Nokia CEO and former Microsoft exec. “Stephen Elop gave an impassioned speech on Monday about waging a war to re-enter the United States by establishing a beachhead here,” Mark Milian reports for CNN.
“Elop, a Canadian with a military general’s vocabulary and haircut, is the chief executive for Nokia,” Milian reports. “The Finnish company is the highest-volume cell phone manufacturer worldwide, but has struggled in the U.S. and in staying ahead of the technological curve. Elop explained in an interview with CNN that the Lumia 900 will be the anchor in Nokia’s larger invasion of the elusive U.S. market. ‘There is much more that we can do in this battle,’ he said.”
“Nokia will have to lean on other phone manufacturers that are also betting on Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system in order to spur interest from both consumers and application developers, Elop said,” Milian reports. “They are up against Apple, which develops iOS for its iPhones, iPads and iPods; and Google, which makes the Android software that powers most smartphones on the market.”
Milian reports, “HTC, which fights for both the Windows and Android camps, unveiled a new Windows phone on Monday for AT&T, the Titan II. It has a giant 4.7-inch screen and an unusually beefy 16-megapixel camera. ‘This is my personal device,’ HTC CEO Peter Chou said at AT&T’s news conference, held on the eve of CES. ‘I’ve been using this all the time.'”
MacDailyNews Take: When you have nothing, massively over-spec your device to the point where it won’t even fit in users’ pants pockets and pray.
“HTC and Nokia, which are launching the new Windows phones, succeeded in creating a fair bit of hype, but they lacked some important details. Neither announced release dates or pricing,” Milian reports. “With 2% in market share for Windows Phone versus a combined 82% held by Apple and Google, according to market research firm NPD Group, it’s hardly a war yet. Microsoft’s allies will need more than a Las Vegas rallying cry to turn the tides.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We would remind Stephen Elop that talk is cheap, exceedingly so from a floundering company that over the last five years has had more “flagship” phones come and rapidly go than we can count.
Once again, Windows Phone will remain an also-ran unless or until the patent infringement cases, security concerns, and/or fragmentation end up increasing the price of Google’s pretend iOS to the point where Microsoft’s mobile OS becomes more attractive to cellphone makers than creating trade-dress-infringing iPhone clones, loading them up with Android, and peddling them with depressingly inane marketing campaigns targeted at preteen boys waiting for their pubes to sprout.
Furthermore, as we wrote of Windows Phone back on October 27, 2011:
Windows Phone will be popular. Over time, it’ll eat the lunch of the increasingly fragmented, increasingly insecure, and increasingly costly Android (losing patent infringement lawsuits and dropping features/paying royalties to multiple IP owners will do that to you).
The not-iPhone world will begin to dump Android and move to Microsoft’s mobile OS offering because it will eventually cost less, work better, and come with far fewer legal issues. In the iPhone wannabe market, it’s already happening (Nokia, for example). We expect the same to happen in the iPad wannabe market, too. Google and Microsoft will long battle each other for the non-Apple markets and that’s a much better scenario for everyone than having a single ripoff artist flood the market with fragmented, insecure, beta-esque, mediocre-at-best products. Google’s attempt to be the next Microsoft is doomed.
This, of course, will also impact Google’s search business. Apple’s Siri will increasingly deliver info to users sans Google and Microsoft will, naturally, use Bing for their search. As we’ve said many times in the past: Google will rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them.
The bottom line: We’d rather see a company trying unique ideas, even if – shockingly – it’s Microsoft, than the wholesale theft of Apple innovations that we’ve been seeing for over four years now. Don’t steal IP. Even worse, don’t steal IP and “claim to be innovators.” We have no problem with any companies that attempt to compete with Apple using their own unique ideas and strategies.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward Weber” for the heads up.]
Windows phone 7. For those people that just hate Apple!!
nuff said
+1
>massively over-spec your device to the point where it won’t even fit in users’ pants pockets<
"Is that a Windows Phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
I get better analysis here on MacDailyNews than I do from my brokers. Unlike MDN, none of them seem to get it.
(Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.)
lol, great moniker, Brawndo.
“Brawndo, the thirst mutilator”
Windows Phone. The noise that a wet ass makes sliding on linoleum.
Interesting. I would think the thought of a dry ass sliding on linoleum is more cringe-worthy.
iNeuron, did you mean to imply that the Windows Phone is sexy? Say it ain’t so!
Give it up. Everybody that has an iphone loves it, and everybody that doesn’t wants one, whether they admit it or not. Keep your shite!!!
Steve, all those war metaphors are great press….try this one….don’t bring a knife to a gunfight…..or in your case a stick.
You mean a brick? Or HTC’s giant slab?!?
“It has a giant 4.7-inch screen and an unusually beefy 16-megapixel camera. ‘This is my personal device,’ HTC CEO Peter Chou said”
Petey might be overcompensating for something that’s less “beefy”.
These guys are soon gonna have the HTC Boombox. An incredible phone that you have to rest on your shoulder during calls.
“Optional USB powered backbrace and heating pad sold separately.”
There’s no other way to fit a 4.7-inch screen in your pocket unless you had extra space in your nether regions. Let’s just say a huge screen is not “John Holmes-friendly.” Is that a banana and a TV in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
“That’s not a knife (Winblows Phonie 7), now THIS (an iPhone) is a knife.”
I like the last of MDN’s take
“The bottom line: We’d rather see a company trying unique ideas, even if – shockingly – it’s Microsoft, than the wholesale theft of Apple innovations that we’ve been seeing for over four years now. Don’t steal IP. Even worse, don’t steal IP and “claim to be innovators.” We have no problem with any companies that attempt to compete with Apple using their own unique ideas and strategies.”
I played with a Nokia with windows 7 here in Mexico, nice build, and even though the OS was confusing to me, at least it’s not a blatant rip off of IOS.
The “Partridge family bus,” er Metro interface is ok if you have 10 apps. Anymore than that and it’s just not app-friendly. I give it props for not ripping off iOS and it’s clean but when you have 30 apps, the huge tiles make it hard to locate your apps. Just comes to show how iOS got it right the first time.
Is there 30 Apps for sale in the Windows phone 7 Phone App Store?
Don’t bring a butter knife to a “thermo –nuclear war”!
+ ∞
“This, of course, will also impact Google’s search business. Apple’s Siri will increasingly deliver info to users sans Google and Microsoft will, naturally, use Bing for their search.”
I can’t wait for the day that Google is no longer the default browser search engine in Safari, having been replaced by an Apple search engine and data center. On that day it’s “Goodbye” Google, we hardly knew you.
It’s Unix (iOS and Android) versus Windows and I’m rooting for Unix!
“METRO METRO METRO!”
Translates from Ballmer-speak into:
FAIL FAIL FAIL!
I fully expect a customer revolt against the ugly Metro GUI being forced upon everything Microsoft. Check back a year from now for red faces in Redmond. 😳