T-Mobile Germany Ditches Nokia Devices in Fear of Ovi
by Darla Mack
T-Mobile Germany is supposedly planning on getting rid of all Nokia handsets that can access the Ovi service. Apparently they are in fear of competition with their own in-house content platform. This sounds like something that the US GSM providers would pull and I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.
According to the report, T-Mobile will offer only 10 Nokia phones to customers, which are all incompatible with Ovi, compared with 15 phones five weeks ago.
A T-Mobile spokeswoman did concede that the company currently does not carry any Ovi compatible Nokia handsets, but did not confirm that there was a blanket ban on the handsets.
"We are currently in negotiations with Nokia about the Ovi service and are pretty confident to find a solution soon," she said.
[via: Cellular News, WirtschaftsWoche
In other words, they're holding out for a share of the profits before letting Ovi compatible phones onto the market. That's stupid. The average data usage will increase with this service so they'll make back any money they lose from their own content providers.
Posted by: Furie | March 03, 2008 at 08:09 AM
That goes against the follow:
T-Mobile and Nokia introduce Nokia 6650 exclusively for T-Mobile customers
March 03, 2008
In addtion OVI can be accesed by any device with a browser....
Posted by: TBoom8669 | March 03, 2008 at 11:24 AM
I think that's exactly why AT&T doesn't offer some Nokia phones, because they are so open and they wouldn't be profitable to them.
Posted by: Giovani | March 03, 2008 at 12:33 PM
I wonder how one distinguishes between an Ovi service and a non-Ovi service? Currently, Ovi is loosely coupled with Nokia Maps, Nokia Music Store, and N-Gage, but my guess is that it may be possible to sign up for, and use, these services with several devices. Regardless of whether they are a part of Ovi or not.
I am sure that there will be a strong collaboration between T-Mobile and Nokia, but at the moment, with the closing of the Bochum factory hitting headlines, T-Mobile can ride on a badwill wave for Nokia and then get a better negotiation positioning... I guess...
Posted by: N-Irelandez | March 03, 2008 at 01:46 PM
T-mobile Germay did not do this !!
T-mobile says: they never wont do this it was face informations!!
Posted by: Nokius | March 11, 2008 at 09:16 AM