Josh OngElop confirmed the plans at a telecom conference in Singapore, assuaging investor fears of lengthy delays, Reuters reports. "I have increased confidence that we will launch our first device based on the Windows platform later this year and we will ship our product in volume in 2012," he said.
During a Microsoft preview event last month for the "Mango" update to Windows Phone 7, a Nokia executive had confirmed that the company's first Windows Phone devices would run Mango, but hesitated to commit to an end-of-year deadline for the first devices.
At Tuesday's event, Elop also unveiled the N9 smartphone, which will run on the MeeGo platform, and is set to launch later this year.
Nokia first revealed the extensive partnership between the two companies in February. While charting out the companies plans to move from Symbian to Windows Phone, Elop said 2011 and 2012 would be "transition years."
On Monday, one analyst characterized Nokia's plunging market share in European as continuing to "implode." The world's largest handset maker saw its share of the smartphone market on its home continent cut in half from 40.6 percent a year ago to 20.2 percent in the March quarter. Another analyst believes Nokia's transitional period could result in big gains for Apple's iPhone and other competitors.
Apple and Samsung are expected to surpass Nokia in smartphone sales this quarter, with Samsung taking the top spot among global smartphone makers. Nokia has led the worldwide smartphone market since 1996.
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46 Comments
Better hurry up Nokia... you're taking on water and the bow is sinking...
I say good luck to them. I've been very impressed with what I've seen of Windows 7, and Nokia in the past have designed some very nice hardware, so it could be interesting.
Competition in the marketplace benefits us all. While I'm sure Apple will say otherwise, I suspect the fact that Android phones could be run entirely "over the air" has played a part in getting the iPhone able to run without a PC, and as an end user, I think that's great.
Frankly they are all copying off each other (though some more than others), so the more good ideas out there, the better we consumers do.
It reminds me of what Steve Jobs said about Apple CEO Gil Amelio before Steve came back:
Steve clearly saved Apple.... can Nokia get themselves back above water?
Jean-Louis Gassée had an interesting take on Nokia a couple weeks ago. The Osborne Effect is mentioned:
Steve clearly saved Apple.... can Nokia get themselves back above water?
I think we have to remember that while software has never been their strong point, Nokia at least used to make some extremely attractive and desirable phones. Their new meego phones, while obviously dead in the water due to being on an orphaned platform, show that their physical design skills are still strong.
That phone screams Nokia in a lot of good ways. A bright attractive but non-obvious colour and a mixture of hard edges and soft curves that invite the hand. There's no way that you see this in somebody's hand across a room and think it's an iPhone. It's the first phone I've seen images of that comes close to the iPhone 4 as a design statement - I may have to troll over to a Nokia shop just to play with one because just looking at the picture I want to pick that device up.
I personally will never buy a windows smartphone, but the new platform does actually look quite attractive and distinct, so I think the combination will be alluring to people who are turned off by the stark functionism of the iPhone and its Android mini-mes.