Nokia pins short-term hopes on the N9
Source: Agencies |
June 22, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
NOKIA Chief Executive Stephen Elop unveiled a new smartphone yesterday that uses software the firm plans to ditch, a move analysts said would do little to halt the Finnish firm's slide in market share for handsets.
Nokia, once the ubiquitous name in hand phones, has lost ground in the smartphone market to Apple's iPhone and Google's Android devices, and in the low end of the market to Asian rivals such as ZTE and India's Micromax.
At a telecoms conference in Singapore, Elop reiterated that Nokia would launch its first smartphone using Microsoft's Windows platform later this year, even as he unveiled the new N9 smartphone, which uses a platform called MeeGo.
"Our primary smartphone strategy is to focus on the Windows phone," said Elop, who moved to Nokia from Microsoft last year.
Analysts said the firm's strategy would condemn the all-screen N9 to being a niche product. The model - Nokia's first and last to use MeeGo - can be navigated by a single finger swipe and comes in black, cyan and magenta colors in a polycarbonate design.
"The N9 comes too close to the expected launch of Nokia's Windows Phone device to have any impact on its current smartphone woes," said Ben Wood, head of research at London-based mobile consultancy CCS Insight.
The MeeGo platform - a newcomer in the market dominated by Google Inc and Apple Inc - was born in February 2010. But Nokia pulled back from the project four months ago.
Nokia has thrown in its lot with Microsoft, with whom it will co-develop its next generation of smartphones. It hopes to get the kind of attention Apple and Google have attracted from software developers who enrich their devices.
Nokia, once the ubiquitous name in hand phones, has lost ground in the smartphone market to Apple's iPhone and Google's Android devices, and in the low end of the market to Asian rivals such as ZTE and India's Micromax.
At a telecoms conference in Singapore, Elop reiterated that Nokia would launch its first smartphone using Microsoft's Windows platform later this year, even as he unveiled the new N9 smartphone, which uses a platform called MeeGo.
"Our primary smartphone strategy is to focus on the Windows phone," said Elop, who moved to Nokia from Microsoft last year.
Analysts said the firm's strategy would condemn the all-screen N9 to being a niche product. The model - Nokia's first and last to use MeeGo - can be navigated by a single finger swipe and comes in black, cyan and magenta colors in a polycarbonate design.
"The N9 comes too close to the expected launch of Nokia's Windows Phone device to have any impact on its current smartphone woes," said Ben Wood, head of research at London-based mobile consultancy CCS Insight.
The MeeGo platform - a newcomer in the market dominated by Google Inc and Apple Inc - was born in February 2010. But Nokia pulled back from the project four months ago.
Nokia has thrown in its lot with Microsoft, with whom it will co-develop its next generation of smartphones. It hopes to get the kind of attention Apple and Google have attracted from software developers who enrich their devices.
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