Thread: Called out the "big guns"
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rgbyhkr is offline rgbyhkr
2005-11-10 , 15:47
Posts: 92 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Oct 2005
#6
Originally Posted by RogerS
The only thing I see is that when Nokia tried to make some devices available pre-release, misinformation showed up in the system that the 770 was available for sale.

You say that means they "officially launched". Since Nokia PR was saying on last Friday they would launch in six days (that's today), I don't think suddenly the company decided to launch on Monday and didn't tell (a) their PR staff, (B) their sales and marketing staff, and (C) their potential customers.

I don't think any devices were ordered and shipped before today, nor that they sold everything they have and are now out of stock. I think people were trying to shortcircuit the system so as not to mislead the sales staff or to complete an order. I think that explains the circumstances better than "They launched without telling anyone; and they sold out all their supplies already."

BTW, is the order fulfillment actually being handled by Nokia? It looks like they may be sub-contracting the work out. They may be introducing another factor into the confusion.
I don't disagree that there is a lot of confusion in the US market. I have no idea if any non-developer US devices were actually shipped out yet and I didn't mention anything like that in my contact to the news sites. It's 10:30 EST and the 770 US site still says "Coming Soon" and the 770 is still listed in the "Expected Soon" section. Now, they could make the change sometime today or even hold back until Monday to be a week from when the press release went out vs when the Euro sites started accepting orders.

If the US stuff was all there was, there wouldn't be a story. However, most of the Euro sites have been sold out for days and several posts reference emails from Nokia claiming restocking at the end of the month. So, unless there is a screw-up in supply affecting Euro markets only, there is reason to be concerned about launch supplies everywhere. Even if it's just restricted to the Euro stores and that sellout is due to very short supply vs huge demand (and the evidence seems to suggest the former), it's still worth looking into.

The press release confirms an offical launch in the Euro markets as of the 7th, yet the UK store was sold out by that morning according to a post here. Those Euro sights weren't for pre-release developer unit sales. They were and are for general consumer sales. If you announce a launch and every store is sold out, that speaks to a common coordinated theme. But some that had stock starting on the 4th were sold out by the 7th and some were not. That tells me there is a problem with their supply chain or they made the announcement and general availbility too early before they were able to build up enough supply to meet initial demand.

Jeff