Nokia chief: we want to be all things to all consumers again

Nokia has yet to produce a viable competitor to the iPhone, the boss of the Finnish mobile phone maker admitted in an interview with the Guardian, but its tie-up with Intel should give the company a leading role in the next generation of wireless internet devices.

"It is very true that we do not have the high-end 'mind share' product, as we speak, but of course we are working to get there," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia president and chief executive.

At its investor day late last year, Nokia hinted it would produce major new devices this year. Analysts reckon it is hard at work on a so-called 'iPhone killer'.

But Kallasvuo said it is not just about one expensive handset. "We are going for the consumer market, we are going to the business market, we are going to the low end, we are going to the developing markets."

Nokia has seen its commanding lead eroded by the likes of Apple, Blackberry maker RIM and devices sporting Google's new Android software. To retaliate, it took the surprise decision last month to give all users of its smartphones free access to its satellite navigation service.

Kallasvuo said Nokia sees the services on its phones as no different from the hardware, such as a camera or Bluetooth. They are all reasons for a consumer to pick up a device.

"The way it is going is this," he said. "Here in my hand I have a device, it used to be a mobile phone, now it is a multipurpose device. Not only a communications device but it has other functionality and it has a camera.

"The mobile telephone industry has been very good at capturing value from other adjacent industries, such as the camera industry. Now it is about how it will come with different types of content and services and software, like turn-by-turn navigation … from a business point of view that is like adding a camera. One is a hardware component, the other one is content or services but the business logic is the same.

"You add stuff and sell it to the consumer and the consumer sees value in that."

At Nokia's press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, new handsets were conspicuous by their absence. The main event was details of the firm's tie-up with Intel to create an open source software platform for internet tablets, laptops and internet-enabled TVs.

The fact that Nokia is an important customer for British chip maker ARM Holdings immediately raised concerns about the possibility of Nokia and Intel creating their own chip architecture and pushing out the FTSE 100-listed firm.

But Kallasvuo said that as MeeGo, their new platform, is open to all comers and designed to work on different chip designs it is not a threat.

"It can be Intel architecture, it can be ARM architecture," he said. "Decoupling the software from the hardware will give a lot of opportunity for people to work with MeeGo. The credibility of Nokia and Intel supporting this with a wide variety of devices, I think this is a compelling offer."