Whether any of the products Nokia announced today are big successes or not, they need to start doing some product announcements in North America. I suggest New York, Seattle, or even Toronto. Put the products into the U.S. market simultaneously with Europe and Asia, and mount a serious marketing effort through T-Mobile, Cingular, and AT&T Wireless.
If Nokia keeps announcing products in Europe and Asia, and shipping them 3 to 6 months later in North America, they will continue to have difficulty generating momentum here for their new products.
If you doubt me, take a look at the comment attached to our recent story Nokia Launching New Phones, Analysts Say “So What?”. Jim Hughes said of Nokia’s product line:
The 6600 is no longer Nokia’s flagship smartphone, in Europe it’s getting long in the tooth, remember we had it back in October 2003.
He’s got a point. Hardly anyone has a Nokia 6600 in this country yet because it only came out in the U.S. in the last 90 days. It’s a very good phone, and it will do better with some people (like Linux system administrators) when Nokia releases its pocket Bluetooth keyboard.