Windows Phone 7 – Mobile News | Mobile Inquirer https://www.mobileinquirer.com Smartphone, Tablet and Technology News and Reviews Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:08:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3 Alex James Gets “Into” Windows With New Application https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/alex-james-gets-into-windows-with-new-application/ https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/alex-james-gets-into-windows-with-new-application/#respond Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:08:34 +0000 http://www.mobileinquirer.com/?p=904 “Into” Windows A Social Sharing Application:

You have to love Alex James, the ex bassist from Blur, who I remember well from a gig in 1993 singing with a cigarette constantly in his mouth playing the bass for Blur. The songs were from the album “Modern Life Is Rubbish” and it was at a small theatre type venue in Bradford on a set designed to look like an oversized kids bedroom.

This gig cost me £3 to get in! And if you like Blur, please make sure you get hold of their best album by far “Modern Life Is Rubbish”.

I digress.

So what has Alex got involved in with Microsoft?

Windows Phone 7 Application Aims To Promote The O/S Socially and Offer Prizes - Alex James Involved
Windows Phone 7 Application Aims To Promote The O/S Socially and Offer Prizes - Alex James Involved

As creative consultant for the “into” project he has been lending his name and ideas to an application created by Windows that aims to allow users to enter competitions and share news related to the new Windows 7 phone O/S release.

So “Mango” lovers will be able to access exclusive content and offers if they help promote the operating system.

Prizes on offer are access to video content that Alex has provided and a chance to enter a competition to go on an Arctic adventure, plus a chance to win some Nokia 800 phones.

To take part you must either “like” the Facebook page here, or download the application from the Windows Phone Marketplace (soon to be available)

Demo of Windows Mango in HTML5:

It is nice to see that Windows are getting creative with their marketing drive as they do have some catching up to do in both the Smartphone and Tablet markets, so this idea as well as the “Test a Windows 7 phone on your Apple or Android device” HTML5 experience, is a great way of getting some interest and allowing people to sample their new technology easily.

Alex James is quoted saying:

“Windows Phone offers a pioneering experience which has social and enjoyment at its core. I’m a keen believer in pursuing the extraordinary and my choice of phone is no different. by providing such a personalised experience, Windows Phone draws in all that’s important to me; my hobbies and all my interests, and the ability to keep in touch and share everything I care about with everyone I care about. I’m delighted to be partnering with into by Windows Phone.”

So will you be helping the cause and getting stuck in?

Anthony Munns]]>
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Review – The Nokia Windows Mobile Smartphone Range https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/review-the-nokia-windows-mobile-smartphone-range/ https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/review-the-nokia-windows-mobile-smartphone-range/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:06:46 +0000 http://www.mobileinquirer.com/?p=679 Nokia and Windows – The Marriage:

What happens when two Goliath’s of the tech world who have both seen better days decide to combine forces?

New Nokia Windows Phones:

With Nokia’s Meego O/S now relegated to “ongoing support” for a few years, many in tech land have been pontificating on the state of play that a marriage between Nokia and Windows would mean for the mobile industry and consumers alike.

On the one hand both companies have had significant falls from grace over the last few years, with Microsoft/Windows losing out to Apple in the hardware stakes (and now mobile O/S), and similarly Nokia also losing out to Apple and Android devices on both the O/S and hardware front.

On the other Nokia and Windows/Microsoft are both seasoned veterans of both hardware and software combined and could surely still pose a threat to Apple and Android…especially when combined?

Too little too late?

With technology moving on at such a rapid pace, especially in the mobile arena, could the offerings that have finally been brought to the table be a little too late to see them muscle back in to a market dominated by iOS and Android?

I doubt it, and here is why:

Nokia make fantastic looking and working phones, you have to hand it to them, they are design masters on a par with Apple.

But what about the Windows operating system?

Well as someone who dislike Windows O/S by and large, I am always sceptical about an operating system from a company who fails to even bring us a decent web browser in 2010/11 and after many many years of peddling an atrocious (IMHO) operating system in windows XP. There next entry is an equally horrendous O/S to be superseded quickly by another O/S after admitting they had essentially screwed up with Vista.

But….from cursory observations it seems that Windows Phone 7 and then 8 look like they will be a very powerful user centric O/S. Couple this with access to a multitude of X-Box users via the Microsoft network and you have an operating system that seems to seriously have some potential.

Nokia Lumia 800 Features:

Nokia Lumia 800 Features
Nokia Lumia 800 Features

The new Nokia Lumia 800 looks very much like the Meego based Nokia N9. This is a good thing, as one thing that the Nokia N9 phone has apart from a soon to be outdated O/S is serious good looks, with its ClearBlack curved AMOLED display the screen will have to be reduced from the N9 size to incorporate the Windows phone buttons but with a reduction from 3.9 inch to 3.7 inch we hope this will not be too much of sacrifice in screen real estate.

Processor wise we see a powerful Qualcomm 1.4 GHz that includes graphics and hardware acceleration. An 8 MP Carl Zeiss lense with a Dual LED flash, but no front facing camera like the N9 but a dedicated camera button is offered. 16GB of memory is on offer and a free 25GB of SkyDrive space is also added to the package (this I particularly like). RAM wise a pretty average 512MB is built in down from the 1GB N9 memory.

Price: €420 or $480 or £300 (roughly)

Colours: Cyan, magenta or black.

Nokia Lumia range different from Windows?

With the Lumia 800 aiming for the “serious” smartphone market and the Lumia 710 picking up the budget end, Nokia hope to differentiate themselves from Windows phones by virtue of access to Nokia based applications such as:

Nokia Drive: Which delivers a full-fledged personal navigation device (PND) with a free, turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car-user-interface.

Nokia Music: MixRadio, a free, global, mobile music-streaming application that delivers hundreds of channels of locally-relevant music.

Gigfinder is also part of the above Nokia Music service, and proves the ability to search for live local music for a hopefully very powerful integration and overall experience, coupled with the ability to share information on social networks and also buy concert tickets using your mobile device which will be coming in the Nokia Music update later this year.

Nokia Lumia 710 Features:

Nokia Lumia 710 Features
Nokia Lumia 710 Features

Coming in on the budget end of the smartphone range, the Nokia Lumia 710 will be priced at around €270 or $370 or £230, and will fit snugly into the affordable end of the smartphone range.

It will come with very similar specs to the Nokia 800; same processor, same RAM, though will cut corners on camera quality (5MP) and single flash, no hardware navigation buttons, LCD instead of AMOLED and a smaller 8GB of on board storage.

So all in all a pretty good phone with out some of the little extras.

It will be offered in black and white with exchangeable back covers with cyan, black, white, yellow and fuchsia back covers.

Emerging markets targeted first for the budget range Lumia 710:

The Nokia Lumia 710 will be available first in India, Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan toward the end of the year alongside the Nokia Lumia 800, before becoming available in further markets in early 2012.

Could Nokia/Windows devices fill that sweet-spot?

With Android and iOS dominating much of the globe, it is true to say that certain parts of Asia, Russia and the Far East are still in the beginning forays into smartphone territory and are therefore these people are firmly “in the market” for new devices. I imagine many will be wowed by the shine of Apples offerings and also the functionality, cost and ubiquity of the android O/S and devices that run on this O/S, but Apple do price themselves out of many pockets and Android still has an air of cheapness to it due to the one size fits all approach.

With features and applications being the name of the game for mobile devices it will be interesting to see if price, quality of hardware and brand appeal will play a large part in the success or failure of this, what must be described as last ditch effort from the tow giants.

Will they succeed in establishing a position in the competitive smartphone marketplace and what about a tablet range?

Your thoughts welcome as usual.

Anthony Munns]]>
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HTC Titan First Glance – Huge Screen https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/htc-titan-first-glance-huge-screen/ https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/htc-titan-first-glance-huge-screen/#respond Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:59:28 +0000 http://www.mobileinquirer.com/?p=562 HTC Titan – Giant Screens R US

Do you like your screens to dominate your phone?

Personally I love a good sized screen with funky gorilla glass protecting it from scratches and knocks while still affording me the best possible user experience for the size.

So…If you are like me, you may well love the new HTC Titan, a Windows 7.5 phone based device that is a big muscled cousin to the HTC Radar.

When I say bigger, I mean this in every way possible, faster processor, bigger screen, the lot:

HTC Titan Windows Phone
HTC Titan Windows Phone

So how big and how powerful?

The new HTC Titan will deliver an eye dropping and trouser bulging 4.7 inches of screen real estate with a slightly disappointing WVGA resolution, it is however rumoured to be a very responsive screen and while not the best resolution for the size it appears to be pretty damn good anyway.

Processor wise you will get a 1.5 Ghz Snapdragon chip which will run your new Windows Mango device, and from reports on actual use it appears to multi-task really well as you would expect.

Functionality

With a huge 8 mega pixel camera, the HTC Titan is keeping up with the Jones’ on size and resolution, it is also surprisingly light for a phone of its size, coming in at 31 mm x 70 mm wide and 9 mm thick, the phone is also only 160 g in weight.

The manufacturers and designers at HTC are doing Samsung like tricks in their new range of mobile devices by keeping power, size and weight balanced nicely.

So there you have it, HTC are not just stepping into Windows phone territory tentatively, they are bringing some real smartphone contenders on to the smaller O/S that has a lot to prove. It appears that this Windows Mango update is going to be a real competitor to iOS and Android now the likes of HTC are firmly taking things seriously. I wonder what Samsung are going to do with their own BADA O/S that they seem to be talking about more and more of recent, now that it appears that little bit more crowded in the mobile device O/S space?

Anthony Munns]]>
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Nokia To Put 80 Million GBP Into Marketing Windows Phone Devices https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/nokia-to-put-80-million-gbp-into-marketing-windows-phone-devices/ https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/nokia-to-put-80-million-gbp-into-marketing-windows-phone-devices/#respond Sun, 17 Jul 2011 22:08:00 +0000 http://www.mobileinquirer.com/?p=344 Nokia will put £80 million into a six month promotional campaign for the new Windows range of mobile devices

Marketing magazine has suggested that Nokia will not be waiting to see what happens with the new release of Smart Phones with the Windows 7 O/S and will be spending huge £80 million in making sure that a six month campaign gets to as many people as possible and that the phones are indeed a huge success.

With so much resting on Nokia and Microsoft we can fully understand the need to finally bring out the big gins and show the World that the two floundering giants finally mean business.

Nokia may struggle to break even this year with profits and market share down so this project really needs to start bringing in the rewards financially, could this therefore be a last throw of the dice for the Finnish mobile device maker of old?

October 2011 Nokia Windows phone 7 marketing campaign:

The campaign will be set to run from October, and will tie into the soon to be announce Windows Phone on Nokia device

“We are excited about the Nokia with Windows phone, but it’s not our policy to comment on specific campaigns for unannounced products,”

The Nokia Windows partnership is crucial but is far from guaranteed to bring in the riches with an admission earlier this week by Steve Ballmer, that Windows Phone 7’s success in its first year was going from “very small to very small” since its launch. Time will tell what the outcome will be for these seasoned tech giants now they have joined forces.

Editorial Staff]]>
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Nokia N9 – The Problem With Nokia? https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/nokia-n9-review-the-last-hope-for-nokia/ https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/nokia-n9-review-the-last-hope-for-nokia/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 01:05:58 +0000 http://www.mobileinquirer.com/?p=321 With Nokia losing ground globally to almost all manufacturers big and small, is the Nordic mobile giant Finnished yet?

Nokia N9 – The Last Hope?

In a recent article I talked about Nokia’s new collaboration with Microsoft (Windows 7) and went on to say that it was make or break for the mobile stalwart of old.

Despite the size and brand name associated with the Finnish Giant, the truth is, no one is too large to fail in the modern world of technology and commerce.

Apps make smartphones…smart:

When all said and done a smartphone without apps is pretty dumb, they are the same as the phones that ruled the day only two+ years ago.

Call, text, take a picture and maybe some video.

What applications offer is to customise the phone and enhance its functionality so it becomes your personal smart device.

We all know that customisation is a prized holy grail of any manufacturers especially when it makes you more money, so why have Nokia taken so bloody long to realise that having control of all parts of the production and consumption chain aka “vertical integration” is the way to make the dollars!…see Apple for tips.

Maybe they operate too closely to the PirateBay guys and still feel that there is no money in software or digital assets….wake up!

With the slow and scheduled demise of the Symbian OS, app developers have all but abandoned ship for the Symbian OS as a developers platform for obvious reasons.

With the arrival of the Nokia N9 we see two things happen at Nokia that concern me:

1st – Is the arrival of a “new” operating system for Nokia devices called “Meego”

2nd – We see Nokia team up with Microsoft and produce an even newer operating system for the new Windows/Nokia devices due out soon. Watch exclusive video here of the new Nokia Windows Sea Ray

The question I have for Nokia is what are you going to do about making sure that developers make quality apps for your operating system?

Yes Nokia will include the Apps compliant Qt 4.7 which should allow developers to knock out applications swiftly enough, but as with the Android marketplace (which is in another league to Nokia’s own current equivalent app marketplace) a serious issue of quality and quantity arises.

A lack of Apps is the one big gripe I have over my old iPhone after a recent switch to the Samsung S2, and believe me it is a serious gripe, though I suspect one that will be overcome soon enough given the ubiquity of the Android O/S but will this be the same for Meego or indeed Windows 7?

Lets go back to 1984

1980s-computers
1980's Computers

It reminds me of a time back in the early 1980’s.

In the UK you had four main choices for a home computer (PC) depending on your budget.

1, Sinclair ZX Spectrum

2, Commodore 64

3, Amstrad CPC

4, Acorn Electron

Now the geeks in the house would tell you that the Acorn Electron was vastly superior in many aspects but vitally missed the extra RAM that the Commodore and Spectrum offered.

But the real issue that faced the Acorn Electron was that they released their hardware too late for the Christmas period even when orders were already in the shops.

As a result, people cancelled and bought something else.

Over a short period of time, games developers/publishers started to work more on the larger selling Sinclair, Amstrad And Commodore PC….this slowed sales of Acorn Electrons as word got out that titles were not being released and eventually the Acorn simply stopped growing and died as it was caught in a vicious circle. Ironic considering the status of the humble Acorn in most peoples mind.

Developers make or break your market:

App-Developers
App Developers

With Apples app market providing a record 15 billion app downloads as of mid 2011, and Nokia yet to really get going in this space, we worry that it may be too little too late.

Without developers creating quality applications for a smart phone, there is no way that that device will either sell or grow.

Now this kind of situation is deeply hurtful to a manufacturer (BETAMAX v VHS) so it is in Nokia’s best interest to make sure that developers of apps are not messed about too much and that they can EASILY port applications made for the iPhone O/S and Android O/S easily to both MeeGo, and variations of the Symbian O/S and now the Windows 7 operating system.

Damn!! Talk about making everyone confused!…..seriously not the best idea for a manufacturer who is still on the back foot in this brave new world.

And while many will say that the average person in the street will not care about the confusing operating system issue, my own response would be that times are changing, and if bad press or lack of press due to lack of understanding prevails, then Nokia will have a challenge to convince people through the blogosphere that they are worth looking at again, after being so noticeably absent for so long.

If Nokia feel they can just mess around until it suits them then they have seriously misjudged the way things are moving in the smart phone arena.

Now is the time to get a firm position in the high end smart phone arena:

We know that Symbian is still technically the worlds number 2 smart phone O/S but only on technicalities. It’s power and appeal is nowhere near as far ranging as Apples iOS or the Android O/S.

Here is a cool video we produced showing some great smart phone statistics please do tweet and share!

Meego Stay Or Me Go Home Now? The issue of working with two operating systems at once:

So what exactly is MeeGo and is it going to disappear quicker than Symbian now that Microsoft are fully in bed with Nokia?

MeeGo is essentially a combination of two Linux based operating systems, namely Nokia’s Debian-based Maemo and Intel’s Fedora-based Moblin operating systems.

With the departure of the MeeGo team manager for Nokia, Alberto Torres, after the news that Nokia was hooking up with Microsoft, many wondered just how focused Nokia are on keeping the Meego operating system going for future devices.

We know that the Nokia N9 release will utilise the MeeGo O/S but no news has emerged to say if this will be a one off or will continue as a line of phones separate to the ones offered via the windows phone 7 and future 8 operating systems.

And what will happen to support for the O/S in all eventualities?

Well news on the grapevine:

Actually from Twitter and Nokia’s Head of Portfolio Management, Klas Strom who assures us all that support for the Meego O/S will be provided in the future…we hope this is true.

With all this talk of apps, I am at a loss to see why Nokia are being so damn shy about which operating system will stand the test of time now they have hooked up with Windows 7.

Nokia N9 Styling:

Nokia-n9
Nokia N9 Smart Phone

Without sounding too harsh on our Finnish friends, Nokia have fallen wayside of the style radar for some time. That is not to say they have become un-stylish per se, but simply because the phones that have been released have all been eclipsed by something sexier or more functional that has caught the eye quicker and for longer, examples include most of the recent Samsung’s, HTC’s Sony’s and of course the iPhone range, we would even say that LG have a smart phone that beats the Nokia N8 both for looks and usability and more importantly would appear to be future proof enough for now, even if users of the LG Optimus complain of a huge lack of updates.

With Nokia’s N9 they have kept the sleek styling we have come to expect of Nokia and design houses of the Northern regions of Europe, utilising the old “form follows function” mentality preferred and originated by the modernist movement of designers and architects of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that fits so well with items that are used daily and need a smooth functional interface.

Apple have made a success of this with the functionality of the iPhone, copied by competing manufacturers in their droves. Nokia’s method with the N9 is to try to bring something unique to the table with a system they are terming “swipe”….”all it takes is a swipe”….“We wanted to design a better way to use a phone, and it comes down to one simple gesture – a swipe.”

Forgive me but I have basically been doing this with my iPhone and Samsung S2 for 2 years or more.

Ah well, welcome to the new world Nokia, glad to see you back, now take a seat down over there while we get you a stiff f*****g drink, we have a few things to talk about.

The problem with Nokia:

The problem with Nokia and the N9 is that its release comes about at just the time when the Global population has woken up and said, you know what, where have Nokia gone?

People in the know have asked this for ages, and it is only the emerging (less profitable) markets who have kept Nokia phones to their ears for the last two or so years.

So what do Nokia go and do….release another phone with a new operating system that no one has heard of and is more than likely going to go down the pan pretty soon.

Nokia listen up:

Style will usually get you anywhere, but seriously if you dont have any friends in the club in the first place, your fancy new jacket might make you look more of a knob than you intended and while being different is usually cool, if your actually a one trick pony when scratched, your time away from being trendy will become all too apparen’t and you will be laughed back out onto the cold damp street you came in from with a black eye before you can say “swipppppeeeee! that hurt!”.

Seriously, what did you guys do that made you feel like the best way to win over an already happy customer base (with other manufacturers) was to go and confuse them even more?

Personal opinion on Nokia:

I feel that the N9 may well be a bit of a botched effort even though it looks fantastic on paper and that teaming up with Microsoft could put them in a great position with the potential for Xbox integration and the social aspect that can come from this partnership, plus Windows 7 actually looks pretty cool.

We know Nokia can make the best quality phones in the world and the N9 is proof of this on many counts, just ask Apple. Apple have been stealing Nokia’s trademark secrets for ages now.

Though I did pose a question earlier in the article above; Have Nokia missed the boat? Are they better placed to be a world wide R&D centre and sell patents and licenses for new technologies developed?

Well if the next phone (Windows Sea Ray) launched after the much anticipated Nokia N9 does not work financially for Microsoft and Nokia, then it is surely game over for the company in terms of gaining any significant foothold in the smartphone arena any time soon and many will ask why they did not just go for an Android O/S device and get a quality phone out to market way back in 2010 or earlier.

Ah Nokia, who once ruled the mobile device market….surely it’s not game over yet?

Anthony Munns]]>
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Exclusive Nokia And Windows 7 “Sea Ray” Smart Phone Video And Report https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/exclusive-nokia-and-windows-7-sea-ray-smart-phone-video-and-report/ https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/exclusive-nokia-and-windows-7-sea-ray-smart-phone-video-and-report/#comments Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:59:00 +0000 http://www.mobileinquirer.com/?p=241 Well what a scoop we have here, however contrived it probably was. Still, we bring you an EXCLUSIVE video shot just after Nokia CEO Stephen Elop asked the audience to “put away their cameras” as something “super confidential” was about to be unveiled.

We have an almost World exclusive video of the new child of Nokia and Microsoft code named “Sea Ray” it actually looks pretty swish I must say.

Here is the video showing the full leaked video and read our report below:

Sea Ray did you say? I seem to have lost him?

So what has been let out of the bag?

A cat or a……… “Sea Ray!!!”, “Sea Ray!!!” dah dah dah da da da!!….not sure about the name I must say, especially when your Northern European colleague finds it very tough to pronounce…but apparently there are 500 new features!

Nokia starting to get open about their technology:

In a display of openness that you can only give credit to, Stephen Elop – Nokia’s CEO called for an open dialogue within the company, gong on to ask for employees to share experiences and be honest about the products they are developing even if that news may not sit well with everyone.

Adding:

“It is OK to give us the bad news. The pain we suffered just a few weeks ago about the earnings release would not have happened if the people in this company had shared the bad news earlier.”

Look and feel:

On look and feel it seems to resemble a newly released Nokia N9 although it has one tell tale sign that it is a superior model by having another button on its side….assuming that more is better!

Windows 7 Mango

It is also currently running Windows 7 Mango, a nice looking interface that works on the premise that we all want to use “tiles” and not pinch our devices bottoms quite as much.

We have done a report on Windows and Nokia releasing a tablet with Windows 8 as the OS for future Windows devices this is really quite intriguing having only just written that report the other day, it would appear that Windows 7 will be a stop gap before the Windows 8 beast that should tie up all Windows based devices with one OS that integrates better between desktop, laptop, Xbox, smartphone and tablet….time will tell.

Lets take a look at the User Interface an apps that were shown in the “leaked” video:

Xbox integration

windows7-xbox

Appealing to gamers worldwide, the expected Xbox integration looks OK, nothing to really see from the video, though I personally except this to be a major selling point assuming it is done as well as the actual big daddy Xbox, this I expect to be a given considering what is at stake.

Microsoft Office For Windows 7 Mobile

office-nokia-windows-sea-ray

We can also see that Microsoft have ported their Office suite onto the phone which we hear Microsoft believe is a missing market for Tablet owners….the higher end business user….and assume this will also be a feature on the tablet version running (we assume) Windows 8 in the not too distant future.

British Airways App For Windows 7

british-airways-app-windows-7

Quite a nice little app here and something in deep contrast to its Xbox integration, here Microsoft are trying to widen their appeal by showing off a high end app such as the British Airways app where you can take a virtual tour of your flight and pick your seat…nifty!

We will leave the rest up to you.

Are you looking forward to Nokia and Windows finally entering the Smart Phone market properly; perhaps feeling a little sad that they missed the first real excursion into a truly useful mobile phone experience enjoyed by the likes of Apple, Samsung, HTC, Android, Motorola, RIM etc?

And do you think they will muscle their way in with a unique product and operating system such as Windows 7 on mobile?

Or too little too late?

Anthony Munns]]>
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Nokia And Apple Settle Long Standing SmartPhone Patent Issue https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/nokia-and-apple-settle-long-standing-smartphone-patent-issue/ https://www.mobileinquirer.com/2011/nokia-and-apple-settle-long-standing-smartphone-patent-issue/#comments Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:12:00 +0000 http://www.mobileinquirer.com/?p=157 Nokia has won a battle with rival phone manufacturer Apple over patents related to its technology that Apple used in its highly successful iPhone.

The settlement fee sees Apple pay a one time fee and also royalties on Nokia’s technology.

Nokia’s president and chief executive Stephen Elop is quoted saying:

“We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees.”

As part of the deal Apple and Nokia have agreed to licence technology to each other and drop all existing legal issues in Germany the UK and the US.

Nokia’s fall from power:

In the first quarter Nokia saw its position as the manufacturer generating the most revenue from its phone production fall to Apple.

And with the rise of the Google Android operating system, Nokia will see it’s position come under even greater pressure as firms such as HTC, Motorolla and Samsung capitalise on the demand for SmartPhones, and take advantage of first mover positioning and consequent brand appeal.

Android Rise

Nokia look to monetize its patent technology:

With Nokia having a whole bank of patents and technologies that many manufacturers would love to utilise, the company has started to look at ways it can licence its inherent wireless technology knowledge and patent portfolio on areas such as:

The SmartPhone user interface, power management, antennas and cameras.

Apple already involved with other manufacturers over patent issues:

With Apple corp already involved in litigation with Android manufacturers, Motorola, Samsung and HTC

With Apple essentially accepting that it had stolen certain patents related to mobile technology in the iPhone, the likelihood of Apples competitors having to pay both Nokia and Apple as a result of this recent agreement means that Apples main rivals should be hit in the wallets doubly from the actions taken against them.

It is thought these costs could be even higher than Apples due to the fact that Apple brought considerably more of its own technology to the table than either of the above mentioned manufacturers.

Potentially last ditch partnership with Microsoft for Nokia:

windows-phone-7-smartphone

With Nokia partnering with Microsoft to help them bring about a range of devices for the Windows Phone 7 operating system, aimed at competing with Apples iOS and Android based devices, this marriage could see heavy losses or the potential to stem the tide against further ground lost in the SmartPhone arena which both companies have failed to make any serious impressions on in well over two years after the birth of the Smart Phone (a lifetime in technology terms)

Highlighting this risk from Nokia’s perspective is a quote contained in the report called Form 20-F 2010 states:

“If we fail to finalise our partnership with Microsoft or the benefits of that partnership do not materialise as expected, we will have limited our options and more competitive alternatives may not be available to us in a timely manner, if at all,”

Are Nokia better served as a form of mobile technology university or will this business model lead to a potentially precarious future.

Nokia’s past investment in research and development in last 20 years:

In the last 2 decades Nokia has invested a huge €43 billion into research and development and now has one of the mobile industry’s largest portfolios of technology related patents.

Will Nokia end up succeeding with the partnership with Microsoft (we have our doubts, due to late arrival, but do see opportunity with Microsoft’s existing customer base and the potential to sync hardware people may already own such as PC’s and Xbox’s with the new device, time will tell)

Or will they end up as a knowledge based company licensing technology and patents out to mobile phone manufactures, or will the Northern European mobile giant bounce back and lead the way with a new wave of SmartPhones in the near future?

Anthony Munns]]>
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