Finnish telecom giant Nokia has launched two new e-mail-capable handsets for business users and vowed to defend its position as the world's leading mobile phone maker.
Nokia said the E71 and E66 were pre-loaded with Microsoft’s popular e-mail program and would cater to business professionals who wanted easy and instant access to their messages.
“With the E series, we want to serve people who are passionate about their work,” said Chris Carr, Nokia’s vice president for regional sales, at a launch in Singapore late on Monday.
The two phones would be available in July and support e-mail accounts from key Internet service providers such Yahoo and Google’s Gmail, the firm said.
It said there were an estimated 1.5 billion e-mail users globally and that there were set to be 4 billion mobile users by the end of next year.
“We have grown our share with the broadest portfolio of devices in the industry ... Nokia remains the undisputed leader and it is a leadership mantle we will not relinquish,” Carr said.
The business mobile sector is currently dominated by Canada’s Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry smart phone combining a mobile phone and personal digital assistant.
The BlackBerry allows users to browse the Internet, use e-mail and make calls and has proven a big hit with business executives worldwide.
Apple is also taking aim at the corporate market with the launch of its touch-screen-activated 3G iPhone, which will come with faster Internet access and more features for business users than its initial iPhone.
Samsung, the world’s No. 2 phone maker, launched its Omnia model before the opening while Garmin yesterday unveiled its own take on the touch-screen phenomenon, the nuvifone.
The nuvifone has satellite tracking and features navigation aids that allow users to find the nearest shopping center or petrol station, for example.
Users of touch-screen phones tap on icons on the screen. There are few or no buttons.
Samsung was demonstrating the Omnia with its 8cm screen and 16 gigabytes of space for thousands of songs as its mobile division’s vice president for marketing, Yonghee Lee, bragged its calling and text-messaging functions were easier to use than Apple’s iPhone’s.
Google showed off free software called Android on its much-anticipated mobile phone-operating system to be unveiled in a few months.
Free or open-source software would encourage more innovations for the benefit of the world’s users of more than 3 billion cellular phones, said Andy Rubin, senior director of mobile platforms.
Android is being developed by Google and 33 other technology companies.
The new phone launches came on the eve of CommunicAsia. The event is billed as the region’s leading information and communications technology conference and exhibition and began yesterday in Singapore, with more than 2,300 firms from 65 countries showcasing their technological developments in the hopes of clinching slices of an estimated US$4.8 billion in deals.
“We are meeting amidst an uncertain global business outlook resulting from high oil prices and upheavals in the financial sector,” Lee Boon-yang, Singapore’s minister for information, communications and the arts, said in kicking off the four-day CommunicAsia and Broadcast Asia trade shows.
The demand for high-speed Internet and higher bandwidth would continue, he predicted.
“In a global environment, having a pervasive national broadband network has become more important for most countries in terms of growing the economy, enhancing international competitiveness and enriching the lives” of citizens, Lee said.
At CommunicAsia, technologies on show included the latest in 3G, Fiber-To-The-Home, satellite and security technologies along with the largest display ever of WiMAX, or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, exhibits.
The spotlight at Broadcast Asia is on interactive digital media, Internet protocol TV, mobile TV and high-definition TV technologies.
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