Nokia Previews N97 to Karachi Bloggers

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The First Nokia Bloggers Meetup kickoff on Friday – 22^nd May ’09 at 6:30 pm at The Sports Bar – Karachi .

It was a great event to be at ( alas it was invitation only ) cause not only I get to see the infamous Nokia Flagship , the N 97 but also meet some remarkable people like Umair Mohsin , a guy who has named his company Tuesday , to Husnain Shaban – Nokia Guru of @ Internet fame to people working at and for Nokia from Ayaz and Waqas of Syntax to Adeel and Khurram of Nokia Pakistan .

The initiation was done by Adeel Hashmi of Nokia who explained to us why Nokia wants the bloggers to preview the device before it is launched , well in his words “ to write about it and create an online hype” some people will not agree to it that they openly said to write about N97 , me running a small business in my bread and butter life believe it to be normal , Nokia is spending good money on us why not give them what they expect , I know it’s good money cause I saw the final bill which was signed and it was a hefty amount per person average . One thing I like about Nokia from my previous interaction with them is that they don’t expect me as a blogger to be everything is perfect about them , I can be critical , I can talk about issues which I feel they should have addressed and they do take the criticism positively and make changes to make the experience better . I was very critical of the 5800 Xpress Music launch and wrote a critical analysis to Adeel , on E75 launch it was how I wanted to be one thing was missing which was actual device interaction and it was covered in N97 launch , they are learning from experience and making experience for their invitees better J

Adeel also introduced Khurram Pradhan Portfolio and Planning Manager of Nokia , in other words he gets to play with all the cool things in development at Nokia before we even listen about it and also Shabana Shahzad , Program Manager or the brains behind who will get how many phones , how to launch it it’s availability , the programs to run for it the whole enchilada is her responsibility , I wonder if she can get me a device on discount say 35 % like they are doing it in US , hey who said I cannot dream.

The main presentation was started by Khurram Pradhan , who started with why Nokia choose to pre launch the phone with bloggers and the kudos go to the blogger community who were the main people asking questions in E75 launch and made Nokia think that these are the people they need to bring in the net who knows the phone and understand the technology.

Khurram then went on to talking about upcoming mobile trends and what’s transforming technology , very effectively he explains that for Nokia the decisive factor was merging of Net with Phone and this they are not seeing from now but forecasted it a decade earlier with launch of the first html capable phone the Nokia 9000 communicator in 1998 also featured in the movie The Saint being used by Val Kilmer.

Then he talked about the 4^th screen and how industry leaders is working on making their mark there . 4^th Screen is the devices in our pockets which every company from Dell ( soon to offer Smart Phones in China ) to Apple ( iPhone anyone ) to HP to Acer to Microsoft ( Zune Phone is in the rumor mill ) to Google ( Android and a slew of mobile applications ) to Samsung to LG to a number of Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers wants to get hold off .

We consumers , get these 4^th screens for free or at a nominal price through Carrier Contracts , sometimes we pay a premium price to be the first one to experience it like the guy in Jakarta – Indonesia who paid USD 5000 to be the first one in the world to have a Nokia E90 Communicator and companies are recognizing our need to be in touch with them and creating them more and more useful for us , hey anyone who offers more features ( sometimes at a better price ) is the leader of the pack .

A small video about the fourth screen was played which can be obtained from You Tube although Nokia Confidential was written on the slide blame it on a leaky faucet

Khurram then moved on to how Nokia is making the internet personal , I agree my internet habits are different from others and that’s what other players getting to , notice the small thumb screens when you open Google Chrome , Opera or Firefox , we all have different thumbs based on the websites we visit the most , what about iGoogle , we all have different widgets installed as per our liking . The same thing is being done by Nokia , in a world where out of the 1.3 billion internet users 40 % or 520 million people access internet on mobile where it’s forecasted that by 2012 , 3 billion people will be accessing the net out of which 1.5 billion will access it through mobile no wonder Olli Pekka’s dream is to have a consumer base whose first internet experience should be on a mobile phone hence the inclusion of OVI Services from Lifetools to Ovi Mail to OVI Files covering the end of the line Series 30 Phones to mid Tier Series 40 Phones ( Vertu is Series 40 but don’t take it mid tier or you’ll be depressingly disappointed) and top of the line Series 60 phones all support Internet services by Nokia .

Nokia is foreseeing to capture the market in which 93 million people are using social networks ( hey I talk to my neighbor or Facebook ) , 8.2 million people have downloaded maps for their mobile devices ( it only covers Nokia Maps what about Garmin XT which I’m extensively using in Pakistan ) 22.3 million access the net everyday on their devices to get the latest news and information ( I’ve got it all aggregated on Google Reader , Nokia should also have an RSS Aggregator beside the dreaded one incorporated with the browser ) and 184 million blogs are present talking about everything under the sun with 77 % of them actively commented on by their readers ( Wow that’s one big number and I stand at top 1 million sites as per Alexa sometimes shooting upto top 600,000 on weekly basis ) .

Nokia wants people to experience their virtual world where 200 million logon to Facebook , 125 million are on My Space , 9 millions are Tweeting on Twitter , 44 million users access Flicker’s library of billions of photos ( I have almost 13000 snaps there covering my kid’s from their birth till now ) and a little less than the world population some 5 billion videos are on Youtube . Nokia wants people to have access to their friends , their networks , their entertainment and their business on their fingertips ( I wonder why everyone in the presentation talked about Bloomberg, does Nokia have a stock option for it’s people too )

Now what best way for Nokia to enable user’s to have all they keep dear on their fingertips , it’s the home screen of Nokia N97 , completely customizable this screen is where the heart of Nokia’s internet dreams is the Widgets , I can have a Facebook Widget , a Sense Applied Widget and a Google Map Widget on my screen along with my top 5 contacts ( it depends on my choice who I want there so be on my good books people or anything I like on my home screen ( Sorry no Bloomberg , got no Nokia stocks to track ) I’m not bound to anything , my imagination is my limit this is the personal experience which Nokia talks about .

These Widgets are not simple dumb programs to connect to the services they portray some of them are smart , say a weather widget can detect where I am in the world using inbuilt GPS and change to the weather conditions of that city . The Friend View widget can come to life as soon as a friend comes within a particular distance and show me the exact location and guide me how to reach there on Ovi maps be I on foot or in a car .

For Nokia customer is paramount and it’s portrayed by their 3 dimensional approach , device ( 1^st Dimension ) meant for People ( 2^nd Dimension) stay connected at every Place ( 3^rd Dimension) they are and N97 with help of widgets brings that customer experience in a reality be it a social butterfly looking forward to all time connectivity with it’s online peers to a Fashionista who wants a practical device which is portable and looks good . All these requirements are met with Nokia N97 combines with OVI services.

Nokia is not only looking into the current portfolio of devices and services , they want to tap the future and how they did it , they set Symbian free ( umm only for Nokia Devices ) and has a cache of 4 million developers at Nokia Forums who can use the API and SDK’s and develop useful applications to be run on Symbian phones the lion’s share of which belongs to Nokia . ( Hello Apple , 4 million developers if each make one app each for Ovi Store , Apple Store will be history )

Here Khurram’s presentation ended and Q& A session started , Husnain was quicker than me to ask questions and asked about “OVI services to be available for everyone” , which Khurram said “are available from S30 to S60 devices” as I’ve mentioned earlier .

Husnain had the forum ( no mic it was a small gathering ) so he also asked the second question “Nokia has acquired Navteq , what about Maps for Pakistan?” , Khurram said that “it’s being worked upon as Nokia / Navteq is already covering 200 countries ( damn when I was young there were some 160 countries my poor kid now has to learn about 40 extras ) and Pakistan will soon be covered , no time line could be given as it’s confidential” , My advice to Nokia is get hold of people at Pkmaps forum , they already have extensive maps available for 5 major cities Gratis , and given some incentive will help Nokia in developing maps for Navteq too .

I’ve had enough so I jumped in before Husnain could steal the lime light , call it blogger jealousy , my first question was “ Well if OVI is about openness why not Nokia make their Map Maker available as Google once did for Pakistan” . Khurram replied that “OVI Maps API is just released” . My answer was “fine but as a user I’ve no clue what to do with an API make a consumer centric approach , have OVI Maps open to be marked by the user and see how fast Nokia gets maps developed for Pakistan , the same way Google did and now they are extremely accurate on vector scale.”

My second question was “how Nokia sees Google as a competitor , they both are eyeing the same market . Nokia talked about Latitude type service somewhere in Dec 2008 and came up with Friend View . Google not only picked the idea but refined it to do what Nokia wanted to do . The same happens with OVI maps and Google Maps where Nokia ‘copied’ Google ? “. Khurram’s answer was a bit unsatisfactory , he talked about “OVI Maps to be available offline while Google Maps need a data connection and the costs associated with it , however he did admit that in somethings people say Google copy them and in other they get inspiration from them ”

Someother questions were also asked but I was busy yapping away with Umair Mohsin of Tuesday.com.pk so was not able to get them even my makeshift Nikon S550 Camera Voice Recorder missed it

Now started the fun part , the 12 – 15 people present at the location became the elite few to see an actual N97 but still it was not in our hands Shabana Shahzad was holding it , she gave us a brief overview of the device including it’s specification , battery life ( Umair asked me how they determine battery life , in my opinion they fully charge a battery then make a person sit with it for days in shifts to see when the phone turns off or make some one talk away for hours to see how long the battery stays – please enlighten me on this ) running widgets on it ( even she talked about Bloomberg – Nokia share on NASDAQ again playing their role ) and also how the ‘Personal Swipe’ works , not many people were paying attention to what she was saying including me , all eyes were on the phone and like me everyone may be thinking , enough with the small talk , please hand it over to us , please please I want to touch it , hold it in my hands , swipe the screen myself , why you get to play with it why not me please give it before I snatch it and then it was given to the first guy in the first row and I was sitting in the third row , you can imagine the frustration I felt , damn 10 people before me will play with it and when I will get it and then Khurram came to the rescue and gave out the second device .

 

Both devices were exclusive in a sense , they were not the White ones we saw through out the world , these were Pakistan specific Black and they were a beauty as the saying goes Once you go Black , you never come back , a black device has it’s own charm , own charisma and I was mystified .

Then the device came into my hand , I’m thankful to Umair for not snatching it from me cause I would have if he would have gotten it before me – no offence Umair it’s my passion for device and he let me play with it to my heart’s content . Just to annoy Adeel who was looking at me when I had the device I took out my iPhone 3G and started using them side by side , later I knew they liked it and asked me how I compare both of them ( well that’s for another post ) .

I didn’t wanted to leave the phone but gave it to Umair , as we were the last of the lot , we had no pressure to give it to the next person so took snaps checked out the devices , until we were forced o go for dinner with the promise that we’ll have plenty of time to play with afterwards .

The food , delicious , like the devices , Nokia does not compromise on food , Sushi , Teriyaki and brown rice with other delicious Fish dishes and steak for me to eat my heart out and I did followed by drinks ( Pepsi and Fresh Lime 7Up) and Ice Cream

The evening ended around 9 , but I stayed long , had some fruitful discussions on how to take Nokia in Pakistan , what Nokia is doing for Pakistan and how to make the experience further better , I found Nokia people to be good listeners cause I love to talk.

S aid my goodbyes after 10 pm , when the place was cleaned up , bills were paid ( by Syntax / Nokia not me ) got some hush hush information which I cannot share , jumped in my truck with my Nokia souvenirs an OVI branded paper holder and a 2 GB Nokia N-Series branded Kingston USB Stick ( I don’t have them with me now , my kids claimed both of them for ditching their swimming program ) and drove back home , scheming on how to get hold of Nokia N97

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Tagged as: Karachi, Nokia