Nokia’s Windows Phone – Coming Which half of 2011? What Specifications do you want in your Nokia Windows Phone?

This post became longer than expected:

During the “evening with Nokia” Stephen Elop and Jo Harlow were very coy with the topic of release dates for Nokia’s first Windows Phone handset.

They did try to make clear that MS and Nokia folk are working together to solidify the timing of the first Nokia WP device (hence why Harlow could not yet at the time provide a date). Harlow says however, that Stephen would be much happier if that time was in 2011.

Harlow says she “aims to please”.  You really can’t say that unless you know it will definitely arrive by 2011. Which frankly there’s 10 months of it left so is plenty of time (though Not really if your name is Nokia). Reuters are also reporting that Nokia is aiming to get a Windows Phone before the year’s end.

“Clearly there is significant pressure on the teams and the whole company to ensure that we deliver a great Windows Phone product as quickly as possible, and we would certainly prefer to see that in 2011,”

Knowing Nokia, that could mean December 31st 2011. I’m already holding them for the 2011 date. Elop has already stated that his upper management WILL be held accountable – perhaps making sure that delays don’t happen.

The concept design leaked were shown by Harlow to demonstrate what the collaboration between MS and Nokia could produce. Design wise, it’s received quite a positive response. What’s inside it – not so much. Elop notes that “what you see is the beauty, the reliability, the precision engineering which Nokia is known in the world over, combined with a contemporary user experience and supported by the services around it”. Elop says that they have the opportunity to give customers the highest quality experience between the device ( hardware and software) and applications and services surrounding that. Elop notes that due to the work done together (with MS) Can deliver these experiences faster than any options before them (i.e. faster release times perhaps than Symbian or MeeGo).

Harlow says she is looking forward to sharing more of this collaboration in weeks to come. Is this just general MS-Nokia collaborations or the actual device? Harlow says that while they can’t show a physical product today, the goal is to do this very soon.

But WHEN, WHEN, WHEN? What is SOON?!

He also says that they have not announced a specific date for their first windows phone device. They’ve been very deliberate about that. Part of what Elop says he’s trying to do at Nokia is when announcing dates, they have ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY about that, and so relative to the history of Nokia (where they announce a phone and six months later, whilst it’s aging and competition is nipping at the heels)  Nokia will reduce the amount of time between announcing dates and when they deliver the product.

Well, there is a loop hole around that by way of DELAYING announcements. We’ll still have a delayed handset, except (as long as Eldar doesn’t leak its existence and review in advance :p) that we just the waiting occurs before instead of after the announcement.

Elop says they don’t want to now say precisely when, but reiterates Harlow’s comments saying, “as Jo Hinted, there is a little bit of pressure to make sure this happens SOON”. Well, Windows Phone is getting some much needed updates around March this year. That’s in the coming weeks.

The image below might now be very familiar to you. It demonstrates the overlap of both Windows Phone and Symbian handsets, coexisting and the eventual transition from Symbian to Windows Phone. I don’t know how true this is, but apparently, Symbian was always supposed to have been replaced, but by MeeGo. For the many reasons already discussed, Nokia instead will be using Windows Phone.

Point of it is that the introduction of Windows Phone occurs during a time where significant sales value is still being obtained from Symbian (of which is expected to last until 2013).

What Specifications do you want in your Nokia Windows Phone?

Love it or hate it, We’re getting Windows Phone on Nokia handsets. This may mean that unfortunately you’ll defect to iOS/WebOS/Android. For those that remain (and for possibly the hundreds of millions of potential customers…

Nokia NEEDS to get Windows Phone devices out FAST. They have to be CLASS LEADING products. All eyes are on Nokia to produce the best ever Windows Phone device on the market. There is no room any more for compromise.  When your competition is providing more powerful hardware at a faster and more consistent rate, you have to step up, not just to meet but exceed their products.

Whilst there’s not really that much room now to differentiate in terms of software (as that’s in Microsoft’s hands), Nokia must focus everything on FINALLY producing a REAL NOKIA FLAGSHIP phone that is not only leading the pack from your own portfolio, but also outgunning those in your “third ecosystem” aka the “windows Phone Ecosystem” and more importantly, giving the best Android, WebOS, iOS, BB smartphones something to be frightened about.

I’m not certain what ‘software’ features we’ve come to expect in Symbian may not be possible in Windows Phone (USB Mass Storage? USB Host? Bluetooth File Transfer?) so let’s try and push the discussion to HARDWARE (fortunately, there’s a minimum specification).

• CPU/GPU
• RAM
• MEMORY
• CAMERA/Imaging/Number of cameras/Optics/Flash
• MIC NUMBERS
• SPEAKERS
• SCREEN SIZE
• SCREEN TECHNOLOGY
• SCREEN RESOLUTION
• PORTS
• PHONE SIZE
• DIMENSION
• WEIGHT
• RADIO TECH/GPS/PENTABAND/WIFI-N/BT (which profile?)
• BUILD/MATERIALS
• GENERAL DESIGN/
• FORM FACTOR
• ETC

And we haven’t even touched on the topic about Nokia’s tablet-less state.

Tags: featured

Category: Rant, Windows Phone