Nokia's new CEO Rajeev Suri took the stage today, and mapped out the future of the Finnish telecommunications giant after its phone business got acquired by Microsoft.
First off, as sad as this sounds, and despite some unsubstantiated rumors, Nokia doesn't plan on making phones anymore. "We are not looking to a direct consumer return to handsets per se,"
were his actual words. Still, there is a silver lining, and it is that
there is an extremely high interest in licensing the brand, he added, so
at some point in the longer term the Nokia name "will return to the consumer world."
Now, whether this will be with phones, or other devices and maybe
services, remains to be seen, but the hopes that Nokia will quickly
start churning out Android handsets seems dead and buried now.
As
for the other aspects of the company, the CEO mentioned that it won't
have its HERE brand of navigation software compete directly with Google
Maps, but instead rely on third-party licensees like Amazon, Microsoft
or Yahoo, in business-to-business partnerships. We'd say that with the
release of the beta app for Android and iOS
this ship had sailed, as the app offers options lacking in Google Maps,
like offline navigation, but whatever rocks the boat. Nokia's CEO
expects that all three business units - Networks, Technologies and the
mapping business - will be returning to growth and profitability very
soon, but it's the end of the line for Nokia phones piece that strikes
us the most in the end.
source: ZDNet