Nokia is boosting confidence in its post-handset future by investing in new plans for all three of its remaining businesses. Its core infrastructure business has new alliances in key areas, like one with Juniper for telco cloud, and the cash to make acquisitions if necessary. The IPR unit has clear opportunities to chase direct revenues for patents, free of the cross-licensing that goes with handset manufacture. And Here, the location services group, can also cut the last ties with the Nokia devices, and extend its reach into iOS, Android and new developments like the connected car.
Nokia has posted job adverts on LinkedIn seeking Android and iOS software engineers, which suggests it will soon be bringing its well-regarded Here mapping and location app to those platforms as well as Windows Phone. That would be in line with its recent development of a cloud platform which can serve multiple OSs.
Location services lie at the heart of Nokia’s growth strategy going forward, and it already has strong ties with the automotive market. Now it will be looking to the next wave of connected car technology, and has established a $100m (€72m) investment fund for companies specializing in that area.
The fund will be managed by Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), an independent venture capital unit sponsored by the Finnish firm, which has managed three previous funds for its backer totalling $70m.
There will be close ties to the Here division. The idea will be to identify strong innovators whose technologies could boost the Here ecosystem and help it in the battle with Google, Android and others.
Nokia has the potential, if it executes wisely, to become the dominant platform in an industry where the manufacturers are far more powerful and coherent a body than the handset vendors were when Google burst on the scene with Android. Microsoft has been rebuffed by car vendors in the past when it tried to be too demanding about its own user interface. Auto manufacturers’ brands are golden and they want technologies which are as invisible as possible beneath those brands.
Here is Nokia’s chance, and it is assembling a full ecosystem around Here to turn it into a broad platform. In January, for instance, it formed an alliance with QNX Software Systems, originator of BlackBerry’s new operating system and a specialist in in-car systems. It will support the Here Auto embedded navigation technology in its QNX Car Platform for Infotainment, with links to the connected services available from Here Cloud (such as weather reports and payment apps).