Out of interest, what percentage of S60 users do you think subscribe actively to forums and download software?

Either way, forums are a pretty weak metric for measuring sales figures. The numbers we got from the talk last year are much more useful for that.

Anyway, I really don't want to upset anyone over this, but no competent person in the business side of the software industry would ever take a press release about sales of a platform at face value. The platform owner will wriggle, use ambiguity, take the maximum of every estimated range - use every trick he or she can to get maximum numbers. When a platform owner says "300, 000 sales" that always means to the retail chain unless if is clearly stated otherwise - that's how the business works. If a manufacturer is claiming sales, look at the supporting evidence - stock counts in online retailers, downloads of apps, forum traffic, numbers of amazon reviews, ebay transactions, wiki interest, book publications. In the NIT's case these all say that end user sales are far lower than Nokia's claims, if you take them naively.

Apparently you don't know the Finns, meanwhile.

You're both very worked up over a stupid sales figure discussion and more than a little cynical. <_<

Well, even assuming this point is entirely meaningful, there's maybe 2 places that actually sell the thing retail, and that doesn't work out to all that many units.

Personally, I'd disagree.

Yeah, his posts convey a little irritation with us platform-preacher-loving incompetents, don't they?

Especially if they try to load the front page with their tablets.

Currently, on Amazon.com, the N800 ranks # 28 in "Computer & PC Hardware", # 8 in "Handhelds & PDAs", and # 20 in "Notebooks". The N810 does even better at # 20 in "Computers & PC Hardware", # 6 in "Handhelds & PDAs", and # 15 in "Notebooks".

On Buy.com, the N800 and N810 hold sales ranks of 228 and 314 respectively. (Just as a point of comparison, the iPod Touch 8 GB ranks at 245.)

On PriceGrabber, the N800 and N810 are # 2 and # 4 respectively in popularity in the "PDAs" category.

None of this shows actual sales numbers, but the rankings do appear to indicate that Nokia is moving a fair number of units.

..Which is why I would only use them them as part of a package of about half a dozen indicators. If it was just forum size vs Nokia's claims, then you'd be in a strong position. But it's not. (Btw - substituting a strawman version of an argument you disagree with rarely works on the Internet or real life...)

Sure. Whenever someone with a vested interest tells you something to their advantage it has to be truth: there really *were* WMD in Iraq, and those pills you were offered really *will* make your penis larger. Honestly! Keep handing over the money and you *personally* will be a WMD!

Every independent metric I can come up with says that NIT sales are probably tiny - can you come up with anything but "Nokia says <insert ambiguous, non-legally binding claim>"? Because that just isn't an argument an average grown up will believe, any more than he will believe that adding self-approval smilies makes his or herself look more intelligent or his argument stronger.

That's excellent - you looked at a source of hard data that isn't beholden to Nokia, well done!

Otoh, if you analyze this, it isn't necessarily so great. Product #1-#5 in such rankings normally get several orders of magnitude more sales than those at #20-#30. In this case, "Computer & PC Hardware" shows the Eee at #3. And #6. And #11, #12, and #17. So if you really believe that a #28 position relates to 500K units, then we should be seeing Eee's almost as often as Coca Cola cans. (Always do sanity checks like this on your data sources when you can.)

You have to remember in looking at Amazon figures that people use it as a way of getting hold of hard to get stuff, just like ebay. A poorly distributed product will look unnaturally great on Amazon, because they will get a large percentage of its sales. But still a nice try at product intelligence.

Another good tool to use is Froogle - see how many places sell a product, then watch the ones that show inventory. You have to weight by various factors to do with outlet size and specialization, so you get a very fuzzy answer, but this is a lot better than listening to what people want you to believe for their own purposes. Doing this got me an estimate of a few thousand Nit's a year sold in the UK. I took this seriously because I know a business with a product coming out that would be a good match for the Nit, and if it was really a relatively untapped 500K unit market, it would be worth porting it - they'd make several 100K for a few 10K's effort. But the real economics look very difernet - they'd do well to break even on the porting cost, and there would be no chance of a profit worth the hassle of an extra SKU. I will tell them to check out the Eee though.

I like the Nit, I can imagine liking it much more with the next OS, if there is one, but I can't believe that 500K people bought one.

Isn't it worth noting that a lot of outlets were out of stock of N800s for a while? This would seem to indicate that there weren't a lot of N800s "sold" to retailers but not really sold to consumers...