Nokia's adds cloud-based file-sharing service to Ovi

By Tim Conneally | Published July 7, 2008, 3:59 PM

Nokia's Ovi portal has added a fifth service called Files, offering subscription-based cloud storage for exchanging files between PCs and mobile devices.

Ovi launched with three services: Nokia's reborn N-Gage mobile gaming platform, Nokia maps, and a music store that is currently available in 10 countries (UK, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, France, Sweden, Spain). The service then grew with the addition of Share, the document-sharing service (still in beta) originally developed by startup Twango.

Now Nokia has added the beta of Files on Ovi, a service developed by startup Avevnu, which the Finnish phone company acquired at the beginning of 2008. The "digital locker" service allows a user's always-on Windows Vista or XP machine to be remotely accessed via a mobile browser. Content can be marked "anytime" and be hosted on the Files on Ovi servers, allowing access even when the home PC is off.

Each subscription has a 10 GB limit on hosted content which is available freely as a part of the beta. During registration, Nokia says this will eventually incur a fee and that in "the near future" it will ask for credit card information.

Once the user has installed the Files on Ovi manager (still called Avevnu Manager) and connected to the service's site, his mobile device can access content by simply going to Nokia's site. Though this is the first service from Ovi that utilizes the single Nokia/Ovi account ID, access to Files is not limited to Nokia devices, as it is browser-based. However, the connector software required to run the always-on computer is only for Windows XP and Vista.

In BetaNews tests this afternoon, we attempted to access a PC connected with the Ovi/Avevnu client with a Wi-Fi connected T-Mobile Dash, but experienced numerous timeouts. With nearly three-minute long connection times, we're still attempting to successfully browse and transfer files.