Nokia Beta Labs

i think ben you are missing the point here. launching the service for S40 in india speaks for itself and it's a brilliant move: ovi mail (ovi means door in finnish) will give people access to mobile email from any cheap nokia and without having a computer. for the first time (in that tech matter) we can feel jealous with our expensive toys. i'm very happy with that and i wait for s60 availability...

I was really interested to know what this was about when I first read about it, was it just mail for mobile users or what. It's pretty clear now, this is a replacement to my present webmail account, a high quality and reliable replacement for my nokia phone. This is a great move by Nokia, afterall Microsoft and Google are making phones too with their applications, Nokia isn't exactly a nobody. I presume when you say giving an e-mail to everyone means it would be free? Also, will this work with non-nokia phones outside of the browser experience?

nokia seems to be obsessed with Ovi.

I have a n95-2 and not an iPhone because i don't want content i want my phone like my computer to access third party services not nokia's.

I can see the appeal to nokia, (the app store is obviously very profitable,)but i hope they don't lose sight of the fact that their loyal user base is different and they need to develop in a way that will allow people to use the functionality of the phone without ever signing up to Ovi.

I share the same doubt as George. The service will be for free and for "E"veryone or it will have costs?

Nokia introduces a new mobile email application once a year, either by doing it themselves or acquiring another company. The end result is always the same -- failure. The company is focused on producing mobile phones and THAT is it. They are weak on software applications. No matter how exciting the news are about their new mobile email offering, the end result will always be the same -- they abandon the project. Not enough management focus is given to these projects. The only reason they are in this space is because they HAVE to compete with Blackberry and iPhone (and sell more hardware!). Other than that, the mobile email is just an afterthought. Check out their past mobile email applications: Eizel Technologies' Nokia Access Server (abandoned), Intellysinc's mobile email (abandoned), MS Exchange mobile email (abandoned). I give this new OVI mobile email at least a year. The company simply cannot compete with Blackberry and iPhone. They should stick to selling at what they are good at -- selling mobile phones.

The first two lines lines of the blog post hit the home run for me. I exactly know the audience targetted by this service, and if the service can be promoted and the targetted audience be made aware of it, this could be a huge move by Nokia having wonderful effects.

Will you guys please pick a single email solution to develop on? I certainly like that Nokia has been doing lots of development but it seems like you have no direction on what people will ultimately use. Ovi, Intellisync, Nokia Mail, Mail For Exchange, Messenging.

What do you want me to use for my email? All of them? Couldn't a lot of this be consolidated into a single simple service + client?

How do I register a "good" email address in advance? Or will it be my existing Ovi username? I don't want to be "neil432567" yet again.

Editor's note: Mail on Ovi has been (at least initiatlly) targeted for a very different segment than what most of us here at Beta Labs represent. In addition, due to limited availability at this point, most of us can't try this out yet. Sorry about that - I would have wanted to play around with this one too :)

In any case, I find this initiative and its key driver - giving an email inbox to *everyone* - absolutely fascinating.

How can I use the web-version (i.e. replacing gmail with ovi-email)?

will mail on ovi support imap/ push mail functionality?

1. Yes, great idea to extend availability of email. One essential element for any mobile email service is spam-blocking. Unless OVI blocks spam from getting through into people's inboxes, the usefulness of this could be greatly diminished. I don't see this mentioned. Is it included in the service, or will it be?

2. As per Tommi's intro - it would be nice to have a commitment from the developers that at some point this will also be offered to S60 users.

I also agree with Ben.. So many services.. for what??!

Is this service available for access on PC? If yes, is it free of charge?

Thanks everyone for your comments. I tried to answer your questions below:

* Free?
Yes, Mail on Ovi is free. Data charges from your operator may apply when accessing it from your phone.

* Web interface/PC access?
There will be a web interface and we'll be beta testing it starting February 2009. Mobile access on-the-go, webmail access when you're already in front of a computer. Access Mail on Ovi anytime, anywhere.

* Spam blocking?
Mail on Ovi includes Spam and virus protection to provide you a safe and secure email experience.

* Beta/S60 availability:
We'll keep you posted on further availability of the beta. You'll be the first to know when it becomes available on S60.

@Ben made an interesting comment about the variety of email solutions provided by Nokia.

They all serve a specific purpose in my mind:
- You want to access your existing Gmail/Yahoo/MSN/ISP account on your Nokia device? We got you covered.
- You want to access your work email? We got that covered too.
- You do not have an email address yet or want a new one for a particular usage (or you just want an email address provided by Nokia): Mail on Ovi is for you!

Mobile email is starting to become really big. You choose which solution best fits your needs!

@David
I do wonder if too many choices is sometimes too difficult. Let me be clear when I say this though, I love that Nokia has the ability to do virtually any kind of email setup. Be it integration with my work email, personal pop retrieval and now even a web mail client. But in my personal experience users don't need/want many different solutions to achieve one common goal.

A Combination of gmail and Blackberry Internet Server would be the ideal email solution for me. A nice web interface where I can access email and also an account organizer where I can add more than just my Blackberry email account for push activity.

This might just be me talking so I don't want to speak for everyone but... I don't like having multiple logins to sites, I don't like 3-4 different interfaces for my mail applications and I don't like having to research the different ways in which I can connect my email to my Nokia. I would be much happier if I had purchased the phone and everything I needed to get rolling with email be it new to email or vetern was right there with a simple interface.

I also think focusing on one solution would help build a really solid email client both handset and web part.

I don't mean to come off as saying I know all about messenging and this is how Nokia should act. It was simply my thoughts when I saw that Nokia was coming out with yet another solution to email. Lots of great potential and not a lot of unity around direction.

I have similiar feelings around Ovi/Mosh/Nokia Chat/Friend Finder/Mobile Web Server and the built in IM client that came with my Nokia device. The options are overwhelming. It's difficult to socially network with my friends on a common ground when I have to ask "do you have this? do you have this? do you have this? did you download that? Can you start this app?"

Thanks for your earlier response. It's great to know feedback from here is being tracked.

@juit3r
I understand what they're doing. My posts revolve around consolidating services though. My thoughts were in no way directed towards any specific device or platform.

Can someone tell mail server address and ports? I should be able to access this with any email client?

Registered, Installed, Synced
Went to contacts on the OVI, out of 109 synced contacts some are missing there information. The contact with the name is there but number(s), email etc is missing:
Compared contacts on phone with the one missing the info on OVI found the following:
Why contacts did not sync right.
Phone number in format: 123-456-1234 and 123 – 456 – 1234
Contact has two (2) or more phone numbers and one is set as a default TXT messaging number.
Contact has one phone number and BB (Black Berry) MMS address, phone is set to default TXT.
Contact with e-mail and phone number did not sync.
Contact who is saved on phone by other use sending a contact file ( I believe its .CSV) will not synch.
Contact has one phone number, set as default and on speed dial, and birthday date.
Groups did not synch at all and do not appear anywhere on OVI (group names: A_all and Today). Each group has more than five contacts some contacts have default number some don’t.
I understand it is Beta, hope this helps.

Thank You,

As a side not the person who posted POST #26 if you do not like the Nokia service so much do not use it. There is “MobileMe” from apple for your IPHONE that costs $99 USD a year, and if you don’t pay they un-sync you and you lose all your contacts so apple is not all that either. BB needs its own plan and the BEZ fails no mail for you. Nokia is doing what is needed to keep up with the times and then technology, it’s not here to please you personally. if you don’t like their products I’m more then sure it will not go bankrupt. If you like what they do fine, if you don’t fine, no ONE program is perfect there is always flaws and cost. Sometimes it’s easier to drop the project and count it as a loose rather than going forward and it costing more. Nokia did manage to release Mail for Exchange which works, next time before saying something does not work do your research. If you think BB and Iphone is so great go use it.

#24
IMAP
Incoming Mail Server: imap.mail.ovi.com 993 (SSL)
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.mail.ovi.com 465 (SSL)

I have probably been looking around online for like the last 20 minutes for a site like yours. So i just want to give you a big thank you and tell you too keep up the hard work. Have a great weeken! =) Thank you!

On my blog, I posted a specific article on Nokia Messaging (http://seriousmobile.blogspot.com/2008/12/nokia-messaging.html). I'm glad Nokia is using its expertise from IntelliSync and also allowing (eventually) global access to Email. I'm curious about the following:
1> Cost (If there is any), how much? If not are they going to be ads? Not everyone likes ads.
2> Will it be able to retrieve email from other sources (Gmail/YahooMail/AOL/Etc) and the ability to send from those sources? Also to NOT have them integrated but as seperate mailbox interfaces.
3> The host application GUI (Settings> seperate mailbox accounts), seems to be somewhat slow (not too bad) in opening one's mail accounts, or going into settings - hopefully thsi can be improved, with the ability for transitions to be turned off.
4> Proper HTML support (either like the built-in Mail app where HTML content is an attachment)! Please bring this. If Nokia is going to be considered as a serious Corporate contender to RIM they need to fix Email (HTML, Shortcut support).

Hi.

I ahve the E71 and I am using Nokia Push mail service and enjoy it alot !

two hours ago I tried to search mail and sort the inbox by sender . Since then the SW got crazy and didn't stop for sorting the inbox in all ways and on each sort - bip for a new message.

I tried to re-install but it didn't solve the problem

Please help !!!!!