Part of the goodies bag I got from Lumia Lounge, included a Press Release from Nokia and Bridgestone Australia, one of the nations largest tyre brands. This release was to say that as of yesterday, the company “upgraded its smartphone fleet to 140 Nokia Lumia 800s”. Apparently, the devices had been trialled extensively by the staff recently.

The company chose the Lumia 800, after comparing it amongst the latest Blackberry and iPhone handsets. The choice is being reported as coming down to its “seamless integration with existing business tools (including Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office Word and Excel), ease-of-use, in-built navigation, aesthetic design, security, and improved reliability”.

Bridgestone reports that they previously used various devices across multiple platforms, but kept “struggling to meet differing workplace needs”. The device balances the business needs of their employees, whilst also giving them a device that meets the needs of a personal device.

It’s good to see initiatives like this taking place, where Nokia is gaining traction in the business sector. I think this is where Windows Phone will excel, as it has those things like ActiveSync and Lync, which many companies have built their IT infrastructure around. Plus, like they mention in the press release, it doesn’t compromise on usability as a personal device, and looks good.

Nokia needs to enter the business sector even more, as it is typically iPhone dominated, and this domination ripples on into their homes. Nokia needs to be associated with the powerful, sleek, modern smartphone that is desirable and snappy. Right now, its still the “budget handsets your grandmother has”.

Michael

Two things that have gone up recently at Nokia Press relate to patent infringements, and also the Carl Zeiss-Nokia partnership. First up, let’s look at the patent infringements.

Nokia are claiming that HTC and Viewsonic have infringed on their patents in the US, and that HTC and RIM have infringed patents in Dusseldorf, Germany, with all three OEMs infringing in Munich. “In total, 45 Nokia patents are in suit in one or more of the actions”. It doesn’t say directly what the violations are, but claim that

proprietary innovations protected by these patents are being used by the companies to enable hardware capabilities such as dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios, as well as to enhance software features including application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device.

have been used without consent. The only thing I can think of is the new BB10 reminding me of Harmattan a little bit, or the One X have te polycarbonate body. That’s nothing to take legal action against. (Or are times that tough?) Nokia are stating that they would;

rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorized use of our inventions.

In regards to the Carl Zeiss Nokia partnership, Nokia are saying it has been “extended”, which essentially just means that the great imaging technology will come to Lumia stronger than before. This s supported by Nokia themselves, in saying

“Carl Zeiss was a crucial partner in the creation of the first PureView experience,” said Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia Smart Devices. “The benefits of our ongoing collaboration will be more PureView innovation and further advancements in smartphone imaging in the coming months and years.”

Reading that, I can only see one thing. Nokia Lumia PureView to be announced at Nokia World, if not earlier. Coming months for Nokia is usually 5-6, which fits Nokia World’s dates of end of September. Having a good feeling about this year. Nokia just need to make sure they blow everyone out of the park at NW2012, otherwise it will be a huge let down and even harder for them to climb back to power.

A post was also released about the 808 PureView’s roll out, which was covered here

Source:

http://press.nokia.com/2012/05/02/nokia-takes-new-steps-to-protect-its-innovations-and-intellectual-property/

http://press.nokia.com/2012/05/02/nokia-and-carl-zeiss-extend-partnership-to-continue-setting-standards-in-smartphone-imaging/

Dean Pattrick Head of Nokia Entertainment showing off some of the Mix Radio features (And yes that is a Badass Guns&Roses T-shirt)

Now that MWC is over (unfortunately) I had a chance to organize all the Q&A sessions we had with all the awesome Nokia guys; we had four in total, one with Damien Dinning about the 808 and it’s camera which I posted seperately, here we have 3 more Q&As about the Luima design, Nokia Maps/Transport and Nokia Entertainment.

Once again I’ve listed the points in Bulletins for quick reading and because I can’t remember all the questions

Just want to mention that all the Nokia people were AMAZINGLY nice and really comfortable to be around; Dean Pattrick spent the first 15 minutes telling us ‘war stories’ that sounded alot like something else and Jason Gregory the man responsible for the N9 and the Lumia 800/900 spent about an hour in a bean bag chair having a causal chat with me.

Anyways off to it, hope you find this useful (Unfortunately I lost the notebook I had written these notes in so I’m going off of memory here)

“Since Nokia Are now the largest provider of Windows phone (largest share of the pie) our greatest focus will be on Increasing the size of the pie” (~~ focus on helping WP grow rather than competing for the current WP market share)

Mix Radio is a free, internet streaming music proposition with no subscription or accounts needed. Just out of the box and listen to great music.

Lumia/WP

• The 800 was not being planned or designed before Feb 11^th  (meaning that there was no previous indication of a Nokia WP)
• As far as is known to us there was never an Android Nokia even for testing/Experimental purposes
• The Design of the 800/900 admittedly inspired by the N9 have been greeted with huge success, and as such expect to see upcoming phones continue to have this same design (they call it the Fabuli design apparently that’s how the designer described it at first)
• Having a technology such as pureview is an amazing thing and it would be ridiculously insane not to capitalize on it with our main ecosystem (WP)– (Probably once they’ve found a way to utilize the pureview tech with a smaller sensor)
• Possible memory expansion in upcoming devices
• The Lumia 610 is running on 256MB of Ram making it the first ‘fragmented’ Windows phone

• Q: Since fragmentation has begun on Windows phone what’s to stop other manufacturers from making low-end phones that ruin the windows phone experience that so far has prided itself on being smooth on all devices
  A:  Windows has set forth a strict set of guidelines for the minimum amount of specs required for a device to be approved to run any version of WP – as of now this benchmark has been set by the 610, and for the time being don’t expect any device to launch with less specs.

• Q: When are we going to see the fruit of the Nokia Exclusive customization of WP (I basically asked if we could have WP with swipe)
  A: As of now we have no plans to do any serious visible customizations as that would give Nokia an unfair advantage over other OEMs that produce Windows phones which could lead to alienating them and making them switch back to android (Back to focusing on increasing the Size of the Pie itself and not Nokias share of the pie right now)

• The main selling point of the Lumia 610 is it’s design and not it’s price, as we didn’t not compromise the integrity/design of the device to fit a price range.
• Nokia has no plans of releasing a Tablet as of now as first of all we are still focusing on Re-entering  the US Mobile market and do not want to get distracted, as well as that as of now there is no way for Nokia to stand out and offer a proper tablet experience amongst the slew of other tablets available (In other words when we do a table we plan on doing it right)
• Internet tethering will Be available on the Lumia 900 upon launch however for previously launched Lumias (710&800) this feature will be pushed out with the next WINDOWS/Microsoft update (Will not be a separate update)
• The date of the tethering update is not for us to announce, as it is Microsoft responsibility to push out this update
• The Lumia 900 does not have a curved screen because it would lead to at least an increase in .5-1 mm of width as well as making the phone more likely to fracture (it’s difficult to make a screen that large curve without weakening the glass or having to add extra layers to reinforce it
• The white Lumia 800s are available for purchase in stores as of this week

Maps:

• Transportation and offline maps services will be available to the current and upcoming range of Lumia devices in a separate app update whiten the upcoming weeks (no need to wait for a Microsoft Software update)
• transportation with estimated times of arrival and recommended departure times will be provided to all locations that have supplied Nokia with their timetable schedules/infrastructure
• Nokia maps will replace Bing maps as the default map service on Windows phone, as well as several other OSes (RIM?)
• Voice guidance and turn by turn navigation have been added to the browser-based maps service on Android & iOS (Coded in HTML 5)
• Maps on Android/iOS are cached in the browser to save on data charges (voice guidance can be downloaded as a separate package)
• The Weather widget which was removed from Symbian will be released later (recently launched in the Beta labs)
• Nokia Pulse (location-based private Social network) will get dedicated clients on Android and iOS rather than web-based accounts
• Sharing your updates on FB/Twitter from Pulse was purposely left out to keep things more private
• Offline nav on the Lumia range was not introduced upon release due to the limited time they had before first shipments
• “Car Mode” will soon be introduced to the Lumia range as well

Here is the latest TVC for the Nokia Lumia 610 which was just announced at MWC on Monday. Compared to other Nokia ads, it is pretty good. You do actually see the phone and what it has to offer, unlike some that you watch and think “so where was the phone and what does it do?”

Personally, I still think SmokedByWindowsPhone would be the best ad campaign for Nokia with their Lumia range. Show Lumia beating other smartphones, as well as the social integration, and I reckon sales will increase.

Anyway, I’ll quit ranting and let you guys watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FlS4e7N-cjY

Source: Nokia Innovation

Same video here with tech specs: http://mynokiablog.com/2012/02/27/videos-nokia-lumia-610-hands-on-and-technical-specifications/

Michael

“We’ve put these rumours to rest a long time ago. The focus for Nokia is on executing on our partnership around Windows Phone and growing the ecosystem, and each company has the tools they need to do so”

Basically Eldar knows nothing please focus on the awesomeness of our phones, seriously though; Nokia UK responded to slashgears post about Eldars ramblings clarifying that Nokia doesn’t mix Business with more Business, their relationship is basically with the windows phone ecosystem, not even Microsoft (I know it’s the same thing but those words can make a huge difference).

Update: For those of you interested I tracked down the ‘orginal tweet’ that put these matters to rest along time ago, By “Mark Squires” Comm Director of Nokia, this reply was after the Nokia being bought rumors surfaced the first time (early May)

Unrelated topic but I didn’t think it was worth a second post, yesterday Engadget posted what to look forward to at CES, with barely a mention of Nokia (hidden inside a link under WP), so the Nokia twitter people took it upon themsleves to remind them.

We’ll be there too! RT @engadget Engadget’s 2012 CES Preview nokia.ly/AjQEAc

— Nokia (@nokia) January 4, 2012

Which brings a random point, Nokia had a trend of not replying to anything being said about them, carrying an aura of silence except when they wanted to release a product, it’s nice to see how they’ve changed; be it reading Nokia fan Blogs (simplest example is giving Jay an N9 when a commentator asked) or replying to rumors and chiming in at random times; I like the new Nokia.

Slashgear

I guess the people at Nokia U.S. were a bit over-excited about the news they were supposed to release later on today, about what most of us had probably guessed; the Nokia 710 entering the US market (Via T-Mobile).

According to the leak the 710 is set to hit stores on Jan 11th with a very reasonable pricing of $49.99 with contract OFC, but what most of us never saw coming was the incorporation of a 4G antenna inside the 710, making it the first Nokia 4G phone to be officially availble in the US (Thanks to Matti in the comments section I also found out that the N9 as well as the 800 are also capable of the fake 4G/HSPA speeds), as well as one of the first Mango running 4G capable devices (Other: HTC Radar).

The Nokia Lumia 710 is expected to be available at T-Mobile retail stores, select dealers and retailers nationwide, and online at http://www.t-mobile.com starting Jan. 11. The Nokia Lumia 710 is expected to cost $49.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate card, with a two-year service agreement and qualifying Classic voice and data plan. For more information, visit http://www.t-mobile.com/lumia.

The 710 should hit shelves preloaded with all of the stock Nokia apps (Nokia drive, Nokia Mix radio, the Nokia exclusive ESPN app…) as well as Netflix mobile TV and many more. However according to the press release the only color made to be available is the Black battery case, which is completely fine by me as the picture above looks absolutely SEXY!!!

Full press release available below:

T-Mobile Brings Nokia Lumia 710 to the U.S.  

Nokia and T-Mobile deliver a leading entry-level Windows Phone experience to the nearly 150 million Americans still to make the transition to smartphones. 

BELLEVUE, Wash., and SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Dec. 14, 2011 — T-Mobile USA, Inc. and Nokia today announced the upcoming availability of the Nokia Lumia 710, the first Windows Phone from Nokia in the United States. Targeted at the nearly 150 million Americans who haven’t purchased their first smartphones, the 4G-capable Nokia Lumia 710 delivers high-performance hardware, Nokia’s best social and Internet experience, and access to popular smartphone applications and services from Windows Phone Marketplace.

Running on America’s Largest 4G Network^™, the Nokia Lumia 710 benefits from the unique people-first approach of Windows Phone, bringing together all interactions with family and friends in People Hub. The Nokia Lumia 710 also provides one-click access to popular services, such as Netflix, T-Mobile TV with mobile HD¹ and a leading mobile Web experience with Internet Explorer® Mobile, Bing™ Search with voice activation and Local Scout for locally relevant search results. The smartphone also brings access to signature Nokia experiences, such as Nokia Drive for voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation and ESPN for exclusive sports content.

“We’re excited to team with Nokia in bringing its first Windows Phone to the U.S. with the elegantly designed Nokia Lumia 710,” said Cole Brodman, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA. “Windows Phone offers a compelling mobile OS choice for people who want a smartphone built around them, their family and friends.  We expect it to play a more prominent role in our lineup and marketing efforts in 2012.”

Today, people are increasingly upgrading to smartphones, and many are doing so for the first time. According to the NPD Group, U.S. smartphone sales reached 59 percent in the third quarter 2011, an increase of 13 percent since third quarter 2010. With an increasing demand for smartphones, the Nokia Lumia 710 offers a compelling experience aimed at addressing the needs of the nearly 150 million people in the U.S. who have yet to upgrade to their first smartphones.

“Our research shows nearly everybody in the U.S. wants a smartphone, but many believe they can’t afford it,” Brodman said. “That’s where T-Mobile shines. Our Unlimited Value and Monthly4G plans make it more affordable than ever to step up to mobile data on our 4G network.”

”The Nokia Lumia 710 is the perfect first-time smartphone: a well-designed product that delivers the most compelling Windows Phone experience in its price range and with access to great content and thousands of applications,” said Chris Weber, president, Nokia Americas. “This is the perfect first Nokia Lumia experience and the start of our re-entry into the U.S. smartphone market.”

Available in a black or white finish, the Nokia Lumia 710 features a 3.7-inch ClearBlack WVGA scratch-resistant display for outstanding outdoor viewing and a Qualcomm 1.4 GHz Snapdragon™ processor providing speedy access to entertainment and information on-the-go. It also features a 5-megapixel camera with Nokia’s leading camera technology, enabling people to take pictures in almost any light condition and share on social networks in seconds. With the most integrated work-life solution of any mobile platform via the Windows Phone Office Hub and an interactive mobile gaming experience via Xbox LIVE®, the Nokia Lumia 710 is the complete all-round first-time smartphone experience.

Source. Thanks to Viipottaja for the tip

Over at Nokia Developer, the list of specs for the two new Nokia Windows Phones, 800 and 710, have been uploaded.

Side by side, they provide an easy comparison. Take a look for yourself.

http://www.developer.nokia.com/Devices/Device_specifications/Comparison.xhtml?dev=Lumia_800,Lumia_710

Like Jay posted, the 800 is to be shipped around Europe next month, with most other markets coming end of 2011/Q1 2012.

Michael

Nokia’s official blog have just announced that Nokia and Microsoft have signed a deal that will kick start the “global alliance” that was announced on the 11th of February, they have also said that the deal is ahead of schedule so the chances of seeing a WP7 device at the end of the year is a possibility.

ESPOO, Finland & REDMOND, USA - After 10 weeks of intense collaboration, we are pleased to report that Nokia and Microsoft have signed the definitive agreement for our strategic partnership to build a new global mobile ecosystem that is unlike any other. It’s a bold claim. But collectively we’ve moved from intent to agreement in such a short period. Actually, it’s even faster than we expected which makes this a perfect example of our commitment to our partnership and the speed at which we plan to move together.

They have reiterated that they are pushing a Windows Phone for this year (which is badbly needed with todays earnings announcements)

You will see unique innovation and differentiation across hardware, software and services as the Nokia products using Windows Phone roll-out, delivering consumer experiences in mapping, search, gaming, social media, advertising and productivity. Along the way, you can expect an increased focus on mobile business and productivity scenarios that build on Microsoft’s cloud services, new features for Symbian, and new capabilities for Windows Phone devices.

Apparently we will see some differentiation unique for Nokia’s devices ( I honestly not too much to delay future updates)

Our teams are working together toward a common goal with you, the consumer, at the heart of our experience. With set processes and dedicated teams across both companies, we have created and mapped out ways to collaborate. In order to innovate as partners, we know we have to go beyond the usual pairing of phone hardware with software. That’s why we are purposely creating a truly unique and deeply integrated partnership and are on a fast track to deliver.

I have got to admit I am a bit uncomfortable about the language they are using here it seems like Nokia and Microsoft are too close to comfort.

Tell us what you think in the comments are you still angry about the deal or are you coming to terms with the reality.

via Nokia conversations

As mentioned in Jay’s previous post in November, today marks the official close of the Symbian foundation websites. While most of our readers likely never had much experience with or exposure to these websites, they posed a major resource for a lot of curious cats like myself who wanted to keep track of progress on Symbian development as well as contribute ideas for improvements and/or features that we wanted to see in the platform. Nokia has created their own Symbian blog which in due course is expected to be populated with news etc. concerning the platform progress, releases and projects being undertaken that are related to Symbian.

However, all indications point towards a more closed system of development being undertaken.Whether this is done in a similar manner to the Google Android method where code dumps are made regularly and changes made at the whim of the company overseeing development remains to be seen. This, however, is both a positive and negative in that the closed system has somewhat less red tape and bureaucracy standing between ideas/concepts and the realization and productizing of these concepts. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of valuable community feedback and input. Simply looking at the number of great and well supported ideas that were submitted to the Symbian Ideas site (now unavailable of course) is testament to the benefit of using collective intelligence and outside ideas.

Statement by Tim Holbrow, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation after the break:

“In 2009, we established the Symbian Foundation to make the Symbian platform available open source and royalty-free. In November 2010 we announced that the foundation would ramp down its operational activities as a result of changes in global economic and market conditions.

We are now well underway with transitioning the foundation from a non-profit organisation responsible for governing the open development and curation of the Symbian platform, to a licensing entity with no permanent staff. Moving forward, the foundation will be responsible only for specific licensing and legal frameworks put in place during the open sourcing of the platform.

The Symbian platform will continue to evolve under Nokia, who have committed to make the future development of the platform available via an alternative direct and open model.

Due to this transition, many of the operations and services the foundation provided to the Symbian community have now ceased. With the exception of this blog site, the foundation’s public websites have closed, along with open access to the Symbian source code.

However, much of the foundation’s data is available to the public via FTP until 31 March 2011. For access to this content, please e-mail contact@symbian.org. Some content is still controlled under certain licenses; Symbian Foundation members will continue to have access to Symbian Foundation License content.

Specifically, the FTP site will allow access to:

1. Current platform source code
2. Platform Development Kits:
   • S^2 PDK 2.0.3 (parts of S^2 are only available to current Symbian Foundation members)
   • S^3 PDK 3.0.4
   • S^4 PDK 4.0.a
3. Databases:
   • Database exports from Bugzilla, Wiki, Forums, Ideas and Symbian Horizon.
     NOTE: all private, personal information has been removed
4. Documentation:
   • HTML source for the platform reference documentation and public mailing lists

Access to the FTP site will cease on 31 March 2011; by this date we anticipate a new model for hosting Symbian code will be available from Nokia.

You can find more information on Nokia’s plans for Symbian at http://symbian.nokia.com. Forum Nokia is the best place to access developer support for Symbian, including tools, documentation, technical support, and discussion boards.

We would like to extend our deepest thanks to everyone who contributed to the major milestones achieved at the Symbian Foundation. We can all be proud of these accomplishments – some not seen before in the history of computing, such as the completion of the largest transition to open source of any commercial codebase in software history. We would also like to extend warm thanks to the entire member community for their continued commitment to the Symbian platform.

We are confident that these are absolutely the right changes in the context of today’s market and economy, and we look forward to watching a new era of success for the Symbian platform unfold.”

Via

Well color me shocked (not) but it seems like Nokia has dug up another round of patents to assert against Apple in their ongoing patent litigation suits. Funnily enough these patents cover things that have traditionally been thought to be Apple’s backyard with on-device app stores and touch user interface and gestures being mentioned. It’s pretty obvious that Nokia is getting rather serious with this suit after having added 5 more patents in May.

Truthfully, some of the things being patented today range for silly to obscure/useless but the fact of the matter remains that if you spend time and money developing IP, you’re certainly going to want to be rewarded for doing so. A certain Stefan Constantinescu thinks it’s simply a defense mechanism by Nokia to stifle innovation by companies like Apple and Google because they can’t come up with ideas of their own.  My initial response was “LOL!!!” but for professionalism’s sake I’ll add a bit more to that. Why is it that when Apple sues a company it is protected its ideas and IP and all is well, but when Nokia or Oracle sues over things that are admittedly and rightfully theirs, they are seen as evil. Bias much?

I’ll give you that some of these patents are vague and rather useless in my humble opinion, but others patent equally mundane and silly ideas and are not nearly vilified for it.

Press release after the break.

Nokia files patent infringement complaints against Apple in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands

Espoo, Finland – Nokia announced it has filed claims in the UK High Court, Dusseldorf and Mannheim District Courts in Germany and the District Court of the Hague, Netherlands, alleging that Apple infringes Nokia patents in many of its products sold in these countries, including iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

“These actions add 13 further Nokia patents to the 24 already asserted against Apple in the US International Trade Commission and the Delaware and Wisconsin Federal courts,” said Paul Melin, vice president, Intellectual Property at Nokia. “The Nokia inventions protected by these patents include several which enable compelling user experiences. For example, using a wiping gesture on a touch screen to navigate content, or enabling access to constantly changing services with an on-device app store, both filed more than ten years before the launch of the iPhone.”

Nokia’s filing in the UK covers 4 Nokia patents related to touch user interface, on-device app stores, signal noise suppression and modulator structures.

Nokia’s filing in Dusseldorf, Germany covers 7 Nokia patents related to touch user interface, antenna structures, messaging functionality and chipsets.

Nokia’s filing in Mannheim, Germany covers 5 Nokia patents related to on-device app stores, caller ID, display illumination and the integration of multiple radios.

Nokia’s filing in the Hague, Netherlands covers 2 Nokia patents related to signal noise suppression and data card functionality.

None of the asserted patents have been declared essential to any wireless communication standard.

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 40 billion in research and development and built one of the wireless industry’s strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, with around 11,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of handheld device and mobile communications technologies, which is also demonstrated by Nokia’s strong patent position.

via

Image via Engadget