The new smart phones are good and I got myself another Nokia, a Nuron - I'll have you know. It costs $140 in Amazon with no contract, in other words, still very cheap. With the new Microsoft deal Nokia may be trying to cut R&D cost but it will be opening its lower end market for other players. Much like Volkswagen in trying to capture the upper end of the car market left itself be overtaken by Japanese car makers. Nokia phones are soon going to be a lot more expensive. It is sad that we will have to put up poorly made phones if we want something economical, under the guise of having better features.
The West cannot simply get over their fixation with USA. China and India are NOW the biggest markets for phones. Can you imagine the Indian Railways giving all their mobile workers an iPhone? Given the level of corruption in Indian Railways it may be possible. But no honest manager would recommend an iPhone over a Nokia that is about one fourth the cost.
The other philosophical issue I have is that people are not willing to accept death. Withdrawing the Symbian OS is like retrenching an employee because she/he is thinking of retiring in a year. Why doesn't the Symbian die a natural death if that is where it is headed? Why kill it prematurely?
True the Nokia does not have as many features. But do we really need all those features to work effectively? Besides, except for the multi-touch capability I can't find any significant difference between an iPhone and a Nokia smart phone. Of course all Apple products have a status symbol associated with them. That is a major plus point and Nokia can do nothing to change that unless a la Lexus they come up with a new brand name. Even so Nokia would be better off not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
