Saturday, September 1, 2012

Nokia's new Windows Phones

October 2011 was when Microsoft announced they're working with Nokia to develop a series of Windows mobile based smart phones. These days it's all over the tech scene news, with leaked news, specs, photos, etc., which promises the phone is about to hit the market.

The question I'm asking now is: will Microsoft-Nokia's phone survive the smart phone war and have a piece o of the Plus pie?

I'll look the Arabic/ middle east market. Here, people who but Nokia phones can be divided into two main categories: the ones buying cheap feature phones, and those who are buying Nokia because they feel they're more familiar with the phone's GUI. Despite the fact that most modern phones have GUI's that don't resemble the old ones.

Both of these categories don't actually care about the "smartness" of the phone, they want to either buy cheap phones that does voice calls, or buy modern phones, despite the price, that would have a familiar interface to what they're used to. I have personally had many discussions with Nokia phones owners about switching to iPhone or android-based and their answer was that they don't need all the features nor do they ready to try new things.

Hence, Nokia shall face a great challenge in marketing their Windows phones. They're not cheap low end phones, nor have the same "familiar" software. If Nokia fails promoting for their new devices, they will be in a bad situation that might bring down three whole company!

On the other hand, back in the days before iPhones and android phones, Windows phones were not so popular. Blackberry's were the mark for smart phones. Windows phones were something that geeks would buy just to check out or experiment with. Something like showing off to your friends today by having an 8.5" diskette. This doesn't contribute well to marketing the phone.

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