Re: N900 specs revealed
 

The only Nokia store I've ever seen was in Heathrow, so I can only speak in regards to my one visit to that one shop. That said, the one employee there demonstrated an impressive wealth of knowledge in regards to the the N810, one that encompassed nearly everything printed on the little info card attached to N810's display stand.

They're retail employees. Their training is far more focused on running the register than it is on the features and top secret release details of not yet announced devices.

The low paid, hourly wage employees answering email messages aren't going to do much better. They're likely doing their best to quickly match incoming email messages with the ready-made replies they've been given. They're not privy to inside information about unannounced products.

Also remember, this is Nokia, whose customer service agents refuse to acknowledge that any Nokia device, tablet or phone, has ever been discontinued. Even if the front line folks have been given training on a new, soon to be released Maemo device, the first, middle, and last part of that training likely stressed that the new device doesn't exist until the day it suddenly does.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Last September, Ari Jaaksi told OSiMWorld - and the message was continued into the first Maemo Summit - that Maemo 5 would be released next (i.e. this) year. It would contain HSPA data, high-resolution camera and OMAP3 support.

Now, bear in mind that Nokia aren't in the software business, and it was also stressed that - at that time - they had no interest in licencing Maemo to other parties.

So, Maemo 5 is being released this year (with a clear roadmap including beta releases which has now run out). Nokia don't release OSes, they release devices running OSes. The roadmap for SDK releases has run out and the next item (IIRC) is "Maemo 5 released".

There's also been a wealth of additional information revealed about the device in commit comments, posts from Nokians such as qgil, SDK setup and the leaks.

Nokia haven't announced a device, but we should all have a damned good idea about what it's going to look like, what it's going to run and what features it's going to have. We don't know how it's going to be marketed, and when it's going to be released.

They think it will, and anyway - Maemo Devices is one Nokia department, even if they wanted to announce their device roadmap; Nokia policy says "no". Devices aren't "pre-announced" before the full public launch/announcement.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Just be patient guys. See it from the positive side: the longer we have to wait, the more time you have to save the money to buy it :-)

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Pretty much yes.

Come on guys, you're only confusing yourselves. :) Substitute Nokia with some other company and try emailing them for when new devices will be published. "Launch by responding to an email from a consumer" isn't a well known business strategy. If you ask of something that we cannot talk about, and therefore we don't say too much about, don't make too many conclusions from the replies you will get.

There is Fremantle, with certain known new features. You can probably assume that there is some reason why we're doing certain new features into the Fremantle SW.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Naw.. I disagree with that assertion. Email agents in most companies generally look up their answers in a "knowledgebase" which SHOULD contain the company line on information they give to customers with questions. Information that can't be answered usually gets escalated to a help desk or management where a more appropriately knoweldgeable person adds the answer to their "knowledgebase" or provides it to the email rep to answer.

To dismiss their answers as a lack of knowledge isn't addressing that most companies have such knowledgebases or escalations answering with what the company wants to communicate--especially if you got two different people to look at the question in the same organization. The alternative is a company without a knowledgebase with current and correct answers and off-the-cuff shrugs and unknowing reps, which conveys a sloppy organization which I might prefer not to do business with anyway, although I doubt a company like Nokia is one such organization at its size and age.

And the better chance you have to see someone else do one better, and maybe SUPPORT it better too. Such platitudes are often easily translated into fickle arguments. The tangeable evidence from Nokia and then from its competitors is not providing much to be positive about in the Nokia realm and leaves me wondering whether Nokia has a PR department. That's okay--there's an economic downturn happening now, maybe Nokia can just blame that while people snap up other devices. :p heh Seriously, for their own good--they need to start DOING things to attract customers and developers with interest in their products. I'm disappointed they went from the hype of the newly released N800's so shortly after the 770 to.. this. :rolleyes:

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

But the company line is "don't give out secret information." The yummy details on the Maemo 5 lead device and its release won't be available in that customer service knowledge base until the official announcement goes out.

If Nokia corporate policy was, "don't release secret information...unless someone asks nicely," we wouldn't be holding this exchange now. Peter, qgil, ragnar, and others would have answered every question a few hundred posts back.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

So your argument backs up the notion that the rep is correctly communicating the company line. The argument falls back to PR and executive management, who decided to keep such things as "secret." Some would argue that they've not been very successful in communicating to customers or maintaining interest in the new device in the face of increasing competition, in addition to previous terrible hardware support experiences with the other Nokia products so far. (Go ahead.. see if you can get a replacement kickstand.) :P

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

This is true -- and it happens everyday within big corporations.

I was doing the multimedia for internal training material pertaining to new products and services for the company I used to work at. Sometimes new P&S were coming down the line and even we -- who should have been educating our sales associates about such new things -- were not given access to information that would have been very useful in stores. Sometimes the first time we'd get to see a new product in order to shoot photos or video of it for the training material would be when we went into a store when the product launched and shot it in the store. No kidding.

Needless to say, the salespeople knew less than we did at this point.

On a related note, what do you think Apple sales reps told people about the iPhone if they got calls about it pre-launch. Probably that they didn't even know what it was. As a matter of fact, many of my friends who work at Apple stores denied the iPhone even days before it was announced. ;)

Tim

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

We have to understand that as part of the community very close to Maemo and also as part of being testers of Maemo and Fremantle SDK's perhaps we are the closest to the news of "N900" and Fremantle than any other group outside of Nokia itself.
In fact we may know more about it than even other division in Nokia - and of course the sales reps sitting in some outlet.

So with that in mind, lets be aware that we are ahead in release cycle of a new product and we know about the N900 even before Nokia is gearing up to let the market know about it.

So just because we know and the market doesn't know does not mean that Nokia's PR is far behind and is ineffective. Its just that we are far ahead of the PR cycle and know in some details more than what Nokia is ready to let out to the market AT THIS STAGE.

Probably by official release time Nokia PR will do what needs to be done. So blaming Nokia for not getting the news out thru Sales Rep et all is hardly justified.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

This couldn't be more true.

Tim