While some analysts argue that the phone market is overbought, Nokia introduces in wide release its latest handset, the Nokia 3360, which offers wireless access to mobile-access enabled Internet sites.
For mobile Realtors and their customers, the Nokia 3360's Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) browser to access the Internet allows them to get listings from many MLSs as well as public sites such as Realtor.com and Homes.com, among others. For many consumers, the new release is an entry-level phone to news, stock information, online games, movie listings, music news and other applications as well as homebuying information.
Along with new technologies, the phone comes with four new graphical color covers including two featuring the comic strip character Dilbert by comic strip artist Scott Adams. Dilbert is found in 2000 newspapers in 57 countries and translated into 19 languages, making it one of the world's most popular comic strips.
For the animal conservationists, there are two new covers from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the world's largest privately supported international conservation organization. The designs, sold separately, feature stylized designs of the western screech owl and the endangered humpback whale. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these covers goes to the WWF to fund their efforts to protect the world's wildlife and wildlands.
The Nokia 3300 TDMA phones also feature improved performance, says the company. A standard battery offers up to 12 days standby and 3 hours 30 minutes of talk time, and up to 17 days of standby with the optional extended battery.
Columnist Jim Jubak a stock analyst for MSN's Money Central, says that while phones have been in a period of slow growth, there's a chance that they could come back as consumers swap older models for new products for about a 5 percent unit growth in industrywide sales over 2002.
He says that "making an argument for the technology sector as a whole at current valuations, you have to come up with at least some potential “next big things.”
"One possibility for finding “the next big thing” is to look at developments that might give new youth to mature technologies," writes Jubak. "The prime example of this is in the wireless business, where optimists are counting on new third-generation (3G) equipment and the new services it makes possible to revive handset demand."
While Internet listings may be attractive enough for some consumers and many Realtors to upgrade their Nokia phones today, the promise of the future is even more attractive as Nokia introduces phones with camera capabilities, multimedia messaging and wireless Java software wrapped around a color screen by the end of the month.
Published: October 30, 2001
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