Nokia embarks on a stoic rebranding

What's Apple's download service called? Everybody from your grandmother to your little sister knows it's iTunes. And for software, the iTunes AppStore. The name says it all: you can download software like you download songs.

And a growing number of Google Android phone owners know the place to head for new apps is the Android Market.

But what's Nokia's online service called?

Give up?

It's Ovi (Finnish for "door").

Or at least it was until this afternoon.

From today, until the end of 2012 (as the meme slowly threads through devices and territories), Ovi will be rebranded "Nokia services" (it's unclear if the "S" is big or little).

This stuff matters. Today, people care as much about what they can put on their phone as the phone itself.

The blunt re-naming will give Nokia some signage as its turn-by-turn navigation Ovi Maps (sorry, Nokia Services Maps) becomes the default mapping app on Microsoft smartphones as part of the pair's multibillion-dollar partnership (in return, Microsoft's Bing will become the default search engine on Nokia's high-end smartphones. I know even this month Nokia is releasing new models based on its Symbian software, but  under its new American, ex-Microsoft CEO it will be transitioning to Microsoft's prosaically-named Windows Phone 7, which is no relation to Windows Mobile. That would be WAY TOO EASY).

The mob doesn't like it
Nokia's online announcement has been met by a hail of abuse most of which the company has, sportingly, left online. Users grouse about the aesthetics of the new name (and, certainly, the stoic "Nokia services" seems to have been formulated by a committee), the Finnish company's penchant for frequently re-naming and re-defining services, and logistical issues ("what happens to my ovi.com email address?")

The real problem
Yet, whatever Nokia's online service is called, it's real problem remains what the wonks call "device fragmentation".

Apple has, essentially, one iPhone. Software makers know what it can do, and what bells and whistles they can, or can't add to their apps.

Nokia, by contrast, has a dozen models in the smartphone category alone (Google has a similar problem with its Android software, with Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Huawei, LG and so on making a weird and wonderful mix of handsets; some with powerful hardware, some not, and many running older versions of Android). Some run Nokia's Symbian software (itself splintered into different iterations), and some MeeGo, a probably-going-to-be-abandoned joint software venture with Intel.

This complicates the situation immensely for a software maker. Time and time again I encounter software makers who know there are far more Nokia Symbian devices out there than iPhones, and that Android has passed Apple's iOS by many counts. But still they prefer iPhone, becuase it's easy. One phone, one audience, one online store, one delivery system. 

It will take more than a rebranding to peg back that advantage.