Mobile phone maker Nokia may get into the laptop business.
CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told Finnish national broadcaster YLE
on Wednesday that the firm was "looking very actively" at the move,
which was first rumoured late last year,
Reuters reported.
The news agency reported Kallasvuo saying, "We don't have to
look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a
cellphone and what we know as a PC are in many ways
converging."
Nokia may find the mobile internet device (MID) market crowded.
To name just two competitors, netbook maker Asus plans to add
Google's Android mobile phone operating system to its armoury,
and Acer, the world's third biggest PC maker last week launched
eight cellphone models.
Market analyst Juniper Research predicts the market for high-end
smartphones will grow 95% to hit 300 million a year by 2010. While
margins in smartphones are juicy, those in the netbook market are
extremely thin.
As HP's latest results show, demand for laptops is growing, but
at the price of profit margins. The recession is one cause, but so
too is the availability of well-specified netbooks at less than
half the price of a traditional laptop.
This is possible because they usually use free open source
operating systems like Linux and office applications such as
OpenOffice or even Google Apps.
Nokia said last week in Barcelona that Symbian, its high-end
smartphone operating system, will be converted into an open source
product from 2010. Nokia also announced a well-funded software
developers' competition for applications for its N97 smartphone.
Like the Android-based G1, The N97 comes with a full qwerty
keyboard that makes activities like Twittering and Facebooking much
easier.
With many mobile network operators already selling net-enabled
laptops in their shops, Nokia will also be able to use its
distribution network to flood the market.