Impossible we hear you cry and don’t we know. But just imagine it, if Nokia had never got into the mobile phone business, would we have the booming smartphone world we have today? The answer is simple: No.
Nokia may be the world’s largest and favourite mobile phone company but it’s also involved in developing more mobile phone technologies than just about anyone else. We all know that Nokia didn’t start out as a mobile phone manufacturer, back in the day it was better known for cutting-edge wellington boots and even next-gen paper products than electronics.
Just imagine, if Nokia had stayed in those fields, someone else would have had to develop and release the multiple technologies that go to make a feature phone, let alone a super-brained smartphone. Thankfully the move into telephony was made and a wealth of research and development got under way.
Five innovations Nokia just happened to develop:
Nokia launched the first GSM mobile phone
Nokia launched the first GPRS mobile phone
Nokia developed the first cameraphone
Nokia released the first device we now know as a smartphone
Nokia launched the first phone with video calling
And that’s just scratching the surface, as Nokia has over 10,000 patent families, which cover everything from essential wireless communications currently being used around the world, to many innovative and future-impacting devices and services still to come.
All this research doesn’t come cheap, and Nokia has recently totted up the figures and found that in the last two decades it’s spent over 43 billion Euros on R&D. Without this level of investment we clearly wouldn’t have the feature phone and smartphones we all take for granted today.
Without Nokia pushing and striving, lesser brands wouldn’t have got the leg-up they needed to get going. Think about that the next time you’re oogling and googling over a new smartphone, and ask yourself ‘where did all the top tech really come from?’
What do you think the world would be like without Nokia? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments below.