Anuj Agrawal

Nokia: Expanded Services Portfolio Is Starting To Come Together

With all the noise Apple is making around the 3G iPhone,  Nokia has been making tremendous waves recently that should leave the company in an interesting position to maintain its relevance and spot as a major player in the mobile market.  One of its primary new initiatives is Ovi, geared at providing new Internet based services to mobile devices.  They have also been on an acquisition spree to strategically expand the range of its businesses. It will be interesting to see how Nokia is able to integrate these various components into a cohesive customer experience.  Here is a quick rundown of some their major announcements over the past year: 

1. Comes With Music

For starters, they will soon be releasing their "Comes with Music" initiative, a subscription music service that will waive the fee for the first year with purchase of a new Nokia music handset that supports the service.   The big attraction is that for the first year, a customer can download as many tracks as they want and store them on their PC even after their subscription expires.  There is a hot debate on the "catch" to this.  There must be some sort of DRM that limits the amount of songs you can download, otherwise everyone can go out and buy a huge hard drive and go nuts.  In any event, Nokia can now have a stronger hold on the customer experience by selling the hardware and supporting it with music content. 

3G iPhone: The Worst Kept Secret is Finally Here...

So after I finished taking in a live blog of the Apple WWDC 3G iPhone launch event, my first reaction was that the sticker price of $199 is going to be a home run.  Of course, we should thank AT&T, who is now applying a subsidy, even though they are offsetting it by increasing the service plans by $10 more per month on the basic plan.

We all remember the hype that the Motorola RAZR received during its launch and subsequent price cuts.  Soon it seemed like 80% of the population were taking RAZRs out of their pockets.  Of course the RAZR craze has fizzled out as it has been unable to retain the sleek image and brand it commanded during its unveiling. But the same is not happening with iPhone.  Although the transition from RAZR to RAZR 2 was very quiet, this 3G iPhone has been the most anticipated gadget of the year.