"Ovi" is short in Swiss German for Ovomaltine, a healthy (yes healthy, which is probably even true here in Switzerland) chocolate milk drink. In Finnish Ovi seems to mean "door" which makes a bit more sense since it will be Nokia's new mobile media portal to be launched soon. If you have seen some of the recent Nokia billboard ads in major cities then you have noticed that change is on the way. The worldwide market leader in mobile phones is taking competition seriously and using Apple's iPhone launch to remake their own image, and moving towards a content provider model as well.

Ovi will be the platform, offering music downloads as well as online games etc. According to their own press release, Ovi is set to become even more than a media download site. As yet they seem to be starting quite slowly, only providing music in WMA (with Microsoft's DRM) as well as games for the (still pretty unsuccessful) N-Gage mobile phones. My interpretation of this is that they have not yet fully figured it out. Do they want to compete with Apple or try to promote/push an unattractive mobile phone? Whoever came up with the word Ovi was BTW certainly not from Switzerland. A small - albeit high ARPU - country with just 7 million people, so not worth bothering I guess for them. Right now I prefer the real milk drink Ovi.