Nokia had a big day as it pulled back the covers (officially) on their new products the Lumia 920 and 820. There are few who will doubt that Nokia is producing fantastic products that will stand proudly on retail shelves next to the Android and the iPhones of the world but something was amiss with today's announcement.
Nokia is playing to win and it rightfully should be as the company is working to turn its massive ship from Symbian to Windows Phone. But, as the noise began to reside and the adrenaline left everyone’s blood, the conference felt half complete and that’s because it was.
We can’t stress enough that we love Nokia’s direction and how they are working to be different but all of that is for naught as the company could not tell us more about Windows Phone 8, when it the devices will be released and crucially, how much the devices are going to cost.
It’s a crucial misstep that is not entirely Nokia’s fault. It is clear that Microsoft is holding vendors back on Windows 8 as Samsung previously could not heavily demonstrate their phone running Windows Phone 8 and today Nokia was held back from fully showing off the devices because Microsoft’s control over the OS.
It is likely because Windows Phone 8 is not done yet seeing as Mary Jo Foley said we should not expect RTM until sometime this month. So what we end up with and HTC will likely have this issue too, is that vendors have brand new hardware to showoff, but an OS that is holding them back.
Windows Phone 8 is turning out to be a great platform but what we appear to be seeing is OEMs rushing to the door to make an announcement that only appears to be half complete. Are they doing this to get out ahead of the iPhone rush or are they genuinely ready to show off their hardware?
Microsoft is known for this type of hype and then leave the consumer wanting more; the Surface announcement is a perfect example.
So here we have Nokia, who has put in all the hard work to create these fantastic phones only to leave the consumers without the crucial information they need: when can we buy it and how much will it cost?
Nokia almost had a great press conference, fortunately for Nokia it was not the hardware that disappointed, it’s the politics going on behind the scenes that caused Nokia to miss the mark on today’s event.
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