Hasta La Gadget!

In a smartphone ecosystem dominated by Apple and Android-based products, Nokia and Microsoft are a lot like those two kids who are always picked last for kickball: They’re clearly in the line-up, but seen as bloated, out-classed choices nobody really wants.

Though Nokia remains the leader in global mobile phone sales, most of those handsets are lower-end “feature” phones, and the company’s market share dropped by close to a third of what it was in 2010. Similarly, Microsoft continues to dominate the desktop software space, but its Windows Phone software holds only 1.6 percent of the global mobile OS share, according to the same Gartner report.

Both Nokia and Microsoft are massive companies with huge economies of scale — and both have the most tenuous of grasps on the burgeoning smartphone market.

However bleak their smartphone fortunes may be, though, Nokia and Microsoft aren’t giving up. This Wednesday, Nokia announced the Lumia 800 and 710, two Windows Phone-powered devices that mark Nokia’s first legitimate forays into the modern smartphone space.

Gone is the near-obsolete MeeGo operating system, and its place is an OS with all of Microsoft’s marketing muscle — not to mention likely synergy with Windows 8, Redmond’s next desktop OS.

So, no, Nokia’s failure in the smartphone space isn’t a fait accompli. But the company will have to rally support around three key initiatives — and this is how I see it all going down.

Focus on Design. And Be Very, Very Different

In its Lumia phones, Nokia is delivering a design sensibility that is markedly different than that of its competitors. Like an item lifted straight off the F.A.O Schwarz showroom floor, the Lumia 800 oozes with child-like whimsy. Wrapped in a polycarbonate casing that comes in a color palette best described as “candy-coated,” the phone stands in stark contrast to the blatantly techie stylings of Android handsets, and the sui generis look-and-feel of Cupertinian design.

It’s a point of differentiation that sets off Nokia from its competitors to an extreme degree, and it’s a well-warranted move. After all, no company can really keep up with Jony Ive’s meticulously designed iOS devices, so Nokia has much more to gain by exploring an completely different design language.

And while there’s a plethora of Android handsets for consumers to choose from, most models lack any real conversation-stopping wow factor. We’ve seen a few close calls — the new Motorola RAZR, for example, is indeed remarkably thin, if not also handsome — but when was the last time people went nuts over an Android phone, just because it was going to be released in a white chassis?

That’s right — never. People don’t buy Android phones for their industrial design.

Which is why the vibrant, bold process colors of the new Lumia 800 should be perfect for capturing consumer eyeballs once the phones hit carrier shelves. “Nokia has shown it can still capture attention with attractive and distinctive hardware,” Ross Rubin, an analyst for NPD Group, told us in an email.

Specs-wise, Nokia’s new Lumia 800 isn’t a dominant piece of hardware. The Qualcomm chip that powers it is a single-core Snapdragon — underwhelming in a smartphone space where dual-core processing is quickly becoming the new baseline. And while the Lumia 800 comes with 16GB of on-board storage, there’s no SD expansion slot, because Nokia wanted to keep the phone’s slick polycarbonate case free of seams and ugly port openings.

But specs are for nerds. Or so the Nokia strategy would seem to state. Android fanatics are the ones who geek out over faster processors, fatter expansion possibilities, and ports galore. Nokia’s target audience just wants a phone that “works great,” the company says.

“There may be devices out there that have faster processors, more memory and what have you, but we have a faster experience,” said Marc Kleinmaier, Nokia senior manager of developer evangelism, in an interview. Kleinmaier added that Nokia and Microsoft worked together to improve hardware/software integration, and the fruits of this labor yielded a phone that performs well beyond what its raw specs may suggest.

Continue reading ‘How Nokia Can Stave Off Smartphone Irrelevance’ …