BARCELONA — What a difference a year makes. Maybe.

Nokia was in dire straights this time last year. Having just announced a nearly universal reset of its business and betting its future on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, the company’s future was bleak but at least it had a new plan and operating system that could turn back the tide.

Today, Nokia continues to talk about its strategy and deep partnership with Microsoft, but only one of the two devices introduced here at Mobile World Congress are running on Microsoft’s OS. The other device is the 808 PureView, which features a hard-to-fathom 41-megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss optics and Nokia’s pixel over-sampling technology. The 808 PureView runs on the latest version of Symbian, a software with a future so narrow that Nokia dumped it (and 3,000 related employees) on Accenture last April. Read more

Nokia held on through another quarter with no major new devices, but it didn’t come cheap. The Finnish handset maker lost $98.7 million on a 25% year-over-year decline in handset sales and continued losses at NAVTEQ and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Revenues were down 13%, smartphone sales dropped 39% and feature phone sales slid 13%. Nokia sold 106.6 million mobile devices during the quarter, nearly 90 million of which were basic candy bar phones and the like. Indeed, the one bright spot in Nokia’s earnings came from its Symbian-based mobile phones. The company sold 89.9 million mobile devices during the quarter, an 8% jump from the year prior and a 25% increase from the previous quarter.

While losses continue at NAVTEQ and Nokia Siemens Networks, they did move in the right direction. Nokia is widely expected to unveil its first Windows Phone-based smartphones next week at Nokia World in London.

**As published at RCR Wireless News**

Nokia Corp. continues to buckle under the increasing might and will of its competitors in the smartphone space.

In a note to investors , the company downgraded the financial outlook for its devices and services division for the second (current) quarter and full year of 2010. The company said “multiple factors are negatively impacting Nokia’s business to a greater extent than previously expected.” While that may be true, it would be difficult to conclude that most of these “factors” have come as a surprise to the world’s largest manufacturer of cellphones. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

LAS VEGAS –- In a meeting room on the show floor with less than 10 journalists on hand, Nokia Corp.’s VP of technology, David Rivas tried to make the case for the company’s technology roadmap, particularly with regards to its forthcoming Symbian^3 operating system.

At numerous times throughout the briefing, Rivas had little choice but to go on the defensive in the face of many questions expected to be asked of Nokia these days. Indeed, the informal gathering seemed to highlight the criticism facing Nokia by design while at the same time giving a technologist the opportunity to get into the weeds of Nokia’s thinking.

Going forward there will be no more S60, feature pack updates or anything of the fragmented sort, Rivas said. The OS brand is all Symbian now and Nokia has committed to an extremely aggressive OS update every six months. Following Nokia’s timeline, with the first Symbian^3 devices set to launch before July, Symbian^4 should be on hand by early next year. Read more