Nokia has its own mobile search application, embedded in some of its cell phone models. The application currently provides shortcuts to Yahoo! OneSearch, Microsoft Live Search Mobile, Baidu and Yandex.
Today, Nokia announced that it will add Google to the list of search engines that consumers can access from its phones.
Nokia explained that it prefers to gives choices to their customers, rather than just providing one search engine.
“Providing choices for our consumers is an important driver in Nokia’s Internet service strategy,” Ilkka Raiskinen, Nokia’s vice-president of software and services, said in a statement issued at the Mobile World Congress wireless fair in Barcelona.
Certainly here in the UK, all the providers brand up the phones like crazy anyway, carrying enough leverage as they do to make Nokia pretty much add or remove whatever features they want. Skype for example is one feature that most of them seem to ditch. One provider even ditches the entire SIP stack it seems.
On the other hand, it took me 2 mins to set the homepage of my new N95 to Google.co.uk even though the provider is partnered with Yahoo!. Question is then, when the providers preferred partners can be circumvented so quickly, is Nokia’s own list of “supported” search engines even vaguely relevant to the consumer?
I wonder what proportion of consumers customise their phones?
Nokia has taken a beating with Motorola’s smartphones, they need to catch up in the race. It will be interesting how mobile search develops with the iPhone, Nokia and Motorola. iPhone has definately gotten a big head start!