Cellco execs lay into Nokia's Lumia
WinPho efforts inadequate, apparently
Major European mobile phone network operators reckon Nokia's Lumia smartphones simply aren't good enough to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung.
Four unnamed operators spoke out against the Finnish phone firm's Windows range, describing it as overpriced, plagued by battery issues and inadequately marketed, Reuters reports.
"Nokia has given itself a double challenge: to restore its credibility in terms of making hardware smartphones and to succeed with the Microsoft Windows operating system, which lags in the market," said an executive from one European cellco which has offered its customers Lumias since late 2011.
While the exec did admit WinPho allows PC users to "do tonnes of cool things", it isn't as marketable as Android and harder to sell to potential buyers.
"No one comes into the store and asks for a Windows phone," he complained.
Another anonymous operator claimed Nokia should consider price cuts to improve the take-up of its new smartphone line.
"If it could lower the price we think it could sell more. It might be worth making it a bit of a loss leader to get it out of the door. It's not rocket science," they remarked.
The damning assessments come on the back of a troubled week for Nokia, with shares falling to a record low and ratings agency Moody's dropping its debt assessment of the company to the worst level possible.
Analysts predict rough times ahead, and the criticism from major telcos will do little to calm investors' fears.
"Ultimately, Nokia and Windows are challengers and they either need to come to market with a really disruptive, innovative product or a huge marketing budget to create client demand. So far they have done neither," said another dissatisfied operator. ®
COMMENTS
Ace in the hole
They need to get the 808 PureView (that 41 megapixel cameraphone) out ASAP, at least it has a unique selling point for those of us who want that sort of thing.
And no WinPho included, bonus!
Re: Ace in the hole
@Lost all faith...
You should actually read about PureView before complaining about it. It doesn't take 41 megapixel pictures (although it can), it takes 8 megapixel pictures just like most smartphones. The difference being it over samples and averages the results of 7 individual pixels down to just 1. The massive oversampling does a very good job at compensating against the smaller lens. Obviously, it's still no DSLR, but it's pictures will blow any other smartphone pictures out of the water! The results are impressive.
.. they could have a point, though ..
Nokia / MS really are up against it: I'm due to renew and despite having had Nokias for years, I have not considered a Lumia for a moment.
Android only really got going once HTC released the Desire and made it absolutely dirt cheap (I got mine for £16 a month if you include the cost of the phone). It became an instant best seller and suddenly Android was mainstream.
The difference is that back then, people like me were waiting for a good looking, decent spec alternative to the iPhone. There are now plenty of those and they run Android. Persuading me to switch to Windows would need to be a heck of a sell.
Of course, a Nokia Droid would be a whole 'nother proposition. That, I could go for. And who knows: if I liked the Nokia enough, I might even consider a different OS for my next phone.
But not this one.
'Windows 8 will make or break WP7 (or 8). If Microsoft can make it simple to develop an app that works on both WP8 and W8, they'll break the apps = users problem in one step.'
Good point. may I add another?
If Microsoft makes it impossible for WP7 users to upgrade to WP8 they will see a massive backlash from people finding themselves orphaned. At the moment Microsoft is playing its cards close to its chest over the whole upgrade path which isn't terribly encouraging.
Re: It's not about the price.
"I suffer enough with Windows on my laptop, the last place I want to see it is on my phone".
and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real problem. People, consumers to be precise, are completely fed up with Windows and anything which is connected to Microsoft.
Most of the reasons for that are out of MS'es hands (shitty laptops, preinstalled garbage, dodgy AV scanners, virusses, zealous sysadmins/BOFH's with ridiculous forced and rigid settings@work & lets not forget: users who do not use the security settings of windows @home; always logging on as an admin & disabling UAC as 2 of the main things)
but the one main thing was lack of (UI) innovation. and when it came (winpho 7)it was too little, too late.
Even if the Lumia was a brilliant phone it has that thing going against it: Windows? no, thanks.
And to be honest: it looks to me that most of the Nokia nay sayers here have never seen or used a Winpho 7.x device. your claims are wrong. all of them. Winpho is a good user experience, maybe better than android. I have an experia arc and it Blows with a big B. battery life is horrible (10 hours max) and app crashes are very common. But that doesn't matter anymore because the general opinion is already set: windows sucks. period.
Can Microsoft turn this around? I do not know. maybe. probably not. It started with the 2nd browser war: MS lost. than came the phone war: MS looks like Vichy france.. and coming fall... comes the start of the desktop war...(Mac is rising and Android is starting to be a competitor with the transformer like devices) after that: the server war... and after that? Onlive is going to rape the Xbox.. (those last two events are interchangeable. whichever comes first..)
Public opinion rules. and it isn't favouring MS...(or RIM for that matter)
I'm an MS pro (sysadmin), been that all my career.. but the always so very safe bet.... is starting to look not so safe anymore. The Phone is the new desktop. and MS didn't see that one coming.. Bill did, ( I remember a speech about connected devices from fridges to phones, somewhere in the end of the 90-ies) but then he left...
