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Nokia Announces Return To Smartphone, Tablet Markets (nokia.com)
Nokia is making a return to phones and tablets. The Finnish company on Wednesday announced that it will license its brand and IP to a newly created company called HMD global. The company in question, Nokia says, will produce and sell a range of Android smartphones and tablets. The company has also inked a deal with Microsoft to acquire the rights to use Nokia brand name on feature phones and also utilize some design elements. Nokia veteran Arto Nummela will assume the CEO position when the deal is closed, which is expected to happen by the end of June.
Microsoft announced today that it has sold the remainings of Nokia's feature phone business to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn. As part of the deal, FIH Mobile paid a sum of $350 million to Microsoft. Interestingly, HMD global and FIH Mobile already have a collaborative agreement in place to support the building of a global business for Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets. Nokia says it will set mandatory brand requirements and performance-related provisions for the new devices.
Microsoft announced today that it has sold the remainings of Nokia's feature phone business to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn. As part of the deal, FIH Mobile paid a sum of $350 million to Microsoft. Interestingly, HMD global and FIH Mobile already have a collaborative agreement in place to support the building of a global business for Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets. Nokia says it will set mandatory brand requirements and performance-related provisions for the new devices.
I liked them for their hardware. Even as late as just before the sell of their hardware department to Microsoft, they were making tough, well designed phones. I had their short-lived Nokia 810, which I used for five years until I realized it wasn't getting any updates ever again (W10 beta program not withstanding). They also have a decent mapping application with Nokia HERE, which stayed with Nokia proper after the sell. If they can show us their hardware products are still good, they can protect their perception even as an embattled chimera.
I so wish Nokia would bring back the N900 line. I'm not talking about N9 (which was still better than anything Android/iOS/Windows based), but about a proper pocketable micro-laptop. As far as phone capabilities go, N900 wasn't stellar even in its heyday, but as a mobile computer there's nothing new that would even approach its usability.
An on-screen keyboard is semi-adequate for writing a SMS or maybe a Fecesbook status update. On N900, especially if you replace pull-down symbols with proper key setup you can type more conveniently than on a laptop's keyboard. I've spent many a night hacking in bed without bothering to get up and get to the big computer, so did I ssh to do some postgres or network administration when at a client. And you don't even need ssh -- gcc/perl/etc work fine (within limits of 256MB RAM and one-core ARM). N900 is a full-blown computer that fits in your pocket.
You can buy attachable keyboards for modern phones, but these are hardly usable. For heavy-duty use, the keyboard needs to be engineered in rather than an afterthought.
So go Nokia, there's your chance.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
They need to do what no one else is doing anymore: flip smartphones and physical keyboards.
There are millions of folks that despise touch typing on a screen, butt-dialing, not to mention sure three-figure damage when dropping that glass-faced slab 'butter side down' (which are now so large they no longer fit in anything save back pockets).
They would even be willing to learn how to say 'Shut up and take my money' in Suomi.
As an aside, I find it humorous how many TV and movie directors refuse to give up on their actors using flip phones, as pushing a virtual button on a flat plane of glass when hanging up ain't very dramatic.