You know it is strange when Nokia is doing something all start to talk about the company’s fail, but no one thinks it is a tactical step and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is an ace of its job. Yes, I agree there was a time when Nokia was a leader in the mobile world, and no other company could compete with it. But there is nothing strange when the things change.

For this difficult situation Nokia has developed a new plan — to cooperate with Microsoft, and very soon we’ll see new Nokia smartphones running Windows Phone OS. So there is no reason to discuss why Nokia has closed its online stores in the UK, Spain and France.

The company explained that the online stores were closed because they had low sales, and those who remain faithful to Nokia and want to get its devices can buy them from the carriers. Generally, I never understood what the online stores are for, as the phones are offered at quite affordable prices via carriers, and there is no sense to buy them from online stores where they are more expensive. It’s more than comfortable in Europe, where mobile operators provide the phones for free (with a contract, of course) and why this news made such a buzz in the tech world — I can’t understand. The company saw their online stores don’t sell many phones and decided not to waste time and resources on them.

I have just one question — how many of your friends or relatives buy phones directly from manufacturers? If the answer is close to 0, then there is no reason to think Nokia is drowning. The company just optimizes its activity.

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Nokia and Apple conflict continues for two years, and yesterday this battle ended peacefully. Apple agreed to pay a one-time fee plus on-going royalties. Though all the details are confidential, some analysts make assumptions about how much Apple has to forked out.

Deutsche Bank analyst Kai Korschelt said Nokia will get €420 million ($608 million) from Apple. This number has formed of a 1 percent royalty rate on all the iPhones sold until the first quarter of 2011. As we know the words come to 110 million units with an average price of $550. The payment will be transferred in four phases — €95 million ($137.6 million) per quarter. After this transfer Nokia will have no claims against Apple, and the ongoing licensing will be covered.

Generally, this story is not unique in its type as in different times different manufacturers had to pay some money for violating intellectual properties of other companies. In this list Nokia is included, too. Below are some of those deals:

As you see this is a very acceptable practice in the tech world. Although this can’t solve any real problem in a long-term period, but it somehow compensates Nokia’s €43 billion investment in research and development of handheld device and mobile communications technologies. This explains Nokia’s dominance in world and strong patent positions.

As a conclusion:

“We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees,” said Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Nokia. “This settlement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”

All’s well that ends well.

When talking about Nokia, the first thing that comes to mind is the mobile division of the manufacturer. But let’s not forget about Nokia Siemens Networks, which produces equipment for powering the wireless networks, that is to make the smartphones work. Nokia Siemens Networks one of the best technology in this field, but making money isn’t obviously their strong suit…

Nokia Siemens Networks’ main competitors such as Huawei and Ericsson were using cheap labor and big portfolio of services, so their services were notably cheaper, which led to Nokia’s division’s financial non-competitiveness.

The contract between Nokia and Siemens is applicable until 2013. Some experts think this will be the final break of the cooperation of the companies. There was a word that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG had plans to take the division, but the agreement was cancelled at the last minute. Still The Wall Street Journal says that now Nokia is “in constructive talks with several bidders.”

This means at least now we can be sure that Nokia will be selling its NSN division if not the smartphone division. And all of the rumors about the new CEO of Nokia… Is this some kind of conspiracy?… It will be rather interesting to see the finale of the situation.

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Yesterday when I wrote about the rumors that Nokia will be sold to Samsung, I wasn’t sure whether I should believe those rumors or not. Fortunately, yesterday Nokia CEO Stephen Elop spoke at the Open Mobile Summit in London announcing that Nokia is not for sale.

I definitely like such statements! And there is no need to think what the spokesperson meant or whether there was something under the line. Moreover, Stephen Elop said people are tired of seeing iOS- and Android-powered smartphones everywhere, and Nokia’s future Microsoft-based devices will be a good alternative for all those who wish something new.

Plus, when he was asked whether some Nokia’s unique services will be used in other Windows Phone handsets, Elop answered that it is quite desirable. Truly, it will help both companies enlarge their market shares and become more popular. Generally, the question referred to the offline voice-guided navigation with Ovi Maps, and this anxiety is clear, because Google will offer Google Maps with free offline navigational capabilities soon, so Nokia must prepare something not to lag behind Google.

I think there will be some cooperation between Samsung and Microsoft app- and service-level, nothing more, and all these conversations made people think Microsoft and Samsung are hungry to ingest Nokia. However, Stephen Elop has come to Nokia not for this, right?

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There are rumors that Nokia World 2011 will be cancelled, but the event will take place anyway. Just like last year, the event will be held sometime in October in London.

Many people doubted the even will take place because of the strategy shifts of the manufacturer. But there are at least two major official sources that claim the event will take place. The first source is the mini-site of Nokia Connection 2011. Here the event is names “the biggest Nokia event of the year.”

The official tweet made by the Nokia South Africa also confirmed the event:

“Hi the NokiaConnection event in Singapore is very regionally focussed NokiaWorld in October is the global event ”

There is also the Symbian/Nokia app competition by Movistar Equador, which has a trip to the Nokia World 2011 as a major price. So we don’t think the event can be cancelled. It can take place on September 7 though.

October will be a more convenient time for Nokia World 2011, I think. The manufacturer will manage to make its plans concerning its cooperation with Microsoft more clear, and by October we’ll hear something new about Nokia’s first Mango phones, too.

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Recently, Russian tech analyst Eldar Murtazin tried to sell Nokia to Microsoft for $19 billion, and now other rumors are buzzing over the net. According to them, Samsung is going to buy Nokia. If the spokespersons from both companies came up with comments, everything would be OK, but they remain silent.

The thing is that no matter how hard Nokia is working to solve its current problems, its financial indicators hint there are still black clouds conglomerated above the company. Some optimists will say cooperation with Microsoft will help Nokia regain its popularity, but its market cap has decreased to $24 billion, and probably even Stephen Elop doesn’t know what to do.

On the other hand, Samsung is competing with other big manufacturers successfully, and Nokia’s patents can help it strengthen its positions on the global mobile market. It is rather difficult to imagine Nokia to be sold to Samsung, but if it happens, most likely a fusion will be made with Nokia Siemens Networks.

Again, these are just rumors, and as usual the spokespersons of both companies are quite modest when they’re asked about such deals. So, everything can happen, we can just wait and see.

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Nokia’s market shares are going down as it is reported by ratings agency Fitch. They downgraded Nokia’s lending rating from BBB+ to BBB- and claim the situation will become even worse because the Finnish company isn’t doing anything to win its popularity back.

The ratings agency doesn’t expect Nokia to get out of the situation in the nearest future. The rating influences Nokia’s financial strategy and long-term bonds so that investors like pension funds will not be able to buy the debt.

“The pace of deterioration has picked-up since Nokia decided to switch to an alternative operating system and it appears consumers are deserting these legacy handsets for cheaper Android (Google’s operating system) versions or high-end Android or Apple smart phones,” mentioned Stuart Reid, Senior Director in Fitch’s TMT team in London.

The analysts of the company think that the input of the company will not be available for testing until 2012, when the company will finally release a brand new package of smartphones. This means that the investments of the company won’t pay back until the next year, while for this year we still have around a half way to go. Nokia’s only hope are the upcoming Windows Phone 7 devices anyway…

Even taking into the account the amount of the cash of Nokia, Fitch experts claim: ”Mature companies in fast-moving sectors can feel threatened to rapidly spend accumulated cash in a number of ways when faced with step changes in market-share dynamics.”

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Today is World IPv6 Day and it is also significant because Nokia has its own investment in this deal, for its users, of course. While other mobile manufacturers will have to do their best to accelerate the process of giving six octet IP addresses to their devices, Nokia can sit quietly as it is working in this system since 2004.

Earlier, when people started to use IPv4, no one could think 4 billion addresses would be expired so soon. But if you are familiar with this problem, most likely you know the conversations about the replacement of IPv4 with IPv6 have been cycling over the net for many years. Now, when this replacement is necessary, Nokia has no reason to worry about, because Nokia has been working with IPv6 standardization and development since the birth of IPv6 in the 90s. Starting from 2004 Nokia brought these standards to its Symbian-based smartphones. As a result, now Nokia’s smartphones have really good support for 3G and GSM.

Well, as Symbian-powered devices work with IPv6-enabled Ovi Browser, all Nokia users can be sure there won’t be any problem with connecting the next billion. The browsing can be performed even if the site uses only IPv4. This can be done due to the proxy server that will automatically translate the data between the two protocols.

As you see IPv6 standards will conquer the whole world soon, and Nokia is already ready for this.

Let’s have a look at the Chinese counterfeit of the Nokia 5230. I noticed it on dealextreme.com, but there were no reviews about the phone there, so we can’t make any conclusions about it. I should note that the Chinese are selling this clone for only $59.99, which is a rather attractive price if compared with the original smartphone.

There are no comments about the device on the website, so if you still want to become one of the owners of the handset, you will be doing it at your own risk. The features of the Chinese clone of the Nokia 5230 include a 3.0-inch touch screen, two slots for SIM cards (900/1800MHz, WAP, GPRS), Bluetooth 2.0, built-in speaker, memory card support for SD / TF types with up to 4 GB increase capabilities, a VGA camera (remember that this one takes only 640 X 480 pics), MP3/3GP/MP4/JPG/TXT format support, built-in radio and 1320 mAh battery. The dimensions of the phone are 11.1 cm x 5.2 cm x 1.6 cm, while it weighs 107 grams.

Among the complete set of the features it is worth noting that the phone does not have a memory card in the box, you need to buy it separately. But there are two batteries, which are rather powerful for this not that cool smartphone — 1320 mAh and 1100 mAh. And they say it also supports Java! Funny!!! ))

I would really like to know more about the processor and the screen it comes with…

The Ovi Store is now offering the newest CNN application designed for Symbian-based Nokia devices. The application gives you a chance to read the latest news and articles distributed in 12 separate categories, watch live CNN videos (when the feature is available) and get directly connected to the CNN’s iReporter feature and have a direct impact on the creation of the news.

“See what happens when storytelling meets the newest technology with the new CNN App for Nokia smartphones – a smarter, sleeker way to experience a world of news and insights. Immerse yourself in the latest top stories, business, world sports, entertainment, technology and more. Watch live breaking news video, share news & insights, and submit your own story to the world with iReport.”

And now CNN is working over an enhancement of the application for Symbian^3 devices, including the Nokia N8, the Nokia C6-01, the Nokia C7, the Nokia C7 Astound, the Nokia E7 and the Nokia X7. The enhancement will bring in the ability to see a breaking news mix. With the help of the Ovi Notifications the Nokia users will get an alert about the coolest stuff. This will be made real with CNN for Nokia 1.1.

The most appealing part of the application is that it’s already available in the Ovi Store, and you don’t have to pay for it. Just head to the Ovi Store to get it to your device.

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