NokiaWorld: What a total waste of time and resources

Well that’s the dust settling after NokiaWorld 2010 and I am left feeling entirely empty.

Thank you for absolutely nothing, Nokia.

Writing or speaking the word ‘Nokia‘ is the muggle equivalent of deploying a Harry Potter style Dementor: All the joy immediately seeps out of your life.

This week the company vomited out a few handsets that I can’t even be bothered to write about.

There were a few announcements that I can’t be bothered to even begin to chronicle. A mobile developer won $1m (congratulations). And the party looked pretty good.

I wasn’t at NokiaWorld this year as consulting commitments prohibited my physical attendance. I’m was disappointed not to see Tesco’s Ed Hodges discuss the state of the industry.

I was also disappointed not to have filmed a walk-about video series with AllAboutSymbian‘s Rafe Blandford. Although, I think it was just as well — because I don’t believe I could have got through filming without machine-gunning the phrase ‘FCKING SH1T’ or “TOTAL RUBBISH” in between each of his points.

You only have to read the All About Symbian analysis of the E7 vs the E90 to get the underlying don’t-give-a-toss, leave-at-4pm mindset that’s completely infected Nokia and brought the company to a stand-still. Steve Lichfield, one of the most thorough device reviewers of our time, signs off his E7 piece thus:

I keep coming back to the ‘x steps forward, y steps back’ thought – yes, x may be greater than y, but shouldn’t y be as close to zero as possible?

In any other company, Steve, yes.

2 million downloads a day on Ovi. It’s creeping up. By hook or by crook.

Nobody cares.

It’s all irrelevant.

It’s all ‘also-ran’ because there’s no heart, no lion, no focused energy pushing the company forward to frame the array of achievements like the Ovi Store.

Despite the hard work of a talented few at Nokia, their efforts to date have been completely and unreservedly undermined by the rest of the leave-at-4pm Nokia crew.

Utterly, utterly depressing.

I am hopeful for the future. But I am also entirely realistic. It’s going to be years before we see anything worth looking at from Nokia, isn’t it?

Before the Symbian-fascists (Alex, I’m looking at you!) respond below, I’d like to point out that yes I know Nokia has a large marketshare. The company is doing a spectacularly brilliant job delivering dumbphones to the normob masses in the developing world. I know the company’s big. I know they’re still making profit.

Perhaps the strategy this week was to get the dog-and-pony-show over with as soon as possible so that they could come back to market with something decent in the next few months, or next year?

How long before Nokia is able to deliver a product or service to the market that has people talking about it around the watercoolers?

Please Mr Microsoft Office, get to work right-away.

Fix the malaise.

Show us genuine a glimpse of the future that doesn’t involve a bollocks set of tired UI constructs and a can’t-really-be-bothered set of products and services.

Move the markets.

Demonstrate that you have the collective will and abilities to take what Apple, HTC, Sony and Samsung have developed and leave it standing in the dust.

I don’t think Nokia has genuinely moved the market for years. Instead the company’s pigeonholed itself into competing in the race to zero, lauding itself for bringing mobile to hundreds of millions of people who were previously unconnected. There’s little merit there beyond the obvious basic reality of empowerment through connectivity. I get that. I buy it. I understand. What are you doing for the next generation though? What are you doing to move the top end of the marketplace forward?

Ah dear.

Utterly, utterly depressing.