Nokia to Stop Selling Symbian and S40 Phones in U.S.
Aug 9, 2011, 12:46 PM by Eric M. Zeman
In an interview with AllThingsD's Ina Fried, Nokia U.S. President Chris Weber said that the company will cease selling its Symbian smartphones and its S40-based feature phones in the U.S. market. Weber said, "When we launch Windows Phones we will essentially be out of the Symbian business, the S40 business, etc. It will be Windows Phone and the accessories around that. The reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn’t matter what we do (elsewhere)." Weber indicated that the company is prioritizing the North American market with its forthcoming Windows Phone devices, and will sell them only through U.S. wireless network operators. He also noted that Nokia's San Diego facility will be behind the first batch of Windows Phone 7 devices that it will launch, which will be targeted at the U.S. market. Nokia has long sold feature phones through U.S. carriers, though few of its S60/Symbian smartphones gained traction with U.S. buyers. Nokia announced in February that it would cease developing Symbian and would instead adopt Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform.
Comments
I was shocked at first...
But I just looked at the big 3 carriers, and there aren't many s40 phones out there.
And then I tried to remember a single s60 phone I liked, and there were none. It was a lame OS which looked like a slopped-together mask over a poorly-developed basic menu.
Even when I was still happy with Java-based apps on feature phones, Nokias were all terrible at running them. Slow, single-task weak phones.
The last Nokia I liked was the 6590.
