Also Nokia suffers from frog syndrome

Check if you have been boiled like a frog and read this article about upgrading mobile phones.

Nokia joins eclipse

Don’t you just wonder why so many sites in the net and in present popular culture emphasize NOT using capital letters? Does it give more credibility that you all the time have to correct people?

- “Excuse me, could you explain what you do at Eclipse?”
- “Sir, it is spelled eclipse, not Eclipse.”
- “Oh...”
- “Oh... Indeed, Sir.”
- “Well, because of my total idiotism, I – Mr. Smith – hereby donate all my money for your organization that has such a cool name.”
- “About time, Sir. Have a nice day, Sir.”

Oh yeah, here’s the press release.

Nokia 6630 Music Edition

Nokia has announced a Music Edition of its 6630 mobile phone. In this Music Edition 6630 smartphone, Nokia will use: larger memory card, Nokia PC Suite, Nokia USB MMC/SD reader and 3,5 mm stereo jack for connecting headphones. The regular version of the mobile phone is available for example here (for those who wonder why I link to www.nokiausa.com, I this time use www.nokia.co.uk)

Is this the first step from Nokia to the direction of nPod? I want to download my blogcasts mobile and I want to blogcast live while on the move. Nokia, hurry up!

Nokia 6600 commercial story

Nokia pushes in India

Just a quick remark that Nokia is really very busy in India. Almost half of the news articles that are somehow Nokia related have something to do with the developments in India. Time will tell if these actions bring lasting results.

Nokia flexing muscles

Long article that also goes bit deeper into Nokia's present business model. Boasting to be the world’s largest consumer electronics company with their 200 million mobile phones sold last year, Nokia is making quite a stand. Nokia’s brand ranking has emerged as the sixth biggest in the world. That is not an empty feature, as they manage to combine high visibility consumer brand with high technology brand. I would say that Nokia’s present offering is two in one, and that makes Nokia almost an irresistible temptation for your average consumer.

Nokia India co-branding

Heikki Norta, the senior vice-president at Nokia said that they are talking to major players in operator community in India. According to him the negotiations usually deal with topics like how operator name is going to show on packaging and actual mobile phones. Read more about the article over here.

COMMENTARY
Nokia is obviously under some stress to make amendments for mobile operators so that they can maintain their dominant role at this rapidly growing market. If mobile operators in India would switch their favored supplier to someone else, then Nokia’s market share would plummet. Operators in developing markets seem to have more bargaining power, probably because mobile phone manufacturers’ brands are not so strong yet.

Nokia N-Gage Arena concept runs on

Nokia continues its online strategy with the N-Gage platform. System Rush is the game and the players can fight against corrupt mega corporations all over the world. Players take shape of cyber hackers that are fighting against corruption on all continents (wonder why Africa has not been included, maybe there are no buying customers to suck up). N-Gage Arena is once again strongly connected to the gameplay and it also works as a channel for digital game merchandise. Nokia is doing great job in entangling players to the global mobile community. N-Gage might yet pull it through. Here is the whole press release and here is a System Rush website.

Management keeps Nokia competitive

Interesting news coming from South Korea – LG Economic Research Institute, in a recent report, argued that organizational system is the key to win on the highly competitive super-cheap mobile phone market. Actual products, while still important, would however be secondary in importance. They argue that economies of scale and platform thinking that fits to every market will lead to the victory.

COMMENTARY
Asian companies took the world with their speed. They were able to introduce new product features to markets as Western competitors still had similar products on their design tables. Speed doesn’t cut it anymore. People still value the brand of a product so marketing remains important aspect. Another and perhaps more important feature is the scale management. Nokia is very used to work with very large production runs with their mobile phone models. This is an experience that Nokia’s Asian competitors still have to gain. For now it seems like the mass market is still in Nokia’s pocket.

Small deal for Nokia

Telefonica Moviles Chile has chosen Nokia to expand its GSM/GPRS mobile network. No financials, or no special items were disclosed so this deal probably falls among the masses of bread-and-butter deals that keep business running like usual.

Nokia Business Center business logic

More about Nokia’s push into mobile email services. This Business Week article goes deeper into the business logic behind Nokia’s decision. In a nutshell, Nokia sells lots of “corporate masses” phones that are now capable of emailing. Potential market for Nokia as the corporate mobile email provider is just massive.

Nokia Business Center business logic is geared towards encouraging companies to grab this chance to use their existing infrastructure. Service goes to the market in a CHEAP staircased pricing model. Every 400 users cost 2,200 dollars for the company that orders the service. Competition is going to be hit hard with this pricing scheme. Go and read the article it is very enlightening.

Improved forecasts at Nokia

Nokia lifted its earnings forecasts. Better results came from strong sales, cost control and one-time positive items.

COMMENTARY
Nokia spent heavily on N-series launch earlier this year. Marketing obviously shows in the sales figures and as they now haven’t burned money on advertising they seem to have better results. This situation will not last for long though. They need to improve their market share on all markets and push higher the average revenue per sold mobile phone.

For Nokia’s sake I hope that their enterprise services start to kick in. That is a field where it is easier to produce better return on investment, as there is minimal capital cost associated.

Mobile email solution from Nokia

Nokia Business Center will make mobile email universally available for Nokia smart phone owners.

COMMENTARY
Go and check this news, because it will have major implications on the corporate mobile services sector. Combined with Nokia’s latest push in educating companies to use mobile solutions, this will markedly bolster the market position of Nokia Enterprise Solutions.

Nokia Global Network Operations Centre

Nokia will start a new operations centre that will take care of Nokia's entire networks clientele of mobile service providers globally. This centre will be founded in India and the choice is now between only two locations. Nokia offers managed services for 34 clients and has been helping operators with global services. More here.


COMMENTARY
I would see this as a coming trend in the telecommunications sector. By buying network management services, operators can lighten their balance sheets and cut total workforce. I believe that such virtual operators are able to expand the geographic reach of their brand without spending heavily on infrastructure. This will result on faster growth for virtual operators and those operators that are sticking into an old business model of building their own networks will lose out.

This will also make investments to network infrastructure produce better return on investment because the network manager can rent the network to multiple operators and there is no need to over invest to several separate networks. Will Nokia find a purpose for its massive cash-reserves from the field of network management?

Avaya and Nokia offer new fixed mobility solution

AVAYA AND NOKIA TEAM WORK TOGETHER
Avaya’s applications turn Nokia’s mobile phones, but only those powerful Series 60 phones, into virtual desktop phones. In practice it means that your mobile phone will work as desktop phone with all related features. My eyes caught the news over here. Oh, by the way, if you need flashy references, B.A.R Honda is using this service.

HOW IT WORKS?
Mobile phone can now work behind the front of a desktop phone. Worker can for example get a one fixed number and use that to receive and call any number of calls that appear to be coming and going from fixed number.

COOL, WHERE CAN I GET ONE?
Very cool feature for a mobile worker such as I am. I often get calls to the field and it is very difficult to serve the customers, with the quality, as I would be in the office. These calls interrupt the day and can affect customer situations. Better get the calls in controlled manner. All this without expensive sales management service.

PRIVACY FOR THE WORKER
With this kind of service, I can get all inbound calls recorded and tracked so that they are easy to follow up. Don’t you just hate it, when you have to be accessible at all times? This way your personal number can be at your disposal only and during the off-office hours your real desktop phone will take all the incoming calls. Companies save money as there is no need to offer work phones for the workers and we save our nerves as customers stay away from our homes.

Nokia opening a distribution center in Dubai

Nokia has opened a distribution center in Dubai. Nokia does this in order to tap into the fast growing Middle East and African markets. Link to news. To my opinion this is a good move from Nokia as they benefit from exceptional tax brakes that Dubai is offering for international businesses.

Nokia 6101 offering by T-Mobile

T-Mobile will launch Nokia 6101 in the USA tomorrow. Cool phone and specifications can be found here at Nokia USA. Price will hover around 150 bucks. I would also like to live in a land of cheap Nokia mobile phones.

Mobile phones taking over the world

Home entertainment system in your mobile device, is that possible? This seems to be what Andrew White and Will Iredale ask in Times Online article.

Super mobile phones seem to grab the title in fight for the gadget supremacy. In Oxford there is a project launching that will broadcast live television for mobile phones that will be a package of 16 channels.

According to the writers, this is just the latest move in the development of mobile phones towards situation where mobile phones could dominate the consumer market on the high tech field. Name of Nokia comes up in most of the other examples.

Article suggests that most people will continue to use talking and messaging as their primary mobile phone services. Expensive phone will be above all a status symbol, but there are also those who will use all the new services extensively.

As a personal comment, I would say that mobile phones are indeed becoming kings on the gadget hill. This is because the base of mobile phones is very extensive and easy to upgrade. People are familiar with different user interfaces of the basic models and it is then easy to go upscale market from there. In a sentence, everybody needs a mobile phone. From this statement it is easy to reach point where the phone is modified to meet the needs of different user groups, instead of people having to go through the hassle of carrying several gadgets with them to suit for different situations. Our dear Nokia still has plenty of room to grow.

Christian Lindholm leaves Nokia for Yahoo

In Yahoo, Christian will create mobile products. He has been at Nokia for ten years and couple of previous years he has been working with Lifeblog product. Sad to see him go, but then again, Nokia has been slow to get their content services out to the markets. Maybe this will lead into some kind of cooperation between Nokia and Yahoo! One never knows.

Nokia teams with Duckie Brown

Nokia and Duckie Brown are creating a scholarship for students at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. They shun from giving material goods, instead they give donations to the scholarship fund in the names of the attendees.

Furthermore, there are five phones to be auctioned at eBay, and proceeds go to the scholarship fund, founded by Nokia and Duckie Brown. Oh, by the way, those phones are special edition Duckie Brown signed Nokia 8801 mobile phones. Article.

Nokia 3G order to Czech

Nokia got an order from Czech mobile operator, Eurotel Praha, for delivering a 3G network. Eurotel Praha has 4.4 million customers and covers 99% of Czech land area. Sounds like a nice beachhead, because this is Nokia’s very first 3G order in Czech republic. Snippet from the Forbes and customer and coverage information from Helsingin Sanomat (behind paid services by now).

Nokia N80 phone model rumour

Cool rumours come from China and get diffused by Softpedia. Probably a hoax, could be that someone has been Photoshopping on the back alley. However, the concept sounds valid and there are similar models on the markets already, nothing quite like this though.

Nokia fortune turning point

Newratings.com is a very good service that keeps you updated with the prospects of any given big company. I use it to follow Nokia, of course. Today I found out that:

“CSFB ups Nokia (NOK) fair value to EUR16, reiterates outperform rating and raises '06 EPS by 5% to EUR1.05. Company has more than a 30% cost advantage achieved through strong intellectual property rights, lower bill of materials and scale. Company's patent portfolio will lead to sustainable margin advantage versus peers.”

Now, that was direct quotation and it can be found from here. Looks like Nokia has it all set up for them. Just like I was posting yesterday, Nokia is trying to leverage some more advantege for them in differentiating their product slate and therefore component specifications.

Forum Nokia Pro Awards

Now everybody who happens to be a part of Nokia's advanced developer support program can take part into a contest. Guiding light with contest entries will be innovation in mobility. Details.

Nokia strengthens mobility solutions for corporations

Nokia has published a study that digs in to the mobility employment in big companies. Study concludes that workers are actually using mobile solutions much more than management had expected. Maybe we will finally see a huge jump in corporation investment on mobility. More details on analysis.

Related press release – Nokia will improve their slate of mobile working solutions for companies. Nokia’s latest effort will focus especially on training and educating personnel in any organization in order to enable companies to use mobility in more productive manner.

Nokia cost tactics

That clever Nokia is devising a wonderful variation of age-old military strategy – divide and conquer. How it goes is that Nokia is differentiating their phone model lines and using slightly different components in their mobile phones. This way there is no one big supplier that can benefit from advantage of scale. As a result, Merrill Lynch analysts say, component competition will continue as fierce and prices will stay lower than in case of monopoly/oligopoly. Nokia - you clever, you. Here’s the article.

Interactive screen mobile messaging

It is lots of fun to follow how Finnish innovations are slowly taking over the world :) Now it’s turn for broadcasted text and multimedia messages to grab the attention of mainstream audience. Idea is to give TV programs and other public screen shows an interactive return channel for watching audience. You can message on the big screen at concerts or while you are watching TV. Interactivity really does boost entertainment to whole new level. What got me commenting can be found from here.

Brunei likes Nokia

This one is a thriller. I have to say that I first thought that Nokia has developed a 3G phone booth that can be installed for example on public places for tourists to video themselves back home. Hah, no such development! It was just another trade fair news comment. Anyway they are optimistic in Brunei. With these oil prices, who wouldn’t?

Nokia delivers network for sunrise

Nokia will deliver EDGE network for Swiss operator sunrise. Deliveries have already started and include Nokia’s UltraSite base stations. No financial terms were released. Commercial launch for the network will take place before 2006. More details.

Nokia N90 review

The Nokia legal department resuffle

The appointment of Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has caused major upheaval on Nokia’s legal department, because Nokia’s global general counsel, Ursula Ranin, is said to be Kallasvuo’s domestic partner. To avoid conflict of interest, Ranin is stepping down. Here’s the article.

The depart of Ursula Ranin will see Nokia starting a new position titled Chief Legal Officer and company is (obviously) on frantic lookout for an outstanding replacement. No need to shed tears for Ursula, with her references, she can get in to most companies. It is just a matter how she will choose.

Kai Oistamo to lead Nokia Mobile Phones

Kai Oistamo is going to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as the head of Nokia Mobile Phones. Oistamo is only 40 years old so this is probably one step in a line of preparations to produce future Nokia leaders. I spotted this piece at ITweek.

Here in Finland we don’t really know these new top dogs so well yet, but as soon as we get familiar with them, I let you know what local media is saying.

Nokia helps New Orleans

Nokia donated one million dollars for New Orleans relief efforts. Way to go Nokia! But wait, there’s more – Nokia also gave mobile phones for relief workers. Clever way to get some extra visibility in media as TV, net and papers are pushing out pictures where aid workers just happen to talk into Nokia phone in the midst of the havoc. I spotted the news here and no they did not make any such claims about those phones, that is all me writing here behind the keyboard.

New N-Gage launcher

Nokia has published a new version of their N-Gage Arena launcher software for international community of mobile gamers. Go get it!

Nokia sold TETRA

Nokia sold their TETRA business for EADS that is trying to corner the markets for secure, digital radio communication systems. Good move from Nokia, because this technology has no mass markets and there are no real synergies in developing it. This gives some more capital to build up the Nokia muscle (not that they are in dire need of cash). More about the story.

Nokia improving retail channel in India

Nokia is planning on expanding its retail network in India. Let’s face it distribution is one third of market advantage while the rest is made up by marketing and manufacturing. As part of this development, Nokia concept stores would become part of street image in India. Very important move from Nokia, if they want to remain at the top of the mobile phone markets in India. More on the topic at Sify.

N-Gage Arena features Mile High Pinball

Nokia is trying to push their N-platform into public awareness and at the same time they are doing great favour for mobile gaming. This time it is Mile High Pinball game site that went live. Game offers full support for the N-Gage Arena and therefore mobile players are able to take part into tournaments etc. The more Nokia entangles itself to web and live mobile gaming the more they will benefit and take advantage on platform's uniqueness. More on the news at GameIndustry.biz and at Mile High Pinball website.