New Nokia app lets you look straight "through" the Earth...

When Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced earlier this year that the company would be abandoning the Symbian OS platform, nobody would at the time have predicted the kind of stuff that we are now seeing on new Nokia handsets.

Quite the opposite in fact - being a long time Nokia supporter, I got nicely bombarded from all quarters about what a sinking ship Nokia was fast becoming.
Even so, when it came to upgrade time, I stuck to my guns and patiently awaited my shiny new Nokia E7.
Thankfully, it was the right choice - for me at least. Not everyone likes the same stuff - that's just life and human nature.

Having already laid massive praise on the E7, I was getting a bit bored with the apps on my phone this week, so I decided to head over to Nokia Beta Labs - the place where Nokia puts up their pre-release apps.
Apps that you find here are often experimental and can be buggy, due to their Beta nature.
Not a problem for me - I don't mind a bit of Beta testing if it means some funky new apps for my phone!

The one that caught my eye is called "Nokia 3D World Gaze" - the title alone got me interested.
Now Augmented Reality is nothing new - in simple terms, it allows capable devices to give their users feedback about the world around them, or their immediate surroundings, by making use of GPS, AGPS, Accelerometers, Compasses and the Internet.

For example - you could point your phone at the sky, and the screen would display the constellations, star names and Meisser objects accurately, at that precise location, at that exact time of day or night.
It's a world of information in your hands, and it makes for a lot of fun in this new Nokia app.

Nokia 3D World Gaze first locates you via GPS and AGPS. It then works out your orientation via compass readings.
What you get is a virtual of view of the world around you, when you hold your phone up to the horizon, or even down, looking "through" the Earth.
Ever wondered where you would end up if you were to drill a hole straight down through the Earth, until you came out the other side?
Well guess what, if you are in South Africa, then it 'aint China!

According to Nokia 3D World Gaze, it is in fact, Hawaii!
The application also features layers that you can turn on and off - a News layer which provides contextually relevant headlines, a Photos layer which pops up photos of places in the area where you are aiming your phone at, and a places of interest layer, which provides info about places of interest related to where you are currently looking.

The software is nicely slick as well - move the phone around in a different direction, and the view and content update is quick and seamless.

Check out some screenshots:

Well done Nokia - this is some seriously cool software, and it is good to see that despite partnering with Microsoft (which in itself will prove a great move, I think), there is still a whole lot of work being done to keep Symbian competitive while Nokia devices still carry the software.

The recent Symbian Anna update has also added a lot to the operating system, with the upcoming Symbian Belle update promising a whole lot more.
Keep 'em coming Nokia!

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Nokia and Microsoft announce plans for a broad strategic partnership to build a new global ecosystem...

Just got this breaking news in my inbox from Nokia...

Must have been what Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was talking about in my earlier blog post...

Nokia and Microsoft announce plans for a broad strategic partnership to build a new global ecosystem

Companies plan to combine assets and develop innovative mobile products on an unprecedented scale

Nokia Corporation
Stock exchange release
February 11, 2011 at 9.30 (CET +1)

London, Feb. 11, 2011 - Nokia and Microsoft today announced plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity.  As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution.  Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets. 

Under the proposed partnership:

- Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

- Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone.  Nokia would contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

- Nokia and Microsoft would closely collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

- Bing would power Nokia's search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing's next generation search capabilities.  Microsoft adCenter would provide search advertising services on Nokia's line of devices and services.

- Nokia Maps would be a core part of Microsoft's mapping services.   For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft's Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience

- Nokia's extensive operator billing agreements would make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.

- Microsoft development tools would be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem's global reach. 

- Nokia's content and application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.

"Today, developers, operators and consumers want  compelling mobile products, which include not only the device, but the software, services, applications and customer support that make a great  experience," Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO, said at a joint news conference in London. "Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It's now a three-horse race."

"I am excited about this partnership with Nokia," said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. "Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale. The partnership announced today provides incredible scale, vast expertise in hardware and software innovation and a proven ability to execute."

Please visit www.nokia.com/press for press materials. 

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Leaked Nokia memo spells big possible shake-up for the Finns...

An internal memo (apparently authentic) leaked to Engadget earlier today, spells out the clear frustration of Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, at Nokia's inability to keep up with the competition after losing market share to the opposition in the form of Apple, Google and others.

Image by luca.sartoni via Flickr

I have republished the full memo below - it makes for some very interesting reading and I look forward to see what changes Elop will propose in the near future, in order to try and kerb the downward Nokia trend...


Hello there,

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

Over the past few months, I've shared with you what I've heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I'm going to share what I've learned and what I have come to believe.

I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.

And, we have more than one explosion - we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.

For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.

In 2008, Apple's market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry's innovation to its core.

Let's not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally - taking share from us in emerging markets.

While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.

At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.

At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, "the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation." They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.

And the truly perplexing aspect is that we're not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we've lost market share, we've lost mind share and we've lost time.

On Tuesday, Standard & Poor's informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody's took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.

Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It's also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.

How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?

This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally.

Nokia, our platform is burning.

We are working on a path forward -- a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.

The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.

Stephen.

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