Nokia E-phones might finally mean business

Weighing the Crackberry Contenders

Device	Weight (g)	Length (mm)	Width (mm)	Height (mm)	Volume (ml)	Screen (pixels)	Keyboard	Wi-Fi	3G	2.5G
Palm Treo 650	178	113	59	23	153	320×320 (102,400)	QWERTY	No	No	Yes
HP iPaq h6300	189	138	75	21	139	640×480 (307,200)	QWERTY	802.11b	No	Yes
RIM BlackBerry 7100v	120	114	46	20	128	240×240 (57,600)	SureType™	No	No	Yes
Nokia E61	144	117	70	14*	108	320×240 (76,800)	QWERTY	802.11i,g,l	Yes	Yes
Nokia E70	127	117	53	22	102	354×416 (147,264)	QWERTY	802.11i,g,l	Yes	Yes

Compared to the Nokia 6800, the E70 weights in only 3cc, 2mm longer, 1mm wider and 1mm deeper. Only it incorporates a 354×416 (or double Series 60 v1&2 screen), the latest Wi-Fi and 3G. You get the idea.

Anyone concerned that the smartphone business (or for that matter, the MP3 player business) was becoming commoditized should take heed. Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia all seem to want to remind us of the old engineering maxim: anyone can build something with 100 parts, but to do it with say, just six, requires great engineering.

That's not all. The new models also boast up to 7+ hours talk time - a consequence, we suspect, of the decision to base development on the Symbian 9.1 real time EKA2 kernel. This is not only vastly more power efficient than rival Linux, WinCE and Palm rivals but allows Nokia to put baseband GSM radio onto a single chip too, which means a cheaper bill of materials.

(Our review of the imate JasJar noted that it performed well - but stung the user with a price tag close to $1000 - more than many budget laptops).

However Nokia doesn't really want you, or its competitors to look too closely under the hood, but rather look at the software support for enterprises.

Mail and Campus VoIP

Looking back to the four year old 9210 "Corporate Solutions" page, we noted this rather hopeful note:

POP3 and IMAP4 are supported for incoming mail and SMTP for outgoing mail. … Microsoft Exchange server also supports all these protocols and, depending on your need, they all can either be used together or in separate servers."

And that was it.

This week our inbox for the E-series announcement was flooded with releases from enterprise mail vendors. Good has brought GoodLink to Series 60, BlackBerry Connect will be supported, Visto and two versions of Seven's mail platform provide more options, as is Nokia's own new enterprise mail service, with Exchange support licensed from Microsoft.

Nokia E70

Remote configurability is also much improved from four years ago, and almost as a footnote Nokia points out these devices support the first generation of OMA DM, so the "desktop" can be pushed out to the remote client, and the device can be locked down quickly from the IT help desk.

And VoIP?

Well, Nokia isn't exactly shouting about the ability to make SIP calls. But it didn't shout about this feature of the 9300 and the 7710, which have been on the market some time.

But it is pushing these devices at enterprises who have already made the decision to deploy campus wide VoIP. As Jim Hughes and others have noticed -

Companies deploying an Avaya or Cisco IP PBX can connect the new Nokia devices directly to their corporate phone networks, enabling functions employees have come to expect from a corporate network like four-digit dialing and assiste call answering. Companies deploying an Avaya or Cisco IP PBX can connect the new Nokia devices directly to their corporate phone networks, enabling functions employees have come to expect from a corporate network like four-digit dialing and assisted call answering.

Rather than positioning the E-series as a killer device, Nokia's more subtle approach seems to be rather, "if you want to do X - and we know you do - then this is the best value way of implementing it". And plenty of enterprises want to use VoIP, starting where they can, and where WLANs are already up and running.

It's hard to see how Nokia could have made these more compelling. Corporate mobile data only exists in niches - such as fleet services that use GPS - and in the mainstream only RIM has successfully made a business out of providing something neither the carriers nor terminal manufacturers could adequately provide. That look set to change. ®