The annual Nokia World event will be held in London this year, and I will be attending, courtesy of Nokia Malaysia. The event is Nokia’s annual showcase of new products, as well as sharing information on its business. This year, the notable keynote speakers, apart from Nokia’s global senior management team are Vittorio Colao, group CEO of Vodafone, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet, as some call him. Vodafone is the world’s largest celco by revenues and second largest by subscriber numbers (behind China Mobile). According to Nokia:
Nokia World brings to life our vision of a world where connecting everyone to what matters helps them make the most of every moment.
The way in which we connect people is at the heart of Nokia. And at Nokia World, the Nokia community comes together to explore new opportunities as the convergence of telecoms, computing and the internet accelerates.
Operators, developers, media, retailers, service providers, music and content houses, games publishers, technology companies, analysts and bloggers talk about how innovation and openness can make great things happen.
What I’m looking forward to:
- new product (phone) announcements and showcase. It could be the N8-01, or the N9, or whatever Nokia chooses to call its next generation of smartphones. I would be particularly interested in hearing about a new MeeGo smartphone, and how Nokia plans to bring it to market (remember that Microsoft is reportedly spending up to half a billion US dollars to “buy” the market for Windows Phone 7 when it launches later this year). Having a healthy collection of developers as well as basic, must-have applications, such as social networking, office productivity, in my opinion, is a pre-requisite for success in this ferocious market with so many formidable competitors.
- new product announcements – other hardware such as netbooks, notebooks, tablets, etc. The Booklet 3G was generally well received by industry commentators, save for the slow Atom processor. With MeeGo, Nokia can use it on a variety of other devices and not just on smartphones.
- product roadmap for the foreseeable future – what we can look forward to in the next 6-12 months as far as hardware offerings go. How the various smartphones are expected to be segmentised, if there is any change in focus, or strategy.
- services update – how the re-branding of the various Ovi services are coming along. What or where is the focus going forward? Ovi Files is now scheduled to be shut down come October this year, and I’d be interested to know the reasons behind this, and whether there will be a replacement.
- business update – revenue, growth, outlook data. Market share. Globally as well as regionally, and Malaysia, in particular.
I will try to do some live-blogging for the event, using a service called CoverItLive, but I don’t know if there will be sufficient bandwidth at the venue or not to do this. I have prepared by purchasing a Vodafone prepaid data/mobile broadband SIM so if I fail, it won’t be for lack of trying! I will also try to shoot some videos and take lots of photos of devices (and yes, babes, if any!).
If you have some burning questions you’d like me to ask, let me know. Reasonable questions, please. Also, while I am there, there is unlikely to be much updates on this blog, unless you want me to post UK IT related stuff such as wired/wireless broadband speeds, gadgets I come across, etc. That is, if you don’t mind feeling depressed after you read the posts! I will be away for around 10 days, taking a personal break after the event. If you also want me to post pictures and commentaries of my travels, say so and I will try my best to accommodate.
While I am away, please feel free to submit stories that you think are worth mentioning; heck, if you want to submit properly written stories, feel free to do so and I will post them on this blog, with full credits to you ;-)
And finally, a great big thanks to Nokia Malaysia for sponsoring this trip! If you’re curious about what gear I’m bringing, here they are:
- Nokia E5 for voice calls, SMS and occasional tweeting using Gravity
- Viliv S7 with Windows XP with built-in 3G
- Sony NEX-5
dSLR compact interchangeable lens camera
- Huawei E5830 MiFi portable 3G hotspot (+ 3 batteries!)
- Apple iPad 3G
- Apple iPhone 4
- TBD point-and-shoot camera
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KUALA LUMPUR, 2 September 2010 – Fans of American rock band Paramore in Malaysia and the region will be able to catch them live when they are here for ‘Paramore Live in Kuala Lumpur 2010’. The concert, scheduled for 19 October 2010, will be held at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil.
