Nokia Unveils Its First Windows 7 Phone 349
mikejuk writes with an excerpt from an I Programmer article: "Nokia has just launched the Lumia 800, its first Windows 7 phone, and it is basically a modified N9. CEO Stephen Elop said: 'It's a new dawn for Nokia.' He also called it 'the first real Windows Phone,' and said, 'We believe it is the first ever instantiation of the Windows Phone platform that properly embodies, complements and amplifies the design sensibilities of Windows Phone' ... It is being launched in Europe now but the US wont see one until early 2012."
By "modified N9" they mean the N9 but running WP7 bundled with Nokia's navigation application and a streaming music service.
Why ignore US? (Score:2)
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Why on earth did they release the N9 at all? Wasn't that just released last week? Unless they're hedging their bets on keeping Meego alive, why would they want to confuse the market that way?
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Also none of there currently announced phones have a Front Facing Camera (FFC). FFC is a new hot marketing bullet point in the US and they probably want to release phones with FFC in America (HTCs and Samsungs new WP7 phones have FFC). There was rumored to a 4.3 inch Nokia phone with FFC that will launch in the US in Q1 2012.
Overall -- solid phones,
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I've got my doubts about them placing their eggs in the WinMO basket. I've had a number of wince/windows mobile phones. The MS phone OS was fine back in the CE days when they were pretty much the best you could get for smartpho
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Uh... I had a front facing camera about 5 years ago on an N70. The N9 also has a front facing camera, so it's pretty likely that the Lumia has one.
Just 'cos the iPhone waited until version 4 last year to add a front camera, doesn't mean the rest of the world went without.
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No wait, I rolled out the snark early, they have removed it for the Lumia. Which is retarded.
They really are on the path to self destruction.
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The biggest smartphone market is in US with probably largest no of users.
[citation needed] The US is no longer biggest in many things. That's what happens when other countries with huge populations start getting their own "middle class". 300,000,000 people is just a teenie tiny fraction of 7 billion. I dare you to visit Latin America, Africa or Asia and see exactly how many "smart phone" users there are in those markets.
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As for Latin America, Africa, I'm not sure of the data network coverage.
It sucks in the countryside, but it's adequate near population centers. Guess where most of the customers are? Population centers (shocker!). I live in latin America and my maid, who earns $20 a day, has a smart phone.
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The data network coverage is probably better than in many rural parts of the US. I travel to Brazil regularly and I've never been without good coverage even outside smaller cities and towns.
While the US telecoms companies sit on their asses and overcharge consumers, the rest of the world is building out wireless networks. In most of the developing countries, they are not buying computers or laptops, they are buying smartphones. This is how they get on the net and read email.
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Considering how much an iPhone goes for in China I would guess you are wrong about how much they make and what they want to spend it on. China is a huge market for smartphones and will only grow in the next few years.
Re:Why ignore US? (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe has a higher population than the US... and even higher than all of North America. And almost all Europeans can afford a smart phone.
And our crisis doesn't hit the customers so much... It's a lot of noise from the banks and governments... and the Greeks seem to be on strike permanently now. But that's just 1 country out of many. I thought that it was the US, rather than Europe, where customers couldn't pay their own bills anymore, and where houses went up for sale becaus the mortgage was too much? That doesn't happen much over here.
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And almost all Europeans can afford a smart phone.
Yes, for sufficiently low values of all. Here in Southern Europe salaries are low (and dropping) and unemployment is rampant. Everyone has a cellphone, but a smartphone? Not really.
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Europe has a higher population than the US... and even higher than all of North America. And almost all Europeans can afford a smart phone.
Even those in Eastern Europe? Perhaps conditions have improved since the fall of communism quite a bit more than I've thought....
Re:Why ignore US? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even those in Eastern Europe? Perhaps conditions have improved since the fall of communism quite a bit more than I've thought....
Yes, they did.
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The fall of communism was 22 years ago. Time to wake up, buddy.
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Yes, even Eastern Europe. Growth there is substantial compared to the rest of Europe, but that's mainly because they started from basically zero.
Re:Why ignore US? (Score:5, Insightful)
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They aren't but to penetrate the US means working with Carriers, that's why Nokia hasn't said anything.
However, According to the blog "ThisIsMyNext" Elop said they will be coming to the US "early 2012"[1], along with LTE and CDMA support. Also they spotted a Verizon employee[2], so the might give a clue.
[1]: http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/26/nokias-windows-phones-coming-early-2012/ [thisismynext.com]
[2]: http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/26/verizon-staff-spotted-nokia-world/ [thisismynext.com]
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The US accounts for ~100 million smartphone sales, about the same as Western Europe IIRC. I'd say that at least putting it on AT&T is better than nothing; at least in that case they wouldn't need to add a CDMA radio.
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The US accounts for ~100 million smartphone sales, about the same as Western Europe IIRC
The problem is only about one percent of those sales are in the windows 7 ecosystem according to figures I've read.
Its like trying to release a new flavor of Nutella... Its mostly going to sell to current customers... so do you do that in Italy or Wyoming... I'm thinking... not the US.
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The problem is only about one percent of those sales are in the windows 7 ecosystem according to figures I've read.
Its like trying to release a new flavor of Nutella... Its mostly going to sell to current customers... so do you do that in Italy or Wyoming... I'm thinking... not the US.
I was under the impression WP7 sales were just as terrible in Europe as in the US. Am I mistaken?
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What is that with "putting it on AT&T" or "available on Verizon" all the time? Why not just putting it for sale in the shops, like in the rest of the world? With those stupid contract lock-ins you never get a vibrant market. Like in Hong Kong where on average people have a new phone every six months. That means they can sell four times as many phones per number of population than the US where you're stuck for two years each time.
This may also be a reason for Nokia to ignore the US market for now. Only
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One reason it's "only on AT&T" is that AT&T is GSM while Verizon is CDMA. The two technologies are incompatible, and unless you want each phone to also have a CDMA radio (which is pretty much only used in the US and in another form Japan, IIRC), it's AT&T /T-Mobile only.
What really sucks is that even an unlocked phone will not reduce your monthly, unlike most other places. I would love for that model to be here.
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I dont understand why dont nokia launch in US also? The biggest smartphone market is in US with probably largest no of users. With Europe in deep crisis ,i think it will be hard to gain traction in it . Is nokia strategy flawed in ignoring US Holiday season?
There are so many patent and copyright issues that have to be analyzed with the finest tooth comb ever.
It may miss the holiday shelves here.
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Exchange rates aren't always a good indicator of strength. For example, the Latvian lat is stronger than the euro, but Latvia's economy is in the doldrums.
Most Eurozone countries wish their economy was only in the doldrums.
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I dont understand why dont nokia launch in US also? The biggest smartphone market is in US with probably largest no of users. With Europe in deep crisis ,i think it will be hard to gain traction in it . Is nokia strategy flawed in ignoring US Holiday season?
Maybe they want to test the beta version on Europe and only set a release date for the US once they have some idea how long it will take them and Microsoft to get the kinks out of this thing.
Personally I once owned a windows phone, I'm not falling for the 'it's better this time' BS. If Nokia go windows only I'm not buying from Nokia.
Re:Why ignore US? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. You're not as big as you think you are. Asia and Europe are larger markets, especially for Nokia.
2. Your telco system is, well lets not sugar coat it, fucked up. You have two different mobile communications standards (CDMA and GSM) and even when the standard is the same, the frequency is not. This means they need to release at least 2 if not more versions of the same handset. This is an expensive task.
3. Your telco system is fucked up. I know I mentioned this before but it;s that big of an issue it needs to be said twice.
4. Nokia needs to court telco's, modifying software to allow them to shove crap on there and ensuring that end users cant accidentally access premium services like tethering.
5. Your patent system is fucked up.
6. Your patent system is fucked up.
7. Your patent system is fucked up. This needs to be mentioned 3 times because it's that much of a problem, Nokia needs to modify the OS and hardware to avoid the lawsuit minefield of the US.
8 Anti-European sentiment in the US. Asian manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung do not have the same sentiment applied to them.
Put simply, it's cheaper to release in Europe and the same version will also work in Asia and the Middle East. Concentrating on the US market will cut out a lot of other countries.
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Yeah, S&P cut the Treasury's bond rating and what happened? Price went up and the yield dropped due to increased demand. Yawn.
Europe? Still fretting on how to bail out Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain without destroying the Euro, losing their entire banking sector, etc.
Merkel trying to decide if they will hang her from the Reichstag or merely vote her out of office if she makes Germans pay for Greek, Portuguese and Italian corruption and profligacy and poor French banking.
Sarkozy trying desperately to
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What's the point of a 'debt ceiling' if you just raise it every time you reach it?
Don't you think that a 'debt ceiling' is supposed to, you know, stop the government from going further into debt?
Re:Why ignore US? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. But the point to stop increasing the debt ceiling is before you allocate the money, not after. If you vote for a budget, and then block the people in charge of paying for the money from doing so, you're nothing but a third-grade political hack who is selling his country down the shitter so that he can get a few more votes from equally moronic voters.
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The whole debacle about raising the US debt ceiling was a completely manufactured "crisis" caused entirely by the Republicans and the Tea Party, and their idiotic brinksmanship (and complete ignorance about what the debt ceiling even represents... hint, it has nothing to do with authorizing NEW spending) was the entire justification for the recent US Downgrade.
That was ridiculous, entirely political, and had very little to do with our actual economy or its state. It was more about our politics, and how disfunctional they are (with one party purposely making them as disfunctional as possible, and the other party not organized enough or assertive enough to actually fight back effectively).
Don't you wish the debt ceiling was the real crisis? Because the real deep crisis you describe is much much worse.
Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
it doesn't stand out. There's nothing in the announcement that isn't something already available on Android and iPhone. Apple and the Android vendors can afford to play games where they leapfrog each other than catch up, then leapfrog again... They're established names in the market and people want an iPhone, a Droid, or A Galaxy as much because they like the brands as because they do something the other guy doesn't. To jump into the market this late in the game Nokia/Microsoft need something new, something to pull people away from their established preferences.
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It doesn't really have to:
- Nokia is very well connected with carriers, so they should get shelf space and deals with no problem
- most Nokia users are quite happy with the quality, if not features, of their phone. Nokia should have easy sales there
- Hero phones and oddballs don't really sell that much. The latest commodity smartphone (not Apple then ^^) to have a huge success is the Galaxy S 2. It really doesn't have outstanding specs, except maybe for its camera. It's its a well done, light, solid phone, t
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15 years ago the only phone I would buy was a Nokia. The phones worked well and the interface was intuitive. Now they don't even hit my radar.
I think we are about to witness the death of a giant.
To stave off the obvious... (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a comparison:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/nokia-lumia-800-vs-nokia-n9-the-tale-of-the-tape/ [engadget.com]
Also, 4 S40 cellphones (The Asha series) and another Budget WP7 (Lumia 710) cellphone were also announced, and discreetly, a white version of the N9 was also displayed.
The way the N9 was displayed. it was almost like Nokia was embarrassed or something, most sites didn't even notice it was there.
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Or because Microsoft was embarrassed that Nokia was still selling it?
Re:To stave off the obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure sounds like a winner to me!
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2002 called and they want their... (Score:5, Interesting)
So... Stephen Elop calls it 'the first real Windows Phone'
I thought this was the first windows phone: http://www.dcviews.com/press/Orange_SPV.htm [dcviews.com]
Orange was a Microsoft Gold Partner, and I wrote the Orange custom home screen software complete with easter-egg while working for Orange in Leeds.
Now I learn it was all just a dream... it wasn't a REAL windows phone at all... or maybe Elop is too young and inexperienced to remember recent history... ah well..
Re:2002 called and they want their... (Score:5, Funny)
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I absolutely block all ads.
I even blocked your post, so I'm replying blind, and I hope the context fits!
On a serious note, you have just made the same point I was making; it's nice that we agree.
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That was in 2002, when Microsoft's smartphone market share was around 14%. It's now around 2%, which explains what the consumers thought about Microsoft's smartphone software.
Why do they pulish their first nail? (Score:2)
Why do they pulish their first nail, in the the infamous non-Appple/non-Android mobile phone market coffin?
However fine the N9 was, however fine this new one end up beinf, I guess it is too late. The market share for the software is not there The hardware perspective is not really there any longer.
It is all about the software, or, as it is perceived today, the "apps".
Whoever wins the apps, wins the market.
So, sorry Nokia, too late. Again!!!
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Yeah, except Meego can run Android apps [meegoexperts.com]. The problem is that Nokia is obviously uninterested in any OS besides WP7, which is a shame.
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Most people know only one thing about smart phones - is it an iPhone or not. Most people have no idea about Android.
You people keep trotting this out but I have yet to see any corroborating evidence for it whatsoever. I hear people that don't know shit about smartphones say they "want an Android". I was talking to my friend's roommate last night and she was asking me what laptop she should get. To cut to the chase, we got around to tablets. I mentioned the iPad and Android tablets. What did she say? "Oh yeah, Android That's on tablets too? I'm thinking about getting 'an Android' on my next phone." People know wh
And silence.... (Score:2)
Flagship Phone but
Single Core.
Small screen same size as the iPhone but much lower pixel density. AKA resolution.
Not available in the US before Christmas.
Pros:
It is pretty.
Could have an outstanding camera.
The display is good but is it better then the iPhone4 display? I don't know.
In other words compared with the iPhone 4s and the Samsung Galaxy SII family that are already shipping it is lagging. WP7 Mango isn't terrible but it too is already start to "continuing to" lag behind IOS and Android.
So this flagsh
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So this flagship device is roughly as good as the $99 iPhone4 or a $99 Android handset but without the app catalog.
Where you get those phones so cheap? Last time I checked my fairly low-end LG P-500 model, one year old now, is currently selling at about USD 150 each. Haven't seen much cheaper Android handsets so far. I paid about double for it, when it was just released. The iPhone 4 is retailing here for more like USD 500 each.
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I am using US carrier plus contract pricing.
If you want I restate it to "a new flag ship phone that is roughly the same as last years IOS and Android phones".
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He's giving subsidized prices. Everyone imagines that phones cost anywhere from free to a few hundred dollars - i.e. the deposit on a phone from a carrier. Just like houses only cost 5% of their listing price.
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How is their single core, lower resolution screen phone as good as a dual core, high res iPhone 4? Maybe you meant the 3GS.
It sounds like they're two generations behind now.
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Well because
The iPhone4 is a single core A4 Cortex8 cpu. which is probably slower than the single core Snapdragon in the Nokia phone. Here the Nokia is probably better but the the iPhone4s GPU is really good so it may make the difference. So it could go Nokia or Apple.
The iPhone4 only has a very good 5MP camera while it sounds like the Nokia has a very good 8MP camera with really good optics. Apple has a very good camera Nokia often has great cameras. The new Nokia may actually be better than not just the
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examples would be welcome.
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And really, that's just not a BFD. If Android saw that the world desperately used it and were moving to WP7 because of it, they'd soon get a release out that integrated it.
The whole thing with WP7 is two desperate companies getting together. Microsoft are basically throwing money at getting market share, and think that they're entitled to a large chunk of the market. But what kept Windows and Office in place (getting the lion's share of the market first, formats) just doesn't apply here. And while WP7 migh
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Like? I don't see any real benefit to not having to us an app. After all apps are one of the main benefits of a smart phone.
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N9 does not have a multi-core CPU either, and it does not hurt much. So I'm questioning how big of a real disadvantage it is to not have a dual-core CPU. Probably shaves something off the bill of materials, too.
Not quite "the same" (Score:2)
The Lumina 800 is not merely "the N9 running WP7" but an entirely different device. Don't forget that Microsoft still dictates the internals of these devices, making them all identical internally with small external gimmicks and case the only differentiation vendors are allowed.
I'd still rather buy an N9.
Microsoft dictates minimum hardware (Score:2)
To make sure you don't get things like the earlier ultra-sluggish Android phones which makes for a very poor user experience.
But any modern mid-range phone hardware meets the minimum specs.
Modified N9? (Score:5, Informative)
By "modified N9" they also mean the different chipset (Qualcomm MSM vs TI OMAP), the different screen size (3.7 inch vs 3.9 inch), different bands (quad band vs pentaband), different WiFi channels (b/g/n vs a/b/g/n), different NFC capability (none vs something), different RAM (512MB vs 1GB) and different storage (16GB vs option of 16GB or 64GB).
But yeah, apart from all that, they are the same device!
Re:Modified N9? (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, lucky for Nokia it's not a rounded-corner rectangle, which is apparently a design wholly owned by Apple.
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If you're talking about the Apple vs Samsung spat then it's more than just about shape. It's about hardware design [peanutbuttereggdirt.com], interface icons [peanutbuttereggdirt.com] and package design [peanutbuttereggdirt.com].
Plenty of other manufacturers manage to not slavishly copy Apple [reddit.com]. Hell, Samsung even managed to use an iPhone screenshot [appleinsider.com] on their own website.
Name says everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Lumia means prostitute in spanish: http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=lumia [spanish language dictionary]
Lumia = Whore in Spanish :) (Score:2)
same style but not an n9 (Score:2)
The lumina 800 isn't even the same size and an n9 let alone the same phone
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/nokia-lumia-800-vs-nokia-n9-the-tale-of-the-tape/
They are: Different sizes, use different processors (one clocked 40% faster than the other), different internal storage (factor of 4), different radio antennae (one is penta band, one quad), one has 1 gig of ram, the other 512.
I'm guessing, since they're the same thickness that there's some parts overlap, but it looks like on the important stuff they
Argh (Score:2)
Nokia Whore 800 (Score:5, Funny)
In Spanish, "Lumia" means "whore"
"Here we are, talking about the Nokia Whore 800 and the Nokia Whore 710, the two newest smartphones by Nokia..."
Nokia Global Marketing fail 101.
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Oh wow, you're right:
http://www.wikilang.com/English/Spanish/streetwalker/lumia/1320206 [wikilang.com]
That's hilarious..
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In which spanish-speaking region means that? Never ever heard it myself. Acording to DRAE is rarely used [buscon.rae.es].
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In Finnish, Elop means "Trojan".
No, it doesn't. Yes, I know, I'm a blast at parties.
However, we are used to calling the company "Mokia" meaning screw-ups, whenever they do something stupid. Little did we know where the initial M would actually come from.
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Your Spanish is funny, lumia doesn't exist as a spanish word nor slang in Spain.
Have you even looked in a dictionary? No, of course you have not!
Meh (Score:5, Funny)
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It's a long term strategy. Basically Nokia wants to sell itself to MS or some other group at bargain prices.
Or, at least, this is what the current schizophrenic tactics of its management suggest.
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Who cares ? At this point in time, after so many bad decisions on top of each other, Nokia is the new Caldera.
Expect to see it start suing other companies left and right to try and keep afloat. It won't happen rightaway, cause they still make alot of money on non-smart phones, specially in 3rd world countries, but it will happen sometimes in the next 3 years or so.
Re:Why Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
Two major factors:
1. Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop [wikipedia.org] was a senior exec for M$ prior being hired as Nokia's CEO
2. M$ offered ~ $1B in incentives to Nokia.
Re:Why Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's far less relevant today than nine years ago. Gates actually had some focus on the products. Ballmer is focused on the money. M$ is much more applicable today than at any time in their history.
Re:Why Windows? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nokia Has a Billion Reasons To Love WP7 [slashdot.org].
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Anyone have any insight into why Nokia went with WP7 instead of riding the Android bandwagon? Wouldn't Moto be it's only "classic" competitor in the Android phone market?
I expect Nokia rigourously weighed up all the technical merits of every competing smart phone operating system and then chose Windows Phone when Microsoft waved a big wad of money under their nose. It makes little sense for any other reason.
Nokia has gone from providing the entire user experience, software and hardware to being just another pretty phone that runs Microsoft's operating system.
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Take a look at the nice horse on the top.
Re:Why Windows? (Score:4, Insightful)
WP7 has an interface that may or may not be better than the other two major OSs but is clearly different. Some people may prefer it.
If they make an Android phone, they're latecomers to an already crowded market. Why should someone buy a Nokia device when HTC have a range of products, so do Motorola, so do Samsung, so do LG. What can Nokia do to persuade people to buy their phone instead?
Betting on WP7 is a gamble, but it does have the chance of a big payoff, and Microsoft's backing isn't something to be sneezed at.
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Re:Why Windows? (Score:4, Interesting)
This has been covered widely in the business media, best article probably being from Bloomberg
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm [businessweek.com]
Why not Android:
[Elop] tried to negotiate a deal with Google to run Android, but Google refused to give the world's biggest phonemaker any advantages over its smaller partners, meaning Nokia's corps of 11,600 engineers would have next to no ability to add their own innovations to Google's software. "It just didn't feel right," Elop says to the crowd. "We'd be just another company distributing Android. That's not Nokia! We need to fight!"
Why Windows Phone:
Elop says his software deal with Microsoft was misconstrued as a Hail Mary to the receiver with the worst hands in the business. Microsoft had just 4 percent of the overall market prior to the Nokia deal. What Nokia didn't gain in market share, however, it hopes to gain in flexibility. The contract grants Nokia the right to stuff almost any innovation it can muster into its Windows Phones
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It's the other way around. Nokia wanted insider access to Microsoft and so they hired Elop.
Re:Why Windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
No offense, but Elops says a lot of things. Most of them are utterly stupid, like bitching about symbian that has carried a company through last year, and is still growing in spite of CEO telling everyone who bothered to listen to him how much it sucked.
Want a recent example? Nokia unveils it's new phones. Stock jumps up.
Elop steps on stage and starts talking. Stock plummets.
I'm not kidding. It's hilarious just how bad of a speaker he is.
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Because other OEMs are giving their all on android, fierce competition. Nokia will be the only one doing so on Windows Phone.
Probably because no-one in their right mind wants to run Windows on their phone.
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why would you want it? the hardware is actually inferior to that of the n9 in several aspects.
Re:alphabet (Score:5, Funny)
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Not the first or the last time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero [wikipedia.org]
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