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'THE BEST WIRELESS PHONE ON THE MARKET'In the spring of 1996, a tense team of Nokia Corp. (NOK.A) researchers gathered in Salo, an industrial suburb of Helsinki. Their charter: to create a new ''icon'' among cell phones--something jazzy, like the Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL) first Macintosh. The marketing division presented a wish list of grueling specs: feathery weight, long battery life, and whizzy new features to attract techies. Then came the clincher: It was to be unveiled in Beijing in November, 1997--just 20 months away. ''We knew that time was our enemy,'' says program manager Arto Kiema. What they came up with is Nokia's 6100 series--powerful, 4.5-ounce phones about the size and shape of a slim pack of cigarettes. The phones debuted on schedule in China--a major growth market for cell phones. Since then, consumers from Sydney to Seville have snapped up an estimated 3 million units. The phones are now featured in AT&T's nationwide U.S. promotion, helping Nokia steal market share from leaders Motorola Inc. (MOT) and L.M. Ericsson (ERICY). The saga of the 6100 sets new standards for conquering high-tech markets. Developers began with a simple precept: First, to save money and time, they recycled everything from complex decoding software to ring menus from earlier, 2100-series phones. For panache, they added new features. But they confined the innovations to things that wouldn't tax the battery, such as simple computer games, an alarm clock, and an infrared modem for downloading E-mail from data networks. Most important, Nokia listened to key customers. The Finns went straight to big service providers, such as AT&T (T), which buys thousands of cell phones and resells them in subscription packages. Such providers want their customers to be able to communicate across frequency bands used by different formats, such as analog and digital cellular and PCS. They also want phones switched on for as many hours as possible to maximize the number of calls received. Since lithium-ion cell-phone batteries are the standard, Nokia concentrated on ratcheting down power consumption in the handset. For help, it enlisted Texas Instruments Inc. The Dallas-based chip giant came up with proprietary power-saving circuits that brought Nokia's handsets from six volts--the standard for digital phones--down to three. Nokia then scrambled to redesign other components to run on less power. The most arduous job Nokia faced was customizing the phone for every major market. Developers built in rudimentary voice-recognition for Asia, where keyboards are problematic, and raised the ring volume so the phone could be heard on crowded Asian streets. A bigger challenge was building in extra receivers so the regional models could handle all the different formats: GSM digital in Europe and much of Asia and one analog and two digital modes for the splintered U.S. market. ''To work through all the protocols was painful,'' says Kiema. ''Sometimes they're in conflict.'' WINDOW. As the phone began to take shape in the summer of 1997, AT&T was looking for a new model to anchor its nationwide program. It was Nokia's golden opportunity--and point of peak anxiety. Rivals were ready with their phones; Nokia was not. The Finns showed AT&T a test version of the zippy new model, whose batteries managed a full week of standby time, and persuaded AT&T to wait. Three months into the rollout, Nokia's only problem was ramping up production quickly enough at its Fort Worth plant. ''This is the best wireless phone on the market, bar none,'' gushes Daniel Hesse, CEO of AT&T Wireless. Now, Nokia's team in Salo is trying to squeeze more phone into ever-smaller packages. With the right partners and a fire in the belly, it's only a matter of time.
By Stephen Baker in Helsinki RELATED ITEMS
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Updated July 30, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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