Welcome back to our continuing coverage of CES 2012 and we keep going with Nokia’s keynote where the manufacturer is expected to unveil the Lumia 900 for AT&T along with the rest of its plans for 2012.
2:58 – Seated and ready to go.
3:02 – Stephen Elop takes the stage.
3:04 – Recapping Nokia’s strategy for revival. Touting the “Next Billion” strategy for emerging markets, highlighting Nokia Asha
3:05 – Moving to smartphones, citing the US platform wars as a key reason for switching to Windows Phone. Recapping Lumia 710 and 800
3:06 – Elop touting Lumia series launches, running through litany of countries Lumia has launched in.
3:07 – Elop touts plan as to ‘establish a series of beachheads’ with Lumia series, announces Lumia 900 with video montage
3:08 – Lumia 900 confirmed to feature LTE for AT&T launch.
3:11 – Initial launch colors confirmed to be Black and Cyan with 1830 mAh battery
3:12 – Nokia SVP Kevin Shields takes the stage to run down previous announcements
3:13 – Reiterates importance of dual cameras for US market on Lumia 900. Rear camera features f 2.2 aperture lens with 28mm focal length.
3:15 – Noting that Nokia is using staged photos to tout the focal length of the camera in the Lumia 900
3:16 – Windows Phone Tango confirmed as requirement for LTE support, pre-installed on Lumia 900 and required for LTE Windows Phones.
3:17 – Now touting Windows Phone’s simplicity. Tango appears to have minor UI changes, but nothing significant to make note of.
3:18 – Nokia also touted Nokia Drive as a differentiator… Despite commiting previously to launch Nokia Drive for other Windows Phone 7 devices.
3:21 – Elop retakes stage. Touts app ecosystem as something Nokia will play steering role in Windows Phone, wants apps to launch there first. Steve Ballmer also takes stage.
3:24 – Ballmer said a lot… But really didn’t say anything new, cites ‘more work to go’ with Windows Phone adoption Ralph de la Vega takes the stage.
3:26 – Much like Ballmer, de la Vega said a lot… But didn’t say much at all.
3:27 – Announcements done, onto Q&A.
3:28 – No comment on Lumia for Sprint or Verizon
3:29 – Elop cites retail partners, pressuring store reps to push Nokia will be key to regaining market share (driving sales with SPLIFFs, etc.)
3:31 – No European announcement for Lumia 900 today
3:32 – And similarly, no sales figures for Windows Phones sold to date
3:34 – Lumia 900 won’t bump storage over 800… Nokia points the finger back to Microsoft for cloud storage, but did note configurations for 900 will vary from one market to the next when it is launched elsewhere
3:40 – Elop confirms Navteq data for Nokia Drive, cites ownership as key advantage in location-based services competition.
3:41 – On battery life when using LTE, Elop confirms extensive work with Nokia and Qualcomm to ensure better than average battery life, states NFC is a B2B issue and on the question of RIM, Elop cites Microsoft’s tools as effective counterpoint to RIM in enterprise. That’s a wrap. Next up, Microsoft’s last keynote.