For the past year, Stephen Elop has brought about a remarkable change in Nokia, with the company having come from being written off as hopeless to a company which has managed to formalize a concrete plan for the future. With most other manufacturers choosing to put their eggs in the proverbial Android basket, Nokia has instead gone the Windows Phone route by partnering with Microsoft. In the process, the company has negotiated the freedom to customize the Windows Phone OS (something which no other manufacturer has managed) and has come out with a couple of competitive, if not outstanding devices.
Elop says that while Nokia is presently just concentrating on creating awareness about its new Windows Phone devices in as many markets as it can, he expects to see the company working towards bringing further growth and innovation by releasing a number of new phones in the next year or so to consolidate their position in emerging markets as well as developed ones. Nokia has now shifted its focus to target specific markets with specific tailor made products for optimal penetration. Elop used the example of special LTE versions of the Lumia 800 and 710 to illustrate his point.
The CEO went on to say that the top priority of the company is to provide consumers with a fresh experience within the WP ecosystem, considerably different from Apple’s iPhone or other Android phones or even other Windows Phone devices by other manufacturers. The Nokia Drive App, a free navigation tool offered only on Nokia Windows Phone devices has been hailed as a great example of this, allowing the company to stand apart from the navigation systems offered on Android devices as well as the iPhone. While map navigation services on Apple and Android devices provide maps and other features like turn by turn navigation, the Nokia Drive App provides a personal navigation system exclusive to Nokia devices. This app is freely available across all Nokia devices, and provides a value addition within the Windows Phone platform hitherto unseen with similar devices released by Samsung, LG and HTC.
The products that have brought Nokia into the limelight again are the Nokia Lumia 800, which has been released in the UK, and the Nokia Lumia 710, which has been released in the US and is slated for release in the UK this February. Another device, which is an even higher end device than the Lumia 800, is the yet unreleased but recently announced Nokia Lumia 900; slated for release in March 2012.
