Focusing on innovation despite a predicted mobile phone shipment drop-off and a steady stream of recession-fueled layoffs, the world’s largest maker of cell phones reportedly is creating touchscreen devices for a large midmarket.
According to Caroline Gabriel (News - Alert) of Rethink Wireless – an online publication from London-based ARCchart – Finnish vendor Nokia is poised to move past its 5800 XpressMusic and E71 devices to launch smartphones at cheaper prices.
Gabriel cites recent comments from Nokia Chief Executive officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (News - Alert), who famously promised “revenge” on the touchscreen market earlier this year.
“Although the company is working on some advanced features - the ‘Nautilus’ project focused on a rumored mini-tablet, some enhanced vibration/haptics technology based on work with Immersion – its key focus is on the area where no other vendor can match it, scale,” Gabriel reports.
Specifically, Kallasvuo said recently that Nokia (News - Alert) “intends to expand its portfolio by offering smartphones at lower prices to reach more consumers.”
According to Gabriel, reports now are emerging from Taiwan that Nokia has placed orders with manufacturers there for components for high volume products.
The rumors would seem to make sense, given Nokia’s recent launch of a thinly veiled challenge to the breakthrough business model for mobile devices, Apple Inc.’s App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Officials at Nokia say they’re seeking to open up their “Ovi Store” – a sort of online shop-cum-software platform – to third-party developers.
According to Niklas Savander, executive vice president of services at Nokia, the company wants to improve and simplify the user experience of Nokia services and create a “common platform for Nokia’s different service offerings.”
“We believe this will create a better experience for Nokia’s millions of customers and spur opportunities for game developers,” Savander said.
If that kind of set-up sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Following Apple’s (News - Alert) lead, virtual stores supporting devices such as Research In Motion’s smartphones and Google Android-based devices have emerged.
Nokia cast its announcement today in financial terms, saying that by adding third-party partners, such as other image and social networking sites, to the image capture and sharing features on its devices, it will streamline operations and see cost efficiencies.
To be sure, the company’s plans for the smartphone market also are driven by financial considerations. Analysts say smartphones generally are rising in popularity and gaining more and more of the overall cell phone market, led by open source Google Android (News - Alert)-based devices in particular.
Gabriel reports that Nokia is working with some big-name innovators as it pursues a touchscreen model, including capacitive panels from Wintek, which provides the resistive touchscreens for the 5800, and other elements from Synaptics (News - Alert).
“If the Wintek leak proves true, it will show Nokia reversing its hostility to capacitive touchscreens, which are popular in the United States and Europe, but do not yet support Asian character recognition,” Gabriel reports.
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Michael Dinan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Michael's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Michael Dinan
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