Want the latest software updates for your phone? You can just wait like a pleb, or you can go buy handsets on Craigslist and hope to get lucky. Apparently Windows Phone Central user xs2k did the latter when he just happened to buy a phone with the latest, unreleased Windows Phone 8 OS on it.
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Pricing on Nokia’s Lumia 1020 just dropped to $200 at AT&T and Microsoft stores. The smartphone with the muscular camera
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There’s a new leaked image of Lumia’s gigantic phone-tablet, the Lumia 1520, and it looks pretty nice. It comes from @evleaks, a historically reliable source for advance shots of phones. It looks pretty nice—if it ever comes out.
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The “soft” in Microsoft isn’t what it used to be. A score ago, the company was certain the software-licensing business was the one it wanted to be in — Apple decided to hold its cards a lot closer to the chest, and it cost the company dearly for years. Meanwhile, Microsoft made a lot of cash with Windows, and it still does. But the tide is turning. Two of the last three Windows operating systems haven’t generated the kind of crazed mindshare that a company needs to remain relevant over the long haul, and at some point, one has to wonder if Microsoft will be able to inject a bit of life into its stodgy, outmoded self by grabbing the reins on the hardware side.
In fact, that’s exactly what Microsoft wondered, as it casually announced a plan in June of 2012 to affront scores of OEM partners with its Surface initiative. In an instant, Microsoft dove headfirst into the hardware game, and regardless of how it wanted the public to perceive the move, the truth was impossible to hide: this was Microsoft telling Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo and the rest that it could no longer trust their design chops to keep its revenue on the up and up.
In February of 2011, well before it transformed the Surface from a big-ass table into a slate that almost no one wants to buy (Microsoft’s words, not mine), the company managed to procure a huge ally on the mobile front. The Nokia / Microsoft alliance was monumental. This was Nokia’s formidable hardware being exclusively used to push Microsoft’s fledgling Windows Phone OS. At once, Nokia loyalists found hope, and those praying for a coalition with Android were dismayed. Little did we know: that partnership marked the end of the original Microsoft, the end of the original Nokia and, in my estimation, a complete rerouting of the Windows roadmap. This week’s acquisition simply makes it all the more official.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia
As Microsoft acquires Nokia’s phone business, a shuffle of industry players is happening – starting with Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia’s soon-to-be-former executive VP of design. An announcement of this departure was made just as the Nokia-Microsoft deal was made, with added note that Ahtisaari will be replaced by Stefan Pannenbecker – a man who up until […]
Microsoft announced earlier today that it has purchased Nokia’s phone business for $7.17 billion. Under the deal, the Finnish company is going to retain its “Nokia” brand, while Microsoft gets “Asha” and “Lumia.” There will obviously be some changes down the road in future Nokia devices given the fact that it is now under new ownership, one thing we might see are shorter names. Outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that they can “do better for a consumer name.” They weren’t able to do “shorten” the names before due to the independent nature of the businesses.
Ballmer said that the company could come up with a better consumer name than the “Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 1020.” The fact is though, Nokia didn’t add “Windows Phone” in the moniker of its latest flagship device. HTC did with the HTC Windows Phone 8X/S. The “Nokia” brand probably won’t accompany future devices, Lumia might still be around though. Can we expect future naming schemes to be built around the Lumia brand? or perhaps Microsoft might come up with an entirely different naming scheme, it can’t be said for sure right now. Would we see the company’s “Surface” brand make an entry in smartphones? A Surface Phone does have a nice ring to it, wouldn’t you agree?
Future Nokia Phones To Have Shorter Names original content from Ubergizmo. 
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What will Microsoft’s thunderous multi-billion dollar purchase of Nokia’s mobile phone business mean for little ol’ you and me? Time will tell, of course, but in the short term Steve Ballmer is promising something concrete: shorter brand names. Speaking on a conference call today, the Microsoft CEO seized on the Nokia’s latest flagship phone as an example of the need for simpler, more unified marketing:
“We can probably do better for a consumer name than the “Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 1020,” and yet, because of where both companies are, and the independent nature of the businesses, we haven’t been able to shorten that name.”
Now, “Surface Phone” certainly has a ring to it (and it’d be better than Windows Phone Pro Home Edition, in any case), so let’s just hope Microsoft doesn’t try to over-think things.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia
While technically not the biggest Nokia news of the morning, it’s possibly news of the biggest Nokia. The ever resourceful @evleaks has posted what is claimed to be a screenshot from the Nokia “Bandit,” also suspected to emerge as the Lumia 1520. There’s a lot going on in the image, but one thing’s for sure, you’ll not be left wanting for space for mini tiles. Though even then, there are options.
Update: Upon further inspection, there are a few interesting things to note. The original image is 1,080 x 1,920 — a resolution not currently supported in Windows Phone. This corroborates claims that GDR3 will be coming along for the ride, along with a revised camera app (or icon, at least). Oh, and of course, more columns and rows for your start menu!
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia
Source: evleaks (Twitter)
Microsoft gains a key advantage with its acquisition of Microsoft’s handset and devices division today: control. Microsoft itself says that acquiring the phones business helps it highlight “high value experiences” on devices around its mobile operating software, and cites the need for a “first-rate Microsoft phone experience” for users. Control over both software and hardware is what ensures those advantages, and that’s a lesson Microsoft learned from longtime rival Apple, which once upon a time entered the smartphone market and ate the bottom out of Microsoft’s mobile business.
Apple’s main advantage, and the one that has given it the chance to rise to its current position of prominence in both the PC and smartphone markets, has always been its reluctance to license its software for use on third-party OEM hardware. In keeping both its mobile and its desktop OS the specific province of its own devices, it can ensure that it the software and the hardware are perfectly attuned to one another.
This tuning simplifies the update process, guarantees less OS fragmentation, normalizes hardware specifications (which leads to more predictable and consistent software experiences) and generally just makes sure that every time someone is using a Microsoft Windows Phone, they’re seeing and experiencing exactly what Microsoft’s software engineers intended.
Another big reason for Microsoft to pick up a mobile hardware division is to capitalize on bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trends that are helping to erode its enterprise presence currently. The company says in its press deck explaining the rationale behind the deal that combining devices with “high volume/value services” is the best way to increase its user base, and this means developing a better strategy for adapting to the consumerization of IT.
Apple is essentially the archetype for BYOD success. The company’s devices, both iOS and Mac, have infiltrated formerly MS-dominated schools, businesses and government offices, fuelled by a bottom-up adoption of their software, services and gadgets by users who have Mac and home and were dissatisfied with their experience at work. Microsoft needs to win these customers back in both arenas to grow more aggressively, and it perceives total control of all aspects of its mobile business as a key necessary component for that to happen.
Microsoft is behind the rest of the market in a number of ways, especially when it comes to tablets and apps. The company sees smartphone success as a key component in those other lines of business, as well as in helping to rejuvenate the somewhat stagnant PC market. In other words, Microsoft is chasing the Apple “halo effect” with this Nokia mobile business acquisition.
Redmond fully admits to this strategy in its press materials. Per its strategic rationale deck:
- Success in phones is important to success in tablets
- Success in tablets will help PCs
Microsoft seems to have tried to skip one of these steps, or else leave it to outside parties (the phone component) and hoped the Surface could both amp up its tablet business and bolster flagging PC sales. The Surface has not been a breakout success, however, which brings us to the next point.
Nokia said that it had been considering alternative plans for its hardware division since Microsoft announced the Surface. Nokia interim CEO Risto Siilasmaa said during Nokia’s press conference around the deal that it came to the conclusion that the mobile phone hardware division needed to be “tightly aligned with the software ecosystem” and attendant services in order to compete.
It’s interesting that the Surface was the stated progenitor of this deal, when Surface stands as the one example of how Microsoft has already behaved when it took the reins with holistic hardware and software design. The Surface and Surface RT tablets were designed as showcase devices that could reveal the power of Windows 8, a radical redesign of Windows with features designed for crossover touchscreen devices. But Surface hasn’t done amazingly well, with MS taking a $900 million writedown of inventory on Surface devices during its last fiscal quarter. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is bullish on phone business, however, and where it stands pre-acquisition.
“Windows Phone has grown over 78 percent over the last year,” Ballmer said on stage during the Nokia conference. “Sales of Nokia Windows Phones have gone from literally zero two years ago to 7.4 million units in the most recently reported quarter.”
Ballmer essentially re-iterated that Microsoft believes strong phone sales will lift all boats in terms of the rest of the company’s services, software and hardware businesses, and that this acquisition and the alignment of phone hardware and software will help to accomplish that.
Despite the big changes, Microsoft seems fairly happy with Nokia’s Windows Phone performance so far, and in fact even before this deal it had significant influence not only on Windows Phone device specifications, but also on design, TechCrunch has heard from sources close to the companies. All of this suggests that Microsoft taking over entirely with mobile hardware won’t necessarily change the course of Lumia devices all that dramatically.
Nokia has done better with Microsoft hardware than Microsoft has, in the end, and we could see the new Nokia assets and employees given more control over Microsoft’s hardware destiny as a result. There’s a Nokia Windows tablet supposedly in the works already, in fact, so Microsoft may have bought itself into a position where it can take the hardware reins without overturning the stagecoach.
But the fact remains that Microsoft hasn’t shown it can succeed with an Apple-style approach; in fact, quite the opposite. It’s positioning taking over its own destiny with respect to mobile devices as a way to boost its ecosystem in a bid to eventually make the Windows Phone platform more attractive for outside OEMs, which is different from Apple’s angle, but in the short-term, the goal of building devices that best showcase its software and services remains the same. Microsoft has already false-started on that same goal with the Surface – whether Nokia can help it avoid the same pitfall with phones remains to be seen.
In a move that isn’t in the least surprising, Nokia has announced that Microsoft will buy its Devices & Services business, as well as licensing Nokia’s patents and mapping services. Such is being done for 5.44 billion Euros in all-cash, something that breaks down into 3.79 billion Euros for the Devices & Services Business and […]
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