If you’ve been salivating over the sleek design of the Nokia N9, and you live in the United States, we’re afraid we have some bad news for you: It isn’t coming here.
As a matter of fact, if you’re a fan of Nokia feature phones or the Symbian S60 operating system, you will also be out of luck it seems. Speaking with AllThingsD, Nokia Inc. President Chris Weber said “When we launch Windows Phones we will essentially be out of the Symbian business, the S40 business, etc.. “It will be Windows Phone and the accessories around that. The reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn’t matter what we do (elsewhere).”
The Nokia N9 will have a weird footnote in the history of the company as it will be the first and only handset released by the company to be powered by the MeeGo operating system. Considering the company’s emphasis now on their association with Microsoft for Window’s Phone devices, you almost have to wonder why this device is being released anywhere. Was it a contractual obligation? Did they feel they had to recoup at least some of the money they spent on research and development? Is it just a stop-gap release until the Microsoft-powered devices hit the streets? The smartphone buying crowd has to wonder. And you also have to wonder just how much third-party development support there will be for an OS that obviously even the company didn’t have enough faith in to keep going on their own.
Nokia has certainly put all of its eggs in one basket, and you have to wish them well as it would be sad to see them disappear from the smartphone landscape, but not it appears they are narrowing their potential customer base that much more by saying good-bye to feature phones (yes, some people still buy them) and the Symbian OS that served them well for so long.
It is an interesting time for Nokia to be certain, and now we must just wait to see how it plays out for them.
Are you sad that the Nokia N9 won’t be releasing in the United States?
[via AllThingsD]
