Smartphone Versus Netbook: Can Nokia Jump The Gap?

“Nokia pulled out of PCs because it saw the huge opportunity in mobile phones,” he said. “And it did not have the cost structure to compete in PCs – an industry that is price-led. Since then, its mantra has been that it doesn’t want the phone industry to become like the PC industry.”

In the past, Nokia has been successful in “designing beautiful phones and leading a market,” said Brazier, so it may have trouble entering an existing market. “They may not have realised the challenge they face – and needed more research up front.”

Coming back into the PC industry, Nokia may underestimate the extent to which PCs are the same, with design led by Microsoft and Intel. “To come in with one product, with exactly the same technology as everyone else, it’s difficult to see how Nokia can suddenly win.”

The Booklet 3G has been criticised for details like non-upgradable RAM, but Brazier said it’s best to see it as “a toe in the water – before Nokia comes out with more innovative products.”

Does Nokia have a Linux notebook on the way?

The company’s deal with Microsoft to put Windows on the device might just be a temporary move while the company gets a device ready that runs Nokia’s Maemo version of Linux, he said: “Nokia is clearly behind Linux devices, and a Maemo-based device is a certainty. It could be an evolution of the 900 series, or there could be more than one type of concept.”

Adopting Windows might simply be a way to buy in a user interface that users will accept, sidestepping the company’s reputation for phones which can be a bit forbidding to use: “Nokia isn’t really a software company in the classic computer industry sense. Symbian was at arm’s length, but it is integrated more, of late.”

Being weak at software is not necessarily a liability, he says: “Most PC companies are lousy at software. It just happens that Apple is good at it.”

In Part 2 of this interview, Brazier will look at the prospects of Microsoft, Palm and Google Android. The Canalys Mobility Forum is on 17 November, at Heathrow, London.