Tuesday, September 3, 2013

No-Soft?

Admist the hegemony of Android and iOS,Nokia had a very tough decision ahead of them,whether to ditch their proprietary OSes,and adopt the burgeoning Android,or try and work up on MeeGo.Nokia arguably has the best hardware out there in the market,which is why many longed for its marriage with Android,to get possibly the best smartphone.But,Nokia entrusted itself with the nascent Windows,a move which raised a lot of eye-brows.

Both Nokia,and Microsoft are no strangers to the mobile world,but when did decided to join hands,both were still struggling to set a foothold in the smartphone category.With both having a soft corner for each other,other OEMs must have felt a bit snubbed by Microsoft's partial treatment towards Nokia.To an extent,both helped each other a bit,with the launch of Lumia series.

The Lumia series of phones were a healthy change for Windows,from the secondary designed HTCs and Samsungs.Though it was pretty much an extension on the N9,it was something new and refreshing for the Windows line of phones.Nokia had the perfect hardware,the AMOLEDs,Carl Zeiss lenses,but yet again,the OS failed on it.Nokia was let down by the software counterpart.Though,it still continued to put its soul into it,while Microsoft continued its dainty updates.

Ballmer's retirement plans,speculations turned up of Stephen Elop being his successor.And with those,rose rumours of Microsoft acquiring Nokia.Given the kind of relation between the two companies over the years,the move seemed quite plausible.

With the formal announcement of both,the future of Nokia phones,for series other than Lumia seems shaky.For starters,Microsoft now has control over Lumia and Asha series.While Lumia will continue to work its way up,Asha series will have a tough time surviving,without Nokia's aid.Basically,Nokia has signed itself off from the smartphone game with this move.
Also,Nokia still has an huge influx in the lower end phone market,owing to its credibility.Nokia brand still has control over the Series-30 and Series-40 phones,but the huge question still remains whether Nokia will continue making these phones.If not,it would be the demise of one of the greatest powerhouses of the phone market.
On a plus side though,like Apple and to an extent Google,Microsoft now has total control on not only the software,but also the hardware.With deep integration of both hardware and software,Windows could produce its own Nexus or iPhone.

It feels like yesterday when you owned the sturdy 3310,playing snakes for hours at end,or the communicator,which seemed like the smallest laptop,or the pioneer of mobile gaming,the NGage,or even the humongous 40+ mp camera on the PureView.Flip,touch,slide,QWERTY,they did it all,but somehow they were beaten at their own game.

With the announcement of the merger,came a very sad news of demise of one the best innovators of the phone industry.Maybe it was all pre-planned with the Nokia and Windows phone marriage,and they were just waiting for the right time to get the ball rolling on this.Anyway,here's hoping this marriage gives us more options in the smartphone category and revives Nokia!

Or well,maybe 9GAG sums it up best!(Image credits : 9GAG)

No comments:

Post a Comment