Nokia also introduced the online portal for Mail on Ovi, which will enable PC users to create and access Ovi email accounts as well as gain cross access to other Ovi services with just a single sign-on account.
Tom Furlong, senior vice president for consumer messaging, services and software at Nokia, said: "We believe everybody should have mobile messaging; it's not a privilege service that's meant only for a certain segment of the market. With Nokia Messaging, our customers can simply and affordably gain mobile access to the world's most popular email and IM accounts.
“We are making mobile messaging an affordable experience for everyone, not just for those with specialised phones designed for messaging, but for everyone with a Nokia device,” Furlong continued. “In response to overwhelming consumer feedback that messaging is a critical, must-have feature, Nokia has responded with solutions to bring messaging to the broadest range of devices and to ensure the service works with the most popular messaging services in the market. Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, email accounts provided by thousands of ISPs around the world, and even brand new Nokia-provided email accounts, can now be accessed from mobile phones with a few simple clicks, directly from the home-screen.”
Nokia announced the introduction of web access to Mail on Ovi, which gives users 1GB of storage space and spam filters to block unwanted emails. Creating a Mail on Ovi account will give users access to their email, as well as cross access to other Ovi services, both on the mobile phone and on the PC. The beta version of Mail on Ovi will roll out globally in December 2008 in 12 languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Hindi, Bengali, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia on all currently shipping Nokia Series 40 devices, with many more languages to be added later. The web access version will launch in February 2009.
Nokia Messaging will launch commercially in the first quarter of 2009 in Australia, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the UK and Venezuela, and in select countries later in the year. Agreements with key operators will establish Nokia Messaging as an operator supported service so that users who purchase a data plan that includes Nokia Messaging will be able to take full access of the built-in push email and IM access without additional service charges.