In an interview with TechRadar, Nokia expects to make an impact on the market once Microsoft’s Windows Phone Apollo rolls out. Windows Phone Apollo may be a codename for the highly anticipated Windows Phone 8 platform.
Nokia’s Executive Vice President of Markets, Niklas Savander, said that it would use the Windows platform to directly compete with Android. He said, “When you talk about differentiation, there are different ways of looking at it: the most common comparison is not between the Windows phones, but versus Android.”
In terms of offering something fresh to the market, Savander said, “When you look within the Windows Phone ecosystem and compare how the Lumia performs, there we have a contractual agreement with Microsoft for a certain amount of engineering which we can use for differentiation.
“However, we have to be very careful on how we use that one because we cannot fragment the developer ecosystem. If that starts forking, that’s not useful at all.
“We made the decision to go to Windows Phone when Mango was pretty much done, so we were able to impact some elements of it but you’ll really see the fruits of what we can do with Microsoft when the Apollo version of Windows Phone comes out.”
Since Microsoft has set a number of limitations for its platform, many have doubts if their Windows Phone handsets such as the Mango-powered Lumia 800 and 710 can compete with established Windows Phone manufacturers such as HTC with its Titan and Samsung with its Omnia W. Furthermore, people doubt if Nokia can compete with other platforms offered by the competition such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the Motorola Razr, and the Apple iPhone 4S.
Despite these limitations, Nokia does have unique features, which differentiates itself from everyone else. Sacander said, “The areas we can drive are design, navigation, imaging, and then there are many things we can do around how the product reaches the consumer, when it comes to distribution.
“We have a contractual ‘wiggle-room’ [with Microsoft], one of the things we’re working on with them is getting the price points of the phones down, we have a lot of engineering expertise they don’t have, and that’s going to serve us well.”
He did suggest that there were more Nokia-made Windows Phone handsets to come. However, he failed to say when they would be coming or if they would be running on the Apollo iteration of the Windows Phone platform.
He said, “Two phones is absolutely not enough in the market; it’s a good start, but there are new markets we need to conquer, and this is the beginning of our portfolio.”
Do you think Nokia armed with Windows Phone Apollo has what it takes to give both the iOS and Android a run for its money? Share your opinion.
