Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft and Nokia are close to cementing a partnership to produce mobile phones together, according to multiple reports.

It’s like that celebrity couple you never expected to hook up, but who somehow did. Even a former Nokia employee was betting against the prospect of the phone maker working with Microsoft, which would involve shipping Nokia hardware with Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 operating system.

But the odds of the two partnering up are looking more and more likely. Bloomberg on Thursday published a report claiming that Microsoft and Nokia are likely to announce the new partnership on Friday. Earlier, The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday published an internal memo that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop sent to staff, and it suggests the company is about to make a dramatic move.

“I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform,” Elop said in the memo, referring to Nokia’s decline in market share. “”We are working on a path forward — a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on Feb. 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company.”

All indications suggest the transformation involves Nokia scrapping the mobile operating system that comes on its phones, Symbian OS, and ceding control of the software experience to Microsoft.

This shift would indeed be radical, but it’s an understandable move. Nokia has steadfastly relied on an open-source OS called Symbian. Nokia and Symbian have been the worldwide leader in the phone market for years, but some analysts say the OS could soon be dethroned by Google’s Android OS, which has a more modern user interface and several manufacturing partners. Wired.com late last year began documenting the slow death of Symbian in the wake of more modern interfaces offered by the iPhone and Android devices.

Symbian’s decline has continued as Nokia’s presence in market share plummets. Nokia’s share of the handset market in the fourth quarter of 2010 fell to 27.1 percent, down from 36.6 percent in the year-ago quarter.

“Market share is an existential threat to Symbian, it imperils the very existence of the platform,” said Gartner analyst Nick Jones. “And the main reason Symbian is losing share is the user experience, which isn’t competitive with Apple or Android.”

Shipping phones with Windows Phone 7 would be a quick fix to bring Nokia devices more up to date. Released late last year, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is the software giant’s fresh new start on a mobile operating system after completely scrapping its predecessor Windows Mobile.

Windows Phone 7 features a more modern, tile-based interface that Microsoft believes will charm customers.

“We’re taking responsibility holistically for the product,” said Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows Phone, in a previous interview with Wired.com. “It’s a very human-centric way of thinking about it. A real person is going to pick up a phone in their hand, choose one, buy it, leave the store, configure it and live with it for two years. That’s determined by the hardware, software, application and services. We’re trying to think about all those parts such that the human experience is great.”

Despite Microsoft’s efforts, Windows Phone 7 is off to a slow start. By the fourth quarter of 2010, Windows Phone 7 entered the market with lower share than the debuts of both Android and Palm’s WebOS, according to the NPD Group.  Microsoft likely sees a partnership with Nokia as an opportunity to quickly gain some presence in phone hardware.

“The Windows Phone 7 ecosystem is still evolving because it’s newer, and market share is of course low,” said Ross Rubin, an NPD consumer technology analyst.  ”The volume of handsets that Nokia delivers could certainly be a springboard for that ecosystem.”

The imminent partnership between Microsoft and Nokia has already drawn smack talk from Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering for Google. Gundotra on Wednesday published a tweet tagged “Feb. 11″ — the day that the Microsoft-Nokia partnership is supposed to be announced.

“Two turkeys do not make an Eagle,” Gundotra said.

See Also:

• Why Windows Phone 7 Will Make Android Look Chaotic
• Windows Phone 7 Is the Real Facebook Phone
• Windows Phone 7 Doomed? Actually, It’s Just Getting Started …
• Microsoft Still Cagey About Windows Phone 7 Sales Figures

Photo: Nokia N8 (Jon Snyder/Wired.com)

According to Gartner’s latest mobile sales numbers, the rise of Android hasn’t been quite as meteoric as you might think — even with 888.8 percent growth in 2010. Last month, Canalys quoted Android as the top earner for smartphone platforms in Q4 of last year, beating out Symbian for the top spot, but Gartner says it ain’t so. In fact, IDC already quietly chimed in on the topic a few days ago saying that Symbian was still the smartphone OS “market leader.” Gartner’s numbers do show Android overtaking Nokia’s Symbian devices in unit sales, but it points out that the OS’ use across a variety of brands in Q4 actually “kept Symbian slightly ahead of Android.” Symbian ultimately outsold Android by more than 44 million units last year, but considering the little green robot’s astronomical growth in 2010, we’d say even super star is an understatement. Check out the PR after the jump to see how the rest of the competition stacks up.

Continue reading Gartner and IDC dispute Android’s dominance over Symbian in Q4 2010

Gartner and IDC dispute Android’s dominance over Symbian in Q4 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 05:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  Gartner  | Email this | Comments

In case you had any lingering doubt that the smartphone is the new personal computer, just take a glance at IDC’s new global smartphone sales numbers for the fourth quarter of 2010 where we learn that some 100.9 million units were pushed in the three-month period — up a whopping 87.9 percent year over year. That figure compares to 92.1 million PCs sold during the same quarter, which, though a record for the PC industry, was left in the dust of the smartphone’s stratospheric rise. This marks the very first quarter in history that smartphones have outsold traditional computers — and considering the trajectories that both industries are in, we’d be surprised if they ever flip-flopped again. If anything, IDC and other analysis firms might need to readjust the nomenclature in their reports in a few years if (or when) convergence platforms like the Atrix 4G with its Laptop Dock start to gain traction. Of course, to Bill Gates and others, this technological cross-pollination comes as no surprise — and really, who can argue with a handheld that’s packing PC power?

Update: It’s also worth pointing out that IDC is still calling Symbian “the market leader” seemingly discounting Canalys’ assertion that Android has overtaken Nokia’s smartphone OS globally. Guess it all depends upon how your define “smartphone,” eh?

IDC says 100.9M smartphones sold in fourth quarter, PCs outsold for first time originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink ReadWriteWeb  |  IDC  | Email this | Comments

Considering rumors we’ve heard of a VGA display, we’d assumed that Nokia’s E6 would probably have a large touchscreen — but these shots we’ve just received look… well, a little different. Instead, it seems that Espoo’s planning to gently massage the winning portrait QWERTY formula already well established by the E71 and E72, bumping out a proper big brother to the E5. Around back, you see an 8 megapixel camera (possibly the same EDoF unit that’s in the E7) along with a dual LED flash; on front, that could very well be a VGA display, we suppose, considering the uptick in pixel density that everyone’s been pushing the past year. If we had to guess, this puppy is a lock for MWC — but in light of the crazy rumors floating around Nokia the past few days, all bets are off.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Nokia E6 in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Looks like Capital Markets Day is shaping up to be quite the barnburner for Nokia. In the wake of news that Microsoft and Nokia may have some sort of tie-up in the works, Germany weekly Wirtschaftswoche is reporting that newly appointed CEO Stephen Elop will be bidding adieu to a number of high-ranking officials. Citing “company sources,” the paper stated that Mary T. McDowell, a bigwig in the mobile phones unit, as well as Niklas Savander, the manager of the markets unit, could be on the outs. Moreover, Kai Oistamo (Chief Development Officer) and Tero Ojanpera, the manager responsible for services and mobile solutions, may also be enjoying their final weekends as Nokia employees. It’s all part of a monumental strategy shift, and if it all pans out, it’ll be Elop’s first major move since taking over as CEO last September. Of course, Anssi Vanjoki more or less left on his own accord, and the company has essentially forged ahead with little to no change since. We’re told that Nokia has hired headhunters to scout top people to fill said slots, but it’s hard to say why Elop feels that new brains are needed. Here’s hoping it’s the start of something… competitive.

Update: Having had a few minutes to digest this news, it’s worth pointing out that neither Alberto Torres (exec leading MeeGo Computers) nor Jo Harlow (head of Symbian Smartphones) are rumored to be at risk. So if the report is true, then these organizational changes appear focused on, 1) rectifying Nokia’s inability to quickly execute upon its corporate strategy and, 2) the recent walloping Nokia received in emerging markets like India where Nokia’s S40 feature phones once ruled the land, but are increasingly under attack by aggressively priced cellphones from Chinese and Indian handset makers.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Nokia reportedly planning ‘organizational changes,’ mobile phones exec on the outs originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 11:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Nokia Blog  |  Wirtschaftswoche  | Email this | Comments