Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Didn't see this article anywhere else on the site yet, so I thought I'd post it.

Nokia to Reserve Maemo for High End Devices

(sort of implies to me that S60 will replace S40 (as Nokia's low end phone OS), and Maemo will replace S60 (as Nokia's high end phone OS))

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

But the key point here is the "mobile internet devices", which, in my opinion, by no means should be confused with smartphones. I believe these are still going to be quite rare in the future, though not as rare as they were, but still not that mainstream as the rest of the N series phones.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Except of course that the example they gave is, in fact, a smartphone (the N900).

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

According to whom? Nokia describes it as a "mobile computer".

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

From the linked article:

"According to statements made by Jonas Geust, vice president, Nokia N-series players, Nokia plans to use its Linux-based Maemo mobile operating system only on high-end mobile internet devices, such as the N900."

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

I don't see "smartphone" in there.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

In what way is the N900 _NOT_ a smartphone?

And, from wikipedia:

Except for the VGA connector (which, for all we know, the N900's video out is VGA compatible), the N900 would seem to fit both example definitions. So I have no problem at all putting it into the smartphone category.

All of which is pedantry, since the article itself says nothing at all about smartphones, that was just nowave7 and I discussing the issue. He could just have easily have said:

and my reply would still have been to the effect that the example that the article gives for that category is an N900.

So, how about replying to the intent of the statements, instead of being pedantic about words that have no precise definition in the first place.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Nokia doesn't yet consider the N900 a smarpthone, that said, ti does consider it a mobile internete device (MID), and per how they have been marketing N-Series devices over the past years, one could mix the two up pretty easily.

You want definitions of a smartphone (past and present), this piece I did pretty much nails it (Gartner and a few others have weirder approaches to this definition IMO):

Old Definition
New Definition
The N900 fits clearer under the latter than the former due to Nokia's current positioning of itself with Ovi and other web service endeavors. But its all semantics and marketing to be honest; and the N900 isn't designed so much to be a smarter phone, as its designed to be a smarter approach to mobile (data) computing.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

This isn't mere semantics either, johnkzin. While there may some fuzziness in the industry about what a smartphone is or is not, Nokia is very careful in defining product types (to a fault I can assure you as one who used to support demand/supply networks) so it would be a mistake to see the word "smartphone" in a description of Maemo devices. If it's not there specifically, it's not intended to be.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

It wasn't a statement, one way or the other, from nokia about smartphones. It was a generalized comment made in the discussion thread here. It _was_ just a matter of pendantry to quibble over it.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

what you must consider is before the n900 was widely known about as being in production nokia was marketing the N97 as a mobile computer too based purely on its form factor and active standby screen widgets.
so when you hear the words smartphone and mobile computer mentioned by nokia I'd take no notice b/c to me they cant differentiate the two themselves

EDIT: also i've heard nokia people say the N97 is not a smartphone, its a smartdevice.
so if nokia are not sure about there products you cant blame end users for having no idea.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Limiting Maemo to just the "high end" stuff is stupid. That's like saying, "If you want the shiny keys, then you gotta by the expensive sports car to get them." A large percentage of people just aren't going to be able to afford these "high end" devices that Nokia is wanting to limit this to. Heck, $400 was a lot for the n810. $600+ for the n900 is beyond ludicrous. Even when it comes down in price to half of what it is now, $300 for an n900 is going to be far, far too much. If they want wider and greater acceptance and penetration, they need to start dropping the starting price on devices like that to $300 or less at launch. Otherwise they eliminate too large a swath of the market.

It's like I've told others before, the $50 glass of lemonade might make you a lot of money in a hurry, but who's going to buy it? Only people with more money than they have sense. It's a well known fact that you don't make your money all in one big burst, but on volume. But stupid companies these days just don't see that. They like to see lots of fat zeros on their ledgers, and the only way to get those is with the $50 glass of lemonade. Of course, if the upper zeros are big, you can almost bet that the lower zeros won't be.

It's economics 101. Why can't companies see this? Sheesh.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

I agree about not liking the strategy. But that's not the value of the article, to me. The value of the article is that Nokia has finally given us their definition of Symbian vs Maemo, and how they plan to market them. Just a few months/weeks ago, I was complaining about Nokia's rather confusing stance about what role Maemo plays in their strategy.

I think that stance is now clear. And I'm glad for that.

I don't think it's the best stance, but at least now we know what it is, and what role Maemo plays in it.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Personally... Maemo, while impressive, still ain't ready for primetime as a flagship OS.

Close, but not yet.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Hence... step 5?

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

That whole step 4 out of 5... talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

oh, it's you who's defining which price is right?

please stop this ******** now, lets see after the release if the price was really too high. now it's just bunch of nerds trying to act like experienced financial consultants (probably just because they can't afford the device)

your $400 for n810 is now something like $430, and when did the first price for a device last forever? what was n810's initial price?

i found this in 5 seconds:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=89457&postcount=14

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

I think it looks awesome so far - its ready to kick butt and take names. But maybe we should wait till its shipped to know for sure.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Oh this discussion about definitions leads to nowhere...

How people will use it will define it... mobile computer, mid, phone... Giving name to the beast always restricts the usage of the thing.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

That's besides the point. The point is how Nokia perceives the device and the OS, and how will they market it. And that's what the article is about. Also based on dr. Jaaksi's interview, it seems that Nokia is still not willing to put Maemo in the front line, ahead of S60.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Yes, there are no definite definitions for words. People are free to define them how they want.

For Nokia, Maemo is not the "smartphone" platform, Symbian is that.

Maemo "is an advanced Linux-based operating system designed to run on high-end Nokia mobile computers" (as said in maemo.nokia.com).

Reporters naturally write whatever they happen to come up with, but if somebody wants to write like Nokia wants to position them, then smartphones and mobile computers is currently a good way to go.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

People will call it as they see it fit. It's bs for a company to manufacture 'chocolate candybars' and spend massive amount of marketing and PR to insist that they're called 'exquisite cocoa blocks' or some such.

(It's even more ridiculous if you connoisseurs start to diss people who will call these things smartphone once they're released and don't get this simple logic ;) )

- 'mobile computer' is a mouthful.
- computers are those things on the desktops. when they're portable, they get the notebook, netbook or smartphone moniker.
- once the n900 is released, it's not going to get the 'mobile computer' label. on the other hand, the 'smartphone' is getting a bump up in feature and capability perception due to its new leader, the n900.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

The problem is that Nokia has been marketing its high-end Symbian phones as "mobile computers" since N95. Is the above definition official? If it is, does it mean eventual replacement of N95/N97/etc with Maemo devices?

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

As far as I see it, Nokia is marketing N900 and future Maemo devices as something that is not meant primarily to be used as a phone, unlike the usual smartphone is. It has phone capabilities, but that is not the focal point of the device. If you look at the rest of the N series, except maybe N97, all of these devices are actually primarily phones, and only secondly they are mp3 players, cameras, navigational devices, and so on... It's pretty much like E90, yes it is a phone, but other features just overshadowed and vastly surpassed the phone capabilities(at the time).

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Just looked for n810 official price tag in the US at launch (end November 2007): $479 + tax. As reported here:

http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-shipp...inally-208621/

or here:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nokia...es-71301.shtml

If I remember correctly, soon after some retailers offered the N810 in a price range of $410-430.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Yes... If 'phoning' and talking are your #1 use case, something a lot smaller, with less power and therefore more battery life, dedicated hw keys for call handling etc. make for a better phone than what the N900 for instance is. (It's not to say that the N900 doesn't work as an ok phone.)

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

That's what I recall as well. The US price was close to the European price in number, not in conversion rate ($479 compared to 449 euros?).

If that holds up for the N900, then the 600-650 euros price might translate to $630-$680. And, I believe, that's before subsidies, right?

[QUTOE]If I remember correctly, soon after some retailers offered the N810 in a price range of $410-430.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I think it was letstalk.com that was selling them at a $75 discount. Continuing with the above pricing, that would bring it down to $555-$605. Again, before subsidies. If T-mobile gives a $200-$300 subsidy (about what they seem to give), then we're talking $255-$405 for the final price.

I'll stick to my previous guess of $300-$350.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

@nowave7
It doesnt matter how the PR people will define it. The user reception will, like always, define how something will be used/remembered or not.

When iPhone came out Apple did not think about the massive amounts of Apps/Podcasts/etc that would be available to their platform.

The direction that a product takes is due to different kinds of usage and requests by the users, no matter how they have marketed the device first. If profit is in sight and the market wants, Nokia would gladly change the "mobile computer" (or whatever you want to call it) to "terracota pie".

Your view is to tied to what the PR people has said instead of a broaden strategy that follows every product in every company.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

I strongly disagree here, especially when it comes to Apple. In their case the PR/marketing made a deal of the century out of an average product, which iPhone at the time was. And to think that apps/podcasts/etc came a surprise for Apple is just naive, they planned it, and they planned it well.

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

@nowave7
Well, we have to agree to disagree then... ;)

I see it more evolutionary than revolutionary.

[edit]
And on the tone of evolutionary, Maemo has a great way to evolve and not being constrained like iPhone platform is. Lets see if I will bite my tongue when/if Apple releases their Tablet.
[/edit]

Re: Nokia to Reserve Maemo for "High End Devices"
 

Haha... Okay then I agree to disagree :)