14 DAY TRIAL // At this year’s 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nokia unveiled to the world its best Windows Phone so far, the LTE-capable Nokia Lumia 900. Although only a device with modest specs when compared to flagship Android smartphones, Lumia 900 impressed a lot of people and was named the “Best of CES.”
With this device, Nokia plunges back in the battle for market share in the United States. The handset will arrive on shelves in the country in the coming months on the airwaves of AT&T.
But this is not all. Both Nokia and Microsoft see the new device, and the other Nokia Windows Phones, present and future, as means to help the ecosystem gain more ground on the market.
Windows Phone has been lagging behind Android, iOS and BlackBerry, but it appears that the table is turning.
The focus remains on ecosystem, as applications and services are the selling point of new Windows Phone devices, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop told Wired in a recent interview.
“If you want to characterize the fundamental shift in the industry over the last so many years, it used to be the case that Nokia’s XYZ product competed against ABC product,” he noted.
“Now, it’s about all of the collective services, and everything around them, that constitute the value that’s being offered. One has to operate on that basis.”
According to Elop, this is what Nokia took into consideration when choosing Microsoft’s Windows Phone as the main platform for its new smartphones a year ago.
“That was a fundamental element in our decision to pursue a strategy with Microsoft around Windows Phone,” Elop explained.
“Essentially, we were making an ecosystem decision. Do we build something all ourselves? Do we join the Android ecosystem, or do we go after Windows Phone and say, “OK, we’re going to step aside from the pack and say we have an opportunity for differentiation.” Clearly we chose the third strategy.”
Nokia is fully committed to Microsoft’s platform and considers its Lumia handsets as being the first true Windows Phones out there. This is not the first time the company’s CEO said that, and he reiterated it.
“Our best innovation, our best industrial design, our best cameras, our best software, whatever it is, is being focused on the Windows Phone platform,” Elop stated.
Nokia’s first two Windows Phones, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, arrived on shelves in November last year in a small number of markets in Europe and Asia. This year, they will land in more countries around the world, along with the Lumia 900 and with other new Windows Phone devices from the company.