Nokia Fails: Releasing Phones close to announcement #Rant.

 

Last year we heard that Nokia would reduce the delay between the times phones are announced to the times they are available.

products shipping in volume. The pressure is on all of us, myself included, to have those first devices this year but we haven’t announced a specific date yet. Our pattern now is to announce launch dates of products very close to availability. In the past, there have been longer lead times and that hasn’t always worked out. It is possible [that we’ll] see the first new phone in the last quarter of this year””]

[Image from http://mynokiablog.com/2011/04/27/nokias-windows-phone-coming-q4-oct-dec-2011-accenture-staff-to-be-retrained-for-windows-phone-after-symbian/ ]

With the Nokia Lumia 800, they announced that they were shipping already on the day of announcement, with availability when they reach the shelves. Amazing stuff, Nokia turning things around. 8 months from announcement of the partnership with availability not long after.

But now, what the hell is going on with the Nokia Lumia 900? Announced at CES in January, it is now over mid March and signs point to April. What on earth are you doing Nokia? Is this yet another part of the original Nokia strategy to self implode with silly little things like inconsistent crappy online promotions? What precisely are you doing that you would take a device, though very well received, well loved, even award winning despite being 2011 specs on paper, to delay and delay and delay until the point that well, the competition has even better devices and no one cares about our Nokia phones?

What precisely are you doing that you would need to actively disable something like internet sharing on the Nokia Lumia 800/710 at launch only to tell us they would possibly appear in some update to which has no definite date?

The trend of delays and waits is something Nokia fans (that remain) have had much practice in. Looking at the bright side, I guess at least it is still within the same half of the year, unlike before where we would have announcement and over 6 months later, the device appears in the shops. Whilst you delay, the competition does not stand still. How are we expected to catch up when we’re clearly going in reverse? (Unless of course there’s something quite significant, e.g. 41mp PureView which would take a while to compete against that camera, but even that should not be delayed).

How about creating some buzz, and then putting it on sale and then maintaining that buzz whilst your product is available for people to buy? Is something not ready in the phone? There’s only so much preparation, perfection and weeding you can do before the phone turns into a mythical Duke Nukem Forever project. Of course we don’t want rushed, botched devices, but there must be at least a certain level at which those devices can be ready and be put on sale?

Perhaps, most likely I am over simplifying and missing out key factors that are affecting this delay. But looking from the outside with a simplified view, it appears to be the usual Nokia flair of squandering opportunities.

I tweeted my frustration just before writing this post and @umopobarkan replied

@JayMontano That’s why Nokia is planning to move it’s entire production in China. It sucks, but that the right move if they want to compete

Hmm.

Ideally, we’d like to see things appear in the same month. That’s the longest anyone should wait. 2 weeks is preferable and 1 week would be amazing. No, not just shipping, actually being able to buy it in the shops.

Remember when the Nokia Ace was first rumoured? It would have been perfect if we saw that in 2011. Oh well.

http://mynokiablog.com/2012/01/14/lumiappaday-60-meme-generator-demoed-on-the-nokia-lumia-800/

We want high quality Nokia phones and soon! I know it’s not like ‘others’ which might have only one device to focus on, but there are equally plenty of other manufacturers announcing devices and releasing them close to announcement dates. Why is this a problem for you?

 

Anyway, off to a wonderful 2 hour session on stats. Yay.

Tags: fails, lies

Category: Lumia, Nokia, Rant, Windows Phone