Information was leaked right from the Microsoft office in the USA. According to one of the Chinese forums, WP8 is being tested on Nokia phones. The Apollo update is being tested not only on Nokia’s current but also future phones. The tipster says there is also a-yet-to-be-unveiled Nokia phone involved in the experiment. One of the current...

Nokia has been very talkative about its latest Lumia 900, but has been also very quiet about older Nokia phones running Windows Phone 7. Lumia users have been asking many questions about the possible compatibility of their phones supporting Windows 8. Nokia India has kindly responded to the question and even given out a tiny hint. You...

The Nokia Lumia 800 will soon land on South Africa. A leaked tipset mentioned the device would be launched in South Africa sometime in the first quarter of this year. Now official info provided by Nokia South Africa Facebook page spreads light upon the launch date — the device will be released on February 7.

The launch date sounds odd to me, because South Africa has never been among the first ones to get such devices, especially when there are a number of European countries, which still haven’t received it. If I knew I’d come up with a reasonable explanation to this, I’d definitely search for a hidden meaning. But right now I don’t have one.

I don’t think Nokia will launch the Nokia Lumia 710 for South Africa, but I believe South African customers should feel most lucky to have the Nokia Lumia 800. Nokia South Africa has also prepared a promotional launch party for the smartphone. It will take place on January 25 in Midrand (an area in Gauteng Province). Device details, including price and availability options, will most likely be revealed at the event.

Nokia has adopted the best policy of offering all kind of pre-installed applications, so that customers get fewer third-party apps. As a proof of that Nokia launched the Nokia Drive app for its Windows Phone 7 devices, which would replace the Ovi Maps feature, available on Symbian.

At the moment the application allows to have the maps of the entire regions, while for navigation it requires internet connection. This is the worst option ever, as the customers are required to pay extra internet fees for the application. Other than that, it turns out to be a big problem in the territory of Europe. The thing is if you pass the border and appear in a new state, you’ll be required to pay for the roaming as well.

To change the situation Nokia decided to come up with a software update for the application. It will allow to have offline navigation. The official statement is the following:

“Nokia Drive will receive an update in the near future that will allow navigation even offline.”

If this proves correct, Nokia Windows Phone handsets will become even more competitive on the market.

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Nokia has announced its first smartphones running Windows Phone Mango, the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710. We are all aware of it. What we don’t know is how the company will have back its glory. Seems easy? Don’t be mistaken. The days when a phone with a stunning design and a pair of eye catching features was sure to guarantee success for the manufacturer are left in the past. Presently the smartphone market’s growing at the speed of light; the leading software companies monthly release about 50 handsets in different designs, features and for all types consumers. But Nokia has a CEO called Stephen Elop, so let’s try to guess what this man thinks concerning this.

If you wonder, I decided to talk about this inspired by a post written on TechCrunch, and I have some ideas on how Nokia will conquer the US. There are many people who don’t believe and trust in Nokia; these are people whose brain is controlled by Android/iOS. So the first thing to do is to change the attitude towards its products. Look, there are currently only two carriers (AT&T and T-Mobile) in the U.S. offering Nokia’s smartphones, and they are all low-end or mid-range devices. So it’ll be better to involve more and more carriers, retailers and other interested parties.

Second, Nokia shouldn’t focus on backbiting any platform, because that’s a market and there are different companies with different offers. Nokia is one of them and is offering its own products. I believe this will be a good direction for Nokia to take. Of course, it’ll need much money on promoting its smartphones, but it shouldn’t be a big deal considering Microsoft’s announcement. In case you don’t remember, Microsoft announced it’ll spend £20 million on marketing campaign for Nokia phones.

These are just two versions or ideas, call it however you want. I know many of you don’t agree with me, so I wouldn’t mind listening to your ideas.

eBuddy has reached the 20 million downloads milestone in Ovi Store. This means we’re dealing with one of the most popular applications on the market. This is why Nokia decided to strengthen their cooperation and gave the app en extra push, making eBuddy the “preferred messaging partner.”

eBuddy will be released for all Nokia handsets regardless of the platform they run on, S40, S60, MeeGo and Windows Phone 7.

I guess this is a right decision, because if the app has been downloaded more than 150 million times, it means one thing — users like it. So why not give it a chance to become an official partner? On this occasion Nokia’s Reno Marioni said:

“eBuddy’s success and experience in the mobile messaging field have made this partnership a natural step for Nokia. We are excited about the introduction of eBuddy XMS to Nokia platforms and look forward to having Nokia users enjoy the reliable and rich messaging experience that eBuddy XMS provides.”

Moreover, due to this cooperation Nokia won’t have to consider how to improve its native messaging app, and will focus its attention on  more important features. On the other hand, eBuddy developers will improve their product, because it’s not easy to be one of the main apps on Nokia’s phones. So we must state that the cooperation between Nokia and eBuddy is in favor of both companies.

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It does not matter what the situation is Nokia at the moment, because it has signed a contract with Microsoft and these tech giants are doing their best to have this programm succeed. Generally, their cooperation is beneficial for both companies, and if Nokia has a goal to go out from the occurred situation, Microsoft tries to make its mobile operating system more popular and compete with Apple and Google equally. But the things are not only in launching high-end smartphones running Windows Phone 7, as there are many aspects impacting on platform’s popularity, too, say its app market. But Nokia is conscious of it, this is why it has announced it is ready to offer incentive to big developers for bringing their apps to Windows Phone 7.

This is a good chance for developers to become more popular and earn simultaneously, as their apps will be promoted with the help of Windows Phone Marketplace or appear in Nokia phones as pre-installed apps. Honestly, I do not know whether developers are interested in this offer, because nowadays all run to Android and iOS, that’s why App Store has reached 425.0000 app limitations, Android Market– 250.000. Anyway, according to many geeks, Windows Phone is a future platform, so we hope developers will offer many interesting and useful apps and Nokia Windows Phone handsets will be well armed when launched.

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Before Nokia completely switches to Windows Phone 7 platform, the company actively develops its current operating system and all the institutions related with it. Now we have very interesting news for those who own a Symbian^3- or S60 5th Edition-powered smartphone — Nokia’s Ovi Store for Symbian apps is now powered by Nokia Drop which has included a new feature allowing users to wirelessly push apps, themes, ringtones and wallpapers to your handset.

This means you can now easier install content on your phone because you won’t be asked to send an SMS for confirmation or use an external plugin. To access your phone wirelessly you must use Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome browsers. Unfortunately, the developers don’t offer a support for Mac’s Safari.

Moreover, all Symbian users can turn auto installation on, and it will help them not to confirm whether they would like to install this or that app on their handsets.

Nokia Drop’s job isn’t the only attractive offer during the last days. Not so long ago Symbian Anna update was released and the next Belle update was announced.

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According to VisionMobile’s research, 67 percent of developers prefer to work with Android OS. 850 developers took part in the research of the market analysis and strategy company, and 36 percent of them work with Windows Phone, so Microsoft’s platform is in the seventh place now, giving way to Symbian, BlackBerry, Java ME, Mobile Web and iOS.

The interest towards Microsoft’s OS seems to have decreased (39 percent of developers used to work with it in 2010), but the good news is that 32 percent of developers said they are planning to start working with WP7 in the nearest future. Do you think 32 percent isn’t that much? Well, maybe, but what will you say when you learn that Android is the first among the platforms the developers are going to use in future, and only 35 percent voted for it. So Windows Phone is in the second place here, and even iOS and BlackBerry, not to mention Symbian, are left behind.

I guess the wish of the developers to start working with WP7 is somehow connected with the agreement of Microsoft and Nokia and the upcoming Nokia phones based on WP7. If Nokia and Microsoft really manage to create great smartphones and make each other popular, no wonder a bigger number of developers will want to create software and applications for them.

By the way, if you’re interested, here is the list of the platforms the developers are planning to use:

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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