Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

Another piece of the story is Nokia's history in America.
Check this quote from Texrat in post #184 of the following thread:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=31293&page=19
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"I've said this numerous times so please forgive the repeat:

Nokia TRIED to change the US model. Competitors saw an opportunity to grab market share as Nokia worked toward a more open, retail-based service. The effort worked against Nokia and in favor of LG, Samsung, Moto, et al.

Cracking the crazy US market would take more than Nokia-- it would take the combined effort of every single manufacturer getting on the same page and standing tough (or the FCC and FTC doing their jobs). I don't see that happening."

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

You say that the N900 would be targeted at the European or Asian markets but seeing the trends here (I am based in the UK and actively work in the Asian markets), that just doesnt seem to be happening. In the Uk as of now no network has come up with an announcement about the N900 and after extensively calling all of them, the general consensus is that it is highly unlikely. The same story is about Germany, Italy and Holland as well, where again no network wants to claim the N900. Now coming to the asian markets, something which retails for 500£ in the UK around 850$, amounts to a very expensive phone and the asian markets arent ready to spend that kind of dough where 3G and wifi is a big question mark. True Nokia has a prescence there but its only for the general handsets they do. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the Iphone has been out in India and Vodafone and Airtel, 2 exclusive apple partners are having a tough time selling the Iphone.
What I believe is that this handset is more like a trial Nokia is doing a small player if you will in the more grander Nokia world domination plans.
I read somewhere ,and I just forgot the webpage will post if I find it, that a highly placed executive at Nokia said this phone is for the geeks(He actually used the words geeks,not techies but geeks).
This phone wont be coming out in large numbers and only a very select few with the money to spare could probably afford this and that will be probably it.

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

Many things need to happen in order for Nokia to make a winning incursion in the US market:

a) The carrier with Nokia phones has to agree more or less to not cripple the devices and become a dumb data pipe for them. How they could achieve this, no idea, but is going to be hard.
b) For a) to happen, they need a powerful device to try and cover as many user cases in the most flashy way possible. Something that is at odds with Nokia's position that "one size does not fit all". So maybe this would be a family of devices.
c) They need a robust developer community ready to launch app after app, each one with quality and polish.
d) For the above to happen, they need a simple yet powerful development platform, and that's not gonna happen until Qt finalizes its entrenchment (in Maemo case, Harmattan).
e) They need a very fancy and expensive marketing campaign.

All of this to enter a market that have some carrier practices that are almost unbelievable, is in the middle of a retail crisis, and values form over function (once again, at odds with Nokia philosophy).

You can see that the cost-benefit ratio of this incursion may not be favorable in the short term. In the long term, maybe.

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

That is an erroneous statement and also some wild speculation on your part.
With the N900, Nokia included the 1700mhz band for 3G. 1700 is usable only by T-Mobile U.S. (at this time.)
So I would surmise that they do want to sell some of these units in the States.
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Nokia's number 1 and 2 markets (in terms of volume) are Asia and India, but with lower priced phones. It's my understanding that their smartphones are generally aimed at their #3 market, Europe .

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

Sure they could brand it. It just wouldn't stay branded once into a consumer's hand that doesn't like or want the branding. Though given that most consumers never bother with this sort of thing (even with the iPhone which has software that does it for you) I'd say there's still an environment for branding.

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

It seems there are rumors afloat of a potential buyout of Sprint Nextel by Deutsche Telekom. Considering DT already owns t-mobile and Nokia is buddy buddy with DT lately, this could bode quite well for nokia in US market

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

You say "Nokia is buddy buddy with DT [Deutsche Telekom] lately"... Why is that? Because look, Nokia cannot even sell through T-Mobile (owned by DT) its N900 custom made for T-Mobile frequencies (N900 which does not work on AT&T 3G network)...

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

Nokia is buddy buddy with DT, they were in Nokia World and mentioned as one of their critical partners.

That, for whatever reason, Nokia doesn't want to move quicker in the US is another story. Can't blame them. They got one shot at this, and they have to be sure it is going to work.

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

they shouldn't have done this whole media blitz, pre-order thing.

They should have figured out relationships, standard software packages etc before making any public statement on it. Look at the trending on searches (http://www.google.com/trends?q=n900&...ate=mtd&sort=0)

Having worked for a German firm, I thought that German marketing was some of the worst in the world, maybe I should look north before giving that title away:mad:

Re: How serious is Nokia about making a dent in the US/Canadian Market?
 

The fact is they didn't. If something, what Nokia has done is to underscore the N900 all around, specially in Nokia World.

That the device itself is so good that generated so much blitz despite Nokia's effort to underplay it, is a whole different issue.