Today marks the anniversary of one of the biggest partnerships the mobile world has ever seen. That’s right it’s already been a year since the worlds biggest mobile handset maker (Nokia) and the world’s biggest software maker (Microsoft) announced their partnership. Now that I have had sometime to accept the partnership, process what it really means and see some “MicroNokia” phones in action I can really access where Nokia has been, where it is now, and where it’s heading.  Coming along with me, won’t you?

Burning Platform:

From the moment Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop came to Nokia it was clear there was going to be changes, and big ones. With Nokia losing smartphone market share, money, and consumer confidence in general something had to be done.  The once absolute king of the mobile mountain had been slowly but surely knocked off it’s throne in the past 4 years.  Nokia had been slow to change with the times, it’s huge “dumb-phone” sales, and fiercely loyal (but dwindling) base had insulated Nokia from reality.

It took “an outsider” from Canada coming  in with fresh eyes to come in look around and say “whoa what happened here?” For the company to release that Nokia needed to change and change quickly before they turned into another big name tech company that went under. Elop released that if something didn’t happen and happen soon Nokia was going to pull a “Napster”. (remember them?) He sent out his now infamous “Burning Platform memo” and started to look for a new course for Nokia to chart.

How did Nokia get in this spot anyway?

Before we look at Nokia’s future let’s see how Nokia got into this spot to begin with.  As I stated before it was about a lack of change, Nokia was just not keeping up.  But why tends to be the question.

There was period of time when Nokia was the leader in cool form factors and useful technology.  Nokia pioneered a lot of advances that we all take for granted today, GSM calls, (aka SIM card), text messages, etc.. I won’t say that Nokia stopped trying they just stopped listening to the customer and were slow to respond to what they called “trends” in form factor.

Nokia dismissed the flip phone form factor as a “trend” and was slow to get on that band wagon. This was the start of the demise of Nokia in U.S. which was made even worse by the Nokia missing the boat on the “touchscreen trend” started by the iPhone.

In both cases Nokia did eventually put out great phones in both form factors it was just too little to late in the consumers mind.  I personally have used some great Nokia flip phones and one of  Nokia’s first touch screens the 5800. The 5800 was/is a great phone but frustrating to use if you were not familiar with Symbian.

Even at the time the 5800 came out all was not lost for Nokia, they had N900 which had it’s specs that was well ahead of anything on the market in 2009. Plus it’s Maemo 5 operating system Nokia had a bright future ahead of it.  But factions inside Nokia itself sabotaged it.

According to reports there was massive infighting over operating systems, with Symbian guys fighting for their platform and Maemo guys fighting for their platform. What was the outcome of all this infighting? Neither platform getting the attention it needed, Nokia spending massive amounts of money on R&D, and Nokia falling even further behind in the smartphone race.

To little to late

Recently Nokia has made great progress with both the Symbian and Maemo platforms but it is too late to save either of them.  With Symbian it’s was the release of Nokia Anna last year and the more recent release of Nokia Belle.  I believe if Symbian would have gotten Nokia’s full attention and Belle would have been release a year or two ago Symbian would be a top smartphone platform.

The same thing for Maemo….Some of you are saying to yourself right now “What do you mean there was no progress made with Maemo it was the just the N900 right?”  Nope, the “MeeGo” powered N9 is actually MeeGo/Hartmann, which is in reality Maemo 6.

If either one of these platforms would have gotten Nokia’s full attention they would have been a success. But since neither one did, that left Elop with only one choice.

Jump-ship and move on:

Now that it was clear Nokia could not use Symbian or MeeGo going forward choices were limited, Android or Windows Phone.  While the details of either talk was never reveled it is clear from what have seen now that Microsoft offered Nokia more financially and support wise than Google.

So after weeks of rumors wondering and guessing Nokia came out announced that they had struck a deal with Microsoft to use Windows Phone as their OS of choice in their smartphones for the next five years. This did not sit well with the Nokia faithful around the world and with yours truly.

The Nokia Faithful React:

During the first few months after the announcement the outrage over this change was HUGE and vocal.  The Nokia community felt betrayed, everything that we were told about Symbian, Qt, and even the upcoming MeeGo OS was taken away in one handshake.

I have never seen such outrage from the Nokia faithful with any-other move Nokia has made so far.   It ranged from stuff I dare not even type here, too I will never buy a Nokia phone again, too why not Android since it’s an open OS, etc.. Slowly either people accepted it or moved on to other manufacturers of phones running the Android OS.

Where is Nokia today?

Naturally the Windows Phone announcement effectively stated that Symbian is a “dead platform” and Nokia’s Symbian/smartphone sales plummeted quickly.  This meant not only only did Nokia start losing money at rate never seen before but they also had to develop and bring to market a Nokia Windows Phone quicker than anyone has ever seen before.

They did just that with launch of the Nokia Lumia series last year and the more recent launch of the Lumia 900.  Nokia has come charging out of the gate with a trio of Windows Phones.  The Lumia 800 has received critical acclaim and had sold well in the limited market that it was released in.  In fact according to some reports the Lumia 800 is far in away the most widely used 2nd Gen Windows Phone on the Market today.  Reports have the 800 as having sold well over one million units and blowing “experts” sales projections out of the water.

While this is nice start for Nokia, Nokia is still losing money at an alarming rate, and need to make massive cuts in workforce and ship all of Symbian’s R&D to Accenture just to remain competitive.

Nokia’s Future:

So what does all this mean for Nokia’s future? No one knows for sure… it all depends the success of  Windows Phone. As Nokia has stated many times “Plan B is that Plan A works”.  Plan A is Windows Phone which makes Plan B also Windows Phone.

So will Windows Phone succeed?  Ironically that all depends on Nokia, they need to take their”mobile know how” and make the Windows Phone experience better somehow.  Stephen Elop has stated that “..Windows Phone is just a platform to build off of..”  This means that with leeway Microsoft has given Nokia they plan on Nokiafying Windows Phone.

I believe that is “Nokiafication” of Windows Phone will happen with Windows Phone Apollo release and it will be the most important release Nokia has ever put out.  Nokia’s success as a company will hinge on that release, as Apollo goes Nokia goes.

Final Thoughts:

Now having a year to reflect on the Windows Phone move do I love it?  Not really but it is what it is.  I would have rather Nokia went forward with MeeGo and let the chips fall where they may. But ask me in a year again when Apollo is in full swing.

If you are an owner of a Symbian^3 phone, you probably have already updated to Nokia Belle. Many of those who updated are wondering how they can find more widgets or where are the ones that Nokia had presented but not released with this firmware update.

Well, we have good news for you. We have tons of widgets for you on our Forum and if you want to pick some, just head out to this topic.

Don’t forget to keep following us because we will bring more for you!

[Thanks to all DM Community that have contributed]

Microsoft has finally delivered on an announcement from Septemer 2011 about bringing their Business Apps to Nokia phones.  Microsoft Business Apps is a suite of productivity apps for those who have upgraded their Nokia Belle devices and is supported for Nokia N8, X7, C7, E7, E6 AND C6-1.

List of Microsoft Apps available for Symbian Belle Smartphones:

• Microsoft® Lync™ 2010 Mobile – for cost efficient IM, presence, audio and web meetings on-the-go.
• Microsoft® PowerPoint® Broadcast – quick broadcast of presentations directly from PC to mobile.
• Microsoft® OneNote™ – rich note taking with images. Syncs with Microsoft® SkyDrive®.
• Microsoft® Document Connection – single view to documents stored on mobile, including email attachments as well as documents on Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 sites.

If you went out and got a Nokia Astound last year from T-Mobile prepare to be confused. 

First a little back ground for those of you who are confused on what the Nokia Astound is.  The Nokia Astound is T-Mobile’s version of the Nokia C7, there are few minor changes to the C7 to make the Astound but it’s pretty much the same phone.  So one would assume when the Nokia Belle roll out came along the Astound would get the update. (Since the C7 is getting the Belle update)

But it was not to be, Astound user were confused on why their phone was not getting the Belle update and than Nokia Tweeted their answer.

So now instead of being confused on why the Belle update was not showing up on their phone they can now be confused on why their phone can’t get the Belle update.   I am guessing here that this is T-Mobile’s and Nokia’s way of pushing C7 users to Windows Phone powered Lumia 710.  Events like these is why I really don’t like branded phones and buy unlocked whenever possible.

VIA

Well that didn’t take long.  Literally hours after releasing and rolling out Nokia Belle,  it has already been hacked.  Details can be found in our very own forums.

The process is very similar to the procedure used to hack Symbian Anna, so those of you who have already done this shouldn’t have too much trouble with the new variant.  If you have never hacked, it would be easy if you follow our tutorial.  As with all hacks, please do so at your own risk and we take no responsibility for any damage cause to your devices.  Get the instructions here.

The 14th February is, if you do not know it, Valentine’s Day and it is just around the corner. But our Finnish neighbours treat Valentine’s Day a little bit different. It is about friendship. Valentine’s Day in Finland is referred to as “Ystavanpaiva”, which means ‘Friend’s Day’.

This year, let us celebrate Ystavanpaiva together by remembering our friends, family member or a fellow Nokia community member that you really appreciate. Here is my story below:

I am regularly in touch with my immediately family, mainly my brother and my sister. My sister and I have an unspoken bond that every 4-6 weeks we need and must see one another. My sister is the baby of the family and I am the eldest but we each take responsibility for the other. My brother and I keep in touch regularly, but I see him less frequently – with his nine children, there is little time for idle chit-chat with one’s sister. The rest of my family I see less frequently, generally around my break time from university so it appears to be every quarter.

However, a one day hospital operation last year, went very wrong with my waking up connecting to all sorts of contraptions and involving an extended stay in hospital on what should have been a three hour appointment. When I came home, my family rallied around. I cannot think of anyone who was not there for me. I was visited everyday, dinner was cooked, I was truly taken care of. Make no mistake, when you find yourself in the position I was in, it made all the difference. My mother is overseas but the family more than made up for her absence. I was left wanting for nothing. Therefore, I cannot choose one special person as my Finnish Valentine, my choice is a group of people and they are called my family. Ystavanpaiva! Happy Friend’s Day.

Who would you choose as your Finnish Valentine for Ystavanpaiva? Between now and the 14th write a post on your blog or via the methods below, about one of the best, most inspirational or caring friends in your life.

You can share your stories with Nokia connects via Twitter with #NokiaValentine or by leaving a comment below or via email.

We look forward to your stories.

There are times in life when you just need some sleep it doesn’t matter where you are, but sometimes the place is not conducive  to sleep enter what I like to call the “sleep combo pack”. 

The first app is called Bedside it is free and can be used on either your Symbian or Meego powered phone.  Simply put it transforms your phone into a digital clock, you can choose from various colors for the display and there is even a dimmer.

The second app is called Sleep Maker it cost $0.99 cents and it also can be used on either your Symbian or Meego powered phone.  This app is simply a sound machine, it has a nice array of sound choices and timer.  If you are running this app on a phone with less than 1ghz processor it is a little laggy but once it’s up and running it works just fine.

Here is a “combo pack” hands on that covers both of these apps.

You can download Bedside here and Sleep Maker here.

Pictured here is an artists conception of what the final Symbian smartphone might look like based on an outline drawing of the same phone.  Dubbed the Nokia 803, the last phone of it’s kind will sport some impressive features.

As already mentioned, the 803 will run Symbian Belle and utilize a 4 inch AMOLED display.  Other freatures include an HDMI out (mini) port, microSIM support and NFC.  Although details are still unclear, it’s rumoured to incorporate the largest camera sensor ever available on a mobile phone.  The Nokia 803 is due to be released sometime in May.

[VIA]

We all have already seen many videos of leaked versions of Nokia Belle but how about the official release? What changes this new firmware really brings? The site PockektNow has made an extensive review of this update for Symbian^3 powered devices, so check it on the video after the break.

[Via]

If you are one of many Symbian^3 users that has just updated to Nokia Belle and are enjoying all the new features, you will probably want to know this: Not all the applications that existed on Symbian Anna are compatible with Nokia Belle.

Nokia has released an official list of incompatible apps with the new firmware Nokia Belle so, if you are having problems or just wondering why you can’t install that app that you liked so much, you might wanna check the Nokia Official List of Incompatible Apps with Nokia Belle.

Have more apps that are not working or managed to make some of the apps from that list work? Share it at our forum!