Comes With Music

Nokia on Thursday reported its worst quarterly profit in more than a decade. Nevertheless, the cell-phone maker's shares rallied in the wake of optimism expressed by CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

The Finnish company said its profit declined to 122 million euros (US$160.7 million), from 1.2 billion euros (US$1.6 billion) a year earlier. Sales fell 27 percent.

Nokia is exploring the possibilities of vying for a piece of the laptop market. The world's largest cell-phone manufacturer's CEO told a Finnish television audience that the company is "actively looking" at entering the laptop fray where Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Acer dominate.

Nokia wants some of Apple's rhythm. On July 1 the Finnish mobile-phone maker said that Warner Music Group has agreed to participate in Nokia's fledgling music service, making Warner the third of the major record labels to join in the effort. The move is one more step in Nokia's effort to compete against Apple for the people who want to carry around music libraries in their pockets.