Nokia Finally Releases Its First Android Based SmartPhone. Here Is All About It

BY UBER GEEK - FEBRUARY, 24TH 2014

For those of you who know the finer details of their smartphones, you’ll know that Nokia’s smartphones have been running different variants of Windows OS for mobile devices. But this year, the Finnish company took things in a completely different direction by unveiling their first series of Android smartphones at the 2014 Mobile World Congress.

The company has revealed it’s new Nokia X series of Android smartphones which will run Android OS, with a few modifications. This Nokia X is not only the name of the smartphone series but also the name of the operating system.

This “three way mashup” uses the Android 4.1 as a base and adds element of the Asha and Windows phone lineups creating an OS that can run Android apps, although with no access to the Play Store since Nokia will be curating the user’s app experience.

Currently, the range will have three phones spanned over three different price ranges. The lowest in the range is the Nokia X, a phone with a 4-inch screen and a dual core 1GHz Snapdragon processor. The next in line is the Nokia X+, which has a larger internal memory and a slot for a micro SD card. The phone at the high-end, the Nokia XL, is also the largest (as the name suggests) and a 5-inch screen, a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 2 megapixel front camera.

This new development by the world famous mobile company is certainly amazing, especially since Windows and Google have been competitors in the tech market for years now. But the X series of phones will give users a slightly different experience from what they would be expecting upon first hearing the phrase “Android Nokia”.

Nokia Sea Ray Running Windows Phone 7 Caught on Video

 by Stan Schroeder

Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 handset, codenamed Sea Ray, was captured in a in a minute-and-a-half long video running Microsoft’s mobile operating system.

Nokia still has a long, hard road ahead before it actually releases a WP7 device, but it’s making progress, perhaps even faster than expected given this new video.

The video, unearthed by wpcentral, apparently leaked from a factory in Hong Kong or China. It depicts Nokia’s smartphone (which, contrary to initial reports, does sport physical buttons) as it goes through several WP7 menus, followed by a very short glimpse at the phone’s camera operation.

A very similar-looking device was shown in June at a presentation by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. That video shows us quite a bit more of the phone’s features and functions, but this latest one gives the entire thing a more realistic feeling.

Check out the video below and tell us what you think in the comments.

Why Microsoft Is Nokia’s Last Best Hope [OPINION]

by Christina Warren
As rumored, Nokia announced Friday that it is entering into a “broad strategic partnership” with Microsoft and adopting Windows Phone 7 as its primary smartphone strategy.
The announcement came days after a leaked memo from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop hit the press. The memo, which was unusually frank, referred to Nokia as “standing on a burning platform” in the face of competition from Google and Apple. With Symbian barely clinging to its lead in the smartphone space and MeeGo still not shipping, Nokia needed to do something drastic. This is drastic. It’s also Nokia’s only option.
Tomi Ahonen, mobile analyst and former Nokia executive, disagrees (Ahonen also doubted the authenticity of Elop’s memo), but he is one of the few commentators in the wireless industry who actually thinks Nokia’s old smartphone strategy was correct.
The problems Nokia faces are already well documented — most notably by Elop himself — and when looking at its possible options, it becomes clear that partnering with Microsoft is the company’s only hope of reversing course.

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Why Not Android?

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Before Friday’s announcement, some speculated that Nokia could be announcing that it planned to embrace Google’s Android OS rather than Windows Phone 7. After all, the momentum behind Android shows no signs of slowing down, and with Honeycomb around the corner, the spectrum of Android-based devices continues to increase.
If it were 2008 and not 2011, Android might be a good option for Nokia. Back then, Android was unproven, and handset makers were still waiting things out to see if the platform was worth a significant investment. Companies that aligned with Android early on — like HTC and Motorola — have flourished in the smartphone space.
In 2011, however, the Android ecosystem is crowded. Many of the biggest Android handset makers are former Symbian licensees. If Nokia were to adopt Android, it would be entering a competitive space and be forced to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack.
With Microsoft, Nokia is joining a platform that is just starting out. Yes, OEMs have already signed on to Windows Phone 7, but the platform is still in its beginning stages.
At the Nokia Conversations blog, the company writes:

Nokia wouldn’t be just be another Windows Phone OEM. Nokia plans to help drive and define the future of the platform. That could include contributing expertise on hardware optimization, language support, customization of the software and helping bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

Nokia has a real chance to help influence and shape Windows Phone 7. Microsoft seems to be willing to give Nokia power and authority over the platform that Google hasn’t extended to any of its licensing partners.

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Developer Culture

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It might not be sexy, but the Symbian ecosystem is vast. Even before its purchase of Symbian in 2008, Nokia has always pursued strong relationships with developers and developer partners. When building out a new platform — or ecosystem as Nokia is calling it — these sorts of relationships are crucial.
Microsoft and Nokia have very similar approaches when it comes to developer communications. Both companies do a good job of getting developers the tools that they need.
Developing and deploying apps is about more than just the SDK and the toolkit — it’s also about the underlying market infrastructure and the support. For all of Android’s strengths, Google’s overall developer support is still lackluster and deploying pay apps in countries that are not supported by Google Checkout requires developers to make individual carrier agreements or seek alternative app stores.
Meanwhile, with Windows Phone 7, Nokia will be pushing developers onto an ecosystem for which Microsoft will provide the tools, documentation and support, and Nokia will still be bringing its own backend infrastructure to the party. Nokia’s press release specifically states that its operator billing agreements will be carried over into Windows Phone 7. In other words, developers that follow Nokia to Windows Phone 7 won’t be losing the existing support ecosystems already in place.
Moreover, because Nokia is coming on-board as a strategic partner and not just as another OEM, the company should have an impact on future developments of Windows Phone 7′s hardware and software.
For developers, that means that the innovations that Nokia has introduced in the past may find their way into Windows Phone 7. Nokia has reiterated that it sees this partnership as a way to bring Windows Phone to more geographies and more price points. For developers looking to target lower-priced phones while still working on a current, modern platform, Nokia’s contributions to Windows Phone 7 might just make the platform more attractive.

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Execution is Essential

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Partnering with Microsoft may have been Nokia’s only option, but it isn’t a guarantee of success. As Google’s Vic Gundotra tweeted, “two turkeys do not make an eagle.” I would take issue with classifying either Microsoft or Nokia as turkeys, but the point is, this is a partnership that absolutely relies on a solid execution strategy.
The faster that Nokia and Microsoft can sign a definitive agreement, the better. Both Nokia and Microsoft have been slow to adapt to the changing nature of the smartphone market. The longer it takes for the first Nokia-branded Windows Phone to hit stores, the lower the chances for success it will have.

Nokia Partners With Microsoft, Embraces Windows Phone 7

by Stan Schroeder

A couple of days ago, an unusually honest internal memo from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop revealed that the company is at a crossroads, and that a new smartphone strategy is necessary.
Today, Nokia and Microsoft have officially entered a strategic alliance that makes Windows Phone 7 Nokia’s primary smartphone platform, but also extends into many other Microsoft services such as Bing, Xbox Live and Office.
Furthermore, the two companies will combine many complementary services; for example, Nokia’s application and content store will be integrated into Microsoft Marketplace, while Nokia Maps will be – as Nokia’s press release puts it – at the heart of Bing and AdCenter.
Nokia will also undergo significant changes in operational structure and leadership. As of April 1, Nokia will have two main business units: Smart Devices, led by Jo Harlow, and Mobile Phones, led by Mary McDowell.
Of course, with such significant changes in Nokia’s strategy, one has to wonder what will happen to its other smartphone platforms. Symbian, says Nokia, will become a “franchise platform, leveraging previous investments to harvest additional value,” and MeeGo will be an “open-source, mobile operating system project.”
While Nokia claims it expects to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the future, it’s obvious that from now on few people will buy Symbian devices because they run Symbian software. It will more likely power Nokia’s mid-range smartphones and feature phones with Nokia’s flagship phones running Windows Phone 7.
Microsoft and Nokia’s leaders are, of course, enthusiastic about the partnership. “We will create opportunities beyond anything that currently exists,” said Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.
What do you think? Was the partnership with Microsoft the right move for Nokia, and vice versa? Please, give us your opinions in the comments.

Nokia at 'crisis point': iPhone and BlackBerry impossible to beat?

By Zack Whittaker

The news today that Nokia is at ‘crisis point’, a warning given by the company’s chief executive Stephen Elop, will not come as a surprise to the vast majority of consumers.
Elop’s memo to the company blames Google’s Android operating system and other rival handset manufacturers like Apple taking a share increase. While the company holds the mobile sales figures, the share is declining.
The fact of the matter is that for the Generation Y, Nokia was everything ten years ago. Today, the mobile market is swamped by BlackBerrys and iPhones and frankly, Nokia has not kept up.

The development process could be key.
Even though Nokia releases a new phone every other month, some simultaneously along the same series, the path that Nokia has taken is too complicated. Nothing yet truly competes with the BlackBerry range or the iPhone, arguably because Nokia has not been trying to, whereas others have tried and failed.
The iPhone and BlackBerry devices and platforms alone are in direct competition, and dominate the marketshare.
Nokia may well have the looks and the physical attraction to their vast quantity of phones and devices on the market, the goods, features and applications within them lack lustre.
For Apple, the timeline is quite simple. A newer phone of a subsequent generation takes over the previous. And while there is some overlap between the outgoing and the up and coming device, the generational cycle is simple and consistent.
Even with Research in Motion’s development path, though there is a wider range than the iPhone than one singular device per generation, the devices are tailored for younger users - as more of a by-product than anything else. The younger generation has hijacked the BlackBerry from the enterprise and corporate environment to recreate the business experience, adopting a young professional but social persona.
For Nokia, though, there are so many phones with very little to differentiate one from another. Arguably there is more consumer choice and customisability, but a sincere lack of consistency between devices. It is too difficult to know which device is ‘progressive’ or if it is simply a relic from a previous model with a slightly different case.
For us growing up, Nokia was everything. I first remember the want and desire for what was then a Nokia 3310 back when I was only 12 years of age. The customisable backgrounds, the personalised operator logos and the manually added ringtones were of such desire.
But now, with downloadable applications, touch-screens and QWERTY keyboards and reliable and on-demand media and messaging, one has to question whether Nokia can not only keep up but even stay in the game.

Maybe Nokia will do a Windows Phone 7 deal, after all

By Mary Jo Foley

Last week, I was bearish on claims, prayers and predictions that Nokia would end up offering some kind of Windows Phone device as part of the company’s line-up. But now, I’m thinking it’s not just possible, but probable.
I was a skeptic for a number of reasons, and not because I am a Windows Phone hater. (In fact, I would be a Windows Phone 7 owner if Verizon would make one available. So far, all we still know is Verizon plans to add at least one WP7 model to its line-up some time this year… maybe after customers stop burning up the lines to buy iPhones.)
Windows Phone 7 is still a version 1 product. Microsoft and the carriers who do offer WP7 devices still have yet to roll out the first update to the platform. WP7s don’t offer much for business users so far. Microsoft has delivered 2 million copies of the OS to carriers since October 2010, which means fewer than 2 million devices have been sold to date. To restate the obvious, Microsoft’s smartphone platform has a long way to go to catch up to Android and iOS.
Microsoft’s decision to “lock down” WP7 handset makers, requiring them to choose among three different chassis specs, also made me leery that Nokia — the No. 1 smartphone provider, with its own OS and developer tools/ecosystem — would agree to abide by Microsoft’s new rules. So even though Microsoft and Nokia had forged a partnership, bringing Silverlight, Office Mobile and Office Communicator to some Symbian phones, I was definitely thinking that Nokia would go with Android over WP7.
What changed my mind? It wasn’t Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s “Burning Platform” memo — which sounded to me like the kind of memo more than a few Softies have penned in an attempt to motivate the troops and/or signal a sea-change. The rumors were already swirling before the Burning Platform memo leaked that Nokia was ready to add a non-Symbian/non-MeeGo phone platform to its stable of offerings.
Instead, what’s got me thinking I was wrong is a tweet from Google’s Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundrota. Gundrota’s tweet:

February 11 is the date when Elop is expected to unveil publicly Nokia’s new platform directions. I’m thinking the “turkeys” here don’t include the golden goose Google, but more likely refer to Microsoft and Nokia. If your company had just cemented a deal with the established (even though slipping) smartphone leader, would you be talking turkey?
If Nokia still does end up choosing Android, I’d think Gundrota might have some explaining (and apologizing) to do. If Nokia, instead, has decided to go with WP7, I’d be really interested to hear more on any concessions the Softies made to get the deal done. And yes, if it’s WP7 that Nokia chooses over Android, I will be eating crow turkey….
Update: A couple of folks have noted that there’s another possible interpretation of the Gundrota quote. Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s former Executive Vice President for Markets, said the exact same thing in 2005 about BenQ buying Siemens’ mobile handset business handset business. Hmmm. Will Google have the last laugh?

Nokia CEO Says Company Is Standing on a “Burning Platform”

by Stan Schroeder

“We too, are standing on a ‘burning platform,’ and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.”
This quote comes from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. The platform that he refers to is metaphorical, but one can easily understand it as Symbian, or Maemo, or MeeGo or any of Nokia’s attempts at developing or upgrading a smartphone platform that would be competitive with the modern mobile operating systems, such as Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android.
To many users, it’s been apparent for years that Nokia has failed to keep up with competitors. It is now easy to substantiate this claim, as Nokia has been rapidly losing smartphone market share in the past couple quarters. But it’s been even easier to realize this by using a smartphone built by Nokia and an iPhone or Android device. Simply put, Nokia’s smartphones aren’t good enough.
Now, in a surprisingly honest internal memo, Elop has addressed Nokia’s employees, admitting exactly that. You can read the memo in its entirety below, but here are some of the highlights.
Starting out with a parable of a man on a burning platform, Elop says the man had a “radical change in his behaviour.” He then talks directly about Apple and Android, admitting that Apple has “changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range,” while “Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry’s innovation to its core.”
Elop then admits that Nokia “fell behind,” “missed big trends” and “lost time.” Finally, he announces a big strategy change. “When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company,” he said.
Could Nokia be abandoning Symbian and, possibly, MeeGo as well? Could it finally be joining the ranks of manufacturers that embraced Google’s Android as the platform of choice, content merely to produce the hardware and perhaps add a thin layer of its own user experience on top?
We don’t know, but we agree with Elop: Nokia needs to drastically redefine its smartphone strategy.
Check out the entire memo below.

Hello there,
There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform’s edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.
As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a “burning platform,” and he needed to make a choice.
He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times – his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a “burning platform” caused a radical change in his behaviour.
We too, are standing on a “burning platform,” and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.
Over the past few months, I’ve shared with you what I’ve heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I’m going to share what I’ve learned and what I have come to believe.
I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.
And, we have more than one explosion – we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.
For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.
In 2008, Apple’s market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.
And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry’s innovation to its core.
Let’s not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally – taking share from us in emerging markets.
While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.
The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.
We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.
At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.
At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, “the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation.” They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.
And the truly perplexing aspect is that we’re not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.
The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.
This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we’ve lost market share, we’ve lost mind share and we’ve lost time.
On Tuesday, Standard & Poor’s informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody’s took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.
Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It’s also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.
How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?
This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally.
Nokia, our platform is burning.
We are working on a path forward — a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.
The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.
Stephen.

[via Engadget, the Register]