Posted by
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Nokia announced the availability of Nokia Life Tools, a service which provides a range of life improvement services for the emerging economies, starting this December in Indonesia. The service, which was first launched in India, has been received well by both consumers and service providers alike.
To compliment the life improvement service, Nokia also announced as many as five entry-level devices targetting the rural economies, with FM radio, prepaid tracker, flashlight, anti-scratch cover and dust-resistant keypad. The devices are equipped with high capacity batteries, with up to 22 days of standby time, which come in very handy in rural areas with intermittent availability of electricity.
Keeping the target market in view, Nokia has competitively priced the handsets Nokia 1280, Nokia 1616, Nokia 1800, Nokia 2220 Slide and Nokia 2690 at EUR 20 (US$30), EUR 24 (US$36), EUR 26 (US$39), EUR 45 (US$67) and EUR 54 (US$80) respectively (before taxes and subsidies). The slightly higher-priced Nokia 2220 slide and Nokia 2690 support email through Ovi Mail, and also feature a VGA camera, GPRS, MMS support and Bluetooth Realising the computer literacy rate in the rural areas, the Ovi Mail accounts have been designed such that these can be created on the device without the need of a PC.
The Nokia Life Tools app will offer agriculture services in the islands of Java and Sumatra in the first stage, while the education and entertainment sectors will be available nationwide. Nokia is collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture (Departemen Pertanian Republik Indonesia), the Center of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG), Synovate and other industry partners to bring valuable agriculture information, prices, news and tips directly to the Nokia phones of consumers.
While the Agriculture service will be available for commodities beginning with crops, livestock, horticulture and fisheries; the education service features English learning, general knowledge and test preparation. Further, the Entertainment service will offer a range of mobile entertainment content, including news, music, comics, jokes, astrology, movie news and reviews.
As and when the service is launched in Indonesia, customers of Telkomsel, Indosat, XL and Hutch (3) will be able to subscribe to Nokia Life Tools services. The service-set will first be available on the Nokia 2323 classic, Nokia 2330 classic and Nokia 2700 classic in Indonesia. Aside from the 11 handsets which will come pre-loaded with Nokia Life Tools, the service will become downloadable on more phones later.
Aiming at overcoming the language barrier, the Nokia Life Tools services use an icon-based, graphically rich user interface that comes complete with tables, which display information simultaneously in two languages. Behind this rich interface that comes out-of-the-box on all Life Tools-enabled handsets, SMS is used to deliver the critical information to ensure that this service works wherever a mobile phone works, without the hassles of additional settings or the need for GPRS coverage.
[EUR 1 = US$1.48773]
Print This Article
