Slashdot Mirror
Nokia Losing its Cell Phone Dominance
supersandra writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that Nokia is struggling to offer features, such as cameras and flip-phones, that are luring customers away to phones by other brands such as Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens. While Nokia used to account for 1 in every 3 phones sold worldwide, they are down to 28.9 percent. Nokia plans to bring 35 new phone models to market this year to win back more users."
Hopefully more competition will give us new features on phones and maybe a drive for better service.
Free Flat Screen
I know I'm leaving Sprint, which sells and promotes tons of Nokia phones, because T-Mobile offers camera phones and (most importantly) BLUETOOTH.
Every other major cell phone service provider has had bluetooth compatible phones for a while, but not Sprint. If people are leaving the providers that Nokia sells the majority of their phones thought, they will definatly be losing marketshare.
~Donald
~Donald / Just RTFM
What happened to mobile (cell) phones that just make phone calls and send SMS? They're turning rather rapidly into PDAs.
SSdtIGFzIGJvcmVkIGFzIHlvdSBhcmUK
What i think the oohone market shoudl look at moving to is custom phones, or at lest semi custom.
Order body X, featuers Y,ZA and C.
I put off geting a new phone becase i couldnt get what i wanted, in the end i finaly had to get a compromise, but thats life i guess.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
This seems a bit overkill to me. I feel like this is more of a knee-jerk reaction than a solid business move for some reason. Perhaps the real question is not "how far can we boost our market share with these 35 new phones," but instead should be "what's wrong with our existing phones?"
Realistically, you shouldn't have to add this many different products to your line to snag the coveted clamshell and camera buyers.
I bought a Motorola MPX200 a little under a year ago because I could write software for the damned thing, but before that I had always been a Nokia owner. Clearly, this is not a standard line of reasoning for most buyers. Nevertheless, perhaps Nokia should make it a little more obvious where their SDKs live for their phones and hold student developer contests or something.
iRooster, the Mac OS X a
Who would ever need a Nokia when SonyEricsson has the P910!
The _perfect_ phone/PDA.
Nokia is too expensive. For half the price I can buy Siemens with the same functionality.
SHE does throw dice.
N'way, my point being that by the time some of those new handsets make it to market here many consumers may just be starting to forget about Nokia. Credit where it's due though, T-mobile got the 6600 out fairly fast. But then they're not an American (or CDMA) carier either. Just my $0.02
The real bummer about this is that Nokia has far and away the most open platform for development of any phone manufacturer. They provide a huge array of sdk's and example code for both symbian and j2me developers.
Contrast this with an LG phone running brew on verizon and you have to pay all kinds of money and jump through all kinds of hoops just to write an app that verizon decides it doesn't want to distribute anyway.
My (very small) company is developing a cellphone app, and the costly barrier for starting Brew/Verizon devleopment is preventing us from using that platform. You pay through the nose for the development suite, then it's 300 bucks to register as a qcomm developer, then you have to jump through all of these verisign hoops to get a DRM key to sign your apps with, then you have to mail in your phone to be flashed into development mode, then you have to deal with verizon for distribution.
Meanwhile we're downloading compilers, tools, and example apps off the net for the nokia symbian platform that just work on an unmodded handset we bought at the store.
I think they could increase their sales a bit if they'd offer a phone that JUST MAKES CALLS. I don't want to play games. I don't want voice features. I don't mind customized rings, but I don't need them either. I especially don't want the bloody animations whenever I do anything with the phone- I just want it to do whatever it was I asked it, and then stop showing off so I can press more keys without waiting for the phone!!!
I can't believe I'm alone- there must be a lot more folks out there who just want a phone!
Because the old models are more durable than anything by Motorola, Samsung, or the rest.
.0001 inches), or a cheap Chinese knockoff. I've got a Federal indicator that's pre *WWII* by the looks of it. It's just as smooth and accurate as anything new.
I've dropped mine on concrete, had it go skidding 'cross the shop floor, etc etc etc.
It still works. The only thing it could use is a new plastic shell.
I dropped a Motorola *once*. Within a week, the screen died.
My Nokia is an old 3390. It doesn't fold in half and doesn't have an external antenna. It doesn't have a camera. It doesn't have a fancy qwerty thumb keyboard. The display is rugged. Since the case is an external component to the phone itself, cracking the case isn't always going to crack the phone itself.
IOW, it's well engineered, even for a cheap phone. This probably (definitely) means that people aren't replacing them as often as say...Motorola phones.
It's like whether you buy a Federal Products dial indicator (I've got 3, plus 2 CDI indicators graduated in
You can have my 3390 when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
--
BMO
I know the reputation that clamshells have (and it's at least partially deserved) but having owned a variety of phones (flip phones and otherwise) IMO clamshells absolutely cannot be beat for convenience.
One big issue I have is that I do a lot of travel, and depend on my cell phone for client communications. That means being able to answer the phone quickly when a client or contact calls (frequently I find that if I miss a call, it may be *days* before I can contact that client again).
The thing I like about flip phones is that you open it to take a call, and close it to finish the calls. With non-flip phones, you can leave the keyboard unlocked to take calls, but then you have to deal with accidently dialing people when the phone is in your pocket or bag. Or, you can lock the keyboard, but that gets in the way when you want to make a call, or want to receive a call and you can't forget the unlock combination or the "quick key" to answer the call.
My next phone will most definitely be a flip phone.
The second reason is the clamshell models have a better 'ear to mouth' length advantage, which is difficult to obtain with the 'block' design unless you want to make the phone 'thin and long' like one of those Sanyo models, which again are more prone to breakage.
The third reason is the 'ear frying' problem with some of the non-clamshell models (I have noticed this problem with many 'block' phones, atleast when they are new). Because of the proximity of the heat producing components to the earpiece and due to conduction, the region around the earpiece becomes quite warm to cause significant discomfort. But this problem is non-existant with the clamshell, because the bulk of the heat producing electronics is away from the earpiece with little or no conduction.
The fourth reason being the less scratch prone screen and buttons. Also you dont have the problem of accidental dialing from the speed dial buttons when carrying around, or the discharge of the battery from the frequent turn on due to the accidental key presses.
The case of Nokia is like a 'hare and tortoise' story, they were sleeping when the others were running. If you have observed the company, there was not much activity atleast for the past 18 months, not many new phones or variety (like clamshell or camera phones). Not much of advertising, so they were effectively getting erased from the collective memory of the consumers. They were in the hibernate mode, now you see the results.
The ability to clacklist certain numbers would get me buying a phone. It's #1 on my desired features list for my next phone, which is probably why I haven't yet bought an other phone - NO phones seem to offer the ability to blacklist (or auto decline) the most important number of all - Number Withheld. If Nokia actually implemented useful functionality such as this in just ONE of their phones instead of concentrating in making them look weird/stupid and play ever larger numbers of Java games, they'd have earned a sale from me, that's for sure.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
OTOH, my startac, maybe three years old, is mechanically in very good condition. I had to replace my original because it got water in it and rusted the electronics. It may be that new phones are not as durable, but that is true across the board.
Frankly I would be terribly afraid to carry around those long thin phones. I think it would be very easy to accidently develop enough torque at the midpoint to snap it. Even more silly are those phones that have a bulge for the antennae.
Also, I have no need to pay for such overengineering. My temper is well under control, i stay away from psychos, and if I want at attack someone i live in a state where i can carry gadgets made for such a purpose.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
is a mobile phone that takes 2 sim cards and can use both at the same time.
I have a mobile phone of my own, up to now I've not taken a work phone as I don't want to take 2 phones with me everywhere. surely it can't be too difficult to have 2 sims in a phone, both acive so that you can get calls on either number (each having it's own contract and possibly, different operator) and the phone call tell you who it's from and what number it's going to, so you can see at a glance what the situation is. ideally you could maintain 2 seperate address books too, ie a work and a home one (possibly a field in a single address book maybe)
yes, you can get dualo sim adapters for phones, but thats crap as it's an "either or" situation. you can only have 1 active at once which isn't good enough. I have my home phone on my desk at work and no-one minds if I get personal calls on it.
dave