The U.S. will snatch the lead in mobile technology from Europe as the Internet is integrated with mobile devices, Nokia's CEO told a Silicon Valley audience on Wednesday night.

Europe was the center of mobility in the 1990s, when the focus was on texting and making calls, but Silicon Valley's Internet and PC heritage is starting to give the U.S. the edge, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in a dialogue with Forbes Publisher Rich Karlgaard at a gathering of the Churchill Club, a local business group. Continuing performance upgrades to U.S. carriers' networks is helping, he said.

"I think it will be driven by the U.S., by the Valley, and I see a lot of activity here. ... The U.S., as opposed to being a laggard, will lead this one," Kallasvuo said. Nokia has a large research center in Silicon Valley already.

Nokia is investing heavily in services to supplement its mobile-phone business, which sells about 40 percent of the world's handsets. Most recently, the company in Espoo, Finland, announced a deal on Tuesday to buy Canadian mobile messaging company Oz Communications.

"The consumers are not happy with a hardware purchase anymore. They want more. They want an experience. They want a solution," Kallasvuo said. As an example, he pointed to Research In Motion's BlackBerry, which delivered a mobile e-mail capability tightly integrated with the device.

Nokia is trying to meet these expanded demands with a variety of services, including its Ovi portal, which includes personal file synchronization and sharing, music, games, photos and mapping and location. The company is also readying the Nokia E-mail Service, which will provide access to multiple e-mail accounts on both low-end and more advanced handsets.

Nokia's aim with these added services is to give context to the Internet while people are out in the world, using elements such as information about their surroundings and their friends' locations, Kallasvuo said. Rather than competing with mobile operators, which traditionally have kept tight control of what appears on their phones, Nokia is cooperating with them, he said. He cited agreements with several major European operators to deliver Ovi.

Kallasvuo gave a tip of the hat to Apple as well as to RIM, crediting the iPhone with helping to reinvigorate the mobile industry. Nokia research shows the news is good across Europe, North America and Asia, he said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.