Even I thought that Nokia was a little behind of the times, but that last 6 months proved me wrong and, sincerely, I don’t regret it. It seems Nokia had aces in its sleeve, and I’m not talking only about the touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic and the recently announced N97 Communicator.

Nokia realised that you can’t just win with great hardware products. Without software and fans (see Apple here) to support your products, you can’t ever hope for world domination (or survival, in the context of the actual financial crisis).

Nokia truly made its first steps towards the “Life Connected” principle, some kind of Web 2.0 for “Nokia Connecting People”. Nokia had pushed the right buttons and now’s waiting for the people to come (a kind of “build it and they will come”, but more aggressively marketed).

Apparently Nokia is a good listener and watcher, following the footsteps of Google Earth, with Nokia Maps 3, that integrates web services from Ovi (Nokia’s social headquarters that allows file, contacts, calendar sharing plus games and music store – a sort of contender for iTunes + Apple Store + MobileME). Add to this Nokia Messaging and you have a solution that fits also businesses.

To keep it clear, Nokia want’s its smartphones to be really smart, to become the mobile cloud computing center of our social lives, seamlessly integrating fun with function. I do think they’ll be the next No 1 in the mobile world if Google doesn’t do something about it. You can count Android as “something” but I think Nokia has the upper hand, as it dominates in the OS+phones sales numbers, at least for now.

What do you think? Will Nokia hit the Jackpot or Mr. Do No Evil will win here too?

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