For a company that was a household name long before others were, one cannot but notice the depths to which Nokia has fallen in people’s perception. Not many were even aware that Nokia had organised a webcast to announce its Windows 8 phones last week.

Nokia has been unable to create the hype done by Apple or Samsung. Making matters worse, Samsung stole Nokia’s thunder by launching its Windows 8 phone just days ahead of Nokia.

Adding to its woes was the public relations disaster when alert viewers discovered that the promotional video displayed a camera instead of Nokia’s Windows 8 phone. A reflection in one of the shots revealed more: The video displaying the OIS (optical image stabilisation) capabilities was itself shot with some other device, not the Nokia Lumia 920.

Nokia promptly apologised. "In an effort to demonstrate the benefits of optical image stabilisation (which eliminates blurry images and improves pictures shot in low light conditions), we produced a video that simulates what we will be able to deliver with OIS. “Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but we should have posted a disclaimer stating this was a representation of OIS only. This was not shot with a Lumia 920. At least, not yet," it said.

Worse was to come. A blogger alleged that the images in the promo were not shot with the Lumia 920, but with some DSLR camera. With companies like Samsung coming out with stunning displays and features with the open source Android platform, Nokia looks severely crippled with only Windows and whatever is left of Symbian to hang on to.

dinakaran.rengachary@thehindu.co.in

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