Wow! NOKIA LAPTOP! sounds cool but…

It appears to me that Nokia (Stock quote – NYSE:NOK) has been pretty active in the market recently. They have launched their music campaign – Comes with Music and now they might be entering into the laptop (or maybe netbook) market. According to Reuters, Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo hinted that they are exploring opportunities in the laptop market(I am betting they are going into the netbook market).

This move should not come as a surprise. Given the fact that Nokia has acquired Symbian for their mobile Operating System. They have the hardware and software capabilities to produce portable computing devices. By opening up Symbian platform, we will see developers creating applications. As a consumer, I would certainly love to see more choices in the Operation Systems market which is still dominated by Microsoft (Stock quote – NASDAQGS:MSFT).

The question here is whether Nokia’s move into portable PC is a viable one. I have came across this article from Business Daily Africa that the worldwide shipment of netbook is forecasted to 35 million and it is estimated to be 139 million by 2013. I believe, in a way, that these figures could be realised. We have seen people around us started to carry netbook whenever they go. It is not hard to imagine the amount of potential in this market. However, this is not going to be an easy game for new players like Nokia.

There are too many competitors fighting the same piece of pie. Many electronics giants are already in the game. They have the technology and business infrastructure to mass produce good-quality computers at a cheap cost.

Furthermore, competition has sliced away the profit margins of all the market players. So, why should Nokia diversify from higher profit-margin mobile sector to lower profit-margin laptop sector? Nokia had 38.4 percent of the global mobile phone market and this sector is still very lucrative in Asia.

It will only be worthwhile if Nokia has a disruptive strategies that can permanently change people’s way of using netbook or laptop just like the way Apple iPod (Stock quote – NASDAQGS: AAPL)change the people’s impression of portable music players. (Hmm…When Apple release their first netbook?)

Some people have created their own Nokia Laptop. Come and take a look!

Video 1 by thoughtfix.blogspot.com