At this point I don't even care what Apple and Nokia are suing and countersuing one another over. When we get a judgement and one company or the other is forced to stop importing doohickeys to the U.S. (yeah, right) or pay a fine that would bankrupt many an American city but hardly cause either company's CFO to blink, then I'll care again.
For now, both companies are all locked up in a patent infringement case. This could have a huge impact on, well, lots of things, but it's also kind of yawn-inducing from the perspective of a jaded, gadget-obsessed tech blogger/reporter/nerd. What's far more interesting (i.e. worthy of snarky comments) is that Mark Squires, Nokia's head of social media, has started poo-pooing Apple on his blog. And he did it under the header, "A Fruit Confused?" Now that's fun!
Sayeth Squires:
Well you don’t see me putting pen to paper a great deal but sometimes there are articles floating around on the sphere that get my blood pressure rising to what my doctor is prone to call an ‘unreasonable level for a man of your years/weight/physical condition’. Reading coverage of one of our competitor’s much hyped web pad event this week, I was surprised to see that, by revenue, they were claiming in their leader’s keynote to be “the largest mobile devices company in the world.”
I thought we should to set the record straight, with a true, “apples-to-apples”, comparison.
He then went on to repudiate Apple's claim with some statistics and quotes and other bits of logic lost on me because I was still chuckling over that "A Fruit Confused" headline. LOLZ!
Okay, okay, I did pay attention. I agree with this part of what Mr. Squires wrote:
if you use the more common measure: the number of devices sold. By that comparison, Nokia has been the largest mobile devices company in the world for a dozen consecutive years.
But I'm not so sure about this part, in which he quotes Nokia CEO OPK (seriously, he goes by "OPK"):
our devices “already have done more to improve lives at the base of society’s pyramid than perhaps any technology in history.”
I'd contend that fire and electricity and running water have had a far greater impact on "the base of society's pyramid" than even the mighty Nokia 1100. But I get what you're saying, Mark. Nokia's sold a ton of cell phones over the years. A TON.
[Via: Gizmodo, Nokia Conversations]
