What's up with Nokia? The company made four announcements yesterday at Nokia World in Barcelona, Spain, waiting for Research In Motion, Google and Apple to be done with bows for their mobile phones.

The biggest announcement was the launch of the Nokia N97, the mobile phone rumored to rival Google's G1 and the Apple iPhone.

The new handset was designed for the Internet-savvy mobile consumer, according to the Finnish telecoms giant.

The N97 has integrated A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass which lets the device understand where it is.

Nokia claims the N97 makes it easy to update social networks automatically with real-time information, giving people the ability to update their status and share their location as well as related pictures or videos with approved friends.

The device comes packed with a large 3.5" touch display, personalized home screen and a full QWERTY keyboard, providing an always-open window to social networking sites and Internet destinations.

The company also introduced Maps on Ovi, a free mapping tool.

Maps on Ovi lets people pre-plan their journey at home on their PC and synchronize with their mobile, giving access to pre-planned routes and favorite destinations while on the move.

Next year, Nokia Maps will become a destination for people to save and organize places, pre-plan trips and post-edit them.

People can share their location and all their personally and socially meaningful content with friends, inviting them to join in activities.

Also, Nokia announced Mail on Ovi and Nokia Messaging, describing it as mobile email for the masses.

Seventy-five percent of the world's population has not yet used email.

Many of these people will have their first email experience on a mobile phone, not on a PC.

Mail on Ovi and Nokia Messaging, which mobilizes consumer email and instant messaging on Nokia devices, gives anyone access to mobile email.

Users will be able to create and access email online as well as on their mobile device.

Nokia Messaging gives consumers access to their existing email and instant messaging accounts from Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail and Google Talk, and AOL Mail from any Nokia device.

Nokia's declared vision is based on openness.

To that affect, Nokia's planned Symbian Foundation has moved closer to launch.

The Symbian Foundation will engage industry leaders into developing an open source platform for mobile computers and services built on the Symbian mobile operating system.

There are currently 3.5 million developers working on the S60 platform on Symbian OS, and more than 10,000 applications are available to date.

Nokia is also creating new opportunities for third parties to develop innovative widgets and other Internet service applications for Nokia devices, such as the social networking widgets seen on the new Nokia N97's personalized home screen.

Nokia next year plans to roll-out interesting opportunities to work together to create a highly personalized Internet experience on Nokia devices.

Nokia's announcements come a day after the company announced the launch of the Nokia Home Control Center, which turns a consumer's mobile phone into a universal remote that can control almost every aspect of life at home (see story).