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Nokia wants common ground
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November 12, 2001: 8:21 p.m. ET
Exec says Nokia, other companies to work on single platform for wireless.
By Staff Writer Richard Richtmyer
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LAS VEGAS (CNN/Money) - Nokia will work with other industry participants to develop a common platform upon which to build the next generation of wireless communications services, the company's top executive said Monday.
During a keynote address at the Comdex technology conference here, Jorma Ollila, chairman and CEO of the Finnish company, said wireless service providers including AT&T Wireless (AW: Research, Estimates), Vodaphone, Cingular and others, as well as competing hardware makers including Motorola (MOT: Research, Estimates) and Siemens (SI: Research, Estimates).
Such cooperation, Ollila said, will be critical if the wireless industry is to evolve over the next several years to its fullest potential.
During the keynote, one in a series of executive presentations on Monday, Ollila also laid out his vision for the wireless industry's future.
While the wireless industry has been marked in recent years by tremendous growth, Ollila suggested that the new opportunities could lead to even further growth, for Nokia (NOK: up $0.32 to $22.38, Research, Estimates) as well as the broader industry.
"I believe we are on the brink of something new... the convergence of wireless communications," he said.
As new, more advanced wireless services are developed, opportunities will emerge across the industry, Ollila said.
"Mobile can drive Internet usage, so we all will benefit," he said. "The pie is growing, and everybody can get his or her slice," Ollila said.
The development of software applications to support the emerging wireless services will be a critical part of the next wave of wireless, Ollila said, echoing a theme that rang throughout a keynote given by Cisco
Systems' CEO John Chambers earlier in the day.
Ollila also used the keynote as an opportunity to show off Nokia's new 9210 Communicator, which combines a mobile phone with a fully-functioning palm-sized computer.
The 9210 Communicator was recently introduced in Europe. A U.S. model,the 9290 Communicator, is expected to be available in the second half of 2002.
The device is powered by the Symbian operating system, which was developed specifically for mobile applications by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Panasonic and Psion.
Symbian's software so far has been used mostly in mobile phones, but some see it as a potential rival to handheld operating systems from Palm, the current market leader, and Microsoft, whose Pocket PC OS has been eating away at Palm's market share.
Ollila's keynote address and demonstrations drew a relatively modest crowd of about 2,000 Comdex attendees. Among them were industry executives, including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. 
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