Nokia has no plans to diversify into end-to-end enterprise networking products — or at least not yet, according to chief executive officer, Jorma Ollila.
While the company has looked at or is working on areas such as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) infrastructure or private branch exchanges (PBXs), Ollila told attendees at Gartner’s Symposium/ITxpo conference in Cannes that he did not feel it necessary to move into these fields yet.
Those additions would, perhaps, happen after 2005, he said.
If Nokia did move into new areas, it would likely be through partnerships.
“We have never liked (acquisitions) very much, but that’s not a religious stricture,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s time to diversify, we feel well-placed without diversification,” Ollila said.
He also spoke about the significance of forthcoming third generation (3G) mobile services for enterprises; Nokia’s reliance on its own products and handset software, and Microsoft’s foray into the market for mobile communications devices.
Users may be skeptical of 3G now, but by the end of next year there would be an interesting range of handsets on offer, and reasonable network coverage, he said.
For enterprise users, the main benefit of 3G would be access to greater bandwidth than was available through current systems, he said.
Because of 3G’s wide-area capabilities, it would find a place in the market alongside public Wi-Fi access points.
