Nokia decided to partner up with Microsoft on February 11th. Exciting! Nokia’s dying Symbian platform finally gets a replacement. Yesterday Nokia showed us what’s in the lineup, demonstrating the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, and announcing that the new phones will be available in the US “early 2012”. But is it too little and too late to save the once-king cell phone manufacturer?
Nokia has lost $14 billion in market cap since the announcement of the partnership. Their new CEO, Stephen Elop, said himself that Nokia is standing on a “burning platform”. The plan that Elop, a former Microsoft employee, proposes to save them? Windows Phone OS!
Since the launch of Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile has lost 38% of its market share – sliding to 5.8%. So why didn’t Nokia choose Android, who now has nearly 50% of the smartphone market share? Microsoft paid Nokia $1 billion for the marriage.
This isn’t the first time Nokia has refused to adopt a trend for years, only to give in later. The Nokia 5800 “Tube”, which was released in April 2008, was their first touchscreen phone (only 8 short years after the first touchscreen phone, the Sony Ericsson R380). Meanwhile, other manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Motorola and HTC swallowed up the consumers looking for a touchscreen phone when Nokia didn’t have one to offer. Now Nokia is releasing phones, loaded with Windows Mango and fully touchscreen based.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t see Nokia making “one of the greatest turnaround stories in history” happen like they’re calling for.
