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 The Finnish mobile giant unveiled the devices at the Mobile Internet Conference in Barcelona. Speaking at a press conference, Jorma Ollila, chairman and CEO of Nokia, characterised the launch as a major breakthrough in the industry.
"History has proven that advances in the way we communicate can give rise to entirely new communication cultures. Much like the transition from radio to TV, the evolution from text messaging to multimedia messaging marks a whole new era of mobile communications, combining images with sound and text," he said.
Nokia said it expects MMS to be an integral feature in all new Nokia phones in 2003.
Multimedia messaging will add photos, images, voice clips and eventually also video clips to conventional text messages. Nokia plans to open special MMS terminals for people to send and receive MMS messages until the phones become more common. An MMS user will be able to send a message to a friend on an ordinary phone but the recipient will get an SMS message with a URL of a Web site where the message can be picked up. Mobile carriers are pinning their hopes on the service, which they hope will win back some of the huge amounts of cash spent on 3G licences.
Mark Blowers, senior researcher at UK-based analyst firm The Butler Group, said he was surprised Nokia had moved to MMS so soon, rather than progressing to enhanced messaging service (EMS) first.
"This is only the beginning of MMS," Blowers said. "SMS has been very lucrative for mobile carriers so there is a lot of interest in its successor, MSS. But it will be about two years before MMS is in widespread use. It will come much more into its own with a 3G device as GPRS is more limited in its applications," he said.
The MMS phone, the Nokia 7650, will have an inbuilt digital camera and a large colour display and will be shipped in the second quarter of 2002.
Nokia also released the new Nokia 5210, a so-called "lifestyle" phone which includes a new removable shell design, a thermometer and a digital clock. The Nokia 6510, also launched on Monday, will be a business phone with changeable colour covers and an FM radio.
Three new Bluetooth accessories will also hit the market, using the latest 1.1 version of the wireless technology. The wireless headset, the car kit and the connectivity card will be available in the first quarter of 2002.
New gadgets were accompanied by the launch of new location-based services for GSM and 3G. Nokia mPosition for WCDMA 3G technology should help operators introduce 3G services based on subscribers' location such as traffic reports and a friend finder.
A key component of the service is its ability to process information about a subscriber's location and providing data to application service providers (ASPs) while protecting the subscriber's privacy.
Nokia said that mPosition will offer operators a 30 percent improvement in payback time compared to other location detection technologies in 2G and 3G networks.
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