Straight from CTIA in San Francisco, Nokia have announced Preminet, a storefront geared towards Operators, that will provide software, themes, ringtones and other mobile paraphernalia. Nokia will control a central catalogue, and Operators who sign up can choose which items appear in their portfolio. Brand-able client software for the user to download from the Operator. This will provide the ability to get demos of applications, and provide a payment route to be billed. But what does it all mean (http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news.php?id=29473)?

My first thought is why strike out on your own when there are stores out there already (e.g. Digital Rivers, Handango and Power By Hand)? The key here is that Preminet only going to carry Java Certified and Symbian Signed applications. The networks, rightly or wrongly, are worried that they've put a computer into user's hands, not just a phone, and the technical support issues now are ten or twentyfold more than just "I can't dial my Gran's number." Restricting phones to a pool of pre-selected applications makes business sense to the Tech Support Department. Rest assured any Operator signing up to this is going to seriously look at locking down the phones to only running signed apps.

Most of the internet commentators have commented that this seems like Nokia is attempting to replicate Qualcomm's Brew system - which is a separate language, developer and store set-up by Qualcom for access to their phones. It's a pretty successful solution for the North American Company, but it does add in a barrier to entry for any developer of $10,000. There's no news on what Nokia will charge Developers to get listed.

Being in catalogue doesn't mean that you get distributed worldwide, it's up to the operators to decide what to put in their branded catalogue. So talk of operators being able to focus on the one relationship with Nokia, and not having to maintain relationships with hundreds of authors is, I think, a little premature. There's a lot of power being handed over to Nokia here, both in the developer hoping their choice gets pushed at a network, and in the networks giving up a lot of their independence in having what they may see as a branded Nokia Store.

And out of the shareware fee, now the Operator and Nokia have to take a cut before the developer sees any money. With Handango taking upwards of 40% in some cases, you can be sure that the big guys will want a significant portion of your money.

Finally, there's a lot Nokia trying to get everything under one roof. They've got the Developer Program (Forum Nokia), they own the main developer tool (Metrowerks' Codewarrior) and now they're gunning for the distribution system. And while this is great for Series 60 (and probably Series 80 and 90) it leaves other UI versions of Symbian OS such as UIQ marginalised. Can you see the networks running two of these stores?

That's assuming they actually go for it...

NOKIA LAUNCHES OPERATOR-BRANDABLE MOBILE CONTENT AND APPLICATION DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM

Preminet® Solution Will Deliver Certified Symbian OS(TM) and Java(TM) Mobile Software to Operators and End Users

CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2004, San Francisco, CA, October 25, 2004 - Nokia (NYSE:NOK), the global leader in mobility, today launched the Preminet® solution, a major worldwide initiative designed to streamline the distribution process for innovative and fully certified mobile content and applications. Created to satisfy the needs of the entire mobile software value chain, Preminet sources premier Java and Symbian OS software from leading developers and content aggregators around the globe to give operators a master catalog of applications, games and other mobile content. It also offers operators a complete solution for delivery, billing and revenue distribution, providing an end-to-end, operator-brandable platform for launching new applications and services to consumers.

Consisting of a master catalog, a service delivery platform and an optional innovative client application, Preminet provides a turnkey solution that initially is available as a hosted offering by Nokia. Preminet is designed to integrate easily into existing systems, including content delivery gateways, authentication systems and billing platforms. To maximize consumer uptake of games, applications and other content, the flexible, operator-brandable client application works side-by-side with an operator's other discovery methods (WAP, SMS and Web) to let end users find, sample, download and securely pay for mobile software.

"Until now, each operator has been responsible for maintaining hundreds of relationships with individual Java and Symbian OS developers and sourcing, and testing each application before bringing them to the end-user," said Lee Epting, vice president, Forum Nokia. "With Preminet, we now provide a single source for operators to acquire a comprehensive range of industry certified content, applications and services, and a complete platform for managing distribution to their customers. Operators now have the ability to launch a differentiated service offering in a very simple manner without major investment."

Preminet helps content aggregators and developers, including the 1.6 million members of Forum Nokia - the world's largest wireless developer community - quickly and easily make more money from their Java and Symbian OS software by providing a single channel to access the wireless industry's largest addressable market. Java is the leading platform for mobile software worldwide, with over 350 million Java technology-enabled handsets in the marketplace as of June 2004, while Symbian OS is the most popular smartphone operating system in the world, running over two-thirds of the world's smartphones. Analyst firm Ovum further expects that within three years, annual shipments of Symbian OS smartphones will top 100 million per year, while the total number of Java-enabled phones in the market will be over 1.5 billion. Preminet is also air interface agnostic and works across GSM, CDMA and other types of cellular networks.

"The size of the potential market for Java and Symbian OS software makes this a very significant initiative," said David Kerr, Vice President, Strategy Analytics. "Cost, complexity and fragmentation are the critical barriers to content revenue. Nokia's global operator relationships, its leadership in rich media devices and its ability to cross the chasm to the content industry make it the natural choice to deliver this service."

All of the games and other applications in Preminet are tested under the industry-wide Java Verified Program(TM) and Symbian Signed testing and certification initiatives. Java Verified and Symbian Signed were launched earlier this year and are supported by a broad coalition of mobile operators, handset vendors and other companies, including Sun Microsystems and Symbian, respectively. Screenshots, icons, content guidelines and documentation for each application are pre-certified, as well, assuring operators that every application is completely market-ready.

"We strongly support Nokia in this endeavor," said Alan Brenner, vice president, Consumer and Mobile Systems Group of Sun Microsystems. "Thanks to Nokia's use of open standards and industry-wide initiatives, we believe Preminet will help drive interoperability and efficiency across the mobile software industry, bringing more leading mobile Java applications to market."

"Symbian OS smartphone applications have seen great success with almost double the global sales and number of new third party applications since last year," said Marit Doving, executive vice president, marketing, Symbian. "Nokia's Preminet provides an exciting way for operators to fully realize the value of open-standard-based phones on their networks through the deployment of rich applications and services in a way that strengthens their service proposition to the customer."

Applications and content which pass certification and are accepted into the Preminet Master Catalog will instantly be available to mobile operators around the world through a single channel. Operators may pick and choose the applications they want from the catalog, and present them in their branded portal together with applications they source elsewhere. The catalog will feature the best applications from the global community of developers supported by Forum Nokia, including members of Forum Nokia PRO, the service for advanced developer companies that delivers premium levels of technical, business development and marketing support. Preminet will also include premium branded content offerings.

More information about Preminet® Solution will be available at: www.nokia.com/preminet after the opening of the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2004 show.

For more information about the Java Verified Program visit: www.javaverified.com

For more information about Symbian Signed visit www.symbiansigned.com