Hi, I'm Riku Seppälä and this is page is my central presence on the web. I come from Finland and live in Montreal. I'm A Business Strategist And Corporate Information Systems Developer. Currently I'm Working on My Masters Thesis In Business Strategy. I'm A Firm Believer Of The Clan Of Getting Things Done. On my page you can find links to my CV and the projects I'm working on at the moment.

What I'm Thinking - My Twitter Feed

    follow me on Twitter

    Thursday 13 August 2009

    Nokia Buys American Carrier and Releases The Tablet

    This is not an authentic press release, but maybe something that we'll see quite soon:

    Nokia has announced that it will buy a wireless carrier that covers the US and Canada. Nokia will sell its phones with a wireless package or without it. Nokia aims to undercut the prices of competing carriers. It is part of their new strategy in America. Company representatives comment:

    "According to research by Technology Firm Gartner, consumers in the US and Canada pay 55 dollars for the same service that only costs 11 dollars in Northern Europe. US and Canada have advanced telecommunications networks, but the prices are the highest in the world. "

    The margins of wireless carriers are not very high, but by integrating the value chain, Nokia believes that it can offer better service and lower costs to customers:

    "The carriers are in a monopolistic position which hinders the advancement of communications in America. We want to change that. The carriers have also been able to exert power on Nokia, our best phones haven't even made it to the market because of the carriers. We were left with no choice but to start our own carrier."

    The new Nokia strategy for America also includes the opening of Nokia stores and a single Smartphone platform.

    "We'll be opening Nokia stores around America. We will also sell our carrier services from our own stores. The need for this has been made clear by some of the workforce that have moved from Europe to the US. They are not happy with their wireless service. The business model has been copied from the Northern European market, and we know it works. We are also working in collaboration with some Nordic carriers.

    We will be offering unlimited data access and flat rates at any time for calls. We don't believe in restricting consumers and we want to allow predictable billing. In addition, there will be no international roaming fees and the calls will cost the same wherever you are in America, there are no long-distance fees. This has already been the case for example in Finland. It's economically feasible and offers value to the customers. The international call rates vary between 10 - 40 cents per minute."

    "The opening of our new stores is happening at the same time as our new Nokia Tablet and Laptop are announced. The tablet runs on a completely open Maemo platform. This platform will be extended but always also supported. It is our answer to the need for customers and developers to only worry about one handheld and that you can keep all your applications and information for a long time forward."

    Nokia believes that their technology is superior to what is offered on the market today.

    "Well, of course we believe our phones are good. For example, for several years it has been possible to use your mobile phone over bluetooth as a modem for a computer. This is every day life for some people in Finland. However, in Americe, these are completely new features that have come out with the iPhone 3Gs. Unfortunately, Nokia has been unable to communicate these benefits to customers because of the pressure and control of carriers in America. Nokia is able to build the most advanced phones. So far, maybe not the most user friendly, but we're hoping that has changed"

    It seems Nokia has found it's path again:

    "The mobile carriers in America are barriers to Connecting People. Nokia wants to change that."