Nokia working on own tablet: design chief
(Reuters) - Nokia design chief Marko Ahtisaari is spending a third of his time on creating a tablet for the cellphone maker, which would stand out among hundreds of iPad-challengers, he said in an interview with Finnish magazine Kauppalehti Optio.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is not the first time Nokia has flirted with hardware beyond phones — it weighed entering the laptop industry back in 2009 before holding off. What has changed by March 2012 is the company's strategic position under Stephen Elop, with the Lumia line just reaching China and the Lumia 900 headed to AT&T, making a tablet the natural next front.
The confirmation from design chief Marko Ahtisaari that a tablet is consuming a third of his design time lands three days after sources told DigiTimes that Nokia plans Windows 8 tablet PCs for Q4 2012, reportedly on Qualcomm's dual-core platform with Microsoft as partner — though both remain unconfirmed. The unusually wide syndication, from AP to CNET to Engadget, shows how much weight observers put on any Nokia tablet signal while the company's phone turnaround is still early.
First-order effects
- Nokia is formally committing senior design resources to a tablet, with Ahtisaari's stated goal that it differentiate itself among hundreds of existing iPad challengers rather than join them.
- Microsoft gains its most plausible flagship hardware partner for Windows 8 tablets if the rumored Nokia collaboration holds — though neither company has confirmed the pairing.
Second-order effects
- A Nokia entry would intensify pressure on the crowded field of Android tablet makers already struggling to distinguish themselves against Apple's iPad, forcing them toward differentiation on design rather than specs.
- Qualcomm stands to win a marquee design win if the rumored dual-core Windows 8 tablet ships, strengthening its position inside the Windows-on-ARM ecosystem at Intel's expense.
Third-order effects
- If Nokia's pattern holds — considering laptops in 2009, tablets in 2012 — the company is positioning itself as a multi-device ecosystem player around Windows, which would deepen its dependence on Microsoft's platform success.
- For the broader industry, a credible Nokia-Microsoft tablet would test whether a third ecosystem can break the iPad's grip or simply confirm that late entrants need an OS partner, not just industrial design, to compete.
The trend: Phone makers are being pulled into the tablet market as extensions of their mobile ecosystems, with OS partnerships — not hardware alone — deciding who can realistically challenge the iPad.