Meet Jolla, the smartphone that almost never came to be.

When Nokia decided to jump off its burning platform a few years ago and go with Windows Phone, there were no people more disappointed with the decision than the hundreds of engineers that had been working on the company’s own mobile operating system, MeeGo.

These were developers that had put in countless hours to make MeeGo the platform of the future and the initial results were intriguing. The Nokia N9 was a beautiful phone (its core design would eventually be the basis of the first Nokia Windows Phone, the Lumia 800) with interesting functionality that, at the time, bested Android in utility. When Nokia scrapped MeeGo, these developers were out of a job and, worse, had the rug pulled out from under a beloved project.

So, they banded together to keep the project going. And the result is Jolla, a smartphone from Finland running an operating system called Sailfish, born on the legacy of MeeGo.

What Is Jolla?

Pronounced “yo-la,” Jolla as a company is the continuation of the “Mer” project. The Mer project was initially a fork from the Linux-based MeeGo designed to bring as much of the old Maemo operating system (MeeGo was formed as a conglomeration between two operating systems, Maemo and Moblin) to Nokia’s hardware as possible. Mer was eventually suspended when most of the development resources started going to MeeGo.

When Nokia dropped support for MeeGo, the Mer project was resurrected. It was intended to provide a new environment for the many developers and engineers who had worked on the open-source project, from Nokia or elsewhere. MeeGo itself morphed when it was began being supported by the likes of the Linux Foundation (backed by Intel and Samsung among others) and became Tizen. 

These old Maemo engineers just won’t admit defeat to their original dream and just realize that MeeGo/Maemo is, for all intents and purposes, dead. So now we have Jolla and a prototype smartphone searching for an audience.

The Jolla Smartphone

The first Jolla smartphone is a 4.5-inch, dual-core, 4G LTE enabled device with 16GB of internal storage and a replaceable battery. It runs the gesture-based Sailfish OS which, presumably, will operate a lot like the old Nokia N9 based on MeeGo Harmattan. 

Jolla is now available for pre-order and will be shipped first to European countries. The price tag is a reasonable €399 and Jolla expects to begin shipping by the end of 2013. Basically, Jolla is now asking people to support the project through pre-orders in a very Kickstarter-like fashion, imploring the community to get behind the project, or “The Tribe,” as Jolla co-founder Marc Dillon describes it. 

Based on Linux, Sailfish OS will be compliant with Android apps. This will allow Sailfish OS developers (the very small handful that currently exist) to port Android apps to Jolla, much in the same way that BlackBerry developers can port Android package files (APKs) to BlackBerry 10. 

The Drawback Of Open Source Democratization

Developers often complain that Android is a fragmented ecosystem. Too many different CPUs on different screen sizes from different manufacturers to make sense of it all. Yet, if you compare Android to what happened to the MeeGo community, Google’s mobile operating system seems tame.

Android always had a champion in Google to keep it on point. This contrasts with the Maemo/Moblin/MeeGo/Tizen/Jolla community that has had so many competing interests and egos that development has never really produced anything tangible other than a few interesting prototypes (like the Nokia N9 and now Jolla).

The Jolla group is essentially the most disillusioned of them all. Some have also called them the most creative and innovative while also being the most stubborn and arrogant. And now this team, finally, has what it wants – its own company and smartphone.

Nokia thinks it has the perfect summer smartphone for you. Today, the Finnish smartphone maker announced the Lumia 928, a Windows Phone with a 4.5-inch display, improved camera capabilities and sound capabilities. The Lumia 928 will be available through Verizon starting next week for $99 on a two-year contract.

Yet, if you are thinking that this new Lumia is giant leap forward for Nokia and Windows Phone, you are mistaken.

Nokia calls the Lumia 928 a “new expression of the world’s most innovative smartphone.” Presumably, Nokia is referring to last year’s release of the Lumia 920 as the most innovative smartphone. Essentially, what Nokia is saying is that the Lumia 928 is an iterative update to its last flagship device, except this time it is coming exclusively to Verizon.

The specs on the Lumia 928 are proof that this is not a giant leap ahead for Nokia. It sports a 1.5-GHz Qualcomm processor, 2000 mAh in battery, a 1280x768 display on its 4.5-inch screen (334 pixels per inch), 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal memory. The camera is improved over the Lumia 920 with a 8.7-megapixel back camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Nokia PureView technology and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS). For the most part, these specs are only marginally better or equal to the Lumia 920 that has been available since the end of 2012. 

If you put those specs up against those from this year’s two biggest Android smartphones, the Lumia 928 does not stack up. The HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 both sport quad-core processors from Qualcomm (at 1.7 GHz and 1.9 GHz clocks, respectively) and crisper displays (469 ppi for the HTC One, 441 ppi for the Galaxy S4), better batteries (2300 mAh the One, 2600 mAh for Galaxy S4).

Nokia wants to differentiate on the camera. That is an increasingly hard position to take in the market, as every single smartphone manufacturer thinks it can differentiate on the camera and have worked extremely hard to create unique capabilities. HTC sports its “ultrapixel” camera, which works extremely well in low light situations. Samsung has a 13 megapixel camera with the Galaxy S4 and a variety of nifty features. Apple and BlackBerry also sport innovative, quality cameras for their flagship smartphones. It is well and good for Nokia to continue touting PureView and Carl Zeiss, but at this point those have become marketing buzzwords bereft of much meaning to the actual consumer. 

So, take the Lumia 928 for what it is: a slightly better Lumia 920, only this time exclusively for Verizon. 

The spring line of smartphones is almost complete. We have entries from HTC, Samsung, LG and a variety of other smartphone makers for consumers wishing to upgrade to the best new thing. The only company that has been missing from the spring device season is Nokia. 

It looks like that is about to change. 

Nokia has teased its new flagship Windows Phone smartphone, the Lumia 928, with a billboard and magazine ad in Vanity Fair. We know next to nothing about the Lumia 928 except that it is apparently coming to Verizon in the United States. There are various rumors about an all-metal body and camera components that will be a distinct upgrade over Nokia's previous Windows Phone flagship Lumia 920. The Lumia 928 will feature Carl Zeiss optics for the camera and focus on Nokia's PureView camera features found in its other signature devices. The magazine advertisement tells us to "stay tuned."

Are you excited for the next flagship Windows Phone from Nokia? What features do you wish Nokia would include? Let us know in the comments. 

Image source: Nokia

The next Hollywood blockbuster may not be made using a smartphone, but that day is soon coming. This year's Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, Searching for Sugarman, was shot mostly on traditional, costly 8mm film. The director shot some final scenes, however, with his iPhone and the $2 app 8mm Vintage Camera. Increasingly, high-quality films - shorts, especially - are being made entirely with nothing more than a smartphone.

Today's high-end smartphones pack a virtual film studio in your pocket. The Nokia Lumia 920, for example, includes a 1080p full-HD video camera, zoom light, image stabilization and multiple white balance modes to help ensure that perfect shot.  

Specs aren't enough to convince you?

Blackberry has teamed up with famed Sin City director, Robert Rodriguez, to create a short film using the new Blackberry Z10. Former Cannes film festival winner, Park Chan-wook, used a smartphone to film Paranmanjan - it won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival. 

Not only are smarpthone-shot films making it into film festivals, smartphone-only film festivals are cropping up around the world, such as the Mobil Film Festival in San Diego, the Pocket Film Festival in Paris and the Olleh International Smartphone Film Festival in Korea.

Each of these festivals showcase the device's potential for creating stirring films while enabling those with the talent, no matter where they may be located, to unleash their creative potential.

Personal Filmmaking on a Global Scale

Despite their limitations, smartphones do offer some unique advantages over traditional filmmaking. Smartphone films can be made on a very low budget - which likely encourages risk-taking that traditional filmmaking shuns. Smartphones can film almost anywhere - and they are with us nearly everywhere. The portable nature of the device allows for more intimate moments and increases opportunities for filmmaking with a more personal viewpoint. Smartphones allow those who traditionally are rarely portrayed in films, such as those in impoverished areas around the world, to now be seen. With a smartphone and YouTube, immediate global distribution is possible.

For example, at the third annual Olleh smartphone film festival in Korea, smartphone-made films from around the world were submitted. Last weekend, twenty-five films were screened by the jury for public viewing. All are now available on YouTube. Winners included:

[Note: Some videos below contain foul language]

24 Months Later (Grand Prize and Audience favorite)

Great, even if the whole zombie thing has gotten a bit overplayed.

Tell Me About Yourself (Best Actor award)

Short, funny and probably not safe for sharing with your boss.

Board Maker (Special Youth Award winner)

I confess, I did not get this.

The Opportunity is Everywhere

There is a growing movement - and market - for smartphone films. There are numerous apps to help the budding smartphone filmmaker improve their story outline, streamline the editing process and even maximize time spent shooting in sunlight. There is also a growing market for accessories. These include everything from optional lenses, to an iPhone "dolly" and smartphone "steadicam."

Need funding for your film? Over $128 million has been pledged on Kickstarter for film and video projects. It's quite possible that very soon many if not most crowdfunded films will be shot entirely with a smartphone.

Still hesitant?

The Guardian asked director Matt Carroll for tips. His advice includes methods to improve sound and post-film editing, and guidance on the all-important topic of lighting:

The (smartphone) camera doesn't see subtle light gradations like we do, so it's best to avoid areas of high contrast. For example, if it's a sunny day and you're filming someone under an awning, the chances are they'll come out too dark or the background will be bleached out ('burnt').  

Need more help? 

In France, Pocket Film Festival founder Benoît Labourdette conducts workshops to help smartphone filmmakers. His primary advice is to use your phone’s natural advantage - its size and portability - to get shots that are inaccessible to traditional cameras.

Far removed from Hollywood?

The World Film Collective teaches youth in impoverished areas - from Africa and South America, to inner cities in the UK - to make films using only a smartphone. 

The result?

Smartphones are rapidly becoming the tools people across the planet are using to tell their stories and show them to the world.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock. 

Nokia is trending up, even if it is still treading water.

The first quarter of 2013 saw Nokia ship more Lumia smartphones than any other quarter since it launched smartphones using Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. Nokia shipped 5.6 million Lumia devices, up from 4.4 million in the final quarter of 2012. The Lumia growth is impressive considering the majority of the Windows Phone ecosystem has been dismal in comparison to its Apple and Android counterparts.

Overall, Nokia posted a small loss on the quarter of about $196 million on revenue of $7.65 billion across all of its properties. Mobile devices make up about 49.3% of Nokia’s revenue, with smart devices (such as the Lumia) about 20%. Nokia is still hemorrhaging sales in its non-smartphone division, with shipments down to 55.8 million, nearly 30 million units less than in Q4 2012 and 15 million less from Q1 2012. In terms of revenue, non-smartphones still make more money for Nokia than do Lumia devices, with 27% of the company’s overall revenue.

Nokia In Perspective

We tend to position the battle for number 3 as a clash between Nokia and BlackBerry. This, of course, is not necessarily true as Asian Android manufacturers like Huawei, ZTE and LG all ship more smartphones than either BlackBerry or Nokia. The notion is that one non-Android manufacturer will eventually rise above the heap to stake claim to the No. 3 spot behind Apple and Samsung.

Both Nokia and BlackBerry had decent first quarters. Not spectacular, but decent. In limited availability, BlackBerry shipped one million BlackBerry 10 devices and six million smartphones total. Nokia shipped 6.1 million smartphones, with about 500,000 coming from its non-Windows Phone lines including the dying Symbian. 

On the surface, the fight is even. But if we try to predict the near future, we see that BlackBerry is still relying on its long tail of BlackBerry 7 (and before) smartphones for much of its device sales while Nokia has seemingly turned the corner with Windows Phone, which account for the vast majority of its smartphone shipments. 

Neither company is going bankrupt any time soon. Both BlackBerry and Nokia reorganized their corporate structures (read: layoffs) over the last year to cut down on costs and both are basically breaking even at this point.

In a recent ReadWrite poll with about 700 respondents, 36.23% of our readers thought that BlackBerry would take the No. 3 slot while 55.63% thought Windows Phone would stake claim to the spot.

Both BlackBerry and Nokia are sitting on cash. Not an Apple-like horde of cash, but not an amount to dismiss either. Nokia’s net cash at the end of the quarter was $5.87 billion while BlackBerry is just short of $3 billion. With both companies running leaner coming out of 2012, those cash reserves should give both companies runway to create new products and marketing campaigns to push their devices and effectively compete in the global smartphone market.

Find some buried treasure, fly in a glass-bottomed jet or mock the Caped Crusader… these are among the many ways you can be fooled thus far on this April Fools' Day, 2013.

The media and technology sectors have been busy already this morning, coming up with some new and clever ways to pull the wool over our eyes on the one day of the year when all the stops are pulled out to deliver the laughs. Of course, some gags are funnier than others, but we'll let you decide in this morning roundup of the funny and the lame.

Google: Class Clown Or Else

If you're judging on sheer number of pranks, then hands down the Mountain View search engine company takes the prize in 2013.

Apparently, when Marissa Mayer took her stop-screwing-around-and-get-some-work-done attitude with her when she went to Yahoo, her former co-workers took that as a sign to cut loose and let their funny flags fly, launching no less than nine goofs.

Gee, if only they could put this much effort into Google Reader.

• YouTube Closing. Millions of videos later, YouTube reveals that the whole thing was actually one big contest for finding the world's best video. Now that the contest is over, Best Video nominees will be previewed in a 12-hour cycle for the next two years.
• 'Dem Naughty Gmail Blues. In a feat of massive re-engineering, the team at Gmail has provided users with an all-blue interface. Watch the stirring marketing video and hey, just remember, Gmail itself was once thought to be an April Fool's joke. If it ever goes the way of Google Reader, it still could be.
• Avast Ye, Scurvy Dogs! The Google Maps team has discovered the lost treasure maps of Captain William Kidd, and is asking users to help decode the symbology from the find. No word if this will actually reward patient humorologists with booty.
• Make Your House Look Fabulous! If you're tired of the way your home looks on Google Street View, the Google Australia team is happy to help. Their new Simple Complete House Makeover Internet Conversion Kit (SCHMICK) will let you redecorate your home on Street View at no charge.
• Smelling Is Believing. Those Street View cars were apparently hoovering more than just stray wi-fi data… they were also recording the smells of the world for Google's new Google Nose service (in Beta, natch). The new service appears all day on the Google nav bars, in case you want to sniff it out. (Yeah, I went there.)
• Analyze This. Google Analytics, long the authoritative source for finding out who's coming to your site, has upped its game with accuracy, enabling real-time tracking from visitors from the International Space Station.
• Emotions Are Logical. Google + gets a real plus in the new +Emotion service that lets you tag photos with unambiguous emoticons. You know, in case the actual expressions on people's faces weren't clear enough.
• Google Fiber Everywhere. Yeah, I'll come clean: I want this one to be oh, so, true. Because moving to Kansas is not optimal.
• The Source Of The Funny. Ah, now we get to the source of Google's overabundance of the funny this year: the Google Levity Algorithm, a new feature for Google Apps that enhances documents and interactive communications based on 50 years of comedy material from Second City.

Badda-Bing, Badda-What?

Not to be outdone, Microsoft tried to bring the funny to its Bing search service. Instead of quantity, the jokemeisters at Microsoft (I mean, come on, Vista wasn't funny?) went for quality.

Reports of a Google-themed Bing search home page led me instead displayed a clever little Easter Island-themed page. Cute, but I was looking forward to the dig on Google. With a little work, you can get it: type "google" in the Bing search bar to hit the jackpot.

Sy Wht?

Twitter is finally figuring out new ways to generate revenue, it seems. Their new Twttr service will enable users to use Twttr consonant-free free of charge. If you want vowels, all you need to pay is an extra $5/month.

Here's the thing: I'm not sure, given the average depth of tweets, that anyone will ntce, er, notice.

What? Is Your Favourite Colour?

You can't have April Fool's Day without some wacky British humour. With their extra letters and aversion to the letter "z," British spelling alone makes anything funnier.

• All News All The Time. The Guardian has announced an innovative new tool to enhance the average person's day: Guardian Googles. These new tools will push through left-wing content to you every waking moment, and censor out any temptations to read that naughty Daily Telegraph.
• Whee! Liked the looks of that cool Shard building you saw on Doctor Who this weekend? Well, HuffPo UK has revealed plans to build a giant 244.3-meter (801 feet, 6 inches for us Americans) spiral slide around the London edifice (and yes, this would be my number-two on the wish-it-were-real list).
• Plane With A View. Richard Branson himself has announced the coming of glass-bottomed planes for Virgin airlines, launching to coincide with the airline's new service to Scotland.

From Around the Web

There's a lot of April Fools humor to be found across the Internets today, beyond just the usual suspects. Here's a quick list:

• Avast Ye! Part II. The Pirate Bay, recognizing that some were angered by a recent "decision" to locate its servers in North Korea, has announced that it will instead be moving "the greatest fuckin nation in the entire world," the United States of America. Sarcasm ahoy!
• Nokia Pushes The Popcorn Button. Undeterred by its recent struggles in the mobile phone sector, Nokia is launching a new product line: microwave ovens. Bright yellow and apparently Windows Phone-themed. Yeah, that'll work.
• Introducing Kindle Zero. Marketing guru Seth Godin scoops us all with his big reveal of the new free-of-charge Kindle Zero, Amazon's latest e-reader. Not only will the device be free, by Amazon will pay you to read challenging books, too.
• The Writing On The Wall. Wolfram|Alpha, makers of the world's most confusing search engine, is releasing its own new product, the Handwritten Knowledge Engine. I'll let you know if I think this is funny, once I figure out how to use the real W|A tools.
• North Korea, Land o' Laughs. Not sure of the source, but supposedly the Democratic People's Republic Of Korea "unveils for betterment of world new game Draw Kim Jong-Un." Check out the trailer on YouTube, because in the DPRK, fun is mandatory.
• Because Messing With Batman Is Always A Good Idea. As a comic geek, this is probably my personal favorite. ThinkGeek's annual prank product are these Batman-themed family window stickers. You know, the ones that advertise on the highway the procreation rate of the family in that minivan in front of you. Only in this case, the stickers are a little more sad.

Spotted another April Fool's gag? Post it in the comments below and share!

Image courtesy of Google.

BlackBerry appears to be back on track. It has stopped losing money like a Hollywood starlet with a crack addiction, finally has new products on the market and a roadmap to grow in 2013 and beyond. Thorsten Heins and company appear poised to stake a claim for what has become the most important spot in the Smartphone Wars.

The Battle for Number 3 

Two different aspects define the Battle for Number 3: platform and product. For platform, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are the top two mobile operating systems on the market. When it comes to product, the Apple/Samsung duopoly dominate the shipments of smartphones. 

Then there are the challengers. 

In one corner we have BlackBerry, the erstwhile Canadian smartphone manufacturer formerly known as Research In Motion. Conveniently, its platform and product go by basically the same name. In the other corner we have Windows Phone from Microsoft with smartphones built by the likes of Nokia, HTC and Samsung. Waiting in the wings for their shot at the Battle for Number 3 are upstarts like Firefox OS from Mozilla, Tizen from the Linux Foundation and Ubuntu from Canonical. Considering that none of those would-be competitors actually have a product on the market, we can safely call this a two-horse race between BlackBerry and Windows Phone. 

In the United States, BlackBerry has 5.9% of the platform market share, according to a January report from analytics firm comScore. Microsoft’s Windows Phone has 3.1%. 

For the time being BlackBerry is winning the Battle for Number 3. That may be a little misleading though as BlackBerry’s U.S. market share came from its long tail legacy BlackBerry products, not the new BlackBerry 10 operating system that completely splits from its older products. That also only includes the United States. The U.S. is often indicative of trends in the global smartphone industry but not the tell-all for overall market trends. For instance, Apple’s iPhone dominates in the U.S. but Android claims the No. 1 global operating system with strong growth overseas.

That brings us to more substantive numbers: actual smartphones shipped. In the last quarter of 2012, Samsung shipped 63.7 million smartphones. Apple shipped 47.8 million iPhones. The next three spots on the list all come from Android manufacturers with China-based Huawei in the third spot, Sony fourth and ZTE fifth, according to a January report from research firm IDC.

The goal for BlackBerry and Nokia then is to climb the ladder with their own operating systems to dislodge the Android Army (which also includes the likes of LG, Motorola, Kyocera and several smaller manufacturers). If we look at all of 2012, The Battle for Number 3 comes very close with Nokia, HTC and BlackBerry all within a couple million shipments of one another (Nokia’s strength comes on the tail of its dying Symbian platform). 

Basically, it is wide open. Thorsten Heins and BlackBerry may have steadied the ship, but it still has a lot of work to do to solidify No. 3 in both platform and product. Who will emerge as the winner? That is the topic of this week's ReadWrite Mobile poll. Vote below and let us know who you think will win (and why) in the comments. 

A brand new smartphone is a thing of beauty. It is shiny and responsive, a blank slate that can be filled with apps and widgets and fun. The battery still works, you can hear people on the other end of a phone call and the interface is zippy.

But eventually it all goes to hell.

FixYa, a community-based troubleshooting guide, has aggregated the top problems of smartphones from a variety of manufacturers and assigned a “dependability” score to each. The data comes FixYa’s database of 30 million users with about 8 million product problems. FixYa's "Smartphone Reliability Report" looked specifically at four smartphone manufacturers: Apple, Samsung, Nokia and Motorola. 

Smartphones can go from exciting and shiny new toys to problematic and frustrating devices in the blink of an eye. Anybody that bought a HTC Thunderbolt will tell you that, after a week or so, the battery could not keep up with the large screen or LTE connectivity. What use is a wireless phone that you have to keep plugged in all the time?

I’ve had smartphones that completely lost battery life after about nine months (greetings, Samsung Captivate). Smartphones where the batteries, literally, blew up (hello, BlackBerry!). Others where the proximity sensor and camera just stopped working after about a year (looking at you, Motorola Atrix). After several months, one smartphone just decided it no longer wanted to let me scroll down the screen easily (Nokia, take a bow). 

Sometimes problems are the result of straight user error (I swear, 33% of people I know have cracked screens). Other times it's just shoddy manufacturing or design. Batteries can be abused by people that don't really know how to take care of a rechargeable device. 

No one company is immune from dependability issues. The biggest complaint against Apple’s iPhone is battery life. Samsung apparently suffers from a litany of microphone issues. People dislike Motorola for pre-installed apps (Motoblur was a disaster, but that should change with Google’s stewardship). 

Who came out the winner in FixYa's ratings? To the surprise of probably no one, Apple. 

It's not that people had no problems with their iPhones on FixYa. Battery life was a major issue for users, followed by a lack of new features. 

Samsung ranked well below Apple, but far ahead of Motorola and Nokia. Given the variety of smartphones that Samsung makes, it is hard to point at any one model and say, "this is the problem." For instance, users rated the battery life on the Galaxy S3 as a positive feature, while denigrating battery life on the Galaxy Nexus.

Nokia was well behind its arch nemeses Apple and Samsung, though it's also hard to pinpoint any single device as most problematic. FixYa gives Nokia a 22.15% market share, so it's taking into account Symbian and Asha devices as well as the newer Windows Phone Lumia lines (market share stats cited by FixYa from StatCounter). Nokia also has an interesting problem in that some users complained that "the glass gets hot."

Motorola is the trailer in the group. Users said they like the battery life on Motorola devices, but hated the pre-installed apps. Those pre-installed apps come from a previous generation of Motorola devices (like the Atrix) and from carriers like Verizon. Motorola's Android skin, Motoblur, is essentially being phased out as Google takes a more active role in designing the hardware and software of the devices.

What is the most common problem you have with your smartphone? Let us know in the comments. 

Top image courtesy Shutterstock

Nokia is so stoked about it's upcoming 2012 fourth-quarter earnings, it's leaking some of the numbers two weeks early, which has pushed the Finnish hardware maker's stock up in Thursday trading. But investors may want to hold off on their enthusiasm, because while Nokia is going to do better than expected in this past quarter's sales and revenue, the company is still woefully behind market leaders like Samsung and Apple. And it also seems to be stretching the classification of one product line as a "smartphone" to pad what sales numbers it does have in that category.

You know that scene near the end of Jaws? The one where the shark has wreaked havoc on the Orca and the boat is listing crazily but you think for half a moment that maybe that's it - the shark will abandon its attack and the intrepid crew will all make it back to shore? That's right about where I picture Nokia at this moment: That last silent moment of tiny hope that the worst is over - right before the giant robotic shark rises out of the water and tears them to pieces.

Nokia's Numbers Are Pretty Good

First, the numbers: The company announced Thursday that it has exceeded fourth quarter expectations with net sales of  €3.9 billion, pushing a total 86.3 million units out the door.

Of those units sold, the devices Nokia classifies as "Smart Devices" had "net sales of approximately €1.2 billion, with total volumes of 6.6 million units of which 4.4 million units were Nokia Lumia smartphones." (The rest of those Smart Device sales were 2.2 million Symbian smartphones.)

The Lumia sales are not only some good news for Nokia, but also for Microsoft, whose Windows Phone operating system powers the Lumia devices.

In the next line of Nokia's press release, though, the company apparently wants to lump sales of its Asha product line into the smartphone sales category as well.

"Total smartphone volumes of 15.9 million units composed of 9.3 million Asha full touch smartphones, 4.4 million Lumia smartphones and 2.2 million Symbian smartphones," the release states.

When Is A Smartphone Not A Smartphone?

That's a curious bit of wording, since Asha phones are classified in the industry as feature phones - the low-cost, small screen devices that still dominates mobile phone sales. Nokia appears to be taking the position that since the Asha phones, which run Nokia's S40 operating system, can fall into the smartphone category by virtue of the fact the phones include some apps, such as apps for Twitter and Facebook.

Nokia has positioned Asha line as a low-cost alternative to Android phones in developing markets within Asia and Latin America. The Asha 311, for example, retails for about $130 globally, right in the $100-$150 Android phone retail price ballpark, while the Asha 205 and 206 models.

But despite its positioning, the Asha has always been classified as a feature phone within the industry, and even Nokia hedges its boasting a bit by making sure to include Asha sales numbers within it broader Mobile Phone sales category. If media outlets report the "15.9 million smartphone units sold" number, though, it's doubtful Nokia's PR department is going to put out a lot of effort to correct them, especially since that number more than doubles the sales figures of what the rest of the sector actually calls smartphones.

Turnaround Special?

Still, Nokia's sales are a nice turn-around for the company, which has been suffering from declining sales for quite some time, even after the company chose to forego its established Symbian platform and the fledgling MeeGo operating system for the promise of a Windows Phone utopia in a Nokia-Microsoft partnership back in 2011.

But, just to put these numbers into perspective, in the same quarter of 2012, South Korean competitor Samsung sold 63 million smartphones alone, which is nearly three-quarters of the amount of total units Nokia sold. Matching up smartphone to smartphone sales, Samsung sold as many smartphones in ten days as Nokia did in the entire quarter.

Worse, Nokia itself isn't expecting this party to last. Today's preliminary announcement noted expected downturns in the first quarter of 2013.

"Seasonality and competitive environment are expected to have a negative impact on the first quarter 2013 underlying profitability for Devices & Services, compared to the fourth quarter 2012," the company reported. "Seasonality" is code for "Christmas is over, kids."

And "competitive environment"? That may be code for "we're still stuck selling these Windows Phones against Android and iOS"

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

On the Internet, nobody really likes to be called a troll. Especially the people who absolutely know they are trolls. It is a derogatory term meant to denigrate somebody who is deliberately provocative to produce the maximum amount of disruption to other parties' goals. We think of trolls as people that flame message boards and comments sections on news articles. Throughout the technology industry, especially in mobile, there are also patent trolls, whose goals are much larger than just upsetting people in a message board.

Patent trolls are also deliberately provocative to produce the most amount of disruption possible. The end goal for patent trolls, however, is to line their wallets. They may think of themselves as purveyors of fine intellectual property, but they are not actually creating anything or delivering useful items to the innovation economy. Patent trolls, by definition, are Non-Practicing Entities (NPEs) – they do not practice what they preach (or litigate over). 

InterDigital: A Fine Line In The Sand

A very fine line has been drawn in the sand on what constitutes a patent troll and what does not. A company called InterDigital, an “innovator” of 3G/4G wireless solutions, straddles that line. On one hand, InterDigital has a large engineering team that works to create patentable material on wireless technology. On the other hand, InterDigital does not create anything with those patents. It doesn't build the networks, the hardware, the base stations, servers or processors. It takes its patents and attempts to license them to mobile manufacturers and when those manufacturers refuse, InterDigital sues them. 

Nokia, Samsung, RIM, ZTE and Huawei have all run afoul InterDigital in the last year. In particular, the Nokia vs. InterDigital battle has been going on for a long time and has grown contentious over the last months. Today, InterDigital brought new patent suits regarding wireless technology against Samsung, Huawei, ZTE and Nokia, alleging that products from the companies using 3G/4G technology violate InterDigital’s patents.

From the complaint:

"The wireless devices at issue operate as, for example, cellular mobile telephones (including “smart phones”), cellular PC cards, cellular USB dongles or sticks, personal computers such as laptops, notebooks, netbooks, tablets and other mobile internet devise with cellular capabilities, cellular access points or “hotspots”, and cellular modems."

Basically, this covers anything you could possibly think of that might connect to the Internet in any way using cellular connections. InterDigital proposes an import ban for the four companies for any products that allegedly violate its patents. 

This is where the line between a company looking to protect its own intellectual property and status in a marketplace and a patent troll exists. Though many patent lawsuits from the likes of Apple, Samsung, Nokia, RIM, Motorola or others in the mobile manufacturer ecosystem are looking to hurt their rivals by keeping smartphones and other devices off retail shelves, InterDigital has no such marketable product to protect. 

In other words, this looks like a shakedown. 

InterDigital threatens import bans from these manufacturers with the hopes that the companies will back down and eventually license the patents in question. RIM has already succumbed to InterDigital and extended an agreement it had with the company to cover 4G technology like LTE and LTE-Advanced. 

“[InterDigital] is a patent licensing organization, not a technology licensing operation,” said James Bessen, a lecturer at the Boston University School Of Law and an expert on NPEs. “I do know people that study trolls who do consider it a patent troll … [InterDigital] is definitely considered a non-practicing entity.”

Lawyers like Bessen are not technically supposed to use the word “troll” when defining companies that act like patent trolls. The preferred technical term is “patent assertion entity.” A variety of companies fit into this category, notably the RockStar Consortium backed by the likes of Apple and Microsoft that deals with the leftover patents from the Nortel auction. InterDigital has the fifth largest holding of patents among companies considered to be NPEs in the United States with 3,138 patents, according to PatentFreedom. Intellectual Ventures is considered the biggest troll of them all, with 15,000 – 20,000 patents held. 

Manufacturers' Drag Fishing

InterDigital and its NPE cohorts are, of course, not the only companies that make news in patent litigation these days. The biggest tech story of 2012 was the patent fight between Samsung and Apple in which a jury awarded the Cupertino-based iPhone maker $1.05 billion in damages. Another top story of the year was the Google and Oracle smack down over the use of Java in Android. Apple and HTC got into a patent dispute and we learned that Apple and Microsoft have a patent settlement in place that required no litigation from either party. Ericsson has just filed a patent claim against Samsung in the U.S. with the International Trade Commission. Nokia and Research In Motion have had their patent battles. Such a complicated web patents weave.

Would you call Apple a patent troll? Google? Some people have and will continue to do so while the lawsuits continue to fly around courts. Technically, of course, they are not considered patent trolls under the definition of NPEs. These are definitely practicing entities, putting patented technology to work in products that people can actually buy. 

Yesterday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ruled on its 19-month investigation of Google’s antitrust case. While Google escaped mostly unscathed from the unfair search practices, the FTC did come down on Google-owned subsidiary Motorola for its patent-wielding practices. Motorola (even before the Google acquisition became final) had been suing rivals using patents that were considered SEP – Standard Essential Patents. SEPs are the type of patents commonly used by many companies because the ecosystem could not function without that particular technology. Think of Wi-Fi or cellular patents and you get the idea. 

SEP patents are supposed to be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND), meaning that companies like Motorola are not supposed to use these patents to sue other companies or seek injunctions and import bans. To a certain extent, that is what Motorola was doing and the FTC put a kibosh on the practice, hoping to create a template for future patent licensing between manufacturers. 

Where Does That Leave InterDigital?

InterDigital has seven specific patents pertaining to 3G/4G technology in its most recent suit against the four major manufacturers. InterDigital could be hurt by the FTC’s ruling on Motorola’s patent practices because of the SEP nature of InterDigital’s patents. In its complaint, InterDigital says that the FRAND defense would not apply to its patents. It also says that barring devices from the four listed manufacturers would not harm competition in the U.S. because InterDigital's other licensees (which now includes RIM), "would easily meet market demand with non-infringing devices." 

Seems like a convenient argument, no? InterDigital claims it is neither subject to FRAND nor would it provide a negative impact on competition. The latter might be true if Samsung was not listed in the complaint, but the Korean mobile manufacturer is largest smartphone supplier by volume in the U.S. 

In the end, InterDigital may find the Motorola ruling from the FTC will harm its ability to litigate going forward. We will also see in 2013 how courts end up treating other NPEs, like Intellectual Ventures. 

InterDigital is clever, though. It rides that fine line between patent troll and innovator with a large research and development department. But, as Bessen put it, InterDigital still looks like a troll by any other name. 

Top image courtesy Shutterstock

Microsoft has long been a company that relies on its manufacturing partners to spread its Windows operating system. That has been true for Microsoft’s mobile efforts as well, partnering with companies like Samsung, HTC and Nokia for its Windows Mobile CE and Windows Phone platforms. So when Microsoft decided to build its own Windows 8 tablet - the Surface - speculation increased that the company would take a similar route and build its own smartphone. Would Microsoft really be willing to jeapordize its strong ties to its smarpthone partners, like Nokia, and dare to enter the market on its own?

The answer, according to Taiwanese news site DigiTimes, is yes. According to DigiTimes sources, both Amazon and Microsoft have placed orders with Chinese gadget manufacturer Foxconn International Holdings (the same company that builds the iPhone for Apple) for small batches of their own smartphones to be shipped in the middle of 2013. 

It is important to note that, as far as smartphone rumors are concerned, DigiTimes is not always to be trusted. The publication has long been a source of unsubstantiated rumors that light fires under hype cycles for new devices, especially those from Apple like the iPad and iPhone. But for a number of reasons, I'm not ready to completely ignore this rumor. 

Microsoft Not An Unlikely Manufacturer

While it is only speculation at this point, the notion of Microsoft creating its own smartphone is not as far-fetched as some might think. (For one thing, speculation on the topic has been running for months, see A Surface Smartphone From Microsoft? Yes, Please!) After all, against the industry’s better judgment, Microsoft did create its own tablet in the Surface and has thrown a huge marketing budget behind it. Also, if DigiTimes is correct, the order size for Microsoft is not large. Microsoft may not be jumping into the deep end of the smartphone manufacturing pool, but may be ready to dip a toe in the water. 

Mobile analyst Chetan Sharma comments that Microsoft building its own smartphones is a way to both keep the pressure on its manufacturing partners to perform at high levels and hedge its bets by preparing for a possible future of vertical integration (designing and building its own smartphones in the same way Apple does). 

“So, if you connect the dots, it is not inconceivable that Microsoft will come out with a smartphone that A) forces OEMs to come out with their best in rapid cycles and B) keeps them in the game if they have to resort to a vertical strategy at some point in the future,” Sharma wrote in an email to ReadWrite. “It is the same dilemma that Google faces. The Nexus line of products is to keep the pressure on the OEM partners as well as prepare for a possible vertical strategy down the road.”

HTC 8X Microsoft's Manufacturing History

Microsoft is not a complete stranger to building its own devices. It manufactures the popular Xbox video game console and has delved into mobile devices in the past - notably the ill-fated Zune and the disaster that was the Kin phone.

If Microsoft were to make a limited-run Windows Phone device it would likely take a similar route to how Google creates its Nexus devices, which are ostensibly the flagship Android smartphone and tablets that are supposed to be the benchmark for how other manufacturers model their devices. The difference between the Nexus devices and Microsoft making its own flagship smartphones is that Google has its manufacturing partners build the devices for them. The Nexus 4 smartphone is made by LG while the Nexus 7 is made by Asus and the Nexus 10 by Samsung. 

The motivation for Microsoft (and to a lesser extent, Google and Amazon) to build their own devices rests just west of San Jose: Cupertino. The Apple iPhone juggernaut has given many mobile manufacturers pie-eyed dreams of being able to integrate vertically and reap the benefits.

“Microsoft (and Google) have also seen the vertical model of Apple succeed beyond their imagination and view it with envy,” Sharma said. 

Potential Pitfalls

The problem that Microsoft has is that its entire mobile strategy is built on shaky ground. Windows Phone 8 engenders some loyalty among users and it is considered creative in relation to iOS and Android. But, it is not selling well. That is despite Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s comments last week that it was selling four-times better than last year. Thing is, Microsoft sold only a scant 1.7 million Windows Phones in Q3 2011, so four times that is still not much to brag about in relation to Android and iOS. 

Microsoft’s two primary partners for the Windows Phone 8 launch are Nokia and HTC. Microsoft has invested a lot in Nokia to be the flag bearer for Windows Phone and at this point it should be doing everything it possibly can to buoy Nokia until it can once again stand on its own. (That may not be easy, see ReadWrite DeathWatch: Nokia.) HTC has its own problems, losing market share to Samsung and reporting scant earnings in its last quarter. 

Nokia Lumia 920

“They do need to do something to kick start Windows Phone adoption, as its still a meager part of the market. But if they produce a phone, it will hit Nokia in particular really hard,” Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates said in an email. “Nokia is struggling to regain market share, and anything Microsoft would take away from them would be very painful. So I think Microsoft will tread carefully here, as it would be a balancing act between accelerating the market, and hurting your vendors (particularly Nokia but also HTC).”

Microsoft’s position is more precarious than Google’s when it comes to its manufacturing partners. There is little Google can do to hurt most of its partners, short of withdrawing the open source license for Android and consolidating all of its manufacturing to its Motorola subsidiary. Microsoft, on the other hand, could do great damage to Nokia by building its own smartphone. At this point, there are just not enough Windows Phone sales to support the ecosystem. Taking any of those sales away from Nokia could well end up being the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Unlike the Surface tablet, which had no set market and didn't compete with any manufacturing partners before its release, Windows Phone already is established with manufacturing partners trying to use it to claim mobile market share. Nokia's entire business is focused on Windows Phone. The potential for collateral damage from a Microsoft-built smartphone is much greater than it was for the Surface. 

So, back to the original question. Does Microsoft dare enter the smartphone manufacturing game, when doing so could bury the already fragile Nokia? Or limit the potential of the fading HTC? Or does the vague promise of a Surface-like flagship Windows Phone and/or complete vertical integration outweigh those factors?

I don't have any inisght into what Micosoft execs are thinking, but I think they will go for it.

Images from Microsoft, HTC and Dan Rowinski.

I sat in the front row of Nokia’s Windows Phone event in New York in September, watching Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his Nokia counterpart Stephen Elop clasp arms and smile for the crowd and present the Lumia 920. At the time, I thought to myself, “you know, this may be the phone that gets Nokia back in the game.”

I reserve the right to change my mind. 

At first blush, Nokia’s new flagship Windows Phone was everything I had been looking for from a high-end Windows Phone. It has impressive Near Field Communications (NFC) features with its ability to transfer music from the device to a set of speakers or headphones. It has a wireless charging feature that works with a  “pillow” or that same set of speakers. It has Nokia’s well-reviewed PureView camera technology with Carl Zeiss optics that rival any other smartphone in the business, including Apple’s iPhone 5 and anything from Samsung. Slap on a quality battery (non-removable, industry-competitive 2000 mAh) and I thought, “Nokia might be on to something here.”

Ballmer (left) and Elop present the Nokia Lumia 920

That was before I started playing with the Lumia 920. 

I have never been a fan on “unboxing” videos where bloggers film themselves opening a box of a new device and showing off what is inside. Yet, I kind of wish I had done so with the Lumia 920. The amount of cursing expressed in my first five minutes with the device would have made good cinema.

• First thought: “Damn, this thing is heavy.” 
• Second thought: “Damn, this thing is freaking* blue.”
• Third thought: “Why the hell is it taking so long to start up?”
• Fourth, fifth, sixth thoughts: “I bloody hell hate how long and how many steps Microsoft puts your through to set up the device when you first turn it on.”
• Seventh thought: “Oh, Windows Phone, I want to like you and praise you for being different, but there is little actually simple, interesting or intuitive with Hubs and Tiles.”
• Eighth thought: “Wait? Where the hell is Spotify?”

(*Note: I may have used a word stronger than “freaking.” Also, I have no choice in the color of review devices I am sent from Nokia. I am not a fan of blue. The Lumia 920 comes in a variety of colors including white, black, red, yellow and blue. I would have preferred red or black. I have not been able to confirm this (though not for want of asking people from Microsoft, Nokia or HTC … nobody seems to know or they just will not tell me) but I think the color scheme for Windows Phone devices is the brainchild of Microsoft, not Nokia. HTC’s Windows Phones also come in a variety of colors.)

Let’s break down my list of curses.

Carry The Weight

When it comes to a smartphone, I am particularly sensitive to size, shape and weight. A smartphone is perhaps the most personal electronic device ever made. It travels everywhere you go, in your pocket or your bag, and if the size, shape or weight feel wrong, you won't like it as much as you should. This is one reason why people have historically liked the iPhone and why Apple works so hard to make it slimmer and more streamlined. Apple fully understands the value of a device that “feels” good.

For instance, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is a fine device, I just find its enormity awkward when the purpose is to be used as a phone . At least the Note II is thin and light despite its gargantuan 5.55-inch screen. The Lumia 920 is neither thin nor light. If you are attempting to switch to the 920 from most Android devices or an iPhone, you are definitely going to notice the bulk.

Left to right: Galaxy Note II, Nokia Lumia 920, HTC One X

At 185 grams, (about 6.5 ounces), the Lumia 920 is 73 grams heavier than the iPhone 5 (112 grams – about 3.9 ounces). Despite having a screen a little more than an inch smaller than the Note II (4.5 inches for against 5.55 inches), the Lumia 920 weighs five grams more. The Samsung Galaxy S 3 is considerably lighter, too, at about 133 grams (4.7 ounces). 

Releasing a device that is noticeably bulkier than the iPhone 5 or the latest Galaxy flagships is not a very good way to compete with Apple and Samsung. Worse, Lumia line keeps getting bigger, not smaller. The original Lumia 800, announced in October 2011, was a joy to hold. It had a little heft to it but the body was sleek and pleasant. The Lumia 900, released in April 2012, was bigger but did not feel quite as cumbersome as the 920. The 920 is essentially the Lumia 900 on steroids. 

It is hard to tell exactly why the Lumia 920 is so heavy other than to note all the hardware upgrades it includes. Wireless charging, bigger battery, advanced NFC capability, the PureView technology, et al. likely added up to a bigger, heavier body. 

Top to bottom: HTC One X, Nokia Lumia 920, Samsung Galaxy Note II

Windows Phone 8

Microsoft is spending a large fortune on its marketing for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT. For Windows Phone 8, Microsoft touts its simplicity and easy-to-understand interface.

I call shenanigans. 

On the surface (no pun intended), Windows Phone 8 is simple. Everything you might like to use is pre-loaded on the home screen in the form of Live Tiles. Really, this is little different from any other modern smartphone, including the iPhone or any Android device - with the exception that Live Tiles can show you information on what's going on in the app they represent even before you open them.

If you are switching from iOS or Android, though, Windows Phone is going take some time to figure out.

The first hurdle with Windows Phone (be it version 8 or anything that came before) is that you are going to have to go through a significant amount of steps before you even use the device. Things are only a little easier if you have an @live.com account from Microsoft. These set-up wizards are classic Microsoft - and a touch infuriating. No other mobile operating system makes you jump through so many hoops just to get going (Android is the simplest of the group, with all of your data imported to your device once you sign into your Google account). 

When you finally reach the home screen, the now-familiar Hubs and Tiles are presented, replete with a selection of bloatware from both AT&T and Nokia. Many tiles are self explanatory, such as the phone icon, Internet Explorer and email. But not all the tiles have clear definitions. For instance, the “People” tile is essentially your contacts list turned into an app. It can import all your Facebook, Twitter and phone contacts and then update with pictures of those people.

Somehow, though, Microsoft has managed to complicate what should be simple. Microsoft has essentially created a unified contacts "app" (or Hub, as Microsoft prefers) with all of your disparate contacts in one place. Perhaps this is a conceptual problem for me, but I do not want my Facebook friends in my contact list by default. But if you want to use Facebook on your Windows Phone, those contacts are going to be in there. If find it cumbersome and annoying. 

The Messages (not including email) tile is similarly complex - it incorporates SMS, Facebook Chat and instant messaging into a single space. There is value to a single messaging inbox, but the Windows Phone version is confusing. And you don't get a choice whether you'd prefer a distinct SMS app instead of all of your messages in one spot regardless of where they come from? As for me, I'd be happier with a simple dedicated chat app, a dedicated SMS app and so on. 

Users will have to explore the rest of the pre-installed tiles individually to see what they do - and many of them make you jump through hoops for sign-in and permissions that are often difficult to comprehend. 

Paucity Of Apps & Design Decisions

Windows Phone 8 also continues Microsoft’s tradition of poor design for its native apps. 

Smartphones, by their very nature, have limited screen space. Mobile app design experts know to optimize their apps' most important aspects while marginalizing (hopefully in a stylish way) less vital features. Microsoft seems to miss the boat here. 

For instance, look at the Microsoft Office app for Windows Phone 8. Note that the header of the app says “Office” in big red letters. The bottom has a gray bar with a search icon and a folder and the settings button. An app designer I know looked at that and said, “why the heck is Microsoft wasting all this space with the header and footer?” Issues like that crop up in many of Microsoft's own apps.

Beyond the problems with Windows Phone 8's built-in apps, the bigger issue is Windows Phone's lack of third-party apps, and it's even worse in WIndows Phone 8.  Apps built for Windows Phone 7/7.5 have to be specifically updated to even function in the Windows Phone 8 operating system. This makes it much easier for developers to build apps that will work across Windows 8/RT/Phone but it causes problems Windows Phone 8 users right now. 

Take the Facebook app, which was built by Microsoft … not Facebook. No surprise that the Newsfeed is marginalized in the center panel while the header gets prominent display. 

Worse, Windows Phone 8 is still missing some of my go-to apps. When I try a new device, the first thing I do is download the apps I use every day. So where is Spotify for Windows Phone 8? Where is Instagram? Path? Pandora? Flipboard? If I am forced to Microsoft's and Nokia’s own set of services instead of the industry leading choicess, I am not going to be a happy camper. 

Grade: Incomplete

There are plenty of quality aspects to the Lumia 920. The PureView camera, NFC capabilities, a quality and responsive screen that rivals the iPhone for clarity, Nokia Maps (yes, Nokia does maps well), the concept of Hubs and Live Tiles and so on. 

The problem is a matter of execution. Good ideas, like the various hardware improvements to the Lumia series and the software improvements to Windows Phone, feel… incomplete. Microsoft and Nokia seem to have entered into a feature war with Android and Apple. They manage to win occassional skirmishes over particular features, but overall they are losing the fight.

Nokia has bet the company on Microsoft and its Windows Phone mobile operating system. That would be a risky but defensible bet… if Nokia was the only company making Windows Phones. Unfortunately for Nokia, other mobile manufacturers also vie for consumer attentions with Windows Phones, notably HTC and Samsung, two companies that have been directly responsible for Nokia’s overall fall from grace in the last few years. In many ways, Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft has hurt it as much as it has helped.

(For more, see ReadWrite DeathWatch: Nokia.)

When third-quarter smartphone shipment numbers were released last week, Nokia, for the first time, had fallen out of the top three manufacturers in the world. By research firm Strategy Analytics' count, Nokia fell all the way to ninth!

There are a variety of reasons for Nokia’s third-quarter disaster. The most obvious is that the competition has kept moving forward with new devices that enables them to sell their older versions at more affordable prices. For instance, Samsung’s strategy of releasing new devices almost every quarter make its quality long-tail offerings, like the Galaxy S II, attractive options to price-conscious buyers. In the U.S. market, Nokia does not have that long tail as its only available devices are the Lumias available from the likes of T-Mobile and AT&T - all of which were released earlier in 2012. 

But the biggest reason for Nokia falling behind in the smartphone race has been the lack of consumer interest, so far, in Windows Phones. Research firm IDC placed Windows Phone a pathetic fifth in the mobile operating system wars for the third quarter of 2012, witha paltry 3.5% of the market, far behind Android (68.1%) and iOS (16.9%) and even lagging BlackBerry (4.8%) and Nokia’s own dying Symbian platform (4.4%). 

Nokia Does Not Own Windows Phone

Nokia may sell the lion’s share of Windows's Phone's 3.5%, but that adds up to only about 5.4 million units or so. And the competition within the Windows Phone world is only getting stiffer.

HTC has two Windows Phones that are will be available this holiday shopping season, the 8S and 8X. Both devices are slim and attractive with uni-body designs, offer HTC-specific features like Beats Audio and are generally just quality pieces of hardware. If you were not paying a lot of attention, the 8S and 8X could definitely be mistaken for Nokia’s own Lumia 820 and 920 devices, scheduled for release in November. 

The difference between HTC and Nokia, though, is that HTC also has the well-designed and popular Android One series devices on top of its Windows Phone offerings. HTC has struggled against the likes of Samsung and Apple this year, but it still shipped 7.3 million smartphones in the third quarter, well above Nokia's numbers. 

Exclusive Is Not Always A Good Thing

This is where Nokia gets hurt by its exclusive partnership with Microsoft. The mobile manufacturer is beholden to Microsoft’s release schedule for its Windows 8 platform, a project that has been in the works for three years and is just now being pushed out (along with a huge marketing campaign). Devices running Window Phone 7.5 “Mango” cannot be upgraded to the new Windows Phone 8 platform, thus turning all of Nokia’s Lumia devices from the past year in to lame ducks, just waiting to be phased out. While Nokia has a reputation for being slow in comparison to the primary Android manufacturers, Microsoft reputation is for being even slower. 

The combination has hurt Nokia more than it has Microsoft. The third quarter numbers are proof enough - but the real test to see how Nokia will fare will be seen during the holiday shopping period. In short, Nokia needs Microsoft a lot more than Microsoft needs Nokia. That relationship, at this point, is doing more harm than good for the future of the once-powerful Finnish brand. 

Apple’s iPhone might be in the driver’s seat when it comes to the top three U.S. cellular carriers,  but when it comes to global volume of smartphone shipments, it is a Samsung world and everyone else is just living in it. 

According to Boston-based research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung shipped 57 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012. Samsung’s shipments equate to 35% of the 162 million smartphones shipped in Q3, by far the largest single manufacturer in the industry. Apple held its position as the second largest global smartphone manufacturer, shipping 26.9 million iPhones for a 17% market share. 

Strategy Analytics Q3 2012 smartphone shipments

Samsung's year-over-year growth has been remarkable. In Q3 2011, Samsung was still a strong player behind the strength of its Galaxy S II, the original Note “phablet” and its small army of other Galaxy devices, but had just 23.4% of the global smartphone market.

Samung's Strategy Is Far From Subtle

Since releasing its first flagship Android device, the Galaxy S, Samsung’s strategy has been the shotgun “spray and pray” model of  smartphone deployment. Really, Samsung's approach has all the subtlety of a chainsaw to the face. But, as they say, you play to win the game. In the mobile market, there is no room for subtlety. Samsung is winning by creating a wide array of devices and shipping them to basically every cellular carrier on the planet. 

Strategy Analytics is not the only firm collecting market share data. Research firm IDC also released its global smartphone shipment report, and its statistics do not quite match up with Strategy Analytics' numbers. According to IDC, Samsung shipped 56.3 million smartphones, good for 31.3% of 179.7 million smartphones shipped. Outside of the difference of 600,000 or so smartphone shipments, the two analyst firms are basically in agreement with Samsung’s dominance. Where it gets interesting is looking down the leaderboard.

Strategy Analytics says that the No. 3 spot behind Samsung and Apple belongs to China-based Huawei with 7.6 million units. Huawei has recently made a splash in the U.S. market along with a push in North Africa as well as its native China.

IDC does not agree with Strategy Analytics and does not have Huawei anywhere on its leaderboard. According to IDC, Research In Motion holds the No. 3 spot with 7.7 million BlackBerry devices sold. ZTE and HTC round out IDC’s top five vendors with 7.5 and 7.3 million smartphones shipped, respectively. 

Nokia Is A Dead Fish

One thing that Strategy Analytics and IDC do agree on: Nokia is a fish floating dead in the water. IDC has Nokia as the No. 9 global smartphone vendor in Q3 2012 while IDC does not have the Finnish former mobile giant in its top five. Nokia is still the No. 2 overall mobile device vendor, but that is based on its non-smartphone division such as the Asha series (which Strategy Analytics does not consider a smartphone). 

In many ways, Nokia is the direct inverse of Samsung. Where Samsung can develop and deploy a long list of devices in a short time, Nokia is sluggish. The new Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices have been announced, but they have not yet shipped. It's now looking like Nokia's flagship, the Lumia 920, will be exclusive to AT&T in the U.S. In contrast, Samsung has made the Galaxy S 3 available through nearly every carrier - and the Note II coming right behind it. 

The differing abilities of the two companies to deliver devices to market is a function of the different mobile operating systems to which they have tied themselves. Google iterates and releases new versions of Android at a rapid rate, improving the platform each time around. Google itself is a company that can quickly take a product from research to consumers in a matter of months.

Nokia is attached to Microsoft and its Windows Phone 8 platform. Microsoft is notorious in the tech community for being very slow and deliberate with how it releases new products to market. The fact that Nokia has had to wait for Microsoft to release the entire Windows 8 platform to begin shipping its new Lumia devices has severely limited the handset maker's Q3 smartphone shipments. The result seems to be that much of Samsung's market share gains are coming out of Nokia's hide. 

Samsung's momentum shows no signs of slowing. The Note II is a beautiful, solid device (if a touch confused on what it is) and should sell well during the holiday season. It's competitors, from the mighty Apple all the way down to the struggling Nokia, will be hard pressed to match the depth of its market impact. 

Photo by Fredric Paul.

For the first time in a long time, two American companies are driving innovation and leading one of the planet's most important industries.

(This report also ran in the Fall/Winter 2012 issue of SAY Magazine.)

The first half of 2012, I flew more than 60,000 miles, searching for interesting tech stories for ReadWriteWeb, including stops in Korea, Japan, Iceland, Spain, Germany and Silicon Valley. The biggest meta-trend I've observed: How two U.S. companies, Apple and Google, stand tall as the world's most influential mobile companies, leading one of the planet's most important industries.

It wasn't always this way. Now five years after the first iPhone debuted and almost four years since Android launched, it is easy to forget that America was once a mobile-phone backwater.

The iPhone-ification Of Japan

One trend I've enjoyed watching over the past several years is how Japan — perhaps the most interesting mobile-phone–accessorizing nation — has embraced the iPhone.

In December 2007, eight months before the iPhone launched in Japan, but shortly after it had gone on sale in the U.S., I spent a week wandering around Tokyo, zipping in and out of electronics stores. It was a fascinating experience. Everything felt so foreign, because it was. In the States, it already seemed obvious that a full-touchscreen smartphone was the device of the future. But in Japan, it felt like the opposite.

The most sophisticated phones were big, long flip phones without touchscreens. Gadget department stores had huge sections of charms that you could buy to attach to a tiny loop on your phone: Cute little animals, cartoon characters, food items, screen wipers, all sorts of stuff. (On a later visit in 2010, even Japanese Starbucks stores sold their own cellphone charms, including a tiny plastic coffee cup.)

Handsets competed mostly based on physical design, color and features such as built-in mobile TV support. One new device, the "KDDI InfoBar 2," looked more like an art project than a phone, with colorful buttons taking up much of the phone's face. Having already fallen in love with the iPhone, this seemed strange to me.

In many other ways, the Japanese were far ahead of the world: NTT DoCoMo, the dominant Japanese operator, had long established its mobile Internet services, and a universal mobile payments system meant you could pay for a subway ride or can of coffee with a chip in your phone. Meanwhile, most Americans were still learning how to send text messages.

Fast forward to May 2012, when I spent another week in Japan, again spending an unhealthy amount of time in electronics stores. I knew the iPhone had become popular in Japan and that local cellphone manufacturers had embraced Android. But I was shocked by the extent.

Those long aisles of cellphone charms are now dominated by a dizzying selection of iPhone accessories and cases, ranging from the practical to the absurd.

At one store, a $50 iPhone case looked exactly like a fried tonkatsu cutlet, the breadcrumb texture down to an incredible detail. At another: a case with a rubber hand on the back, so you could "hold hands" while talking on the phone. (Creepy.) I saw an entirely new selection of charms that plug into the iPhone's headphone jack, including tiny pieces of sushi, a Tokyo commuter train car and Kapibara-san, my favorite Japanese fictional character. And an elaborate, $40 gadget in the shape of a baseball stadium — slip your iPhone into the "AppBaseball" plastic slot — designed as an analog controller for a baseball game from the App Store.

There weren't as many toys specifically for Android because there are literally thousands of different Android devices and only a few that sell in enough volume to justify their own custom accessories. But all the big Japanese phone makers had switched to Android in my absence — the homemade, custom stuff was all but gone.

The Rise Of Mobile Software

What happened? Why did two American companies grow to dominate the mobile world? In a word: software.

If you watched the rise of Japanese electronics companies such as Sony and Panasonic in the '80s and '90s, most of their skill was in hardware design, engineering and manufacturing. They were amazing at making things tiny, with superb industrial design. The impossibly thin Sony Discman I bought in Hong Kong in 1998 is still one of my favorite gadgets of all time.

Hardware engineering and distribution were the most important traits of early mobile companies, and that's how Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Sharp and even U.S.-based Motorola moved the needle. For software, they either outsourced — thus, Symbian's early smartphone OS dominance — or made their own. But it was mostly junk, and that was okay because screens were small and everything was very simple.

Then in January 2007, Apple changed everything with the iPhone. Sure, its industrial design was slick and its touchscreen looked different than other phones on the market. But its biggest revolution was software. The iPhone's OS was as strong as a computer's, and the apps it could run were super-advanced. Apple's iTunes sync software was miles better than anything Nokia, RIM or any rival offered. When the iPhone App Store launched in 2008, it became the gold standard for mobile software.

Google's Android project followed. It was never as good as the iPhone software, but it didn't matter because companies like Samsung and HTC couldn't get their hands on Apple's OS. For many purposes, Android was good enough. And its easy (and free) licensing meant anyone could use it for almost anything. Samsung, most notably, has found success with its Android-powered Galaxy lineup, and almost every mobile company around the world has bet itself on Google. (Nokia, now in rebuilding mode, has also attached itself to a U.S.-based platform, the Microsoft Windows Phone.)

Back In The U.S.A.

A decade ago, a tour of the world's mobile-phone capitals might have started in Finland, home of Nokia, stopped in London to visit Sony Ericsson (itself a joint venture between a Swedish telecom giant and Japan's gadget leader) to Korea for Samsung and LG, perhaps to Germany for Siemens, wrapping up at Motorola — the company that invented the cellphone — in the Chicago suburbs. Of these, Samsung is now the only one still profitably making mobile phones, and its strengths are still mostly hardware and distribution — it's hardly a software-platform company.

Today, the most important mobile corridor in the world is the one in Silicon Valley, California — the nine-mile drive between Google's headquarters in Mountain View and Apple's in Cupertino. Until the next revolution, at least.

(This report also ran in the Fall/Winter 2012 issue of SAY Magazine.)

Looking for a 21st-Century way to stamp out social unrest - and hand a pile of new revenue to mobile phone makers? Easy. Declare millions of phones "illegal" and turn them off.

That's what is expected to happen Sept. 30 in Kenya, whose leaders say they are shocked to learn that mobile phones might leak dangerous amounts of radiation, especially counterfeit phones.

So, in order to protect the health of its 29 million mobile owners - as well as the health of aggrieved phone makers including Samsung and Nokia - the Kenyan government says it is switching off all unlicensed SIM cards at the end of the month.

The Communications Committee of Kenya says one in 10 mobiles in that strife-torn African nation are no more legitimate than the Gucci clutches sold on the street corners of Manhattan.

The agency has also said that ridding the populace of counterfeits will help “secure the country from the threat of terrorism, lawlessness and political violence.” Read to the bottom here.

Fake phones being harder to track than genuine articles, they are more likely to be in the hands of criminals. Of the poor and disenfranchised, too, but mostly criminals. Who plan their crimes on their phones. At least that's the story.

Coincidentally, Kenya is preparing for its next round of elections, in March. Riots after the nation’s 2007 elections claimed more than 1,000 lives.

Stifling political dissent aside, the move theoretically means 3 million more potential sales for phone makers, something that struggling Nokia might have noticed.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

The United Colors Of Nokia - um, HTC

HTC’s two new smartphones, dubbed the 8X and 8S, will have 4.3-inch and 4.0-inch screens respectively. Each will come in four colors and be served by a variety of mobile carriers worldwide. The devices will feature a 2.1 megapixel front camera with an 8 megapixel back camera along with Beats audio features. In essence, these two smartphone will be a lot like HTC’s One series but running Windows Phone 8 instead of Android. 

The 8X and 8S are designed to go head-to-head with Nokia’s two flagship Windows Phone 8 devices, the Lumia 920 and 820, announced earlier this month. Like HTC's new phones, the Nokia units come in a variety of colors and boast advanced camera, audio and navigation functions. 

Nokia was the first major mobile manufacturer to start making smartphones in unique colors, starting with the Lumia 800 (and 900 in the U.S.), announced last fall. The Finnish smartphone manufacturer has promoted colors like periwinkle blue to stands apart from the monochromatic world of black-and-white smartphones offered by the likes of Apple and Samsung. But, now that HTC has embraced a variety of colors, the question needs to be asked: Who is behind the color scheme? Is it the manufacturers, or has Microsoft implored its partners to use hue to differentiate Windows Phone from Apple and Android?

War Of Tweets

During HTC’s presentation, HTC’s president Jason Mackenzie said that his company’s devices are “the” signature Windows Phones.

"The #HTC8 is THE signature @windowsphone line. We're going big!" - HTC President, Jason Mackenzie

— HTC (@htc) September 19, 2012

Nokia, which is Microsoft’s primary mobile partner, might take issue with that. In fact, Nokia’s head of marketing (and former head of Nokia U.S.A.) Chris Weber already has. 

On his Twitter account, Weber said, “It takes more than matching color to match the innovation of the Lumia 920.” According to The Verge, Weber said that all HTC has done is “tactically re-brand their products.”

Instead of changing a product name, we’re changing the game with benefits like PureView, nav & wireless charging #Lumia920

— Chris Weber (@CWeberatNokia) September 19, 2012

Weber might have a point. HTC released two Windows Phones last year, the Titan and Titan II. A quick comparison does not show much discernible difference between the 8X and 8S and the Titans except for the colors and Beats audio.

The Battle For Third Place

The headlines in the smartphone industry go to Samsung and Apple. Those are the two largest manufacturers in the market and take a lion’s share of the consumer volume and profits. Yet an intriguing undercurrent has evolved between numbers 3 (Nokia) 4 (HTC). In Q2 2012, Nokia shipped 10.2 million smartphones, according to research firm IDC. HTC shipped 8.8 million.

HTC knows its opponent. It does not have the resources to wage a marketing battle on the scale of Samsung and Apple, but Nokia seems ripe for the plucking. For Nokia’s part, its competitors include all the primary Android manufacturers, an army that has depleted Nokia’s market share considerably in the last few years. But, considering the parallels between the two companies, Nokia may have found an archrival in HTC.

Both Nokia and HTC have had a tough time competing since mid 2011. Both have watched their considerable market and mind shares wither as Apple and Samsung have squeezed competitors. Both took a step back in 2012 and completely redesigned their primary products, HTC its signature One series for Android and Nokia its Lumia smartphones. HTC now hopes it can make a bigger dent in the rising Windows Phone market, especially at Nokia's expense.

The emerging front is deployment. HTC announced that its 8X and 8S will end up on 150 carriers in 50 countries including T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T in the U.S. Nokia has not announced availability for the Lumia 820/920 yet, but it hopes to match HTC’s breadth. If Nokia cannot, this battle may go to HTC by default. 

There are days when I could chuck my smartphone into the Hudson River. Waiting in an empty shuttle to ride across Manhattan from Nokia's Luma 920 launch to Motorola's Razr debut, I felt like a rope in the manufacturers' game of tug-of-war. The battle for mobile supremacy has turned nasty.

Motorola and Nokia made splashy announcements of their newest smartphones yesterday in New York City. Motorola, newly a Google subsidiary, introduced its Android-based Droid Razr HD, Razr Maxx HD, and Razr M. Nokia debuted the Lumia 820 and 920 running Windows Phone 8. The two companies are depending on these products to boost their bottom lines heading into the holiday season, and it behooves them to make waves ahead of next week's release of Apple’s iPhone 5. 

But smartphone announcements have become a traveling circus as manufacturers attempt to one-up each other. Nokia invited the press to its NYC announcement in mid-August. Motorola scheduled its own announcement for the same day, proclaiming it to be “the day’s main event.”

The press assembled early in the morning for Nokia’s show on the Lower West Side. The tail end of Hurricane Isaac made it uncomfortably humid before torrential rains fell, causing journalists, bloggers and analysts to huddle under tents Nokia had set up outside the building. Once inside, the mass was greeted with a sight familiar to those who often attend such events: a dark room bathed in soft blue light (that made taking pictures difficult) and an incessant chime of background music that cut straight to the brain. 

Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop came up first and spouted the usual mess of triumph and hope for a company that has laid off thousands of employees in the last couple of years. Several other Nokia and Microsoft executives followed, showing off the Lumia’s new camera features and aspects of Windows Phone 8. Kevin Shields, a senior vice president at Nokia, showed off the Lumia 920’s responsiveness when handled with mittens. 

The surprise came at the end, as is the fashion of these shindigs. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, never before on hand for a Nokia Windows Phone event, took the stage and boomed through the microphone, extolling the virtues of Windows Phone 8 and Nokia. The assembled multitude responded with tepid applause.

Which brings us to the empty shuttle. 

After the speeches and requisite hands-on time with the new devices, Nokia announced that it would provide a shuttle to the Motorola event. This was confusing, especially to people who had already arranged to take a shuttle offered by Motorola. 

Then came Nokia and Microsoft’s “fuck you” to Google and Motorola.

The shuttle heading to the Motorola event at Gotham hall in midtown was a big blue bus with giant “I Heart Nokia” on the side. No doubt Nokia thought it would be hilarious to ferry analysts and reporters to the Razr announcement in a bus proclaiming love for itself. Nokia representatives shepherded reporters to the bus, deftly turning them away from a smaller Motorola shuttle that was forced to park around the corner, out of sight. I stepped on the Nokia bus, dropped off my bag and stepped outside to see what was up with Motorola.

I didn’t want to play this game. I didn’t want to be part of Nokia’s underhanded machinations and its subtle dig at Motorola. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

So I got my stuff from the “I Heart Nokia” bus and went to the Motorola shuttle, joining several slightly distraught Motorola representatives (hired hands from a local marketing firm), and waited. The Motorola reps tried to rustle up some company for me on the shuttle, but no luck. So I found myself in the absurd situation of being the only person on the bus across the city, chatting with the driver, a nice fellow named Mike who liked to honk at pretty women on the street.

Mike dropped me off at Gotham Hall. Inside, Motorola’s setup was vaguely similar to Nokia’s: the same dark room and soft blue light and a stage offset with giant screens in the background. Yet, instead of a podium, there was a setup for a band, with drums, guitars and a keyboard. The reporters looked at each other, shrugged, opened their laptops and tried to catch up with material they hadn’t posted from Nokia.

About 20 minutes before the scheduled start, a band called The Kin picked up the instruments and launched into their set. The reporters hardly looked up from their keyboards. At one point, the lead singer said something along the line of, “We like to get people to sing along. I know you are a bunch of reporters but . . . yeah.” The Kin found no kindred spirits in this crowd.

The superstars then made their way to the stage. Google’s chairman Erik Schmidt was the first, followed by Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside. The only people missing were Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The usual routine commenced, three new devices and a message of triumph and hope. 

The details of the journey of through day, while amusing, don't convey the larger picture. The showmanship of the mobile industry, the sniping between companies, the big announcements that fail to live up to the hype, big names dropped to impress the crowd and all the rest show an industry that has allowed competition to turn it into a caricature of itself. 

Above it all, like an ominous thundercloud, floats Apple. Motorola, Nokia, Google, Microsoft and Amazon (which is announcing its new products today in Santa Monica) all need to stake down their tents before Apple blows in next week with its iPhone 5. The rhetoric, pomp and flash are a desperate bid to attract some attention, any attention, before the real show arrives.

Consumers, like this reporter, are caught in the crosshairs, toppled about through the maelstrom, waiting for the next great smartphone. 

Nokia announced its new Lumia smartphones today at an event in New York City. There are a lot of things to like, including a variety of colors, innovative NFC speakers and wireless charging. We got hands-on time with some Lumia devices and took pictures that show off a few strengths of these distinctive devices. 

• The Nokia Lumia 820 (left) with removable backs that come in a variety of colors, including deep purple. The Lumia 920 (right) will be the flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphone when it is released in Q4 this year.

• Showing off the new resizable Hubs and Tiles of Windows Phone 8. Tiles now come in three sizes: large/wide, regular squares and small squares. Tiles can be personalized to individual people showing every message from text, email, phone calls or social. 

Nokia unveiled is new line of Lumia smartphones today at an event in New York City. Building on Windows Phone 8, the company has harnessed its design and development teams to create one of the most innovative smartphone approaches on the market.

It's no secret that Nokia has been playing catch up in the smartphone market. It has shed market share, laid off employees, and been forced to completely rethink the company, top to bottom, in its effort to compete with Apple and Google's Android operating system.

When Nokia abandoned its MeeGo smartphone platform and began phasing out its Symbian devices in February 2011 in favor of Windows Phone, the natural question was how Nokia would adjust its R&D effort to Microsoft’s new mobile platform. Windows Phone's Hubs-and-Tiles approach did not leave much room for software customization.

Nokia has built its reputation and market presence on R&D. But when it pulled the plug on its own mobile platforms, it had to race to get a Windows Phone to market and did not have time to properly implement many of its particular enhancements, such as location services or camera technology. The result was two well designed Windows Phones, the Lumia 800 and 900, that were ho-hum additions to flashier Windows Phones made by companies like HTC or Samsung.

The goal for Nokia was to add its distinctive technology to the Windows Phone platform. That is precisely what the company has pulled off with the new Lumia 920.

“Across all of our strategy, we said that Nokia would differentiate,” CEO Stephen Elop said. “Future disruptions, we are identifying ways to challenge the shortcomings of today's user experiences.”

Nokia focused on a few specific categories to differentiate the Lumia 920 from other smartphones: camera, screen and video playback, location and navigation services, and wireless charging. 

Nokia seems to be proudest of the camera. The company has integrated its 8.7 megapixel PureView hardware and software with its Carl Zeiss optics in an effort to deliver one of the best smartphone camera experiences available. Nokia uses what it calls “floating lens technology” (which isolates the optics using tiny springs) to keep the shutter open longer while accounting for the natural movement of a person’s hand. Essentially, Nokia has increased the size of the Lumia’s aperture while keeping the shutter open longer. It expects this approach to deliver superior low-light performance. 

“Since the Nokia Lumia 920 has the best smartphone camera for taking pictures and video for every day use, we wanted to help people find places to use it,” said Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia. 

Nokia also touted its navigation and location services. The usual Nokia stand-outs are there, including revamped maps and turn-by-turn navigation. The newest feature combines the smartphone camera with location services for an augmented reality function called “Nokia City Lens.” The feature overlays information on local businesses through the smartphone’s camera viewfinder. A user can tap the screen and call a restaurant to make a reservation.

Nokia also became the first major smartphone manufacturer to ship a smartphone that has inductive, wireless charging as a default feature. Until now, wireless charging (by laying the phone on a pad that charges the battery) was available only from third-party vendors and required users to change the device's back panel. Nokia has partnered with a company called Fatboy to add a charging pillow without the need to change the back plate.

Nokia did not announce the pricing or availability of the Lumia 920 or the lower-end Lumia 820. Elop said that pricing and regional availability would be available in the fourth quarter of this year.