Nokia chief Stephen Elop has admitted, in a candid interview, that Nokia doesn’t really have any solid plans to enter that highly competitive tablet market.
There have been rumours all year that the Finnish company might use its new found stability alongside Microsoft to make a bold move into the Apple dominated tablet market.
Elop even eluded to a tablet in November when he said “there’s a new tablet opportunity coming”. But today’s comments seem to pour cold water over the rumours.
“Nokia does not have an exact plan, but we are studying the markets carefully,” Elop explained to Finnish TV station YLE. “Perhaps we will come [to market] one day.”
It would be a wise move for Nokia not to spread themselves too thinly at the moment given the state of the world economy and the recent failures of Blackberry and, most notably, HP and not to enter the market in such uncertain times.
We’re sure that Samsung, Motorola and Asus would all agree as they’ve spent colossal amounts of money and made barely a dent in Apple’s market dominance.
When Nokia does decide to release a tablet, it will be interesting to see what OS will be on board. While it makes sense the company sticks with Windows, Nokia did reveal earlier this year that its relationship with Microsoft didn’t necessarily extend to tablets – could this mean Nokia might consider an Android offering ?
Whatever does happen Nokia needs to realise that there’s no point trying to beat Apple at it’s own game and go for a more focused product like Amazon has created with its Fire.
But, the facts remains its not necessarily the maker of the tablet but the content providers who really benefit from a successful tablet – something Apple and more recently Amazon have realised.
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