All in all, this announcement delivers a crushing blow to the makers of traditional navigators - TomTom's shares, for example, lost 15 percent in price right after the press-conference of the Finnish manufacturer. And this is probably the best indication that the market has already clued in on the fact that the rules have changed. But will OVI Maps become their major selling point? I think it'll be more of a welcome addition, as navigation is not the service many crave for these days. It will start to matter more down the road, though, make no mistake about that. For now Nokia has secured its position in Europe and gave Google a run their money. We'll see how they'll respond.
A couple of Euros on top of every S60 smartphone's price tag isn't that much, but as competition gets tougher even a couple of cents can make all the difference. Will Nokia's plan work out and the buyers of top-of-the-line solutions will see free navigation as the determining factor? In some regions - definitely. But we'll see whether it can really be a sales booster in the near future. The only thing I have left to say is that it's still unclear whether they'll offer free navigation for S40 too - the decision is yet to be made.
Labels: Nokia , Symbian
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