See if this sounds familiar: A company makes a strategic announcement where its current lineup of devices will become obsolete over the next year, meanwhile it'll be several months before new devices will be available.
That was Stephen Elop's monumental error last year, when he announced to Nokia's employees and the world that he was dropping Symbian (and MeeGo) for the Windows Phone platform. And yesterday, history repeated itself with a twist, when Microsoft announced that the new Windows Phone 8 would require beefier specs that the entire Lumia line could not support, and would therefore not be transitioning to WP8.
So the scenario that will play out in 2012 will look a lot like the one played out in 2011, when people stopped buying Nokia Symbian phones. In this case of course, people will put off purchases of the Lumia lineup, in anticipation of a new Lumia phone that will have WP8 installed.
The ruckus of current Lumia owners is a distraction, because I suspect Nokia will find a way to help these people upgrade for a reduced price, to quell the growing angry chorus.
But I can see extreme storm clouds on the horizon, and they're the category 5 hurricane type clouds. Here's the worst-case scenario:
The upcoming Pure View 808 with its 41 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens seemed destined to become a decent hit for Nokia. But what if it too, doesn't support WP8 upgrades? If true, and due to the fact that its entire Lumia lineup will not be upgraded to WP8, you can imagine what the sales people at wireless and electronic stores will tell customers: wait four or five months, or buy an Android or an iPhone. That's what I would tell my friends, if they were actually contemplating buying a new WP phone this year, and I would suspect most people would give their friends and family members the same advice.
So let's say Lumia 900 sales, after having dealt with a data connection software bug and the purple keyboard screen, turns out to be lackluster in Q2...well, things WON'T get better in Q3, that's for sure.
The final blow however, may occur from outside forces. At around (or before) the time that WP8 is released, so will Android's Jelly Bean and Apple's iPhone5.
The recent announcement that Nokia was cutting jobs, now makes some sense. A panicked Elop realized that they will have to start from basically scratch and re-engineer phones to meet minimum specs for WP8. Worse, cash is going to flow out like cheap box wine, once Microsoft makes its announcement that current WP phones won't be able to support WP8.
Scary times for Nokia, don't you think?
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