Cell phones take time to develop. If Nokia had kept its smartphone operations unchanged after deciding to use Microsoft's software, it might have been another year before the first Nokia Windows Phones reach the market.
Harlow spent time studying how Microsoft operates internally and decided to mirror Nokia's behavior after Microsoft's.
Rather than assign each new Nokia phone its own product manager--which was typical Nokia behavior--Harlow created design teams that have more decision-making authority. Though Microsoft has given Nokia more creative powers to customize Windows Phone than its other OEM partners (Dell, HTC, LG, Samsung), Nokia has not yet been able to exercise that creative muscle. If it had, there would be no new Nokia smartphones on store shelves this holiday shopping season, which Nokia cannot afford to miss.
Hopefully Nokia will address the more creative and innovative issues in due time.
Nokia, the Finnish company that's the world's largest phone maker by units, has bet all its chips on Microsoft, saying earlier this year that it would be using Windows Phone on all its smartphones going forward. Microsoft, in the meantime, is counting on Nokia to make the Windows Phone operating system a serious contender in the global smartphone market.
On Wednesday, at its annual conference, Nokia is expected to unveil its first Windows Phones. For Nokia, which has seen its place in the smartphone market overtaken by Android phones, Wednesday marks the beginning of a chance to prove that new CEO (and former Microsoft executive) Stephen Elop was right in deciding to partner with Microsoft and a chance to prevent Nokia's market share from eroding further.
Its share of the global smartphone market has plunged. Nokia is set to launch its comeback bid in London tomorrow – the struggling mobile phone manufacturer is likely to unveil three new Windows Phone handsets, running the latest version of the software and aimed at the midrange of the market, as well as new handsets based on its aging Symbian operating system.
The new devices will be the first since Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced that the Finnish giant was betting its future of Microsoft’s operating system. Buyers and analysts, who did not wish to be named, said the new phones marked an improvement on Windows Phone’s chances of success and were a “solid start” for Nokia’s transition.
The Nokia 800, originally codenamed Sea Ray and based on the Nokia N9 ‘all-screen’ phone, is likely to retail in high street shops for £300 from mid-November, but discounts are widely expected to boost sales. The future of Nokia hinges on the next 24 hours. Wednesday morning the CEO of the troubled Finnish mobile phone giant, Stephen Elop, will stand up in front of the expectant audience at Nokia World in London’s Docklands, to reveal the Microsoft-based phones that he hopes will re-launch the company. According to Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, Nokia will unveil a “bunch” of phones, he told the audience at last week’s Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Key day for Microsoft
Nokia’s Symbian operating system had a 22.1% share of the smartphone market in the second quarter, down from 40.9% last year.
Gartner’s sell-through analysis suggest only 1.7 million Microsoft phones were sold in the last quarter. Microsoft knows that if even Nokia can’t tear people away from either iOS or Android, then its mobile strategy is in trouble. If there is one thing that Nokia does know how to do, it is to build a phone. Certainly the company’s latest phones have received critical acclaim, even if that has not translated into sales.
As part of their deal, Microsoft has promised to back Nokia with a big marketing spend; now is the time to spend that money. While the attention is going to be on the top end of the market—will the new phone be an ‘iPhone killer’—Nokia has traditionally made all its money serving the mass market. “We are dramatically broadening the set of price points in Mango-related phones that we can reach,” Andy Lees, president of Microsoft’s Windows Phone division, said at our recent Asia D conference.
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