STUTTGART (Germany): Nokia is aiming to reach the many, not the few, with its rich portfolio of services, said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and chief executive officer of Nokia.

“We are doing this through an increasing number of open partnerships with world leaders in many fields,” he said at the Nokia World '09 conference.

One such partnership that Nokia believes would bring tremendous potential is the one between Nokia and Microsoft, which aims to bring the Microsoft Office suite to Symbian devices.

The other pact is between the Finnish mobile phone giant and Facebook to integrate the social networking service into the Nokia N97 mini. With the “lifecasting” feature, users can publish their location and status updates directly to their Facebook account from the home screen of a mobile device.

According to Nokia, lifecasting goes beyond just publishing your status updates — it is about building deeper and closer connections between people. It triggers new kinds of communication patterns such as sending messages or status updates or even navigating to a friend or a place.

“Social location or the So-Lo concept is a reality. The phrase ‘where are you?’ is as significant as ‘how are you?,’ ” Kallasvuo said.

During the keynote address, Kallasvuo said there are more than 55 million active users of Nokia services worldwide. By 2012, Nokia hopes to reach 300 million users.

The company’s Ovi Store is also gaining momentum as 27 operators are currently providing integrated billing services in eight countries. And more than one million Ovi Mail accounts have been activated in the past six months, Nokia claimed.

Another service, Nokia Life Tools, has been popular in India. Looking at its success, there are plans to expand this service to other markets, he said.

He also added that the Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 have sold more than 10 million units in 10 months.

On the new gadgets, Kallasvuo claimed that the Nokia N900 is designed to offer the best mobile web browsing ever. The N900 runs on Maemo 5, a Linux-based operating system that Nokia said offers more functionalities than other smartphone operating systems. — SUBASHINI SELVARATNAM