried to take a controlling stake in Symbian, the OS that powers the majority of the world's smartphone and the core software Nokia's Series 60 middleware is built on. Nokia has always defended its actions as a means of breathing life into the wireless data sector.
"I have no doubt there will be some concerns raised in the industry," Epting said. "We choose to focus on the intent. We don't have any ulterior motive, beyond growing wireless data."
While Nokia obviously has the ulterior motive of selling more handsets, that motive is perfectly obvious and not necessarily at odds with its stated goal of driving the wireless data industry forward, Jackson said. Carriers may have some suspicion or trepidation over Nokia having influence over another critical part of the content chain, but it's likely that they'll overcome that trepidation and embrace the service, Jackson said.
"Nokia is seeing itself as leading by example," Jackson said. "They prefer to take the lead, and they have the gravitas to do it. People are always suspicious of the 800-pound gorilla, but this solution solves a problem. I don't think that suspicion will be a deal killer."
Device, OS & Content highlights:
1998
September
Nokia and other handset vendors fund Symbian to create smartphone operating system
2001
January
Nokia announces its first Symbian-based phone
2003
February
Nokia starts Series 60 product creation community
June
Nokia partners with Real-Networks for streaming media
September
Nokia launches N-Gage game player/communicator
2004
June
Nokia expands developer support for CDMA
July
Symbian ownership restructured to keep Nokia stake at %
August
Nokia and Vodafone team up to guide Java standards road map
October
Nokia announced Preminet content distribution platform
