I find Nokia a fascinating company. Relegated to a bargain basement offering in North America, outside of that continent their phones are sought after. Perhaps not the way an iPhone is, but then Blackberry doesn’t have the cache on my island that it seems to have here in Canada either (helped in no small way by being RIM’s backyard).
Never the less, the launch of their Netbook is an interesting move. Most curious to me is the inclusion of a SIM card slot, which reverses the trend of phones with computer-like functionality and brings us a laptop with the portability accessibility of a mobile phone. It feels gimmicky, though Nokia’s Tero Ojanpera is on the cover of this month’s Fast Company, stating:
We will quickly be the world’s biggest entertainment network.
Big words from a hardware and software company. I have no crystal ball into Nokia’s future, but I can’t imagine the plan is anything as mundane as content exclusive to Nokia proucts in some capacity. We’re moving ever faster to a ubiquitously networked world of transportable identity, one that will be less and less beholden to business models (see the music industry for reference) and more beholden to consumer habits.
The other thing I’m thinking is they’re trying to boost developer support for their Symbian platform…actually the more I think about it, the more this seems to be a play that has nothing to do with the cloud, and everything to do with the device you have in your pocket. What I can’t wrap my head around is why anyone would look at the whole sale destruction of the music industry and still exist in a world where a device and content are somehow interminably linked.
I’m all ears if someone has a different take on this.
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