Nokia adds hosting to its fast-growing Services portfolio

Nokia today launched its Nokia Mobility Hosting solution for mobile service providers, offering them the chance to quickly roll out new, exciting services for subscribers while keeping investments in check and uncertainties to a minimum.

Separately, Nokia announced it had won a push to talk (PoC) hosting trial agreement with Mobitel Slovenia. In 2005, Nokia won push to talk hosting agreements with mobilkom austria and 3 Scandinavia, and Nokia is currently in hosting solution talks with a number of service providers across the globe.

Hosting is now starting to take off, and is expected to grow sharply in the coming years as operator competition intensifies. Research group Ovum forecasts the size of the hosting market to double to 1.35 billion euros by 2009 from around 670 million in 2005.

"As the telecommunications market converges, operators are increasingly looking in the mirror and asking themselves what sort of role they want to play in this process. They are scrutinizing their business models and asking what is a core activity and what isn't," said Jean-Charles Doineau, Service infrastructure practice leader, Ovum.

"We feel operating service platforms is one area that some operators will offload to outside parties in the coming years. Only a handful of vendors have started to look at the potential in this market, and Nokia is one of them," he said.

The business environment for mobile service providers is becoming tougher, and new multimedia services are becoming increasingly complex to install and maintain. By opting for Nokia's hosting solution, operators can focus squarely on winning and retaining subscribers by offering popular services such as PoC and multimedia messaging.

"Nokia is unmatched in its ability to serve operators' needs, from networks to devices to services. With our global footprint of hosting centers, including the new Nokia Global Networks Solutions Center in Chennai, we are in a prime position to tap the growing hosting market and ensure the best hosted solutions for our customers," said Patrik Sallner, Head of Hosting Service Line, Networks, Nokia.

"Thanks to our broad mobile solutions portfolio and the customer understanding we have from our Enterprise Solutions, Mobile Phones and Multimedia businesses, Nokia can help service providers accelerate the time to market of new offerings. Hosting is a partnership that benefits both sides, allowing them to share initial start-up costs and also reap rewards once the services take off," Sallner said.

Hosting is one of the many tools that Nokia can offer operators to help grow their business in the face of ever-toughening competition and growing technological complexity. Hosting sits alongside Managed Services to form one of the main pillars of Nokia's growing Services business unit. Nokia is a leader in the managed services market, with 39 agreements in 30 countries.

Nokia provides a full range of support and services to help operators differentiate and innovate their mobile offerings, with close to 20 years' experience in the field. Services comprises over 30 percent of revenues in Nokia's Networks business group, and the figure is growing.