Nokia shows Ovi the door

News that Nokia is dropping the Ovi brand comes to no surprise. Hopefully Nokia's full attention will not turn onto delivering a compelling Windows Phone hardware. Nokia has been quietly dropping services, finally realising that they can't compete on services with software-focused companies like Google and Microsoft.

Ovi Mail for example was migrated to Yahoo!, though the brand name retained. I know of no one who uses Ovi Mail, other than signing up out of curiosity. Other services dropped in the past includes Ovi Files, which features a Dropbox-like service which allows users to remotely send and access files, and Ovi Music Unlimited.

The only compelling service by Nokia that has been successful is Ovi Maps, and that is only because it offers offline maps, free voice navigation and cracking 3D view (on desktop). And rumour on the tech circles is that Ovi Maps, now called Nokia Maps again, will be integrated into Microsoft's Bing Maps as part of the core Windows Phone mapping service.

Nokia's desire to promote the Ovi brand was a huge waste of money and resources. Nokia as a brand was positive and desirable (back then anyway), so why not leverage the best asset they have? Most consumers (I am not talking tech bloggers like us) recognises the name Nokia - and not some Finnish word for door.