Gigaom with Stephen Elop: Nokia can do things with WP that MS can’t

Well, just yesterday we heard Stephen Elop at AllThingsD saying he had no indications that Microsoft are planning on building their own phone

http://mynokiablog.com/2012/10/03/stephen-elop-interviewed-at-all-things-d-nokia-not-a-white-box-manufacturer/

Perhaps that’s just a clever way of skirting around the question or if it’s just that he can’t say even if he knows.

Gigaom also explore the same topic.

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/02/nokias-elop-we-can-do-things-with-windows-phone-that-microsoft-cant/

Stephen Elop explains that the 920 contains years and years of work that can’t just be duplicated by people deciding to suddenly build a WP. The prospect of a MS WP would not change their relationship apparently. Nokia will continue to build innovative devices, and the likes of the 920 is worth years and years of work and investment.

“For example, the reason the Lumia 920 is standing out so well amongst the competition, one of the reasons is the imaging capability, this low-light photography capability. That’s five or six years of work in our labs, engineers doing nothing else but working on that technology. Saying, “oh, this year, we’re going to do our own phone,” doesn’t allow you to do that. You have to make those investments over a period of time.”

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/02/nokias-elop-we-can-do-things-with-windows-phone-that-microsoft-cant

The next question is also important to many – how can Nokia prevent themselves from losing control with their eggs in one basket?

Things are apparently defined contractually and in practice. The way Nokia operates, jointly setting priorities for what needs to be done, making sure there are exclusive capabilities for Nokia in things most important to them e.g. giving nokia the ‘hooks’ to expand in imaging, but .

“the actual magic that makes optical image stabilization work, which is hardware and software, is done by Nokia engineers.”

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/02/nokias-elop-we-can-do-things-with-windows-phone-that-microsoft-cant/

Elop says MS could create custom parts for WP if they wanted.  Quite an important comment –

 important point about what we’ve done at Nokia, the percentage of our R&D that’s focused on productive R&D–not plumbing–has gone up substantially.

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/02/nokias-elop-we-can-do-things-with-windows-phone-that-microsoft-cant

So Nokia aren’t just making things that spend all their days in the labs. R&D that actually ends up on devices and in consumer hands.

Gigaom pushes further on getting Elop to talk about a special version of WP for Nokia. Elop is still keeping lips firmly closed, saying:

We have rights beyond any of the other manufacturers to do unique things and to enforce certain exclusivities for our products. We don’t disclose what those are, or the extent of those. But we have the ability to differentiate.

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/02/nokias-elop-we-can-do-things-with-windows-phone-that-microsoft-cant

Finally, when Gigaom says competing with MS makes the world a little different, Elop says that regardless of who is making the phones, Nokia preserve the same rights under the contract.

Cheers Liju for the tip!

Category: Nokia