What happened there exactly? Out came Nokia, all guns blazing, with two very respectable handsets. Earlier, they had spent the morning telling people to “#SWITCH” and that they were about to feast on Android…
Breakfast in New York on a big day for us! Today we dine on Jellybeans: twitter.com/nokia/status/2…
— Nokia (@nokia) September 5, 2012
But, as the reporters leave and the last canapes are eaten, something is happening to the Nokia share price, and it’s not what you’d expect..
A near 16% fall in one day. A day which was critical, and I really can’t emphasise this enough, critical for Microsoft and Nokia. My details piece earlier touched on some of the problems. Sure, the Lumia 920 and 820 are decent phones. Wireless charging, Windows Phone 8 power and excellent camera technology. All great. Build quality, great. Mass storage, long-life batteries and more.
But I’ve attended many launches, and this was missing something. We were told that the phones would be available “in Q4” – later than some expected. Even with that little bit of info there wasn’t really any detail on where they would be available. What does “selected markets” actually mean? How much would they cost? What networks are going to carry them?
In years past we’ve grown used to seeing from someone from Vodafone / Orange / AT&T or some such network on stage stating..
I heartily endorse this service and / or product.
.. but…. nothing. Where were the exact details of launch territories? We don’t even know if Europe is included.. or Asia, or America. Come on, at least give us something to go on? You might as well have a big sign saying “We don’t have any confirmed launch partners yet” because, without those crucial details, it’s what we’re all thinking.
Stock seemed to be edging upwards until Elop stated that they were not going to talk about availability, after that it was downhill. Verizon in the US have already mentioned that they would support Windows Phone 8, so the market would have expected a Nokia / Verizon announcement and this didn’t happen.
And what the hell is all this about misleading advertising? It’s like friendly fire here. Why did they do that? To be honest it looks like the feature wasn’t ready, and the demo handsets were closely guarded and monitored – any usage was limited to certain areas of the phone. Why? Windows Phone 8 is supposed to be ready to rock in October, but we’re just a few weeks off that and it all seemed to scream, “The OS is no-where near ready yet”.
If you’re a company with a huge following and an incredibly strong brand like Apple then you can afford to make some mistakes. If you’re struggling to find a corner in the marketplace then, believe me, you can’t.
I’m sorry Microsoft, I’m sorry Nokia, but I have to get on my soap-box here. Your products are great. They’re fine, really fine. The Lumia 920, with image stabilisation, enhanced battery life and new OS, does deliver. But these school-boy errors in marketing and image-damaging fails just keep happening. You’ve already tipped your existing Windows Phone 7 user-base into the sea. Don’t leave us guessing about release dates, locations, prices and networks. Guessing is bad, because where there’s guessing there’s doubt. Where there’s doubt there’s worried investors and customers, and that leads you to a very bad place indeed.
The whole MS/Nokia downward spiral wouldn’t be quite so painful to watch if it wasn’t for the things like the ‘dine on Jellybeans’ stuff (didn’t they do a fake funeral thing for other OSes when WP7 came out…maybe that was MS themselves?), given their market share it seems very odd. I’ve tried WP7 out, and its good, but as Gears says, these vague details and the long release time (compared to the Apple ‘have it on the shelves next week’ approach) makes it seem unlikely these devices will sell any more than the 800 & 900.
I watched the conference yesterday and enjoyed what I heard. I thought about it afterwards and realised there were too many people involved on stage; it needed one dynamic front-man to take you through a day’s use of the Nokia Lumia WP8 phone to show: stonking new design/form factor; WP8 delivering knock-out innovations; and applications linked in with WP8 to give the user value-add in their daily usage. Above all, it should of ticked all the ‘want’ boxes and made you want to search the internet for a handset.
As it is, I’m confused because there is no release date, no price, no plans announced. This may be a timing issue but it is still a problem as Apple will surely let the public know they can order and receive the new iPhone after its launch. Microsoft seem culpable here, but then again, MS were never that good at marketing.
Furthermore, I’m left wondering on the differences between the 820 and 920: why does the 920 ship without a microSD option? Given the modern day mobile packages you are crucified on cost for downloading and with the onset of faster networks this will only be mosre costly. Yet the 820 does have this option – weird! Also, why are the phones so heavy? Compared to the Ativ, HTC One X and iPhone 4S the 920 is heaviest by a large margin.
At this point, I’ll wait to see what HTC announces but I’m swayed towards the Ativ in spite of the software that Nokia bundle. That’s not what I thought at all before yesterday’s event. Did MS and Nokia over-egg the launch and deliver a dud or have they not quite read what the public want? There won’t be a chance for WP9!
As I posted in reply to the original news post by Dan and subsequently in the Forum, Microsoft / Nokia really have shot themselves in the foot with this launch. It seems like they really don’t have a clue about how to launch a device. Do they learn nothing from how Apple do things?
1. You say when it will be available – definitively, not sometime in the next 4 months.
2. You say how much it will be.
3. You say where you can get it.
4. You don’t make it 30% heavier than the competition, if you do it had better be for a damn good reason.
The phones look really nice, but what is the point in having a launch if you don’t say who can have them, for how much and when they can have them?
Do you think Microsoft are allowing this to happen so that the Nokia share price falls so low they can buy them for buttons?
Nokia should tell MS that they need to be able to Android up as well, sell the 920 and 820 in both W8 and JB versions, they’ll make a pot load of cash like Samsung are doing.
All the while they are at the behest of Microsoft it ain’t gonna happen.
At least they don’t have to worry about the launch of a new iPhone soon, oh hold on! 🙁
I like Nokia, I’ve had a fair few of their phones in the past, hell who hasn’t? (yes I’ve seen your phone histories 🙂 ) I really don’t want them to fail, but they are going to if they carry on like this, this strategy is just wrong.
Just a small point, but doesn’t Apple’s stock also fall when they have these big shin-digs too?
Other than that I agree that the vagueness of release & pricing is a mistake, Hopefully it’ll be at the same time as Windows 8 early October. Hopefully they can the fires of interested going until then but its doubtful what with all the big announcements coming. Apple I have to say do this much better than anyone else, selling the products when interest is at fever pitch ISNT a stroke of genius, just common sense.
I also agree with you mike, they have just had Joe Belfiore to demo it, the Nokia VP was obviously too nervous to do this sort of thing. It needs someone with supreme confidence, to exude supreme confidence in the product.
I disagree with the weight issue, I’ve had numerous phones, and part of the reason the iPhone felt so premium was the weight. Lightest isn’t always best IMO.
I can see why the 920 doesn’t come with an SD slot, 32gb is a lot of storage for a portable device.
I think a lot of what WP8 is bringing is the underlying infra-structure to advance the same way that Apple has done with iOS. Its all been about unifying its strategy across multiple formats into a cohesive eco system.
For those that say the 920 should have Android on it, I do believe you’re wrong. For the simple fact that spec wise its way behind current gen phones let alone whats coming out at the time of its arrival (whenever that is). Offering dual core over quad just wouldn’t wash. You’d be all like “I’d get it if it had a quad core”, and we all know how joe public thinks about such things – “this phone has 4 ooja-ma-wotsits and that one only has 2? I’ll have the one with 4 please”.
Only my opinions not facts, did Nokia fluff it? Yes a little, but it is a recoverable situation. Fingers crossed 🙂