Nokia Rebrands and Pulls its name from “HERE” App
In a surprising turn of events yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Nokia has decided to pull their name from their “HERE” App. Formerly, “Nokia HERE” comes pre-installed on the Lumia 520 and includes HERE Maps, HERE Drive, and HERE Transit (a public transport guide) “that you can even use in unfamiliar surroundings,” said Nokia Design Chief Marko Ahtisaari.
It was said that the growing scale of the platform is beginning to be recognized by more and more partners, including: Amazon, and Microsoft. Nokia is also adding more functionality and integration into HERE, by integrating it with Sight (an augmented reality service that lets you take pictures of places to help you initiate maps and navigation functionalities). They also introduced a wireless charging holster that can be used in cars which also link up with the car navigation’s capabilities.
The rebranding move is a sign of how Nokia continues to keep advancing its mapping business as a standalone effort, and as a revenue stream that may grow through partnerships with others, while it continues to exist as a suite of services for Nokia devices themselves. It could also indicate that thus far their efforts have not had as much traction as Nokia would have hoped.
This also follows along with Nokia’s intention, when it first launched the HERE brand for maps last year, to make the service available via APIs both for other Windows Phone handset makers as well as developers on Android and other platforms. It’s part of how Nokia is also trying to open up more and more of its APIs to developers.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said,
“Instead of hearing us talk about Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive, you’ll here us talking about HERE Maps and HERE Drive but we’ll also be talking about those capabilities, or some of those capabilities being taken across a broader collection of Windows Phone devices, beyond Nokia devices,”
Kevin is an Online and Mobile Marketing Strategist who has worked with companies of all sizes over the last 6 years. You can follow Kevin on any of the social platforms below.
