Nokia's Ovi updates puts service in line to fight MobileMe, whatever Windows has

Nokia’s Ovi service was originally a simple photosharing system that took emailed, uploaded, and MMSed images from your phone or computer and put them online. Fair enough. Now, however, Nokia is adding some compelling features to the online suite to make it considerably more usable for personal and enterprise PIM and sharing purposes.

The first and most important update is their file sharing system. After installing the Nokia Ovi Suite on your PC or laptop – it doesn’t work with Mac although there is some talk this will be remedied – you can visit all of your files remotely via a browser on your phone or on another computer. You can preview and download any file – from documents to your CONFIG.SYS file – and upload files to your computer. Obviously you have to have your computer on to do this, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

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Ovi also as improved PIM functionality and can bring your calendars and contacts to the website where you can edit and sync with almost any Nokia phone. The service also has improved music and N-Gage game access.

These additions are clearly part of a move by Nokia to make casual users think of Symbian as a smartphone operating system rather than just something that Nokia happens to have on their phones. With casual smartphone use on the rise, sync has become the number one sticking point with most users and Nokia has long had a fairly anemic sync system.