Good morning from London Heathrow

This morning, courtesy of Nokia, I am flying to Stuttgart for this week’s 2-day Nokia extravaganza, known as Nokia World.

There’s a lot to be excited about this week. New handsets are bound to be announced. We’ll get more details about that gorgeous looking Maemo N900 handset. We’ll have some updates, no doubt, about Ovi Store and the Ovi Services platform. And I’m sure there will be a few surprises along the way.

I have the video camera and the super-crazy-powerful MacBook Pro with me to edit video (along with the Mac Air for liveblogging if appropriate). So look for some interesting content.

Nokia have scheduled about 8 meetings with senior, senior top executives (I saw Nik Savander, Director of Services, on the list). If you’ve any burning issues you’d like me to put to anyone, drop me a note.

For the avoidance of doubt, here is my current opinion of Nokia: Brilliantly engineered top-end handsets running an OS that’s difficult to develop for (complexity and cost being the biggest issues). Historically Nokia Services haven’t evolved fast enough for me (witness Nokia Maps – great at satnav but rubbish if you’re an end consumer trying to find Starbucks – try Google Maps instead). The company has — on the face of it — completely lost it’s way in the consumer mobile business, when you look at the sheer app innovation on iPhone and Android. But Nokia is oft described, accurately, as a supertanker. Turning that in a different direction takes time. Can Nokia withstand the pummeling that the now super-super-fast moving mobile marketplace is throwing, at least at the top end? This year’s Nokia World will be a good indication. Right now, I think they’ve got game.

Stuttgart, home of this year’s conference, beckons.

Posted via email from MIR Live