Richard Kerris on Nokia’s future, “people will be climbing over themselves” for the new Nokia products.

The name Richard Kerris may or may not be familiar to you. I had to jog my memory a bit by doing some searching. He became Nokia’s VP, Global Head of Developer Relation last November and was interviewed by Engadget’s Myriam Joire back in May. His name is now hitting some headlines again for saying some bold and hopeful things about Nokia. Now, of course he would say that right, he’s working at Nokia.

Or perhaps there are actual valid reasons to be very positive about Nokia’s outlook? Let’s take a look  at a couple of sources for some snippets into Nokia’s future

 http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/nokias-richard-kerris-people-wont-remember-our-troubles-by-next-spring/

http://www.neowin.net/news/interview-nokias-richard-kerris-on-windows-phone-8-verizon-and-so-much-more?

Starting with TechCrunch, they’ve titled their article, “People Won’t Remember Our Troubles By Next Spring”.

 http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/nokias-richard-kerris-people-wont-remember-our-troubles-by-next-spring/

That is quite a bold statement to stay, and can be read as Nokia bringing out something so amazing you will forget about their past difficulties. Given the everest of trouble Nokia’s had since 2007, that’s raising my expectations so high, the anticlimax will be unbearable should it be another Nokia dud.

For the eternal pessimist, you could say that people won’t remember Nokia’s troubles because they won’t care. there won’t be a Nokia to care about. Kerris says however that Nokia will come out of all of this STRONGER than ever before.

I wasn’t aware of Kerris’ full background before Nokia but here’s a summary:

• worked at Apple under Steve Jobs
• CTO of Lucas Films
• Worked at HP on WebOS

The Neowin article actually recommended that you looked at his profile, saying that ‘he is not one to take a job simply because it was offered’. Well that makes me hopeful about his continued presence at Nokia.

Apparently, Kerris was not too enthusiastic about Elop joining the company but changed his mind after seeing prototypes of Lumias that he thought rivalled Apple product’s build. He accepted that the Nokia he joined had gone through years of arrogance and neglected market opportunities. There’s a sense of realism or perhaps worry when Kerris says that the Sunnyvale office now feels like a start up – perhaps meaning exciting future ahead though very much worried if they’re be there in the long run? In fact, he apparently said that even if it didn’t work out for Nokia in the long run, “at least we’ll have fun and go down trying”. Well at least he’s honest there.

Neowin also concurs with Kerris’ honesty on the Nokia situation and is NOT obvlivious to the problems around them (unlike, perhaps say RIM who denied of being in trouble or in a ‘Death Spiral’). Their article has a few more specific and encouraging tidbits.

http://www.neowin.net/news/interview-nokias-richard-kerris-on-windows-phone-8-verizon-and-so-much-more?

• Confirmation once again of a Verizon Lumia but with a time frame that ‘it won’t be very long’
• Currently Nokia’s ‘dark days’ but can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
• PureView Lumia very soon (Nokia is yet to prove that they understand what SOON means, very soon could be just as far away)
•  WP7 apparently not dead,  with 7.8 and other ‘enhancements’ on the way it’s as vibrant as ever
• He feels developers will first want to target the ‘millions’ of Lumia owners, making apps compatible for WP8 but also for the current install base. Well, it makes sense as there is no install base of WP8 owners.
• Nokia filed more patents last year than any other and will aggressively defend their ‘new technologies’
• Reiteration of R&D work on the flexible bendy screen (when will we ever see a practical use for that from Nokia, huh?)
• Location aware devices, knowing what profiles/settings to switch to when you’re at work/home etc. I’m sure I had an app on my 7610 that did this, and also on my N97/N8?
• Building on that last point however is the device instinctively knowing if a child is holding the device and locking out certain features.
• Nokia will ‘innovate its way out of the current situation’ and the change will continue in fall.
• Supposedly, “people will be climbing over themselves” for the new Nokia products.

So…change will continue in fall and then something else for Spring? Is this Lumia PureView for Spring time? Urgh. Though that was the expected time frame, I feel that’s unfortunately just too late for Nokia. Much, much too late. They better have something killer this year to rival HTC OneX/SGSIII WP version (and the original Droids themselves).

I was looking for a thumbnail for this article and saw some tweets from Richard himself.

He doesn’t confirm what carriers will get he new Lumias as it’s not his area but confirms (Lumia??) PureView

well, to be clear, I didn’t say that about the carriers; not my area. But we have said PureView is coming and its great.

[in response to a title: Nokia Windows Phones coming to Verizon and Sprint, Lumia PureView camera ‘very soon’]

https://twitter.com/richardkerris/status/222127052533411840

His response?

yeah, fact checking seems to be a lost art these days. Gotta love the enthusiasm though 😉

Hmmm….

Cheers Joni, Jules and Prashant for the tip!

Category: Nokia