Live feed from the kick-off session to Nokia's Stuttgart shindig.
We're here in Stuttgart for Nokia World 09, the annual conference at which Nokia shows off its new technology, talks future developments, and dead-bats pesky questions about iPhones from journalists.
ME is liveblogging the keynote, during which we're promised some big announcements to go with last week's unveilng of the Booklet 3G netbook and N900 tablet. Stay tuned - refresh for the latest updates.
9.10: Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is taking the stage, to a frankly embarrassing beatbox montage (“Olli-olli-olli Pe-Pe-Pekka...”). What is Nokia World all about? “People like us, getting together, sharing ideas, creating and connecting, and of course, having fun along the way.” And beatboxing.
9.15: Nokia has begun to deliver on the vision outlined at last year's Nokia World, says Kallasvuo, flicking up a slide of the new N900. “The next logical step in the transformation of our business... and like all transformations, we've had our ups and downs... that's okay, as long as we learn and improve. We know we have a lot of work to do, but we have a solid plan in place... Our ambition is nothing less than to create the biggest delivery platform for services for mobile.”
9.17: Numbers: more than 55 million active users of Nokia services globally, moving towards its target of 300 million by 2012. People in 180 countries can access Ovi Store, and 27 operators are providing integrated billing in eight countries. Numbers? No – developers from 65 countries have uploaded apps: “More proof of its global scope”. More than one million Ovi Mail accounts have been activated in six months.
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9.18: No app download numbers for the Ovi Store then. Early days, etc etc.
9.19: Comes With Music has seen “dramatic” growth. “As of today, Comes With Music is available in ten countries on a dozen different devices, with of course more to come.” No figures again. Sorry to sound negative at an early stage, but when Apple is talking about billions of app downloads and iTunes song sales, Nokia should really do more than roll out the 'people in x countries' stats.
9.20: Nokia Life Tools has been very popular in India, and will expand into other markets soon.
9.21: N97 and 5800 have sold more than ten million handsets in the past ten months, with half of those coming in the last three months. That's ten million between them, I think.
9.22: Talks about the Booklet 3G, but DOESN'T call it a netbook. It's an ultra-light, ultra-compact, smart mobile PC. I think netbook is a bit more catchy, but Kallasvuo promises more Booklet news in the next keynote – we've heard operator deals may be announced.
9.23: Calls the N900 “the best browser device ever”. Take that, Apple! And he explains that Nokia sees its devices falling into three categories going forward: phones, smartphones and mobile computers.
9.24: Nokia's partnership with Microsoft has “tremendous potential”, with the plans to bring Office to Symbian devices “only the start”. This is an overview of everything that's going on – the announcements will come in the next session.
9.25: Now Kallasvuo talks about So-Lo – social location – which looks set to be a big theme at Nokia World this year. Facebook's big announcement will apparently be blending Facebook with Ovi Maps in a location-based style, incidentally.
9.26: “Every consumer service we announce at this Nokia World will be available to try out either immediately or in the next 48 hours.” Kallasvuo says critics who've accused Nokia of announcing new stuff too far in advance in the past have been right, hence the statement above.
9.27: “Maps and navigation will be at the heart of how Nokia connects people... We have created a platform that will support a broad range of location-based services.” There's a NavTeq keynote later on that'll give more info on this.
9.28: “Two new music-focused devices” to be announced, and a new version of the N97 – the much-rumoured N97 Mini presumably.
9.30: Takes a pop at Nokia's competitors from the computing and internet worlds (Apple and Google, yes?).
9.32: "We recognise we have to make life easier for our operator and developer partners". More information to come tomorrow on how Nokia plans to open up its platforms more.
9.34: "Services are critical... I have told our employees, we will not fail... Change is no longer optional... We are piece by piece building a new Nokia. Is it an uphill climb? Of course it is, and we still have a long way to go." Interesting that he goes on to describe Nokia as "the underdog" too.
