Today could spell truly an end of an era, not just in mobile but in the tech world as a whole. It seems that Finnish company Nokia will not be making mobile phones again, despite being able to in 2016. Nokia's new CEO Rajeev Suri said "We are not looking to a direct consumer return to handsets per se," during a talk today. However, should we really be saying goodbye to the Nokia brand?
Nokia was one of the first manufacturers of mobile phones and during the late 1990's boom in mobile technology was well placed to ride the crest of a wave. And that's what the company did, becoming the world's largest mobile phone vendor for several years. The age of the smartphone hit the company hard as it stuck with Symbian while consumers raced to Android and iOS. Nokia's market share collapsed and the company struck an alliance to build Microsoft's Windows Phone devices. It was a good accord for both companies and Nokia proved itself by putting the platform on the map and continuing to build good products.
Microsoft announced its intentions to buy Nokia's devices division in September 2013 and closed the deal earlier this year, for a reported $7.7 billion. The result was a new subsidiary called Microsoft Mobile and the writing being painted on the wall. During the summer Microsoft announced that it would ditch Nokia branding with future devices, starting with this week's Lumia 535. The Nokia name was left in limbo, but per the agreement with Microsoft, the company could start building devices again in 2016, under the Nokia name or something else, but there had been no confirmation of that.
Suri confirmed today that Nokia would not be making devices anymore, although his words had a short term feeling about them. I still personally hold the hope that Nokia will return to the spotlight with some new handsets. While Suri suggests otherwise, he did say that the company would "will return to the consumer world." That could mean that the Finnish giant licenses the Nokia brand to other manufacturers to build the hardware, and they supply the software and services.
Indeed, services is an avenue Nokia is now focused on pursuing. Networks, Technologies, and Mapping are three businesses the company is pushing and while it will issue software for all platforms, having a dedicated device to drive its software seems logical. So maybe Nokia will return in smartphone phone, but it will not be built be Nokia.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are welcome and appreciated.