Rumor: Nokia Is Gonna Make Netbooks
Nokia
Ewen Spence, over on All About Symbian has this to say:
The rumours of a Nokia Netbook have lit up the internet. Even though it would have been hard to deny, the opportunities for Nokia’s software services would surely outweigh the cost of building a commodity consumer electronics device. Ewan explains why.
“We are looking very actively also at this opportunity,” Nokia’s Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said to a Finnish Broadcaster. Well he would, wouldn’t he? The rise of the netbooks in the last 12 months has been nothing short of a sea-change in attitudes in the laptop market. The old order of high profit margins for companies like Apple, Dell and HP has been upturned. Some are adapting (witness the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 just launched in the UK), while others are leaving a conspicuous gap in their product line up (Apple).
So when you as a CEO, are asked if you’re looking at a brand new consumer electronics sector, then the answer is yes, we are looking at it; then don’t commit yourself to actually doing anything about it, because you’re focused on moving the company from hardware-led to being software and services-led. But then the Internet picks it up and becomes “Nokia looking to release a netbook”.
Now the romantic in me (and Steve) will be thinking that as the robust Symbian OS grew out of the OS that powered the award winning Psion machines (including their, cough, “netbook”, in 1999, shown behind, in the photo below) then the machine would be the bestest cutest lil machine in the world. If they ask the Symbian Foundation nicely, then the EIKON interface can be dusted back down for public use and all will be right in the world.
They’ll just need the applications to run on the device and they’ll be set.
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