Microsoft and Nokia are jointly planning an event on the September 5th in New York which is the same date that the Nokia World 2012 starts in Finland. Neither company has revealed any details as to what will be revealed at the event but it is possible that the New York event will see the unveiling of the Finnish company’s new lineup of phones that use Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. Recently, Nokia’s CEO had avoided answering a question about the release date of the next phones and this could perhaps steal some of the limelight from Apple’s planned release of the iPhone around the same time.
All this is exciting for Nokia but it appears that the Finnish manufacturer is facing problems even outside the United States and especially in markets critical to its growth such as China. The enthusiasm surrounding Nokia is nowhere near that pertaining to Apple and it seems that the only good thing for potential users of Nokia’s devices is the possibility of new applications because of the Windows Phone platform.
Promoter’s in the region appear to be quite skeptical about the future of the company and who wouldn’t be? It announced the Nokia 808 PureView to be a “game changer” but the phone used the Symbian OS which is rather outdated and ended up being more of a camera than a phone. To add to its woes, S&P downgraded Nokia’s stock rating to “junk”. While most analysts believe that the announcement at the event is going to be about new phones, some are of the opinion that it might be a merger and that wouldn’t come as a surprise.
Meanwhile, Nokia continues to increase its engagement with social networks and this time it is working with Zynga to integrate social gaming to its phones. Nokia phones are going to be offering free games from Zynga and these are mainly for the S40 platform i.e. the Asha series of phones. All this appears to be an effort on Nokia’s part to consolidate its footprint in the lower end market while it tries to hold on to the sliver of the market it has left in smartphones. Feature phones are going to help Nokia stabilize its finances but not for too long as the real margins come in with smartphones and right now, people seem to prefer Android devices to the Lumia phones.
