Nokia today quietly initiated sales of the Nokia N9 in the United States. The phone joins the PureView 808 as being a non-Windows Phone being slated for sales in the American market.
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factors may have driven Nokia’s about-face.

First, is difficulty in taming Windows Phone for some of the market demands. It has been all-but-confirmed by Nokia that the PureView 808′s high-resolution camera could not function properly with today’s Windows Phone platform. The instant-photo requirements of Windows Phone are very rigid, and 41 megapixel capacities likely require extreme resources from the handset. Only a real-time operating system like Symbian, now known as Nokia Belle, can handle such tasks currently.
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But what does any of that have to do with the Nokia N9 launching, now?

This week, Nokia strategically timed the announcement of a US-bound PureView 808 with the CTIA technology show. It’s not a mistake that the N9 is launching stateside a day after CTIA ended.

With Nokia now admitting it needs to sell non-Windows Phone devices in the United States, in order to have a fighting chance at breaking even with technological investments in PureView superphones, the N9 then becomes okay to sell. Microsoft is not worried about the N9 being a threat to Windows Phone anymore, as the platform is now merely a skunkworks project for Nokia.

In fact, a thriving N9 actually gives more woes for smaller competitors, as it fractures the Tizen and Open webOS marketplaces, trying to be rebooted by Intel/Samsung, and HP, respectively. Still, neither Tizen nor Open webOS are on the market today. Hence, the N9 may become a haven for those looking for a sustainable, open phone environment.
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