Nokia rolls out more Internet services

HELSINKI, FINLAND: The world's top cellphone maker Nokia said on Tuesday it has opened up new services to back up, synchronize and share content between mobile phones and computers.

Nokia introduced a new personal information management (PIM) synchronization service for calendar, contacts, notes and tasks between Nokia phones and its Internet services site -- similar to Apple and Microsoft offerings.

"We obviously think there is genuine consumer demand. Information that is contained on device is becoming more and more critical to people," Niklas Savander, head of Nokia's Internet services business, told Reuters in an interview.

"We are incrementally, step-by-step, building up the offering that has to be matched with demand," he said.

Nokia has not unveiled user numbers for its Internet services, but its navigation, gaming and music offering created April-June revenues of 119 million euros ($170.7 million), up 42 per cent from the previous quarter.

Nokia also introduced on Tuesday its Ovi Suite for PC and Files on Ovi applications -- used for copying information from phones to computers and for remote access to files on an Internet-connected computer from any browser-enabled mobile phone or computer.

The Files on Ovi service, based on the acquisition of Avvenu last year, allows users to store files in a "cloud" of servers so that they are always accessible, an increasingly common service offered by Internet firms like Google and Yahoo.