Nokia has hit back at Google’s Android platform, with CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo dismissing the Open Handset Alliance’s OS launch with the suggestion that the Finnish company themselves have already trodden much of the software ground Google and partners are currently bringing attention to: “conceptually, we could have made that announcement a long time ago.”  In fact, with their announcement of the Ovi internet-services project - that has recently clinched the support of Vodafone, already a vocal critic of Android - that will combine their music and mapping services, as well as hints of geo-targeted advertising, their position as chief rival to the Google OS seems increasingly cemented.

“Mobile phones have two qualities that PCs don’t have: they’re always with you, and they tell other people where you are” Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia

After a number of poorly performing years has seen their market share in the US drop from 28 to 10-percent, Nokia has a head start in powerful cellphone technology which so-far has been limited, many believe, by the current ageing incarnation of the Series 60 OS.  This will see a significant upgrade come 2008, including touchscreen-based functionality many have compared to the iPhone (but that Nokia has since claimed to have been working on since before the Apple device’s launch), with the possible inclusion of haptic feedback Nokia are calling Haptikos. 

“It’s very clear that Apple, Google, and other players are bringing in a lot of new directions.  Convergence is a nice, dandy word, but it means industries colliding” Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo

Instead, Nokia is working on developing a new breed of handsets better compatible with US carriers and hopefully rebuilding its languishing market share.  Nonetheless, the market for the company’s demands is undoubtedly flourishing: they have supposedly shipped more than twice as many of their N95 GPS-equipped smartphones as Apple have iPhones in the same period.  With Vodafone on board (still smarting no doubt from their failure to block T-Mobile Germany from selling locked iPhones, as well as being overlooked in Apple exclusivity contracts) Nokia seems to be building their own rival alliance to the OHA; it remains to be seen whether Google’s brand name and internet nous will be enough to dislodge the globally-established Finns.