Motorola may have had some bad news today, but they were noticeably absent from a line up of consumer electronics manufactures that are being sued by the Washington Research Foundation (WRF) for using Bluetooth technology, which WRF claims is an infringement on their patents.

The suit alleges that the companies Nokia, Samsung and Panasonic (part of Matsushita) used technology from CSR Plc out of the United Kingdom that infringed on the 3 of 4 patents that WRF holds on the technology.

Shares of CSR fell after the announcement of the lawsuit.  It would appear that the larger conglomerates might be at least the victim of not performing enough due diligence into the IP rights of one of their outsourced vendor partners.

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After dismissing the need for a slim cell phone that is too easily lost in the pockets of a Finnish parka, Nokia finally seems to be awaking to the fact that its phones are no longer considered cool.  In a decade long role reversal, Nokia has had the tides turned on it to learn that its phones are not thin enough to be considered cool unlike Motorola.

It seems like just yesterday that Nokia was showing up Motorola (the cell phone leader of the day back in the mid 90’s) with cooler phones that had that amazing DIGITAL capability that was all the rage with the kids and more importantly with cellular carriers.

Now Nokia has brought on a new design chief, Alastair Curtis, and they are hoping to take some actions to stem the bleeding from thin phone sales spurred on by Motorola and copied by Samsung the respective number 2 and three market share leaders in cellular handsets.

It remains to be seen if Nokia can fend off this onslaught and bring to bear their strengths of solid software and ease of use, nifty but functional catchwords that are important, but don’t get units sold in the store.  Nokia current slim phone the E50 (note the catchy slim sounding name) is 15.5mm thick as compared to the 8mm Slivr(not a very slender sounding name at all!).  Samsung clocks in with the slimmest phone of them all the X820, but it sacrifices many other cool looking features like a nice outer shell and attractive buttons to offer up that size factor and win the title.

So far Motorola’s in between size seems to be winning the day, despite a history of software problems and ease of use complaints.  Motorola has been playing catch up and working to fix its problems for a half dozen years, while Nokia has apparently lost site of its roots and how to hold onto popularity by being cool!

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This video review of the Nokia 7380 is very good at showing the obviously appealing and the obviously very annoying aspects of this phone. If you are interested in purchasing a Nokia 7380, watch this video first to make sure its for you, as the phone is not for everyone.

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Nokia is racing to beat Motorola to market on a new wave of cellular products. A product that could literally require every cell phone user around the world to upgrade their phone. What is the product?

Is it a new 8.0 mega pixel phone? ………….No
Is it a camcorder phone?………….No
Is it a 3d phone?………….No
Does the phone have a projector built in to it?………….No
Will it pay your taxes?…………. Almost! and then some.

The killer product is a cell phone that is an electronic wallet. Picture a phone that allows you to literally leave your wallet at home. No credit cards or debit cards to carry. No need for much cash. Its all accessible via the phone.

This is by no means a new idea, but no one has been able to launch it successfully yet. The first signs of such a product that I can trace (outside of science fiction) date back to CES 1994. At that time, Bill Gates provided a demo where he promoted the concept of a wireless mobile device that would function as a cell phone and an electronic wallet.

The combination has proved to be almost as illusive as the holy grail. Motorola actually demonstrated a concept product that could do just this at CES in 2005. At the time, they were only looking internally and had not partnered with the larger payment transaction companies. As such the unit on display seemed to lack the key requirement - Very Strong Cryptography.

Now its more than a year later. Nokia, whom undoubtedly saw what Motorola was working on, has unleashed a product that will ‘turn cellular handsets into electronic wallets’.

They’ve done it right by partnering with Visa. Essentially, this is the largest credit card payment company working with the world’s largest cell phone company. They are piloting a project in Malaysia.

Nokia will gain bragging rights for being the first in the ‘market’. The serious question to ask though is, “Who can be first in Europe and North America?”

Motorola has not offered up any progress in this category since 2005. Nokia is going public with this pilot. Motorola is strongest according to Motorola in North America, and Nokia is stronger in Europe. Nokia holds market share leads in both areas.

PayPal just recently released a technology that allows wireless payments to take place using a PayPal account. This is a very interesting start as PayPal’s service is capable of processing transactions from other card processors, however, even though their services are widely accepted on the internet, physical merchants are not ready to accept payments from a PayPal account at the cash register.

Will Nokia trump Motorola in North America? Will Motorola make it to market with a concept they demonstrated first again?

We’ll watch and see if history repeats itself.

For more information on Electronic Wallets, see our three part series on ‘The Dark Side of Electronic Wallets’

Nokia, Visa launch phone payment project - Wireless World - MSNBC.com

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Your the number one cell phone maker in the world. Your closest competition, the former number one cell phone maker in the world, has been having a mostly great season with a serious hit product on their hands.

What do you do? Go on the offense.

That’s exactly what Nokia has anounced.

“Nokia plans to open a ‘flagship store’ in Chicago on June 21, with a New York store in the ‘Fifth Avenue region’ opening before the end of 2006,” according to David Watkins the Nokia Director of Multimedia Computers.

Motorola’s headquarters in Libertyville, IL are just a few miles outside of Chicago in the burbs. Chicago is the stomping ground of Motorola and has been for three quarters of a century. Sure Nokia phones have been sold in Chicago just like every major American city, but Chicago is not necessarily a strategic move unless you want to send your competition a message, like ‘We’re number one world wide and we’re coming to own your hometown next!’

With the anouncement Nokia also anounced that they will offer their ultra high end N93 Camcorder Phone, which will retail for approximately $682. The phone offers camcorder recording at 30 frames per second, 3.2 mega pixel stills, wifi, email etc, etc. It looks more like a camcorder than a cell phone does these days, however Nokia has had some success at selling ultra high end phones that are shaped like a brick, especially in their European stomping ground.

The question shall be, will Motorola be able to fight off this offensive round, or will Nokia own the windy city?

Nokia To Open Store and Bring High-End Phones to US

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