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(Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) DUBAI – Like other parts of the world, smartphones segment is growing fast in Gulf and Nokia will continue to invest in the region, general manager of lower Gulf Vithesh Reddy said.

Reddy claims that at least six out of 10 consumers use Nokia devices in the Middle East. Including other models, the world’s largest maker of cellphones by volume sold 12 million smartphones, accounting for €1.7 billion sales in the first quarter of 2012.

“In Gulf, I see opportunities are very interesting because these are countries with high GDP [gross domestic product] and a lot of people are very trendy and want to have latest and greatest gadgets or devices,” Reddy told Khaleej Times in an interview.

Citing another reason, he said: “We noticed and acknowledged that the Middle East consumers tend to replace a little bit more frequently compared to other markets.”

Nokia recently introduced its Asha device, means hope in Hindi, in the Middle East market, which is available with starting price of Dh288 and it goes more than Dh500 for dual-sim model. It will be officially launched on tomorrow in Dubai.

Talking about Asha, Reddy said it’s targeting a huge community of expatriates who cannot afford $500 smartphone. “Asha can download apps and you can even get push mails,” he added.

Reddy got his new position as general manger for lower Gulf GCC excluding Saudi Arabia and Yemen, after more than seven years of association with the Finnish company. “My priorities in my point of view is to continue investing and supporting our consumers through specifically retail experience as I think retails is very important,” he said.

Nokia launched its new line of Lumia-branded Windows phones last year. It started selling two Lumia models in November and unveiled two more this year in America. The Middle East launch of Nokia’s Windows phones is still awaited.

Defending the delay for Windows phone in the region, Reddy said that it’s a new platform and the company wants to ensure local relevance, local apps and Arabic is key requirements.

“We don’t want to compromise on consumer expectations and we are waiting for everything is ready for consumers before the launch of Lumia device in the region.”

He said: “We are very keen to see the success of our Windows strategy on our smartphones side.” Without mentioning the date, he said there will be a major announcement for the Windows phone in the region in near future.

“In the regional market it needs to be the best experience and it needs to be locally relevance that’s why we will do so carefully,” he added.

In the region the company is very much focused on local apps and local relevance and that’s the reason it records four million downloads per week in GCC. Most popular downloads are social networks such as facebook and twitter, Reddy said, adding that Saudi Arabia is ranked six globally in downloads.

“We have over 90,000 apps at the moment and out of that we have got over 2,500 local apps,” he added.

The Middle East market is very important for Nokia and the company had a lot of success in this market and Nokia is still a leading mobile vendor.

“We will keep investing in this market and also support local developers to go global,” he said.

Citing an example, he said in Kuwait a 19-years old student’s app, through Nokia store, touched by consumers in Paris, Singapore and Thailand.

Nokia devices are well designed and it’s very important along with innovation, he said, adding that delivering a right consumer experience is the company’s priority. I can humbly say: “We are serious what we want to do and where we want to go.”

Talking about competition with android and other app stores, he said Nokia respects competition and also enjoy competition. For us it’s a marathon rather than race, he added.

Direct billing

For the first time in the UAE, Nokia offers its consumers the option to purchase content from the Nokia Ovi store and directly bill them to their mobile operator either etisalat or du. Customers are able to conveniently and securely pay for any applications via their respective operator account and the costs will be automatically accrued. The service will either be charged as part of the customer’s monthly bill for post-paid accounts, or against their pre-paid airtime credit total.

The Nokia Ovi store is a one-stop-shop where consumers can download mobile games, applications, videos, images and personalized content to their Nokia devices and Nokia smart phones. Globally, Nokia consumers download over five million apps a day.

In addition to mobile account billing, consumers will continue to have the existing payment option via credit card. The mobile account billing is now available in the UAE and Saudi Arabia by four telecom operators, Reddy said. Main beneficiaries of this option are operators and developers on the one hand and consumer on the other hand, he added.

abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com

(c) 2012 Khaleej Times. All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company

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Users Spreading the Word via Facebook, Twitter and Email Receive 250 MB Free Music Storage for Each Friend Registering to MyMusicCloud

New York, NY (PRWEB) April 23, 2012

When you find something great, you naturally want to share it with your friends. MyMusicCloud is now rewarding users who have friends register for the cloud music service. From the MyMusicCloud Web application, users can invite friends with a unique link through Facebook, Twitter and email. For every friend who completes registration to the cloud music service, the user will receive 250 MB of additional cloud music storage for free (up to 3 GB).

MyMusicCloud was the first cloud music service to enable users to access and enjoy music across various brands and types of devices as well as different operating systems. The unique cloud music service has been featured on BBC World News and RollingStone.

MyMusicCloud enables users to sync their iTunes and other media players across virtually every type of mobile phone, tablet or personal computer, including BlackBerry, iPhone, Android phones, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola. Users with multiple device types can use MyMusicCloud as one seamless, cross-platform solution. For example, users can sync and listen to all of their music on an Apple iPad together with an Android, BlackBerry or Nokia phone. The synching of the music is all done over the air and automatically, without the need for a USB cable or a ”sync” button.

MyMusicCloud also enables users to sync music files from their Dropbox account, buy music from the store, view songs’ lyrics, crop ringtones and share their music taste with Facebook friends.

Availability and Pricing

MyMusicCloud is free and is available at http://www.mymusiccloud.com. MyMusicCloud offers online storage of up to 2 GB of songs for free and the ability to purchase additional storage starting at $10 annually for an additional 5 GB. Users in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. can purchase and download music from the MyMusicCloud store. The store offers over 11 million songs for prices starting at $0.19. More information about MyMusicCloud can be found at http://www.mymusiccloud.com, Facebook and Twitter.

About TriPlay

TriPlay is a premier cloud services company, enabling users worldwide to easily access, manage, share and enjoy their music, photos and videos across any computer, mobile phone, tablet and Web-enabled television. TriPlay is a privately held company with offices in New York and Israel. More information about TriPlay can be found at http://www.triplay.com.

Media Contact:

Ann Krauss

PERCEPTURE

Phone: 520.331.2327

ann(at)percepture(dot)com

©TriPlay. All Rights Reserved. TriPlay and MyMusicCloud are trademarks or registered trademarks of TriPlay in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks are used for identification purposes only and remain the property of their respective owners.                            

###

Ann Krauss
Percepture
520-331-2327
Email Information

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Telecom Lead India: Vserv.mobi, a global mobile
advertising network for app developers, has appointed Vikas Gulati as vice
president of business development for South East Asia.

Based in Singapore, Vikas will be looking after the
company’s growth in this
region.    

“Over the last two years, Vserv.mobi has grown to be an
admirable company in the segment. With our differentiating proposition in the
marketplace, we are attractively poised to capitalize on this growing demand of
the mobile medium amongst developers, publishers and advertisers in South East
Asia,” said Vikas Gulati, vice president , business development, Vserv.mobi.

Having over 14 years of experience, recently, Vikas was
serving as vice president, marketing and business development, Asia at
Sprice.com, which is an online travel network (now a part of Travelport).

At Sprice, Vikas was instrumental in raising the
company’s revenues and company profile in Asia Pacific through business
development, partnerships and marketing programs.

“Expanding our operations in the burgeoning mobile market
of South East Asia is a key phase of our growth strategy. Vikas’ solid
experience and customer relationships in this region will help us leverage
newer opportunities and strengthen our goal of being the #1 Mobile Ad Network
in emerging markets,” said Dippak Khurana, co-founder and CEO of Vserv.mobi.

Vserv.mobi generates 5 US$ eCPM global monetization for app
developer from South-East Asia on Nokia Ovi

Last year, Vserv.mobi announced that it
generates maximum Ad-monetization for No. 1 App Developer Company, Twist
Mobile, from South-East Asia on Nokia Ovi store.

Twist Mobile is the 1st Asian company to receive
10MN downloads on Nokia Ovi with a total of 15 apps in their portfolio.

editor@telecomlead.com

Moving forward, Nokia also unveiled The Lumia 900 recently, the company’s first 4G LTE phone powered by Window 7.5 Mango available in the US market through ATT on a $100 contract. The handset became the top seller at Amazon Wireless and Shakers list with the cyan variant boasting 394 percent growth in the first few days. It then outperformed the sales of iOS and Android devices in other retail stores.

Nokia Lumia 900 sports fresh vivid looks and all hefty features including a 4.3-inch Clear Black AMOLED display with 480 X 800 pixel resolution. The handset is powered by 1.4GHz single-core processor and has 512MB of RAM, 16GB internal memory storage but no microSD slot. Further, Lumia 900 is equipped with an 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens camera at 3264 x 2448 pixels of resolution including features like autofocus, geo-tagging, dual LED flash and 720p video capture. Further, it also features a 1-megapixel front-facing camera.

The latest smartphone also boasts an 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connection and has 2.1+A2DP Bluetooth. Nokia Lumia 900 also comes loaded with a standard Li-lon 1800 mAh battery with up to 300 hours of stand-by, 7 hours of talk time and 60 hours of music play.

Consumers are also impressed with spectacular specifications of the new handset and the new Windows 7.5 Mango OS which brings more than 500 new features including dynamic Live Tile Information, Twitter and LinkedIn integration in the People hub.

While Nokia 808 PureView availability for the US market has not still been announced, it is difficult to predict the sales figures of the particular handset. However, there will still be a smartphone-enthusiast crowd who would want this particular device as the 808 pureview could be a great alternative to digital point and shoot camera.

Here are the listed features of Nokia 808 PureView which come along with its powerful camera. Take a look:

Display: PureView sports a 4-inch super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels and 184 ppi pixel density. The smartphone also comes with Corning Gorilla Glass display protection.

Processor and Memory: PureView will come with 1.3 GHz ARM 11, 16 GB internal user memory that can be expanded up to 48 GB with an external microSD memory card. The phone will also have 1 GB ROM and 512 MB RAM.

Operating System: The 808 PureView runs on Nokia’s new Belle operating system, which is built with the same underpinnings as the abandoned SymbianOS. 

Camera: This is the best feature of 808 PureView. The latest Nokia phone sports an amazing 41 megapixel rear camera (38 MP effective) and one VGA front camera for video calling. The 808 PureView camera features full-screen 16:9 viewfinder with easy on-screen touch controls, Xenon flash with operating range up to 3.5 m depending on conditions, automatic fill-flash, LED for video recording, Auto focus and touch-to-focus, face detection and three shooting modes: Auto, Scenes, Creative, ND filter and up to 3x loseless digital zoom. While the Lumia 900 has geo-tagging, touch focus technologies.

Size: Nokia 808 PureView comes with a dimension of 123.9 x 60.2 x 13.9 mm and volume of 95.5 cc and weighs only 169 grams. 

Connectivity: PureView supports 14.4 Mbps download speed and 5.76 Mbps upload speed.

User Interface: Nokia 808 PureView smartphones use Nokia ClearBlack display user interface.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: The PureView will support Wi Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, UPnP technology along with Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP, microUSB (MHL) 2.0 version and USB On-the-Go and NFC.

Battery: The PureView will come loaded with Standard Li-Ion 1400 mAh (BV-4D) that gives up to 540 hours of standby time and up to 6 hours 50 minutes of talk-time in 3G.

Other Features: PureView will come packed with features like SNS integration, Accelerometer, proximity, compass, Stereo FM radio with RDS; FM transmitter active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic, HDMI port, MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player, MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player, Voice command/dial, Document viewer, Video/photo editor, Predictive text input.

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In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, a vegetable just got a biometric based Aadhar (UIDAI) bearing the number : 49911866 5246. The card was sent to an address which is yet another mix of vegetables.

The blooper occurred in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. An Aadhaar card, bearing the number 49911866 5246, was issued in the name of Mr Kothimeer (coriander), son of Mr ‘Pulav’. In the address section, it was mentioned as Gongura Thota (Hibiscus Cannabinus), Mamidi Kaya Vuru (raw mango village) of Jambuladinne Mandal in Anantapur district.

The card displayed the photo of a mobile phone against the name of the card holder.

I hope it was a Nokia phone. I almost wanted to post this under “This is funny” category but this is rather serious.

“It is probably a prank played by someone who wanted to tell us how casually the process of data collection is done in villages. The private agencies entrusted with the job have no understanding of the job,” said Opposition Telugu Desam Party MLA from the district P Keshav.

This is nothing but dereliction of duties. I’m not sure who wouldn’t understand a job like this. Leaving all the names aside, how can one post the image of a mobile phone for the card holder picture?

UIDAI is the most ambitious project undertaken by Indian government and it probably is the most ambitious in the world. It is a project to collect biometric information of India’s citizens. 200 million biometrics have already been collected and UIDAI numbers were issued, which is the most by any country. Budget has been allocated to collect for 400 million more.

The benefits of a UIDAI number are numerous. It will bring banking to the unbanked, automatic transfers directly to the bank accounts for welfare schemes, can be used as an identity card for anything from getting a mobile phone to securing a cooking gas connection. UIDAI isn’t just about convenience. It probably is the single most important tool to root out corruption.

When money ceases to be cash and everything is done electronically and thus accounted for, the billions of dollars which are being embezzled from the welfare schemes will find a new and right destination. It will go the people who it was intended for. Of course it can’t stop the high-end scams like what we saw in 2G spectrum but everything else which directly effects the common man will change.

That is the gravity of UIDAI. Thought it tickles a funny bone, a goof up on such a matter is simply not acceptable.

Source : TribuneIndia Via : Medianama. Image from johnandgill’s flickr stream

Promo video shot with 41MP Nokia phone

In a stylish new promo video (below), Nokia has chosen to show the photo and video capturing prowess of its 41-megapixel 808 PureView smartphone. Instead of simply recording the phone at work, the video itself was shot entirely using the 808, taking advantage of its 41-megapixel resolution to zoom in and out of scenes without losing detail.

Shot across a range of locations, the video shows the phone being used to capture photos and video of an array of colorful scenes. Meanwhile, the ad touts the responsiveness and social awareness of the device, focusing on sharing the images and videos users would generate.

The camera is the major selling point for the PureView, which will be one of the last smartphones from Nokia running on its soon to be defunct Symbian OS. In addition to 41-megapixel image capture, the phone can record 1080p video and record sounds as loud as 140dB without clipping or harsh noises. Electronista recently went hands-on with the PureView, finding it a tempting option, if only for the camera itself.

The reliance on the Symbian OS, as opposed to a more vital platform, was a negative point, though Nokia representatives have raised the possibility of the phone moving to the Windows Phone platform, which could amount to something of a coup for Microsoft.

By Electronista Staff

Share the Article

Nokia gave its new Lumia smartphone a splashy launch this month. The phone runs on a new Microsoft operating system and is a key part of the Finnish company’s efforts to regain market share. But on Thursday, Nokia admitted that its new phone isn’t connecting with consumers.

Apple’s (AAPL) potential loss can be Amazon’s (AMZN) gain if the Department of Justice successfully hits Apple with charges of collusion in the e-book market.

Several of the publishers that were charged along with Apple have already thrown up the white flag and settled, but Apple is fighting. The charges? The government’s case couldn’t have been laid out better than by Steve Jobs himself in his biography:

Amazon screwed it up. It paid the wholesale price for some books, but started selling them below cost at $9.99. The publishers hated that — they thought it would trash their ability to sell hardcover books at $28. So before Apple even got on the scene, some booksellers were starting to withhold books from Amazon. So we told the publishers, ‘We’ll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway.’ But we also asked for a guarantee that if anybody else is selling the books cheaper than we are, then we can sell them at the lower price too. So they went to Amazon and said, ‘You’re going to sign an agency contract or we’re not going to give you the books. One Apple analyst tells Bloomberg that choosing to fight it can cost as much as $200 million, which is approximately nothing for such a cash-rich company as Apple.

E-books will most definitely be cheaper if this gets broken up. The winners will be readers, gloats Amazon, especially Kindle owners, who can bask in the glory of Amazon’s habit of undercutting competitors on price. Then again, as CNET notes, the DOJ’s case is pretty weak since Apple wasn’t present for the alleged breakfast meeting where the collusion took place.

Investors seem to be optimistic about Google (GOOG) ahead of its earnings statement this afternoon. Investors are expecting earnings of $9.64 per share for the last quarter. The stock is trading up 1.88% today and at $644.78.

Forget the talk of a “post-PC age.” Personal computer shipments actually rose last quarter by 1.9%, according to Gartner, a technology research firm. A 1.2% drop was predicted. PC sales are slowly recovering from the hard-drive shortage caused by the Thailand floods. Shipments might get another boost later this year after Microsoft (MSFT) officially launches Windows 8.

Yesterday, Nokia’s (NOK) stock dropped 15.7% after it cut its profit forecast for the first quarter and warned that losses might mount in the six months to come. Nokia is betting the farm on the success of the Windows phone platform, after ditching the passe Symbian operating system. (Not-so-oddly enough, CEO Stephen Elsop used to be a Microsoft executive; go figure.) The transition is still under way. The Lumia 900, the brand-new flagship Windows/Nokia phone, is selling pretty well (about 2 million sold this week) despite a botched Easter Sunday launch and the discovery of software bugs in the phones.

Today, the stock dropped another 4.25% to a 52-week low of $4.03. The drop in the company’s value might be stemming from polls of industry analysts by Bloomberg and Reuters that indicate that Nokia’s handset sales in the last quarter were eclipsed by Samsung (SSNLF.PK). Nokia had consistently outsold every other phone maker on earth for 14 years. Nokia will report first-quarter earnings on April 19; Samsung will report on April 27.

Honeywell (HON) is suing Nest Labs, an innovative smart thermostat company started by Apple veteran Tony Fadell, for intellectual property infringement. Unlike so many startups hit with “patent trolling” cases, Nest is not rolling over. Nest filed Answer and Counterclaims against Honeywell, claiming that some of the patents for the “blah-looking” Honeywell thermostat are old or invalid because of previous art.

Sony (SNE) confirmed reports that it will be laying off 10,000 people worldwide — about 6% of its work force — as part of its massive reorganization plan. Sony suffered a loss of about $6.4 billion in the year ended March 31. CEO Kazuo Hirai vows to strengthen the company’s core businesses, namely digital imaging, video games, and mobile. One interesting step in that direction came today as Sony’s Android-powered SmartWatch debuted in the US. With the SmartWatch, you can do a lot of the same things that an Android phone can do, like listen to music, use apps, and read emails.

Samsung will release the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, a light 7-inch tablet, on April 22. This tablet goes head to head with Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and Barnes Noble’s (BKS) Nook. Unlike those two, the Galaxy has full access to the Google Play store and runs the latest version of the Android operating system, nicknamed Ice Cream Sandwich. While this is no iPad, early reviews, like this one at the Verge, have been positive. The Galaxy will sell for $249.99.

While BlackBerry sales in the US plunge, Research In Motion’s (RIMM) once-ubiquitous mobile device is still in demand in the Middle East. RIM is working to establish a new flagship retail location in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates city known for shopping and architectural hubris. The company aims to sell the device in emerging markets in Africa and Asia, where they will compete with cheaper Chinese handsets that run on Android.

Twitter: @vincent_trivett

While the company said the introduction of the Lumia 900 in the United States was going well, the prospect of price cuts did not thrill investors, who were warned by the company last week to expect a large loss in the first quarter and more losses in the second quarter. The company announced Thursday that it had a loss of 929 million euros (about $1.2 billion) in the first quarter as sales plunged 29 percent because of flagging demand for its smartphones using the older Symbian operating system.

The loss contrasts with a profit of 344 million euros ($450 million) a year earlier. Sales fell to 7.4 billion euros ($10 billion) in the quarter, from 10.4 billion euros a year earlier.

The number of smartphones — both the Symbian-based phones and the new Microsoft-based Lumias — shipped by Nokia to operators and other sellers fell to 11.9 million in the quarter, from 24.2 million the previous year.

Shares of Nokia fell 3.8 percent, to $3.82.

Nokia’s chief executive, Stephen Elop, said Nokia would accelerate its cost-cutting amid what he described as a mixed response to its new Lumia smartphones with Windows.

“Clearly we are disappointed with our performance in the first quarter,” Mr. Elop said during an interview. “At the same time, the numbers mask the totality of what we have accomplished. Lumia is up and running in the U.S.A. We are clearly in the heart of the transition.”

Mr. Elop, who used to run Microsoft’s business software division before taking the helm at Nokia, said United States sales of the Lumia 900 through ATT Wireless had exceeded the company’s expectations. The phone is now in short supply, he said.

“The sellout situation could be improved if we actually had more product in the stores,” he told analysts in a conference call.

Nokia was taking steps, Mr. Elop said, to increase the available stocks of the smartphones. In Britain, however, Mr. Elop said, Nokia was encountering difficulty raising awareness for Lumia, which was being overshadowed by Apple’s iPhone and devices running Google’s Android operating system. He suggested that other models in the Lumia line, like the 800, might need to be discounted, though the company has been cautious.

He also said that Nokia was rapidly bringing the Lumia into new markets. Sales of the Lumia 610, the least expensive model in the lineup, were set to begin in Asia next week, in the Philippines.

In coming weeks, Nokia will start selling the phone in China, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Mr. Elop said Nokia planned to increase advertising expenditures for Lumia in the second quarter, though he did not give specifics. Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst at International Data Corporation in London, said Nokia’s weak financial results had largely been expected by investors, who have been heartened to see gains in sales of the Lumia lineup. Nokia, which introduced the Lumia line last year, sold more than a million of the phones during the fourth quarter of last year.

In the first quarter of this year, the number rose to two million, at an average selling price of 220 euros ($290). It took more than a year for Apple to consistently sell more than two million iPhones in a quarter, Mr. Jeronimo said. And it took Google more than a year and a half to do the same with Android, he added.

“So judged by that measure, Nokia is doing well,” he said.

In the short term, however, Nokia continues to suffer. Sales in Nokia’s core devices and services division, which generates up to 60 percent of total sales, fell 40 percent in the quarter, to 4.24 billion euros ($5.6 billion), from 7.1 billion euros ($9.3 billion). Sales of smartphones fell 52 percent in the period, to 1.7 billion euros ($2.2 billion), from 3.5 billion euros ($4.6 billion), reflecting that consumers are ignoring the older Symbian-based phones.

Basic cellphones sales, which account for the bulk of Nokia’s handset business, also fell, amid rising competition from low-cost Asian rivals and pressure from Chinese mobile network operators, which are aggressively discounting the prices of basic phones. The average price for a basic Nokia phone fell 18 percent, to 33 euros ($43), from 40 euros ($52), a year earlier.

“It is clear that Nokia is struggling with its smartphone business, but now it looks like it is also struggling with its mobile phone business,” said Malik Saadi, an analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media in London.

The company’s loss in the first quarter was exacerbated by a 772 million euro ($1 billion) restructuring charge at Nokia Siemens Networks, its unprofitable network equipment joint venture with Siemens.

On Monday, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Nokia’s long- and short-term debt ratings, citing its deteriorating financial position and questioning its ability to successfully make the transition to Windows.

The ratings agency warned that Nokia might have to inject more money into Nokia Siemens, which lost a combined 986 million euros ($1.3 billion) in 2010 and 2011.

Indeed, the situation appeared to worsen in the first quarter, as the venture’s operating loss grew to 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), after a 142 million euro ($186 million) loss a year earlier. Sales fell 7 percent, to 2.9 billion euros ($3.8 billion).

Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia’s chief financial officer, said Nokia Siemens was making progress to restructure the business and return to profitability.

He said that Nokia Siemens Networks had 53 contracts to build new, faster mobile networks using Long Term Evolution technology, which he said were more than competitors, which include Ericsson of Sweden and Huawei of China, had.

“They are executing very well into their strategy,” Mr. Ihamuotila said during an interview. Mr. Elop said Nokia was looking at “trajectories, the number of contracts and customer trends,” among other statistical bellwethers, to gauge the prospects for Nokia Siemens.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 19, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Nokia’s quarterly loss was $1.2 million, rather than $1.2 billion, because of an editing error.

Few high-tech companies have imploded like Nokia and at the strangest time. Typically, dominant companies get killed during transitions from where they rule to where they don’t. Nokia is oddest exception, imploding during a major computing era shift that favors its core competency. Transition from the PC to the mobile device eras is underway — to a market where Nokia was, until recently, share leader by huge margins. How low the mighty has fallen, and former Microsoft division president turned Nokia CEO Stephen Elop wields the missile codes that launched self-inflicted nuclear strikes.

Today’s Nokia earnings report is a disaster. It’s radioactive fallout from Elop’s decision to turn over the Finnish company’s crown jewels to Microsoft. Elop sold Nokia’s soul to his former masters, which I described at the time as a “silent takeover” of the company. Nokia needed new leadership, not new technology — Elop’s fundamental platform and cloud services switch — to combat escalating Android and iOS competition. Before his tenure, Nokia did the right things, just in the wrong ways. Since taking the chief executive’s seat in Autumn 2010, Elop has done the wrong things in all the right ways to destroy a once proud mobile device innovator.

Elop’s Nuclear Nightmare

Companies are successful for many reasons. Leadership is among the most important. Good leaders inspire their underlings. They instill confidence among the loyal troops and raise their morale. Instead Elop disgraced all Nokia employees by showing absolutely no faith in them or the hugely successful mobile business their work produced. When justifying the Windows Phone switch, he called Symbian a “burning platform”.

In a long memo, Elop wrote: “I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform…We poured gasoline on our own burning platform…Nokia, our platform is burning”. In business, perception is everything. Yet Elop contributed to the perception that the global leader in handsets and mobile operating systems was a failure. He fed the fire of hype burning behind Android and iPhone. If anyone lit Nokia’s platform afire, it was Elop and his negative memo that spread more FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — about Nokia’s future than any competitor ever could. Elop isn’t the harbinger of positive change but negative perceptions.

Then he chucked away the most successful mobile operating system on the planet — with install base that dwarfed Android and iOS. The only thing burning about Symbian and planned successor Meego was the fire Elop set. He burned down the house — no, he nuked the city — in order to build anew.

The extent of devastation is nowhere more apparent than Q1, the first full quarter of results after Nokia shipped the first handsets running Windows Phone. Smartphone sales boom everywhere else, globally rising 58 percent in 2011 to 472 million units, accounting for 31 percent of all handset sales, according to Gartner. There is huge market transition underway that rivals capitalize on. Look at Apple’s 35.5 million iPhones sold in fourth quarter, by Gartner’s reckoning.

Lumia ‘Sales Have Been Mixed’

Today, Nokia revealed that Q1 sales plummeted by 29 percent, leading to a $1.76 billion loss. Sales fell 26 percent quarter-on-quarter, too. Device and services net sales plummet by a stunning 40 percent year over year and 29 percent sequentially. Other year-over year declines: smart devices, 52 percent; mobile phones, 32 percent.

Nokia’s Windows Phone transition is a major part of the problem, lessening demand for Symbian smartphones. First quarter global sales aren’t available from analysts yet, but, according to Gartner, Symbian smartphone share fell to 11.7 percent from 32.3 percent in Q4 2011. The company that invented the smartphone, dropped from first to third place, behind Android and iOS, respectively.

Today, Elop says the hard thing — and he deserves credit for it: “Actual sales results have been mixed”, referring to Lumia Windows Phones. That’s a polite way of saying they suck. During fourth quarter, Microsoft mobile OS share fell from 3.4 percent to 1.9 percent, according to Gartner. First quarter numbers aren’t available, but as the IDC chart above shows it’s a trend.

In February 2011 I warned: “Nokia will lose customers and market share. It’s the inevitable consequence of such a massive operating system switch. Timing is terrible”. That’s not a rocket science conclusion. Android and iOS device sales soared and higher still later in 2011. Again mixing metaphors, it’s like Elop called his race car to the pits during the Indianapolis 500 to change engines.

Now he’s desperate. “We have a clear sense of urgency to move our strategy forward even faster”. Elop says — and he should. But where was that urgency in early 2011, when he turned over platform development responsibility to Microsoft?

Burning Down the Brand

Nokia had much to build on before Elop nuked it. For starters the brand. Wireless analyst Tomi explains: “More people use a Nokia phone than drink a Coca Cola, than wear Levis’s jeans, than tell time on a Timex watch, than wear Nike running shoes, than smoke Marlboro cigarettes, or write with a Bic pen”. While Nokia’s brand may not seem much to Americans, it’s huge everywhere else, particularly Asia, Europe and Africa.

“What was life like before Stephen Elop started to destroy the brand most widely spread on the planet?” Ahonen asks. Much better is the answer. While Nokia bled share before, the Windows Phone transition and Elop’s performance opened an artery.

Unquestionably, Nokia had problems before Elop joined the company. Smartphones like N97 couldn’t compete with iPhone, cloud services proved to be clunky and developers fled for Android Market (now Google Play) and Apple’s App Store. But these were fixable problems with leadership and even a few cloud and software acquisitions. Instead, Elop nuked this city in lieu of urban renewal.

Nokia 808 PureView, announced in late February is sure sign of what the company could have done with Symbian. The truly innovative smartphone sports a 41-megapixel camera but not Windows Phone. So much good that was Nokia is now lost.

I’m a big Nokia phone fan — have been for years. I would be ecstatic to be proved wrong, to a year hence write a mea culpa story. But looking at how much worse off Nokia is today than 14 months ago, when Elop cut the Microsoft deal, the big Windows Phone turnaround is more Harry Potter magic than Albert Einstein Relativity.

Editor’s Note: Ed Oswald and Joe Wilcox wrote opposing positions about Nokia’s Windows Phone strategy, independently today (we didn’t want one directly responding to the other but to circumstances). Please read Ed’s “Nokia’s short-term pain is the result of long term problems“.

Photo Credit: andrea crisante/Shutterstock