Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) probably would love to ship its new Lumia 820 and 920 smartphones with the Windows Phone 8 operating system as soon as possible, but timing is everything. A piece came out Friday morning citing anonymous sources that the struggling handset manufacturer will have its new flagship phones on U.S. store shelves sometime in November – perhaps as early as November 2, which would be a week after the anticipated release date of the Windows 8 operating system and the Surface tablet by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
Reports are that Nokia Corporation will be beholden to Microsoft Corporation, which apparently is still finalizing its Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 operating systems and they won’t be released until late October, which means Nokia Corporation would be using Windows Release to Manufacturing version for to finalize its OS in its Lumia handsets. Microsoft Corporation and expected Lumia carrier AT&T Inc. have indicated that Lumia phones would be available by early November – which would be consistent with the expected six-week lead time to finalize the Windows operating system in time for its October 26.
Whether this is going to be too late for Microsoft Corporation or Nokia Corporation to make headway in the smartphone market, which is already dominated by the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), remains to be seen. But it is all about timing, when one considers all of the chatter that says Apple will have its new iPhone 5 on store shelves by the end of September – that means Apple would have a four- to six-week head start on Microsoft and Nokia in the holiday shopping season. It might have to come down to pricing for the Lumia and a relative lack of new features on the iPhone 5 to make for a favorable comparison.
Timing is everything. And what will be the timing for investors like hedge-fund manager Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies to make their next aggressive move on Nokia Corporation?
