When Nokia unveiled the first three products in its Nseries range last week, it was clear the company has strong ideas on how we will communicate in the not so distant future.
I got the impression that in future, Nokia plans to concentrate on making smart devices with telephone capability, rather than just mobile phones with accessories.
Kaunda Chama, features editor, ITWeb
I got the impression that in future, Nokia plans to concentrate on making smart devices with telephone capability, rather than just mobile phones with accessories.
This may seem like an unnecessary deviation from the core mobile phone business. However, just over 10 years ago, Nokia introduced one of the first phones with a screen, when this may have seemed unnecessary. A short while later SMS took the world by storm.
So, once again, Nokia might be onto something.
The newest products are the Nokia N90 multimedia, which takes mobile phone photography to a new level thanks to Carl Zeiss optics; the Nokia N91 multimedia, which is the company`s latest device optimised for music and stores up to 3 000 songs on the integrated 4GB hard disk; and the Nokia N70, which is arguably the world`s smallest Series 60-based 3G WCDMA device with a 2MP camera.
All the devices include push e-mail, HTML browser, music player and FM radio with stereo audio.
To add in all these extras, Nokia is moving into territories that were once dominated by the likes of Apple (iPod), HP, Canon, Fuji (digital cameras) and iMate (smart phones).
This too looks like a sign of things to come. Clearly the lines in the market will blur as the consumer becomes more demanding of versatility, functionality and smaller but smarter devices.
Although we are still some way from a time when what used to be your phone can make you bottomless coffee, I expect the likes of Motorola, Siemens, LG and Samsung will also soon release what we will call "multimedia communication devices" as opposed to just cellular phones.
As they edge in to the entertainment and photography markets, I wonder if the traditional MP3 player, digital camera and smart device vendors might fight fire with fire and start including telephony and other communication technologies in their usually passive devices.
Whatever happens to the market, it looks like the end of the cellphone era and the dawn of the smart device generation.
It may seem a little sad, but I see myself as the consumer benefiting in the end, with greater variety, more functionality and better pricing.
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