Is the N9 about to be unleashed?

Forums › Legacy mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Web OS, Symbian, Meego, Blackberry) › Is the N9 about to be unleashed?

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#483247 20-Jun-2011 16:17

alexx:
So obviously Google see that value of adding it.

Given the huge number of different languages in India, that should not suprise anyone. However it is by far the most widely spoken language and considered the primary official language (together with English) of India. On a global basis, Hindi, when counted with Urdu, is one of the top 4 in terms of the number of native speakers (several hundred million). That's a lot of potential phone sales.

It is one thing for Apple and Android phone makers to come to a country and sell to the english language market, but another thing for Nokia to support those languages and then take away that support.

Take a look at the share chart for the last six months, and note the relationship between the announcment of Nokia adopting Windows Phone and the drop in share price in mid February 2011. Selling for 8 EURO earlier this year, quickly dropping to 6 EURO and now almost down to 4 EURO.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NOA3.DE#symbol=noa3.de;range=6m

IDC seems to be the only one that is saying that and clearly the investors don't think much of that advice or they would be buying Nokia shares, not selling. Given that you appear to be such a strong supporter of Nokia going to Windows Phone, you must consider the current share price to be a bargain. Have you purchased any Nokia shares?

There have been several suggestions about what the upcoming disruptive device might be. It appears something will be shown at Nokia Connection 2011 in Singapore on the 21st June - suggestions are.

1. Nokia Windows Phone... seems too soon to showing be a pre-production unit of a future phone and displaying a mock-up of a device that will never be sold won't help their credibility.

2. Meego device - it needs to be something special to be truly "disruptive", but it appears that one Meego device has been through FCC type approval and has been almost ready for some time, so this is what I'd expect to see. The counter argument is that if Elop doesn't believe in Meego as the future of Nokia, what is he doing in Singapore announcing the N9... or perhaps another manager will present this one.

3. There have even been rumours of a 1GHz clocked S40 device which seems crazy, but if Symbian is going to be phased out and Windows Phone is positioned at the high end, something is going to need to cover the middle ground. Can S40 move upmarket? This could be quite "disruptive" but a 1GHz S40 device still makes no sense.

Good on Google for adding Hindi as an additional language. Still not a deal breaker in India. Smartphone has apps and you install apps on them from the marketplace. How many apps do you know that are in Hindi? Rural uneducated people in India need hindi on their cheap Nokia phones and it's already there. India does not have an official language defined in the constitution. The fact that when you see Indians speaking and understanding English much more comfortable than Chinese or Koreans tells that English is widely spoken there in School and Work. It took Google a lot of major updates before Hindi was added. I am sure if need be MS will add it in a later update.

As for the chart, it's not going down due to the WP7 announcement, it went down becuase of the financial data released during investors calls. If it was WP7, then I can understand Feb announcement going down, but why did it go down again in June when Nokia recently again did an investors calls. The graph below proves Nokia's shares going down since 2008 and if you notice the yellow highlighted mark, Feb downfall is nothing compared to previous years.

IDC is not the only one making the prediction reagrding WP7 overtaking iOS by 2015, Gartner too is as well.

http://www.enterprisemobiletoday.com/features/article.php/3930311/Gartner-Predicts-WP7-Will-be-No-2-in-2015.htm

Do whatever you want to do man.

Technofreak

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#483310 20-Jun-2011 17:55

Bill,

Why do you keep jumping in and dragging this post off topic? I made a post similar to my opening post on this thread in the thread "Nokia Windows Phone Demo" started by Mauricio in the Windows Phone and Windows Mobile forum. You haven't even bothered to comment on my post on that forum, yet that is the place to talk WP7 V Meego etc.

I started this thread here on the Symbian forum for those that may wish to discuss the possible launch of a new Nokia product not running WP7 so as not to drag the other thread off topic yet you keep coming onto this post with your WP7 promotion.

As for some of your "facts", I've done some research and there is data that doesn't support your point of view. Yes I know there is lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics, numbers can be skewed which ever way you want to prove a point. ZTE may have overtakn RIM but their share is still only about 3% of the total mobile phone market, and yes Fujitsu is a big company but they don't even rate a mention in the Gartner stats, so hardly big players in increasing the WP7 market share. While Garnter predict good things for WP7 with the Nokia tie up they also say the the WP7 share of market has stagnated for the time being.

Your eco system comments baffle me a little. You have a list of eco system features, and while Nokia doesn't have them all neither do many of the other OS's, some borrow from other sources yet in your view Nokia doesn't rate at all, a harsh judgement in my opinion. In fact Microsoft are to use Nokia's mapping system.

If you would like to debate the pros and cons of WP7 V Symbain/Meego,/Android/iOS perhaps you could start another thread for this purpose.

Meantime back the topic.

This time tomorrow we will know what the big announcement is and be able to discuss it with a bit more certainty. My guess is it will be the N9 (as Alexx mentioned this phone or one very similar has recently been through the FCC approval process). I also suspect there will an announcement on other possible Meego developments like tablets thus providing a seemless interface between the mobile and tablet platforms. Perhaps included in the announement there will be some beefing up or addition to Nokias services like Mail for Exchange etc.

The reason I say say there will be other facets to the announcement is the statement that it will be a "market disrupting device". I think the device will be part of a package and for it to be a market disrupting device there will be other services hung off the device to achieve this market disruption.

Then again it may just be marketing hype, tommorow we will know.

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billgates

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#483326 20-Jun-2011 18:28

Technofreak: Bill,

Why do you keep jumping in and dragging this post off topic? I made a post similar to my opening post on this thread in the thread "Nokia Windows Phone Demo" started by Mauricio in the Windows Phone and Windows Mobile forum. You haven't even bothered to comment on my post on that forum, yet that is the place to talk WP7 V Meego etc.

I started this thread here on the Symbian forum for those that may wish to discuss the possible launch of a new Nokia product not running WP7 so as not to drag the other thread off topic yet you keep coming onto this post with your WP7 promotion.

As for some of your "facts", I've done some research and there is data that doesn't support your point of view. Yes I know there is lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics, numbers can be skewed which ever way you want to prove a point. ZTE may have overtakn RIM but their share is still only about 3% of the total mobile phone market, and yes Fujitsu is a big company but they don't even rate a mention in the Gartner stats, so hardly big players in increasing the WP7 market share. While Garnter predict good things for WP7 with the Nokia tie up they also say the the WP7 share of market has stagnated for the time being.

Your eco system comments baffle me a little. You have a list of eco system features, and while Nokia doesn't have them all neither do many of the other OS's, some borrow from other sources yet in your view Nokia doesn't rate at all, a harsh judgement in my opinion. In fact Microsoft are to use Nokia's mapping system.

If you would like to debate the pros and cons of WP7 V Symbain/Meego,/Android/iOS perhaps you could start another thread for this purpose.

Meantime back the topic.

This time tomorrow we will know what the big announcement is and be able to discuss it with a bit more certainty. My guess is it will be the N9 (as Alexx mentioned this phone or one very similar has recently been through the FCC approval process). I also suspect there will an announcement on other possible Meego developments like tablets thus providing a seemless interface between the mobile and tablet platforms. Perhaps included in the announement there will be some beefing up or addition to Nokias services like Mail for Exchange etc.

The reason I say say there will be other facets to the announcement is the statement that it will be a "market disrupting device". I think the device will be part of a package and for it to be a market disrupting device there will be other services hung off the device to achieve this market disruption.

Then again it may just be marketing hype, tommorow we will know.

The below is a quote from your first post in the thread. You said that WP7 is not the point in difference for Nokia but Meego is. I argued otherwise. Seeing your post above, it looks like you are losing the argument alotgether and clearly not acting maturely. The *facts* that I make up are backed by sources with links to the articles. I have yet to see anything from your end besides bashing WP7 blindly and Nokia's decision to choose WP7.

As much as it will be interesting to see what device is announced, it will be even more interesting to see what Nokia’s plans are for Meego, (assuming the device runs Meego). It is my belief that Nokia as a major handset manufacturer needs a point of difference and I don’t think WP7 will do that for them. Perhaps Meego will be the OS point of different for some of their high end phones.

How will Meego fit along side WP7? What are the long term plans for Meego especially with the recent departure of one of the executives involved with Meego? Will the N9 (or the N950) be the start of a lineup of Meego handsets and perhaps other devices (Tablets, Netbooks etc) from Nokia, or will it be another one off fantastic handset like the N900?

Do whatever you want to do man.

kyhwana2

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#483329 20-Jun-2011 18:35

What hasn't been done is a dual boot smartphone. Something "game changing" would be a Dual Meego/WP7 phone.

Another boring WP7 launch doesn't count as "game changing". I think marketing got ahead of themselves again and that their announcement will just be yawn.

Technofreak

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#483422 20-Jun-2011 21:44

Bill,

You seem to have misunderstood some of my comments. I’m sorry if I have not made myself clearly understood.

I have never bashed WP7, true, I have questioned its suitability right now as a replacement for Symbian, but if you read my posts on other threads you will see I have an open mind on how good WP7 will be in the future in fact I have said that I hope WP7 does work well for Nokia.

You made the statement about WP7 being the only OS for the higher end Nokias. Until I read about the strong rumours about the probable launch of the Meego based N9 or N950, I would have agreed with you based on what I had been reading. I now disagree, as to me at least, despite what Stephen Elop might have said in the past, the facts don’t support WP7 as being the only high end smart phone from Nokia. Presuming Nokia announces the N9 with the Meego OS, companies don’t do this sort of thing without good reason. They wouldn’t bother unless they saw a future for Meego. I am not bashing WP7, I am joining the dots and commenting on how I see those dots joining up. Of course I could be entirely wrong.

With respect to my comment on having a point of difference. Again I was not bashing WP7, I was expressing the opinion that as a handset maker I believed Nokia needed a point of difference. My reason for saying that was with WP7, no matter how good it was, they were sharing the same OS with a multitude of other handset manufacturers thereby making it difficult to have a marketing point of difference. I wondered if perhaps Meego would provide that point of difference. Hence the question about how theses OS’s might co-exist.

You made some good arguments as to why WP7 was a good choice for Nokia (I don’t necessarily agree with all of these) but I don’t recall you making an argument as to why it would provide a point of difference for Nokia or why they didn’t need a point of difference.

My comment about Lies, Damn lies and then there’s Statistics was a statement made famous by Sir Winston Churchill when he was referring to how statistics could be made to prove either side of story.

I wasn’t questioning the facts you quoted or even inferring you made them up, but more pointing out there was information available that supported another point of view. I quoted some of that information which came from Gartner. Like you I can post links to my sources. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1689814

No doubt you can use this same link to prove your point as well.

Bill, we will probably have to agree to disagree on some points, but as for me losing the argument, I would say quite the opposite, no doubt you would say otherwise, that is your right to do that. As of today I believe there is enough information to back my argument about the possibility of Meego being a contender as a higher end OS for Nokia. After tomorrow I may not be able to make that claim. We will have to wait and see.

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BrentR

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#483439 20-Jun-2011 22:20

Loving this hearty debate chaps :)

Technofreak

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#483441 20-Jun-2011 22:27

BrentR: Loving this hearty debate chaps :)

Says he sitting on the sideline with probably a better idea than most visitors to this site as to what might be announced tommorrow.

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billgates

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#483447 20-Jun-2011 22:37

My apologies too Tehcnofreak if I offended you in any way :-)

I have been trying to find the video telecast of Stephen Elop's interview regarding Meego after WP7 announcement on 11th Feb but still no luck. I found his long and extensive interview with business week however where he opened up to them regarding the options he had and why he went with WP7 instead of Android and did not choose Meego as a primary OS.

The article is 7 pages long but well worth the read regarding Meego, Windows Phone and Android. Below is a short story that happened for real in the meeting room where Stephen Elop met with top level engineers and executives. This was the precise moment where Nokia decided to drop Meego and instead go with another OS in January 2011.

Before the first interview, Elop drew out what he knew about the plans for MeeGo on a whiteboard, with a different color marker for the products being developed, their target date for introduction, and the current levels of bugs in each product. Soon the whiteboard was filled with color, and the news was not good: At its current pace, Nokia was on track to introduce only three MeeGo-driven models before 2014-far too slow to keep the company in the game. Elop tried to call Oist?m?, but his phone battery was dead. "He must have been trying an Android phone that day," says Elop. When they finally spoke late on Jan. 4, "It was truly an oh-s--t moment-and really, really painful to realize where we were," says Oist?m?. Months later, Oist?m? still struggles to hold back tears. "MeeGo had been the collective hope of the company," he says, "and we'd come to the conclusion that the emperor had no clothes. It's not a nice thing."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm

Meego as an OS is very capable. No doubt. It's fast, fluid and the UI is nice. I have concern though regarding extra services which I believe is now days very important to provide on top of your smartphone OS. No way in hell would Apple ever license iOS to Nokia. There were talks of Nokia even having a go at licensing Blackberry OS but did not pan out. In the end it was either WP7 or Android. The three giants in the consumer industry are Microsoft, Apple and Google. All three offer OS's for smartphones, tablets and desktops along with other cloud services. I personally feel that it would have taken Nokia another couple of years with Meego from 2011 launch to fill the necessary services that people would have wanted straight away and that's just too late for Nokia. I believe they cannot wait this long as their stock prices will only go down and market share will only drop.

Do whatever you want to do man.