New Delhi, August 30 (IANS) Mobile phone maker Nokia Monday said it would set up servers in India for its push email services from Nov 5 to help the government monitor the contents.
‘We are launching the server on Nov 5 in compliance with all the rules and regulation in the country. It is for hosting mail and ensuring that the government has access (to the content),’ said D.Shivakumar, vice president, Nokia India, here.
‘We met home secretary G.K. Pillai about a month ago and explained as to what Nokia is doing. He was fully satisfied,’ added Shivakumar, allaying any fears that its messenger services could meet the same fate as BlackBerry and come under the security agencies’ scanner.
Currently, the Nokia Messaging Service is in beta format wherein consumers can use upto 10 email accounts.
The BlackBerry controversy seemed to have helped Nokia. Industry sources say sales of the Finnish firm’s smart phones have risen due to the fear that BlackBerry users may not be able to send messages on its encrypted network anymore following a crackdown by Indian security agencies.
The company launched two new phones targeting the rural market. The Dual-SIM mobile phones C1-00 and C2-00 have call divert facility. The sale of C1-00 priced at Rs.1,999 will start from September.
With the standby battery time of up to six weeks, Nokia C1 is targeted for places with limited electricity supply. Nokia C2 comes with Ovi Life Tools and Ovi Mail providing consumers access to information covering agriculture, education and entertainment.
With this launch, the company has entered the dual-Sim market in the country for the first time, to arrest the fall in its market share as domestic players offered features-rich dual-SIM mobile phones.
‘Entry level consumers need dual SIMs for various reasons including economizing time and costs, improving efficiency and for increased convenience. Nokia has launched these two devices that offer multiple SIM capabilities with a balanced feature set and ‘relevant innovations’, said Mary McDowell executive vice president mobile phones Nokia.
According to IDC research, Nokia’s market share dipped from 64% in 2008-09 to 52.2% in 2009-10.
