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Nokia + WP7

Nokia showed off their first Windows Phone 7 phones on October 26. Nokia introduced several models but most notably is the Nokia Lumia 800 which is basically the N9 with WP7 slapped on it. I tweeted a few months ago when Nokia announced the deal with Microsoft that this might help both companies to boost their sales in the U.S. and Europe. WP7 might get more exposure in Europe by being on a Nokia phone and Nokia might get more exposure in the U.S. because of WP7. I still believe in that statement, but unfortunately there are still some unknowns.

The Lumia 800 features a 3.7" AMOLED screen, 1.4GHz cpu, 8 Mega-pixel camera with Carl Zeist lens and 16GB of storage. So specs wise the phone is not bad. The biggest missing feature is the lack of the front facing camera. This is somewhat of a curious decision by Nokia because the N9 did have it and Microsoft just purchased Skype, which I assume will be baked in WP7 at some point. I have never used the fron-facing camera on my phone but I understand if that will be a dealbreaker for some people.

There are no release dates yet announced of when we will see the new Nolkia phones in the USA. But Nokia did mention LTE and CDMA phones so I am assuming it will come to at least Verizon. Verizon needs it since they only have WP7 in their lineup and although not a bad phone it's not the best WP7 you can get at this moment. Hopefully there are more carriers in the USA that will pick up these Nokia phones. Nokia has never had a strong presence in the US unlike in Europe. But hopefully Microsoft will be able to push some of these wireless carriers to sell their phones.

I don't think Nokia is the one that will save WP7. I think it will boost the platform by bringing some nice looking smart phones to the WP7 lineup. Hopefully other phone manafacturers will follow the design queues. Microsoft is in the mobile space for the long haul, unlike HP and their WebOS. Trust me when I say that Microsoft wants all their future products to all gel together and in a sense look like a unified product line. This will create a halo effect, which means that people that have one Microsoft product are inclined to buy another one product based on that product. Xbox users will lean towards a WP7 device, WP7 users will lean towards an Xbox for their home entertainment etc. Windows users will also not feel left out with the upcoming Windows 8 which will have elements found in WP7 and the new, not yet available, Xbox dashboard.

Microsoft got the better end of the deal with Nokia. This Nokia deal will in no way hurt Microsoft. But this might hurt Nokia since they are putting all their eggs in one basket. Hopefully Nokia has other means to survive because I am not sure if Nokia has the means to be as patient with WP7 as Microsoft is.

Source: Nokia press release

The Future According to Microsoft