Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia has a contingency plan should Windows Phone 8 fail to deliver, new chairman Risto Siilasmaa has confirmed, though the company will chase further “tough cuts” until it can become competitive again. Siilasmaa made the blunt promise in his first public appearance as Nokia chairman, telling Yle Uutiset that he had full confidence both in CEO Stephen Elop and in Microsoft’s smartphone platform.

Siilasmaa declined to specify exactly what Nokia’s contingency plan might be, though he made clear that it won’t be Symbian. “Symbian’s market share has come down close to zero” he said of the little-loved OS, repeating the long-held company line that Nokia had little choice to throw in with Microsoft.

Elop “came in at a tough time” the chairman conceded, praising his “good and transparent” management style. Nokia has been forced to make sweeping cuts in recent months, closing facilities, shedding huge numbers of employees, and slashing the R&D budget.

Last month, Nokia announced it would make 10,000 workers redundant worldwide, almost 4,000 of which are in its home country. Also suffering in the cull was Meltemi, the unconfirmed but widely rumored entry-level smartphone platform that, according to team members, was nearly fully-baked when Nokia pulled the plug.

[via Stefan Constantine]

Nokia has contingency plan should Windows Phone fail says chairman is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Following Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 reveal, plenty of owners were salty over what they considered the ultimate betrayal: not a single WP on the market was eligible for the super upgrade. But please, don’t fret! The consolation prize is awesome. More »

With the announcement of Microsoft’s Surface tablet, this is the first piece of hardware in a while that Microsoft will be making themselves, as opposed to turning to their OEM partners. This led many to speculate that may Microsoft could be thinking of doing the same with their Windows Phone 8 handsets, much like how Apple designs and builds their own products. Unfortunately if you were blown away by the design and features of the Surface tablet and wouldn’t mind seeing what Microsoft could accomplish if they made their own phones, you’ll be in for a disappointment. The company has stated explicitly in an interview with Information Week that they are not building a phone of their own, and that they are happy with the work done by their OEMs, i.e. HTC, Nokia, Samsung, etc.

However this is contrary to what Nomura analyst, Rick Sherlund said in a note to their clients. He claimed that Microsoft had a deal with contract manufacturers to build Windows Phone 8 handsets. “It is unclear to us whether this would be a reference platform or whether this may be a go-to-market Microsoft-branded handset […] We would not be surprised if Microsoft were to decide to bring their own handset to market next year given that Microsoft has decided to bring to market their own Windows 8 Surface tablet/PC products.” Either way since Microsoft has denied the rumors for now, we guess we will take their word for it, but how do you guys feel about a Microsoft-made Windows Phone device anyway?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Poll suggests that Windows 8 Phone name is preferred, Windows Phone 8: Microsoft Takes The Gloves Off,

Microsoft is adamant: it has no plans to make its own Windows Phones, and anything to the contrary is baseless speculation. The Surface tablet announcement had hardly crossed the wire before rumors of a home-grown smartphone began to proliferate, culminating in a clear denial of any “going it alone” intentions earlier on Monday. Have no doubt, though: Microsoft may be denying own-brand Windows Phones today, but that’s not to say it won’t announce them tomorrow.

Let’s not forget, this is the same Microsoft that roundly denied any phone plans whatsoever… until it revealed KIN. The teen-centric handsets may not have been sales successes, but they nonetheless confirmed the dirty little secret in the tech PR game: that any denial, no matter how earnest sounding at the time, is usually only valid until the end of the day.

Surface is a misdirection, if you’re using it as evidence that Microsoft is planning a more aggressive attack on the hardware market. If the rumors are true then only WiFi Surface models are on the cards to begin with; no tricky carrier negotiations to deal with, no awkward positioning rivalries with cellularly-enabled iPads to confuse store shelves.

“Microsoft will do what it needs to to do make Windows Phone a success”

Microsoft will do what Microsoft believes it needs to do to make Windows Phone a success, even if it means throwing OEM partners under the bus to achieve it. So far it has a strong, easily moulded brand already in the smartphone ecosystem in the shape of Nokia, a company now so dependent on Windows Phone that it, more than even Microsoft itself, is primarily reliant on the platform becoming a sales success for its future. If Windows Phone stalls, Microsoft will find itself without a foothold in the smartphone space; for Nokia, meanwhile, it’s game over.

Whether that makes a Nokia buy-out more likely is the stuff of endless rumination. There are compelling arguments either way – greater control and an existing manufacturing base on the positive; responsibility for what’s clearly a struggling company, and the risk of alienating other OEMs currently onboard on the negative – and, if Surface really is the tell, then we’ll need to see how Microsoft reacts to the Windows market to get an understanding of its longer-term intentions. Opinion is split as to whether Surface is a short-lived motivator to spur OEMs into imaginative action or a longer-term commitment to own-brand hardware.

Nonetheless, while the denials may come thick, fast and obstinate today, be under no illusion: all that could change in an instant if Microsoft’s soothsayers decide the company’s fortunes are better served with an in-house product.

Forget Denials, Microsoft’s Windows Phone is still a contender is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When Microsoft announced that it would be making its own Windows 8 Surface tablet, some believed the next logical step was for the company to start producing its own smartphones next. An executive at Microsoft has come out and said that this isn’t the case, and that the company won’t pursue the same strategy. When asked directly if Microsoft had any plans to apply the same formula to phones, Greg Sullivan, senior marketing manager for Windows Phone, said, “No, we do not.”

It was a bold move for Microsoft to enter the tablet space by itself, especially with the risk of alienating its OEM partners in the process. Acer has already spoken out against the move, saying that it’s a ploy to spark interest in the overall platform, boosting OEM interest in the operating system before Microsoft makes its exit from hardware later on.

A single analyst sparked the rumor for a Microsoft built Windows Phone 8 handset, claiming that the company had a deal in place with a hardware manufacturer to produce such a phone. Details aren’t clear as to whether it was a reference platform, or a product designed to be shipped to consumers, but the analyst went on to say that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Microsoft bring a branded handset to the market next year.

Hardware partners for Windows Phone 8, meanwhile, include Samsung, HTC, Nokia, and Huawei. Tentative details of HTC’s Windows Phone 8 devices have already emerged, with options for the entry-level, midrange, and high-end of the market. The budget device, codenamed Rio, is said to have a 4-inch WVGA display, and is powered by a Snapdragon S4 Plus processor with 512MB of RAM while featuring a five megapixel camera. The hero device, Zenith, reportedly comes with a 4.7-inch 720p Super LCD2 display, a Snapdragon quad-core processor, an eight megapixel camera, and HSPA+ speeds up to 42Mbit/s.

[via Information Week]

Microsoft: We’ve no own-brand Windows Phone plans is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.