Nokia announced this morning that their new Ovi store is "open for business" and that AT&T here in the States will join the growing list of carriers supporting Ovi. This is good news for consumers. Apple has done a wonderful job of educating American consumers about all the things a high end cell phone can do. They've shown us games, fun stuff, FedEx tracking, news, sports, – the list is long. They've grown our appetite for high end devices that can do just about anything.

The N97 will come into the market this summer on the heals of the Palm Pre and maybe a new iPhone (if the rumors are true). No word yet on the pricing though we haven't seen US carriers subsidize the Nseries devices from Nokia to the extent that they have for Apple, Blackberry, Samsung, HTC, etc.

The Nokia phones have high quality cameras and mapping solutions that are excellent. There is a lot of cool content and services available through Ovi. Consumers will appreciate what they offer if they get the chance to get ahold of these devices at prices the market will support.

Here's the release:

Ovi Store Opens for Business

 

AT&T joins growing list of operators supporting new content service

 

May 26

 

Espoo, Finland – Today, Ovi Store by Nokia is available globally to an estimated 50 million Nokia device owners across more than 50 Nokia devices including the forthcoming flagship device, the Nokia N97. Customers can visit store.ovi.com through their Nokia device browser to immediately begin downloading, personalizing and making their devices smarter and more fun with applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services and much more.

 

"Ovi Store is open for business and we've stocked the shelves with both local and global content for a broad range of Nokia devices," said Tero Ojanperä, Executive Vice President, Nokia Services. "Ovi Store makes shopping for content and applications easy and fun for feature phone and smartphone owners alike."

 

In available countries, customers can update their devices with the Ovi Store mobile application by selecting the Ovi Store icon in the Download! folder on their device. The mobile client is available in English, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish and supports operator billing in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Globally, credit card billing is available through the mobile application and the mobile website. Additional countries, languages, devices and features will be added throughout the year. AT&T plans to make Ovi Store available to its customers in the United States later this year. 

 

"AT&T looks forward to introducing Ovi Store for our customers later this year," said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.  "AT&T has a reputation for providing the most customer choice of content and applications and offering Ovi Store is in line with that strategy."

 

Ovi Store is an evolving media service that consolidates Nokia's existing content services into a one-stop-shop for free and paid content. Thousands of the content industry's biggest names along with independent application developers are distributing their media, applications and games through Ovi Store. Content providers and application developers can continue to sign up to distribute their content through Ovi Store by visiting publish.ovi.com.