The leading mobile phone maker, Nokia, also has an ambitious plan to launch in the near future the Nokia N900, which is a mini computer and the first smartphone in the world to use Linux Maemo 5. This was stated by Chris Carr, vice president of sales for Southeast Asia Pacific during Nokia Showcase 2010.
He said the target market was Southeast Asia-Pacific countries, meaning ASEAN member nations plus Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh after the launch in Europe and several major countries. “Nokia N900 will be available in these countries starting March 2010,” said Carr at Warehouse Thai River Marina Bangkok, Thailand, on Feb. 22.
N900 has a 3.5 inch touch screen with a QWERTY keyboard, ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor, Linux Maemo 5 operation system and a 32 GB internal memory. It has a multitasking capability to open many applications simultaneously. It has a 5 megapixel camera, GPS, HSPA connection and WiFi 802.11 b/g. The Nokia N900 is also the first mobile phone in the world to be equipped with the Firefox Internet browser by Mozilla.
Carr said that the open platform Maemo of N900 gives opportunities to application makers to cooperate with Nokia. He also said that Nokia is committed to entering into such agreements with various developers anywhere in the world, including local manufacturers. Currently, hundreds of applications have been made for the N900 and the number is increasing. The applications are available online at Nokia OVI Store as well as the Maemo developer community.
The latest Nokia Ovi Maps are also featured and cover 74 countries and 46 languages. More than one map is downloaded every second of every day, totaling about 100,000 downloads daily. Ovi Music has similarly impressive statistics. On average, a Comes With Music user downloads 500 songs for free in the first week, which would cost them US$600 with iTunes. The Ovi Music catalogue contains more than 9 million songs.
Since its launch in May 2009, Ovi Store has become the store for wireless makers in the Asia Pacific area. Southeast Asia has become the largest contributor with its 30 percent Ovi Mail users. In the meantime, eight operators in Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand use Nokia Messaging, push mail and IM services. (Burhan Abe)
The Jakarta Post, March 04, 2010
