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 There next entry is an equally horrendous O/S to be superseded quickly by another O/S after admitting they had essentially screwed up with Vista.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:

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 This is a good thing, as one thing that the Nokia N9 phone has apart from a soon to be outdated O/S is serious good looks, with its ClearBlack curved AMOLED display the screen will have to be reduced from the N9 size to incorporate the Windows phone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:

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.

Nokia have released their final phone that will run on their own operating system before they move all future devices to the much anticipated windows 7.5 O/S.

So what does the N9 look like?

The N9 is a bit of an oddity, running on the Hartmann user interface on top of the MeeGo platform.

Why no N9 release for the UK and US?

The likelihood is that the upcoming release of the full blown N9 running the sea ray operating system is the reason that Nokia have not bothered wasting shelve space in the more advanced UK and US markets.

So what will the future of the MeeGo platform look like?

It appears that they intend to merge this O/S with a Linux based platform called LiMo.

Technical specifications N9?

Well the Nokia N9 is a pretty tasty bit of kit, it is being touted as a “pure touch” phone by Nokia and is designed with a unibody 3.9 inch WVGA AMOLED gorilla glass display.

The phone will be powered by a 1Ghz Arm Cortex A8 processor, with a pretty impressive 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, and a super wide lense.

NFC, A-GPS and a 16Gb or 64GB memory storage is also part of the package.

Ilari Nurmi, Vice President of Marketing at Nokia has said:

“Since we announced the Nokia N9 in June this year, the feedback that it has gotten from discerning and avid smartphone users across the world has been nothing short of fantastic, With the innovations in industrial design, user interface, and the Qt developer experience, the Nokia N9 sets the bar for how natural technology can feel, and represents the first in a number of products from Nokia that will be brought to life in similar fashion.”

Still want a Nokia N9 in the US and UK?

Well you can always simply import a phone. It looks like the cost of the N9 will be around 500 – 600 Euros for the 16GB and 64GB

Or is it wiser to wait for the new Nokia Sea Ray that will run on windows 7.5 and will be the start of new things for the two giants…my advice wait on a few months.

Anyone fancy the deal to build 300 apps for Nokia?

Actually, the gig has already gone to a Canadian outfit called Polar Mobile.

It is however nice to see that Nokia are still thinking to some degree about their existing Symbian users, as the contract will allow for a number of apps to be developed for both Symbian and Meego.

The first 50 apps will actually run on Symbian and will be developed within the next two months.

The remainder will be spread over Meego and Symbian.

It has to be said that HP perhaps should have done more to ensure that their now defunct mobile devices had a chance at becoming powered by a popular app marketplace before being ditched so sharply.

Polar known for churning apps out at incredible speed

Using an approach of one size fits all, Polar mobile appear to release quality applications at an incredible pace, something Nokia admit they need:

Richard White, general manager of Nokia’s Canadian operations says:

“We need to increase [the size of] our app store with quality apps, This is obviously a great way to go about doing that.”

With Nokia playing third fiddle to Samsung and Apple as well as having tough competition from HTC and LG, the recent departure of HP from mobile manufacturing will be some relief as the decision to team up with Windows 7/8 O/S and Microsoft in general is probably the biggest strategic move the firm has made to date.

Lots ride on Nokia’s immediate future

It is astonishing that Nokia have let such a huge advantage in terms of size, power and market share diminish to the point where many people are genuinely unsure if they have what it takes to return to the market they once dominated and be major players.

Question is, can a company produce 300 quality apps in such a short period of time?

I hope Nokia are not just looking at numbers here, as I really do not see much point of adding a few hundred crap applications to their marketplaces, when they have more important things to focus on….keep tuned for more Nokia news.

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

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:

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:

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?