NiklasSavander
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Nokia says it can customize the heck out of Windows Phone, won't do anything that would delay updates
In an interview with Nokia VP Niklas Savander at Mobile World Congress, Phone Scoop probed a bit more on the company's plans to rework the Windows Phone user experience -- a user experience that's been essentially closed to OEMs thus far apart from the occasional tile here or added menu item there. As we already heard from Stephen Elop, Nokia's essentially being granted carte blanche for deep customization of the platform, though Savander says that it's likely only to do that by pushing changes back to Microsoft for inclusion in future releases that would be available to every manufacturer, not just Nokia. What's the logic in that? Well, he says that they don't want to do anything to the software that would put the company at risk of getting delayed updates -- not unlike what's been happening with skinned UIs in the Android world for the past year and a half. Good call, Niklas. Meanwhile, more rapidly-deployed customizations would be relatively superficial, probably along the lines of HTC Hub if we had to guess. All told, it seems like the strategy is going to put even more pressure on Nokia to deliver differentiation and innovation on the hardware side -- and to be fair, they've risen to that challenge plenty of times in the last decade, so let's keep our fingers crossed.
Nokia says 'very small' number of N8s aren't turning on, warranty will cover it
We've been getting a few tips this week -- and seeing a few things on Twitter -- saying that N8s are failing in noticeable quantities, but we wanted to hold off until we'd figured out what was really going on. Well, Nokia's own Niklas Savander is commenting on the situation now -- so we'd say it's definitely real -- though he's insisting the number of affected units is "very small" and that the company's normal warranty rules apply, so owners of dead units should contact their local support number. That's all well and good, but getting service on a paperweight is still a bummer, especially when said phone is your primary means of communication -- so let's hope these guys turn around serviced devices in a hurry. What do you call a dead N8, by the way? N8 owner: A tragedy iPhone owner: DOA Android owner: About as useful as any other N8 N900 owner: A missed opportunity Store sales rep: Dummy unit Symbian Foundation employee: Justice Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo: Karma A goat: Dinner [Thanks, John]
Nokia's Savander: 'the Symbian Foundation will exist as an open source movement and we will use it'
The veracity of The Register's information regarding the Symbian Foundation's future remains to be seen -- but for what it's worth, Nokia's outspoken vice president of markets, Niklas Savander, seems to have some pretty strong language about the platform's future in a recent interview with CNET Asia. Here's the money quote in response to a question about whether Espoo will pull the Foundation's operations back in-house after having spun them off as an open-source operation in 2008: "I don't see any reason for that. What would be the benefit of doing that? We have made it open source, so it's, of course, up to the different users whether they want to use it. The whole notion behind the open-source community is that people can choose to leave or not to leave. We have quite a few Japanese vendors that are pushing Symbian products. The Symbian Foundation will exist as an open source movement and we will use it. Other people are welcome to use it if they want to. If they don't, that's not going to change things. That's how open source works." So Nokia's public-facing philosophy seems to be that they don't care who -- if anyone -- uses Symbian, they're going to continue to let the Foundation do its thing. Meanwhile, another part of the interview highlights the fact that they're still planning to continue to drive Symbian downmarket. Obviously, Nokia's internal roadmap could differ significantly from Savander's message, but so far, we don't have any hint from these guys that changes are afoot. That said, the Foundation's funding situation could force Nokia to take action if it wants the platform to continue to develop and evolve, but we suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Another interesting tidbit in the interview highlights the fact that one of new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop's edicts has been to significantly reduce the amount of time between a product's announcement and its release, which might be the driving force behind his decision to push the introduction of Nokia's first MeeGo products into 2011. As much as we hate waiting, we'd say that's a stellar direction for the company to take -- nothing builds animosity toward a product more than letting it waste away in a purgatory of unattainability (assuming your name isn't Eldar Murtazin) for six-plus months.
Nokia's VP talks N8, MeeGo 'milestone product,' tablets, Android and more!
Nokia's prepping for a fourth quarter launch of its MeeGo smartphone. The N8 will hit before the end of Q3. The company's absolutely not planning to use Android and a tablet isn't happening anytime soon. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the stuff we learned this morning during our captivating chat with Niklas Savander, Espoo's executive vice president and general manager of the Markets unit. With its quarterly profits dropping and losing daily (in mindshare, at least) to the Apples, HTCs and Motorolas of the world, we were certainly not lacking questions when we headed into the meeting, and Savander took on our questions about Nokia's short and long term plans with stride. We've got the key points of the interview bulleted out after the break -- and the full transcript after that.
