With Nokia’s chosen Symbian S60 OS showing its age (and complicatedness) as others simplify the touchscreen smartphone experience, the Finnish handset maker tried to assuage investor concerns at its annual Capital Markets Day in Helsinki.
The first priority from CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, according to the release “focus on user experience”. “In 2010, we will drive user experience improvements, and the progress we make will take the Symbian user interface to a new level.
“As an operating system, Symbian has reach and flexibility like no other platform, and we have measures in place to push smartphones down to new price points globally, while growing margins.”
Right now, S60 is looking like Nokia’s Achilles heel. From the company’s 2010 targets: “Re-engineer our Symbian user interface; deliver a major product milestone before mid-year 2010, and another major product milestone before the end of 2010.”
More targets…
— No increase or decrease in Nokia’s device market share, despite expecting industry-wide volume to grow 10 percent.
— Wants to stabilise its falling average handset selling price.
— Maemo 6-powered mobile computer “with an iconic user” by second half of 2010.
— “Significantly increase” touchscreen and/or QWERTY devices.
— Give third-party developers “better tools to create applications and content” for Ovi.
— Still targeting 300 million active users of its services by 2011, bringing income of