Sound and fury from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop signifying desperation

As Velvet Underground sang, 'well I guess that I just don't know.'

We can never know what the smartphone wars would be like if Microsoft had offered Windows Phone 7.5 in 2009, say, and teamed with Nokia to offer the Lumia 900 at the same time as iPhone 4, as was possible. But I believe that had they done so, than the future fortunes of Microsoft, and Nokia, and Apple and Google Android would be significantly, possibly radically and permanantly altered.

As it is, they did not, and Nokia has contracted beyond all recognition. But CEO Stepen Elop is still talking smack in a recent interview in Wired:

If you want to characterise the fundamental shift in the industry over the last so many years, it used to be the case that Nokia's XYZ product competed against ABC product. Now, it's about all of the collective services, and everything around them, that constitute the value that's being offered. One has to operate on that basis. That was a fundamental element in our decision to pursue a strategy with Microsoft around Windows Phone. Essentially, we were making an ecosystem decision. 

This is accepted wisdom by everyone but is, in fact, not a fact. It is opinion. Perhaps "ecosystem" and "platform" are what carry the day and despite having all the pieces, way ahead of Apple, Nokia's platform was not as good. That said, on a *device* level, iPhone destroyed the best Nokia could offer. On a device level, Android overwhelmed all that Nokia offered.

Elop is selling his platfom strategy here, nothing more. Either way, it pins Nokia down. If they can't win on the device level, as I am beginning to suspect, and the Windows Phone platform is, so far, all potential and nothing realized, than Nokia's days are numbered.

Which most of us already knew.

And this is why I say rather boldly these are the first real Windows Phones. Our best innovation, our best industrial design, our best cameras, our best software, whatever it is, is being focused on the Windows Phone platform. Unambiguously. We're not doing a little bit of everything. This is what we're doing.

He speaks boldly and he carries a pretty sweet stick. The latest Nokia Windows Phone phone is the best there's ever been, no doubt. But it's still not available, is it? How many iPhone 4S's did Apple sell today? Will they sell tomorrow? The day after? 

There is a very real chance that even *after* the Lumia 900 is available, iPhone 4S will sell in a month what Nokia's top of the line Windows Phone sells in a year. 

Bold talk wan't help sales, nor save Nokia.

We have to introduce people to the fact that this experience is different than what Android and iPhone are doing. It's not a static grid of application icons. It's an entirely different experience.

But there are other steps you have to take. You have to familiarise the consumer with this. The salespeople in the [US network supplier] AT&T stores, for example.

The smartphone is an app phone. Doesn't matter your views on this, it's completely true. How long will it take Microsoft and Nokia to educate the consumer? Two quarters? A year? Even if, for the sake of argument, the experience is better?

How do you go from people who don't have a general awareness to a position where they actually try it? If we can get there, then we're going to win.

In other words, Elop needs a great deal of sales and marketing to make this happen. Nokia doesn't have that money, not anymore, not in the US. He has made his company, a grand mobile phone provider to the world, a parasite able to survive only at the well being and tolerance of host Microsoft.

One of the great strengths that Nokia brings is our global footprint. We have a huge reach, and more boots on the ground helping developers around the world than any other mobile company out there. I meet with developers in India, China and Brazil and Mexico. I have met a lot of developers who have been developing for Symbian and our low-end mobile phone products. People who have worked in those environments are anxious to begin pursuing Windows Phone. Now, we're on a program of rolling out country by country by country. So that problem is being addressed as we continue to roll out.

Honestly, I'm not sure if this is boilerplate bold CEO talk, boilerplate CEO duplicity or if Elop is utterly clueless. He has already stated that the smartphone world -- and Nokia -- are in a war of ecosystems: iPhone, Android and, he hopes, Windows Phone. That Symbian developer in India he met with, or those buy-for-hire coders in China one of his people talked with, don't give a shit about him or Nokia or Symbian. Or Windows Phone.

There's more money in iPhone app development and Android app development. By far. And being a Symbian developer, whether in Mexico or Brazil, say, if they are going to develop for a new ecosystem, there's little reason to believe their (first) (or second) choice will be Windows Phone.