Nokia officially introduced its Ovi Store which offers online software and content for 50 million Nokia phone owners, though the launch suffered technical hiccups.
After the service first launched, Ovi users said they had trouble logging into their accounts, along with a disappointing lag time using the service. Users also complained about a serious lack of content. Nokia said it will continue to roll out new services and programs for Nokia phone owners, but an overall underwhelming product catalog shouldn't be surprising.
Ovi Store users in eight different countries can make purchases through the store and have all purchases automatically added to their mobile phone bills -- AT&T will introduce the Ovi Store to U.S.-based Nokia phone owners before the end of the year.
The Ovi Store first launched on Monday for phone owners in Australia and Singapore, with representatives from the Finnish company saying a global launch would take place shortly.
Even though it appears the Ovi Store has been designed to try and combat with the popular iPhone Apple App store, it's highly unlikely that Nokia's offering will be able to ever compete on the same level as Apple. Nokia has to spend the next few months marketing and pushing its own store to Nokia phone owners, and not worry about anything else.
Nokia has had serious trouble trying to sell smartphones to the U.S. market, but a combination of the Nokia E71x -- Nokia's latest smartphone offering -- and the Ovi Store could become a good combination for American shoppers.
The Finnish company must now also try and get providers such as France Telecom to let it offer consumers products through the Ovi Store, which would cut into France Telecom's revenue stream -- a problem Nokia faces in several different European countries.
