Nokia launches Windows phones

Nokia yesterday launched its first devices for Windows experience -- Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 -- after eight months of research in its biggest ever event in London, hoping to revive from the past years massive revenue fall.
"It is the first real windows phone," said Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Nokia, who took the responsibility to run the company a year ago and introduced some new concept devices.
Elop said the new device is an outstanding smartphone without any icons.
Nokia Lumia 710 is a comparatively more affordable model with the same applications. "Lumia means light, this is a new dawn for Nokia," said Elop in his opening remarks.
"Eight months ago, we shared our new strategy and today we are demonstrating clear progress of this strategy in action. We're driving innovation throughout our entire portfolio, from new smartphone experiences to ever smarter mobile phones," Elop said at the Nokia event that was webcast live.
"We are very proud of Lumia and everything it represents."
Yesterday's event saw a gathering of 3,000 people from around the globe with 500 journalists. Almost all the top officials of the company with a number of developers, distributors are attending the two-day event.
Lumia 800 will go on sale in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain in November, and in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan by the end of the year. The phone will be available in Bangladesh by January next year.
Lumia 710 will go on sale by year-end on most of the same markets.
Nokia also introduced four more devices for targeting the next billion, people who are still out of mobile experience. The series name is 'Asha' that means hope.
Nokia Asha 300, Nokia Asha 303, Nokia Asha 200 and Nokia Asha 201 blur the line between smartphones and feature phones, offering qwerty and touch screen experiences, combined with fast and easy access to the internet, integrated social networking, messaging and world-class applications from the Nokia Store.
Nokia also announced that it plans to introduce a portfolio of products into the US in early 2012 and into mainland China in the first half of 2012.
In addition to the existing products, which include coverage for 3G, it also plans LTE and CDMA products to address specific local market requirements.
Nokia last week posted a third quarter loss of 68 million euros ($94 million), far smaller than analysts expected.