Nokia Connection 2011: Unveiling the next chapter

This year's Nokia Connection is slightly different from the past years. Firstly, it is hosted on the same day as Communicasia and the company has a booth at the convention hall. On top of that, Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop, is in town to deliver his keynote speech. VR-Zone brings you the coverage.

Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Nokia, said that earlier this year, the company outlined a new course to change their direction, and today, a new season is beginning for Nokia.

"We have reshaped our organization and a clear strategy and we are focused on delivering results. In February, we outlined our strategy which include shifting our smart devices to the Windows Phone platform, connecting the next billion (users) to the Internet, and investing in future disruptions. As we have shared, our primary smartphone strategy is to focus on Windows Phone, I have increased confidence that we will launch our first device based on the Windows Phone platform later this year. And we will ship our products in volume in 2012," Elop said.

At the event, Symbian Anna was being demonstrated on a pink Nokia N8. The N8, E7, C601 and C7 with Symbian Anna will start shipping in July, while Nokia N8 and C7 users will receive Symbian Anna upgrade in August. Mary McDowell, executive vice president, mobile phones, Nokia, was also there to talk about the new C2-03 phone, the company's third dual-SIM phone, designed with the combination of fun and functionality at affordable price. The C2-03 has an easy-swap feature that lets users, especially business users who carry more than one SIM card for roaming, change their SIM cards easily. The single-SIM version of the C2-03 will be the C2-02.

Marko Ahtisaari, senior vice president of design, Nokia, said that people want more screen on their phone, and that they want to use their phones whilst fully mobile, which means a one-handed use. Ahtisaari then unveiled the company's flagship N9 smartphone based on the MeeGo platform. The N9 has a beautiful curved glass, is an all screen phone with no home or back buttons. To navigate between home screens and applications, Users simply need to swipe their screen; the user interface is designed to be very fluid. The Nokia N9 is made of a single piece of polycarbonate with inherent colors; it comes in black, cyan and magenta. Other features include 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens that can capture 720p high definition videos, dedicated Nokia Maps and near-field communication (NFC).

Elop also added that the real focus of the N9 was to uncover new ways to bring innovations to the marketplace such as the industrial design, user interface, and the focus of Qt, and the elements of these will be seen in future Nokia's products.