Is Nokia Really Considering Laptops?

Despite the actions of other companies to jump toward tablet PCs and netbook devices, Nokia has been reluctant to move its products in this direction. However, Nokia's CEO recently talked about his company maybe having a change of heart towards this stance -- or did he?

The Comment
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's current CEO, has been quoted as saying: "We are looking very actively also at this opportunity," when questioned about the possibility of Nokia laptops coming in the future. He went on to say, ""We don't have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a cellphone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging."

The Company
Nokia is the world's largest mobile device maker. It currently holds 38% of the global market share. It also ships more GPS-enabled devices, digital cameras, and MP3 players than any other company, due to the inclusion of these features within its mobile devices. And considering the nature of the operating systems used for its mobile devices, Nokia is considered now to be the world's largest computer maker, selling over 300 million devices per year.

Given this overview, it would be an interesting play at the longer-task computing market if Nokia were to create a laptop, or netbook-type device.

Nokia's Communicator and Internet Tablet Series
Nokia already has several laptop-like devices, most influential of which are its communicator series. These are clamshell, QWERTY devices enabled with specialized software (Symbian S80 or S90, and later S60) and have a very dedicated following.

In addition, Nokia has a significant following for its Internet Tablet series. These touchscreen-enabled devices use a version of Linux called Maemo and are at the forefront of Nokia's open-source software efforts.

While both device classes have made indelible impressions on users, they have not attained mainstream acceptance because of availability, price, or lack of attention from consumers.

Nokia's Position on Mobility
Contrast Kallasvuo's recent statement with the position he established some months ago in an interview with the Russian website Mobile Read when asked about Internet Tablets in comparison to netbooks. Stated then, Nokia's CEO already felt that netbooks were only "small laptops" and "not sufficient enough for context-sensitive mobile tasks." If you will, Internet Tablets (and Communicators) were better able to adapt to the context of the user than netbooks.

Looking at it from this context, one might take the Finnish paper comment in a different light -- that Nokia feels that it already has a products (Internet Tablets, Communicators, devices such as the N97) which are as powerful as netbooks and laptops, but ultimately more versatile because they are already designed with persistent connectivity and lower power consumption in mind.

So, Should We Expect A Nokia Laptop?
I don't think that a Nokia laptop is going to happen. Maybe Nokia accessories which enable laptop users to connect more seamlessly to Internet services -- especially Nokia's Ovi -- but not a dedicated device.

For Nokia, its transformation into a service provider from a device provider has meant that the company needs to be responsive to content anywhere. Its devices already bring this to pass from the hardware standpoint, and Ovi will make them responsive from a software one.

Nokia already call its N-series devices mobile computers, given the right form factor, doing what a laptop does isn't far behind.

Via: Reuters