GM says Nokia's future lies in selling experiences | Bangkok Post: tech

SMART PHONE LAUNCH

Nokia has launched its new X6 smart phone with its first finger-friendly capacitative touch screen aimed at music-sharing youth and firmly painted its future as a services company, not just a phone maker.

Nokia X6 smart phone.

Speaking at the first phone launch of 2010, the X6, Shumit Kapoor, General Manager of Nokia Thailand said that the future of Nokia is not in the business of selling devices (phones), but it is now in the business of selling experiences under the brand name of the Ovi umbrella.

Ovi Store just passed a milestone with more than one million downloads on Saturday, January 30.

Kapoor said that worldwide Nokia ended 2009 with 39 percent of the market, up two percent over 2008. Nokia sold 432 million phones in a market of 1.14 billion phones. More importantly, it sold 67.8 "converged devices" or what everyone else calls smart phones.

Apac saw 15.5 percent year on year growth at 34.5 million units.

Nokia does not break down numbers at a country level, but Kapoor did hint that Nokia had a very strong second half in 09 with significant gains for its E-Series business smart phones and of the Qwerty keyboard phones in general.

Last year, Nokia launched Nokia Messaging push email with AIS and will soon be expanded to other operators.

This year, part of the focus will be on customer care with five new Nokia care centres and 39 Nokia care points across the country.

Damian Mycroft, Senior Design Manager at Nokia's London design studio, spoke of the design of the new X6 which invoked images of youth, fresh thinking and innovation.

"Stylish technology is a huge trend. Technology is cool. It used to be for scientists, geeks, but now it brings huge optimism," he said.

The Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium was what inspired him to design the X6. It is a design that allows users to see how the great big concrete circular structure works, see through the structure and reach the people inside.

The X6 is a stylish candy bar design with the ends having a sawn-off look where the technology, the power, USB and 3.5mm headphone connectors are exposed.

Entertainment is getting social and the X6 has very loud speakers for people to share music.

"Digital lifestyle is a quote from Steve Jobs. He sees three ages of the Internet. The first was about PCs getting information, the second age was web 2.0 and the third is technology and the digital world becoming a core part of our everyday lives," he said.

Mycroft said that his favourite image of Thailand was the view of people relaxing by the riverside away from the hectic life of Bangkok and that he was thinking of how to incorporate that feeling into his next design.

Nokia Thailand has commissioned Boyd Kosiyabong to compose a theme song, 2^20 or two to the power of twenty. This song invokes the power of sharing and how one thought, one idea can reach a million people (1,048,576 to be precise) if it is shared to two people 20 times.

The X6 comes in a variety of colours with a black or white body. However, Nokia will only be importing black/black and pink/white versions initially. For the previous 52/5300 series music touchphones, over half were black, and pink was a surprisingly strong seller. This meant that women were particularly interested in making a statement.

The X6 is a Symbian^1 device, the new name for Symbian S60 5th Edition and thus is compatible with the drive and walk navigation that Nokia now offers for free as part of its Ovi Store. Maps of 74 countries are available in 46 languages, including Thai.

Asked why someone would want a Symbian^1 device with Symbian^3, the new Symbian from the Nokia-funded Symbian Foundation, just six months away, Kapoor said that the X6 offers a significant usability and OS upgrade here and now at a price point similar to the 5800.

"Symbian^3 might not even be six months," he said, hinting that the new generation of devices might be arriving faster than rumours have suggested.

Later, Kapoor fended off questions on Nokia's market lead saying that he was absolutely sure that Nokia was still number one in Thailand and that he was not privy to the GFK numbers quoted by the competition. He said that he does not expect Nokia's number one position to be impacted any time soon. He hinted that the focus on the first six months will be on music followed by a renewed focus on messaging and email.

The main threat is from the Chinese brands and their local-branded partners that have grown in popularity. However, he said that market trends tend to favour major players such as Nokia once the economy has picked up again.

Nokia staff on hand said that the X6's 433 MHz CPU was enough to provide a good experience for the product and target audience. For those wanting higher power, the future would be the Nokia N900, Nokia's mobile computing platform.

Nokia is supporting Thai developers through Form Nokia in developing local and Thai language apps and helping them distribute and sell it through the Ovi Store. Nokia is constantly increasing the richness of the software development kit so that tasks that used to take months or weeks can be completed in days.