Nokia is following Google by Barbora Misakova

As it seems, Google is a real master. Everyone on the market is watching Google’s steps and making decisions based on them. Google as an American public corporation is not specializing only in Internet search anymore. It also generates profits from advertising and lately they have developed also a mobile phone operating system. In 2004 Google acquired a company Keyhole, Inc. which developed a product called Earth Viewer, today known as Google Earth. And that was another step to ruling the world. Google’s first mobile phone G1 won’t be ordinary smart phone with touch screen and other “useful” features. As Google wants to boost its market positio! n even more, it decided to offer free maps on its cell phones. They started in late 2009 with Motorola’s Droid model Smartphone which was offering free navigation. And the competitors didn’t hesitate long. Nokia decided to follow Google and to boost handset sales. Up to the moment Nokia was charging for navigation packages including turn-by-turn directions, but from now on that is a history. Even though spokesman for Nokia declined to comment, Yahoo! News informed that these turn-by-turn directions will be covering 74 countries in 46 languages and that’s all for free. As the turn-by-turn navigation has been one of the key revenue sources for Nokia, there is still a question hanging in the air: can Nokia generate revenue enough to compensate for the revenue streams they kill? John Strand, chief executive of Danish telecoms consultancy Strand Consult, who was asking this question thinks that the only way how to go through it is to increase hardware sales and! average sales prices.

related story (sgx16190)! : http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100121/tc_nm/us_nokia_maps;_ylt...

by Barbora Misakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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