Why Nokia isn't making a tablet, yet. » YugaTech | Philippines Tech News & Reviews

Why Nokia isn’t making a tablet, yet.

In these times when every other handset and PC manufacturer are bringing out their very own tablets, it’s a wonder why Nokia has not made one until now. Even smaller players have had some success (like Archos) in this market, so why not Nokia?

Nokia isn’t a total virgin in the PC market. In fact they made their very first netbook back in 2010 (see our Nokia Booklet 3G Review).

Unfortunately, that did not pan out well for the Finnish company — mainly because the unit costs an arm and a leg back then. It didn’t even arrive in the Philippines.

With that in mind, let me share my thoughts on why Nokia has not joined the tablet wars and isn’t doing one any time soon.

A Nokia Tablet is a distraction. Nokia is very busy fending off a lot of competitors in the handset market. There’s Apple and their dominance with the iPhone line-up; then there’s Samsung that’s kicking everyone’s ass in the Android smartphone arena, followed by HTC which, by the way, has surpassed Nokia in market cap early this year. Nokia’s just too busy protecting its turf that entering the tablet market will just be a distraction.
Nokia didn’t have a solid Tablet OS of its own. If Nokia wants to be serious in the tablet market, they would need to invest heavily on a tablet OS the same way they banked on their own Symbian OS. Okay, there was a glimmer of hope with Maemo and Meego but it was still half-baked back then. With Meego being placed in the back-burner, it looks like there’s no opportunity left for a Meego tablet from Nokia.
Change in leadership. A change in leadership usually means a change in direction and priorities. When Stephen Elop sat as CEO of Nokia in September 2010, the strategy changed and Microsoft entered the scene afterwards. Nokia eventually partnered with Microsoft to produce Nokia Windows Phone 7 handsets. It is most likely that if and when Nokia builds its own tablet, it will run on Windows 8.
Nokia cannot afford another failure. Making a tablet in this very competitive, iPad-dominated market is a huge risk. A number of big-pocketed manufacturers have tried and failed — the HP TouchPad, the BlackBerry Playbook, the HTC Flyer, and probably many more to come.

The second obvious question — is Nokia ever gonna make a tablet? My answer is more likely yes than no. And it will likely be a Nokia Windows 8 tablet but that’s way far off the calendar (late 2012, perhaps? Assuming Elop is still the CEO by then.). Second most likely candidate would be Tizen. Since Nokia supported Meego, might as well throw the same support to Tizen. Nokia might feel uncomfortable though since Samsung and Intel are leading that pack (like a scorned ex-lover).

Too many players, too little time and resources for Nokia so they’re playing whatever cards they have left in their hands.

We’ll never know really. Maybe Microsoft will buy Nokia before the year ends.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

22 Comments

zhun says:

11 years ago

???????nakikita???????????Windows Phone 8?????Windows 8?????????????????Windows???????????WP7 andaming???????????NSA???sinalo???????????????laggy?????????????: zopophoneshop
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jay ar says:

12 years ago

pero ako as sa nakikita ko i will love to invest in nokia windows phone 8 and nokia windows 8 tablets ( nokia has the edge with the other manufactures of windows phone look what they done of their WP7 andaming exclusive apps halos lahat nsa nokia sinalo nila lahat ) i promise this will put the laggy green robot phones and tablets away :)
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ChaystEr says:

13 years ago

madali lang naman maggamble ang Microsoft na gumawa ng OS like Android di ba? pack it with tons of Apps like Android and Apple and youre good to go, and besides mas lamang sila sa Mobile Computing because of their Microsoft Office apps.!
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ZJ says:

13 years ago

Windows Mobile & Nokia = both failures.
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psionicd says:

13 years ago

Sir,i think nokia was the first to manufacture an internet tablet. remember the nokia n800 and nokia n810?
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jonaflormicfren says:

13 years ago

It’s not yet their time.
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jj says:

13 years ago

Their time is over :)

MedicalFacts101 says:

13 years ago

the only thing I don’t like about nokia is their OS. will it be a good move if they switch to android? hmmmmmm
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Tristan says:

13 years ago

I wonder how will they be able to stand the tablet wars. I agree with all your statement Sir Abe.

As for the Win8 powered tablet, I doubt it. Firstly because, if ever they do make a tablet, it will be costly (based on their handsets, it’s obvious). Unless they can find a way to trim down the prices.

With Kindle Fire on the loose next month, it will be good if they just focus on their (Nokia) turf.
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Sky says:

13 years ago

I saw a concept phone video from Nokia a years back, its called nano phone. They should really invest on that for them to be right back on the track. Nokia phones today…i hate them all.
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lightphoenix says:

13 years ago

I saw this last year sa SM. Name of shop is Octagon.
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Wes says:

13 years ago

Nokia should just concentrate on phones. They have been slow in innovating and producing new models that’s why its rivals like Samsung and HTC has overtook them.

I always loved my Nokia because of its durability but it is sad to see them lag in the Android phone market.
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Ric says:

13 years ago

Plain and simple – Nokia just doesn’t want anything to do with Android (which is the only real alternative to ios at this time). Oherwise, they would have made one already.
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Vin says:

13 years ago

The BEST! pa rin ang nokia para sa akin.
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megsimm88 says:

13 years ago

its actually a good thing for Nokia i’d say, just yesterday i read in the papers that Blackberry playbook’s price cut down by $200 and its been thought that they stopped shipping devices out although RIM doesn’t admit it. same thing happen to HTC flyer for the price cutdown. The market tablet is a tough competition to get into esp Apple and Samsung have been dominating. The way i see it Nokia may come out with one possibly using windows platform which has a great potential and a lot of room for improvement. Android has been in the same phase as windows phone is now but look where it got now. I see the same for windows phone as well. I actually can’t say ios or android is better but i don’t like having limited options for phone os. The more we have the best, for me.
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Cesar Noel Quinon says:

13 years ago

I’m not sure if Nokia would succeed with the Tablet using Windows Phone or Symbian OS as their platform unless then embrace the Android OS platform
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ambinp says:

13 years ago

Nokia’s failures became more apparent when Stephen Elop stepped in.damn i feel sorry for Nokia coz i’m a fan.it’s better if they focused more on Meego, WP7 is a shit.xd
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Jam. says:

13 years ago

Tried and tested mo na ba ang WP7 lalo yung Mango?
lbm skid says:

13 years ago

care to elaborate on the failure because of the Microsoft collaboration? as far as i can remember, Symbian (lack of innovation) was the reason why Nokia failed.

Jam. says:

13 years ago

I believe that Nokia will make a Nokia Tablet in 2012 since Elop is a microsoft guy. 2012, Just in time for Windows 8. They should’ve made a Prototype tablet during Microsoft Build for show off. Quad core ARM + Nokia = Awesome.
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deuts says:

13 years ago

And then I’d say, concentrate na lng sila sa cellphones, especially sa basic at feature phones.
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Hideki says:

13 years ago

hehe. nice! oo nga no. pero sinisipag naman ata sila maglabas ng cellphone. XD
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