Clutching onto my Nokia E71 (one of the 3 cell-phones I use on a daily basis) I just read on Mashable how Nokia announced the slow phasing out of S60 for the iPhone / Android competing opensource-asized Maemo. The phase out is expecting to occur on all Nokia Smart Phones by 2012.

Could Symbian really not shape up and build a killer touch phone OS the way Palm did? I mean if Palm could do it… maybe Maemo is the hiatus they will need.

Stan at Mashable was a bit bold indeed when he said S60 is not good enough. For what it is it is very good. I often feel a sense of ease when using it on my E71. But he is right, it is no flashy Android iPhone killer. If Stan is right in reporting that Symbian will remain the main platform for E-Series devices that makes sense. I have friends that work in regular corporate jobs who runaway screaming when it comes to using an Android or iPhone like device for work… its just to much, to distracting and not capable of dealing with the fast blackberry like pace of business as usual.

But Stan also makes a good point. “While we’re thrilled to see more Nokias on the powerful Maemo platform, running two mobile smarpthone OSs and two separate app stores will definitely cause confusion to the customers.” From a branding perspective he is correct.

Nokia can lessen the confusion a bit if they market it well. Symbian as a business like device, Maemo for everything else.

But the larger question here in the US is, does anyone care. I mean, I am a Nokia fan boy that for the most part does not use a Nokia (my main phone is still the iPhone). I am still convinced that as far as phones go, Nokia builds the best of them…I mean a majority of the world cell phone users cannot be wrong. But the question remains, will Americans pick up the Maemo lingo like they have picked up “Android” and “Windows” and “Palm” and “iPhone.” Or will these just remain fancy and expensive Nokia’s. It seems these days the Operating System is king, so they better hope not.

Full story: NSeries Nokias Say Goodbye to Symbian, Hello to Maemo

In the US they are not such a big deal. But in the rest of the world the word cell phone and Nokia are often said under the same breath. The Finnish company has 40 percent of the world market. That means 1 in every 4 phones sold in the world is a Nokia phone. In emerging markets its almost always the only phone you will find.
Now Nokia wants to put the power of being the number one phone distributer (and camera distributor) in the world to some good use. Yesterday, Nokia announced its contest, Calling All Innovators, encouraging developers to design applications that could help better society.
The categories of entry are broken down into ECO-Challanges, Emerging Markets and a basic Technology Showcase.
This is a fantastic idea and one that is long overdue since the folks at Mobileactive have been chatting this kind of stuff up for over three years now.
My hint for building any mobile application: When it comes to social change and politics mobile technology is not a persuasion tool but a mobilizer of the already persuaded.
More at World Changing.

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