release

I'm sure no one believed Nokia would be able to move to Windows Phone 7 and be selling handsets left, right and center with little marketing or investment (except perhaps for China for the time being). The handset manufacturer is reported to be looking at spending around £80 million (about $127 million US) on repairing the once-superior brand in the current competitive UK market (where RIM is currently also a threat as well as iOS and Android).

What's interesting to note is the October mentioning in the article over at Marketing Magazine. An October start to the campaign would surely merit a device release at that time too? We've previously looked at reports of Nokia not bringing any devices until 2012, but only volume will ship in 2012, Nokia is still looking to get a device out into the wild by Christmas at least.

Nokia works with Wieden & Kennedy, Fallon and R/GA, among others in the UK for promotion and marketing. The handset manufacturer recently unveiled a campaign for their QWERTY range of devices; the C3, E5, and E6. You can watch the advert (made by Wieden & Kennedy) for these below:

Unfortunately for Nokia, with some potential customers out there, the only way they'll buy the WP7 marketing campaign is if the company uses the dog and girl photo on this article in a "you don't need Android or iOS" context. What do you guys make of this report?

Source: Marketing Magazine, via: GoMo News

We're all hyped and excited about the upcoming Microkia partnership taking full swing and seeing Nokia CEO Steve Elop pleading with the audience at a preview demonstration of 'Sea Ray' to not release material to the media (we still haven't posted anything about it, Steve - we promise), it got our taste buds tingling at the sight of a Nokia WP7 handset.

However, it seems there's some slight confusion with Nokia and their release dates. To cut a long story short, Nokia have never led us to believe they would begin shipping numbers this year. 2012 was always the given date. The fall of 2011 (when Mango is being rolled out) was only ever a possibility for us to see a single Nokia handset available, which Steve explained in a video a few months back. So today, when they tweeted

"The first volume shipments for Nokia phone with Windows Phone OS are expected that start early next year."

...well, that's the same story they've been telling, no news there. Nokia's WP7 portfolio is to be in full swing next year, but as Steve mentions in the video linked above, the pressure is on not only the company, but also himself to push a device out this year at least. In an interview with Forbes, Jo Harlow, head of Smart Devices at Nokia, mentioned that they were indeed ahead of scheduele but no promise was evidentially made.

Who are we kidding anyway? This is only July, early July at that. We've just entered the summer holidays and have a good number of months to go until Mango along with the fall of 2011. Let's just see what Nokia has to say closer to the date for more accurate detail.

Could their first device come this year? Possibly, but don't be disappointed if it arrives early 2012. It's still going to be one incredible ride and Nokia know they need to hit the nail on the head to survive.

We hope that clears up a few things as we wouldn't want you all to get the wrong idea about anything, would we?

Source: GeekSailor, Twitter (Nokia)

Over at Windows Phone Secrets, Paul Thurrott tells us that the launch date for Windows Phone 7 is November 8th and notes that although Microsoft will have an event on October 11th in New York City, that's not the launch date for our new OS.

First some clarification is in order: we've never been under the impression (and we doubt you have been as well) that on October 11th, you would be able to actually buy one of the three Windows Phones from AT&T. We've always assumed that Microsoft and partners (OEM and carriers) will show off their wares on that day and then weeks later after an aggressive advertising campaign, actually make them available. With less than 2 weeks to go, we certainly would have seen some shipments of phones move by now (and more leaks) if otherwise.

Basically we're looking, as we've said numerous times before, for a repeat of last year's timeline with the Windows Mobile 6.5 launch, which was:

1. Show off/announce phones from carriers and OEMs in NYC
2. Talk release dates and ROM upgrades for a future dates
3. Spend the news few weeks advertising & promoting 

Sure, the Microsoft Open House event on October 11th is not all Windows Phone 7, in fact we expect Xbox, Windows 7, Ford Sync, etc. all to be demoed as well--like last year. But we're quite confident (and have to disagree with Thurrott here) that the NYC event is "...unrelated to Windows Phone".  We're betting that there will be some Windows Phone 7 devices on  hand and we have a feeling we'll be hearing from AT&T (and maybe T-Mobile) about that November 8th date at that time.

Discuss.

In the Bluetooth SIG documents on the LG C900, they have listed as around September 28th as the release date for said device. If you remember, LG said the same thing back in July too.

Since today is a slow news day on Windows Phone 7, many sites are posting this story from Phone Arena, which while interesting, really doesn't say anything new. But we have a feeling that regular folk are construing this to mean somewhere an LG C900 will be available at the end of September to actually purchase.

So far we know

• Europe is getting Windows Phone 7 just ahead of the U.S.
• Ballmer is in France on October 7th for an event
• The Marketplace is not even taking submissions till first week of October
• Microsoft is having their NYC Open House in late October
• Did we mention October yet?

The launch of Windows Phone 7 will be a coordinated effort and we can't see AT&T or LG jumping the gun on Microsoft. However, there is no reason to doubt that the LG C900 will be ready to launch at the end of September, nor do we doubt HTC and Samsung will also have their hardware near finalized at that time either.  All of this should be obvious as we are at the tale-end of the WP7 pre-launch.

In other words, Bluetooth SIG + LG ≠ internal-carrier release plans. So some perspective: First week of October = Microsoft unveiling Windows Phone 7, with devices becoming available soon after; November release dates for the U.S.