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On the Heels of A Cutback in Smartphone Offerings

Which Came First-The Chicken or the Egg?
The Phone or the Cutbacks? Did the makings of the phone cause the cutbacks or did the cutbacks necessitate the selling of the phone? Well, neither really. Or so they say. Apparently Nokia is scaling back the smartphone offerings in order to “…shrug off new rivals Apple and Rim,” according to Reuters. Jo Harlow, the new chief of Nokia’s smartphone unit stated that they are going to defend their position and they have the tools they need to play on the offensive as well as the defensive.

Apparently their goals are to lower prices while using their top OS mover, Symbian, to increase their margins. They are following the lead of Acer, who originally stated they would only be releasing 8-10 smartphones a year. And that is exactly what Nokia said they would be doing by cutting their offerings to almost half of what they offered this year (2009), which was 20 smartphones.

“We have cut down unnecessary differentiation, so that we have a far more focused portfolio for next year,” stated Antti Vasara, head of smartphones R&D, and by putting more effort into fewer products. The problem was all of the smartphones they has released over the past few years wee almost identical in many respects. SO now with a smaller selection, the differences in the models would be more noticeable

The Nokia 6700 Classic Premium
The announcement of this smartphone comes on the heels of the decision to cut back their offerings. A full 5 days later to be exact. But the question is, because it’s obviously been in planning for a while, was it really the cause of the cutbacks, or is it a targeted product in order to recoup some of the company’s losses?

The Nokia 6700 Classic Gold Edition is one of the most successful of the Nokia offerings and it just makes sense they would follow in the footsteps of the E97, a smartphone plated with 24 karat gold. The Nokia Classic 6700 Gold Edition is steel with 18 karat gold plating and comes with rich looking leather case and it’s own strap.

The 6700 Gold Edition also has the same features as the Classic 6700, a 5 megapixel camera on a 2.2 TFT display, a 970 mAh battery which when the phone is using 2G gets supposedly up to 416 hours of standby time and 5 hours of continuous talk time but when on a 3G network, only 414 hours of standby time and 4 hours continuous talk time. It is all- around still the Nokia 6700 Classic Smartphone.

And the Verdict Is?
I would like to know just one thing. Why would they make a phone such as this? It was bad enough they made the E72 with all it’s richness and glory, but now two gold smartphones? Especially since they announced the cutbacks, what would be the point of a gold phone? Maybe they are doing it because RIM doesn’t have any and they need to stay ahead, but even if that were the case, there are better ways of going about snuffing the competition. Like making newer, better phones. There is just no practical reason to make a gold phone. Oh well,, so much for the phrase “Waste not, want not,” huh?

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