‘Nokia Is Back’ And Ballsy; 'We're Not Sorry We're Not Apple'
Nokia's beaten-down top dogs opened their annual Nokia (NYSE: NOK) World show in London Tuesday morning with a blunt and rousing pep talk and a direct riposte to their competitors. — “We're not going to apologise for the fact …
Context & Ripple Effects
The defiant tone at Nokia World 2010 is the latest act in a three-year arc: after pushing to regain U.S. sales against Apple and Google in late 2007 and declaring itself an Internet company in 2008, Nokia spent 2009–2010 fighting on a second front, bringing out its legal guns — culminating in the May 2010 patent complaint against Apple's iPhone and iPad filed in Wisconsin.
This week's show pairs that combative messaging with product substance: the officially announced N8 finally shipping on Symbian^3, the new E7 QWERTY slider unveiled in London, and former Palm design VP Peter Skillman hired as MeeGo user experience chief — a signal that Nokia's next-generation OS, teased via Symbian^4 demos at Mobile World Congress in February, is getting dedicated design firepower.
First-order effects
- Nokia is staking its recovery on a two-device, two-OS message — N8 and E7 on Symbian^3, Skillman's MeeGo team building what comes next — aimed squarely at convincing operators and developers the portfolio has a future beyond volume handsets.
- The 'we're not sorry we're not Apple' framing puts Apple directly in Nokia's crosshairs at the same time their patent litigation remains open, fusing marketing and legal posture into a single competitive stance.
Second-order effects
- Android handset makers get the clearest possible invitation: if Symbian's high-end credibility fails with the N8 and E7, their pitch to carriers and buyers hardens by default, pressuring Nokia's volume business where it still leads.
- Apple faces a rival willing to contest both the courtroom and the narrative, raising the cost of its usual above-the-fray positioning in smartphone patent disputes.
Third-order effects
- If the pep talk masks continued share erosion, Nokia's structural dilemma sharpens: a scale leader in handsets dependent on two parallel software platforms (Symbian and MeeGo), each needing developer momentum neither has yet demonstrated.
- The pattern — incumbent hardware giants answering platform disruption with rebranding, executive hires from failed rivals like Palm, and litigation rather than a new platform — points toward smartphone industry structure consolidating around whoever controls the software layer.
The trend: Legacy handset leaders are responding to the iPhone-and-Android platform shift with a mix of defiant branding, cross-industry design talent raids, and patent warfare as substitutes for a winning operating system.