Could Nokia be mapping the great Google downfall?
When Nokia's Executive Vice President, Anssi Vanjoki, uttered the word 'Google Maps' in his keynote speech, it could have been his rich, Finnish accent that made him sound like he was gargling on mammoth shards of Scandinavian ice or maybe Nokia genuinely feels the pain of competition with the internet search giant.
He was delivering his vision of the mobile internet at the Nokia World Expo in Barcelona, this morning, using yet another mobile phone launch, this time the glisteningly new Nokia N97, to make his point.
The gadget is basically a mini-sized supercomputer and is related to the Nokia N95 and N96, both of which have so far sold 15 million, worldwide.
To the untrained eye, the Nokia N97 looks much the same as any other new 'smartphone' but Nokia are using it as a powerful symbol for how the lifechanging properties of the internet are affecting us all.
The device has advanced satellite navigation options which synch with a PC so travellers can plot and plan at home before they set off. Add to this a powerful presence based social networking location tool, So-Lo, and the ability to personify the device with the most important people in your life and there's something truly spectacular about the proposition.
This is Nokia's fourteenth annual leadership conference and their Connecting People mantra is now more about hooking people up to their Facebook pages than, heaven forbid, talking or texting to one another:
"We are on the threshold of profound change," proclaimed Mr Vanjoki's boss and Nokia CEO, Olli Pekka Kallasvuo, in his opening address.
He estimates that 75% of the global population don't have email yet and that when they do, their first experience will be via a mobile phone, not a desktop computer.
The Nokia chief is predicting four billion phone owners in 2009 and based on India's current run-rate of nine million people buying a new phone every month, it's not beyond the realms of credibility.
The elephant in the room is surely what Nokia will do with all the consumer information it is amassing on us, as we paddle deeper into the internet on our mobile phones.
"All this engagement," says Mr Vanjoki in the press conference afterwards, "drives the information we store on people's behaviour and drives our consumer insight and segmentation and shapes our hypotheses for the future. It is of course a tempting idea to make a business out of this but the point is that all decisions are made with the complete permission of the consumer."
Nokia's passion for the future possiblities of how to connect people is infectious and there were also a few minor overtures made to how Nokia will be helping the developing world, wiring and receiving cash, intercontinentally, from your mobile, for example. But it is perhaps with a certain degree of trepidation that we should enter this brave new world and we should always read the smallprint.