Stephen Elop: Build 2014

STEPHEN ELOP: Thank you. Thank you. It’s a pretty tough act to follow free Xbox, $500 and so forth, but I’m really excited to be here to share some of our own news.

It is very much a really exciting time for us at this point in time. In just hopefully a few days or weeks those of us at Nokia will be joining the Microsoft team. The possibilities as we unite are endless. We are very focused on sparking more opportunities for developers like all of you. Together, we can bring people an amazing family of devices, of services, of applications, many of which you saw hinted at here today.

Now, in the context of today’s announcement that spark is somewhat lit by Windows Phone 8.1. Joe Belfiore did a great job of demonstrating some things that we’re very excited about. And, of course, the Nokia Lumia devices are the absolute best way to light up that Windows Phone 8.1 experience.

Now, the first thing that I’m very pleased to announce is that the Lumia device that you probably have in your pocket right now gets better with Windows Phone 8.1.

We will bring Windows Phone 8.1 to all Lumia Windows Phone 8 devices offered in an over-the-air update coming this summer. That means people like you will immediately get access to that and have that on all of the existing devices, and your customers will have that as well.

So let me just show you what that means.

I’m going to invite Karan Nigam to come onstage to help me with a bit of demos here. He has a Lumia 520 in his hand, running Windows Phone 8.1, which is just amazing. Think about this for a second, in its price band the Lumia 520 is the best-selling smartphone in the world, bar none, compared to anything from Android. It’s a fantastic device. (Applause.)

But here’s the thing, go check out your low-priced Android devices and see if they’re getting the latest innovation that’s coming out of Google, and the answer of course is no. So we’re very, very proud to be able to take that innovation to those price points.

Now, it’s also the case you would expect this type of capability to come on the higher-end devices. For example, here I have a Lumia 1520, fully loaded with Windows Phone 8.1.

And in case you didn’t notice, for those of you who are tracking various announcements, we’re adding a bit more color to our portfolio in the days and weeks ahead, for example, this Lumia 1520 in bright green, one of many new colors coming for devices in the very near future. So we’re very excited to bring all of the developments that you saw with Windows Phone 8.1 to the existing portfolio of Windows Phone 8 devices.

But, of course, we’re also excited to introduce the next generation of Lumia devices that will be coming around the world. Let’s start off by introducing you to the Nokia Lumia 930. (Cheers, applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Nokia Lumia 930. We’re so proud to be able to announce that first here today. (Applause.)

Now, the Lumia 930 is absolutely a flagship device built on and for Windows Phone 8.1. It integrates the best of Microsoft and the best of Lumia.

Now, as you can see in the video up there, as well as in my hands, the 930 is just a beautifully crafted device. It packs great Lumia innovation into an elegant smartphone, with metallic details around the side and vibrant new colors, sometimes matching wardrobe, which is a necessity. (Laughter.)

It has a bunch of great colors. Orange is one. You saw the bright green. And it has a crystal clear five-inch full HD display, with amazing readability in all conditions, an amazing viewing ratio, and even in spotlight conditions you can clearly read what’s on the screen. It’s just great outdoors.

We’ve also taken the time to integrate wireless charging into the device so you can power it up quite easily. (Cheers, applause.) Love that, we all love the wireless charging.

Now, naturally, as a flagship Lumia device, the Lumia 930 offers unprecedented images and videos. It comes with an advanced 20 megapixel PureView camera. It’s got optical image stabilization, so as that gentleman is shaking his hand with a competing device, I will get the clear picture, you’re getting the blurry picture. (Laughter.) And, of course, the high-quality Zeiss optics ensures that I get your picture and you don’t get mine. (Laughter.)

But it’s not just about great hardware, it’s also about the software, it’s about the algorithms, it’s about everything we put into it to make the imaging and video great.

For example, we have an application called Creative Studio that’s also being updated. It’s a popular app that allows you to edit the high-quality images directly on your smartphone. We’ve added more professional filters, high-res reframing, and nondestructive editing capabilities.

So, for example, you can see here some of the filters the team has added with just one click from Lumia 930. And, of course, you can easily share these images up to Instagram or Facebook or your favorite social network.

Now, we’ve also updated some other imaging software and added some new capabilities. For example, we’re introducing something called Living Images. These images come to life as you’re taking them and as you’re viewing them subsequently, and these Living Images can be weaved into a beautiful story using our Storyteller application, which is also being updated.

Karan is going to show us an example here right now. And despite the rain, what we did over the last couple of days, the team went out and started to take some pictures here in the San Francisco area, and you’ll get a sense of the video that they were able to put together using Storyteller as well as the Living Images video.

OK, there it is coming up there.

(Video segment.)

STEPHEN ELOP: Now, as you see, what you’re actually getting are photos and videos that are automatically sorted and organized by time and location. You see the Living Images coming to life there as well.

Now, you might also notice that there’s a bit of music in the background. That’s a new feature to the Storyteller environment. You can always go back and edit that music, put your own themes against it, and create very quickly a beautiful experience. So there’s some new music that Karan has added. Again that can be shared to your social networks.

Now, the Lumia 930 also provides just fantastic cinematic video experiences. This is because we’ve included four high-performance digital microphones, and the Nokia rich recording capability into this device. As you record and then subsequently play back, you can hear the world around you like you’ve never heard it before. Let’s have a listen.

(Video segment.)

STEPHEN ELOP: There is more music than that in Finland, trust me when I tell you that. (Laughter.) But you can capture and relive your videos with complete surround sound capabilities right from this device, or you can actually focus the sound recording with directional stereo recording, so just some amazing capabilities packed into this device.

Now, because this is based on Windows Phone 8.1, all of your favorite Microsoft services are well-integrated into your Lumia. I can save the images and everything that we’ve done here, my documents, all of that right to OneDrive, and then, of course, sync that across my PC, my tablet and Xbox.

Now, you see the experience on this device, the speed of the applications is just amazing. We have built the Lumia 930 for absolute speed and performance. It has a 2.2 gigahertz Snapdragon 800 quad core processor in it. In short, the Lumia 930 just rocks, so your applications are just going to sing on this device. Thank you. (Applause.)

Now, we’ll start selling the Lumia 930 globally in June. We will start in Europe and then move through Asia, India and the Middle East. Here in the U.S. we’ll be focusing on continuing with the Nokia Icon, which is a very similar device in terms of specifications to this, and of course the big boy that I showed you a few minutes ago, the Lumia 1520.

The Lumia 930 will be available with more than 100 operators around the world for around $599 before taxes and the subsidies that operators apply to the prices. So watch for that in the month of June.

So I’ll put this one in this pocket.

We have been successful not only in innovating our flagship products but also we’ve worked very hard to take that innovation to lower and lower price points, thus building on the success of the Lumia 520 that we celebrated earlier. I’d like to introduce you to two new Lumia products, the Nokia Lumia 630 and the Nokia Lumia 635. Let’s have a look.

(Video segment.)

STEPHEN ELOP: Here it is, the Nokia Lumia 630 and very similar to that the Lumia 635, just an amazing device as you’re about to hear. It brings an uncompromised Microsoft experience and an uncompromised Lumia experience to more people at much lower price points.

The 630 and 635 have a sleek design with a bright 4.5-inch ClearBlack display that is also great in the outdoor environments. They come in five stunning colors, with changeable shells.

But here’s what’s really exciting me. The Lumia 630 comes in two variants, a 3G single SIM variant, as you’d expect, and the very first Lumia with 3G dual-SIM capabilities, enabled by Windows Phone 8.1, which is just a huge opportunity for all of us to broaden the reach of our applications to many more people.

And then the Lumia 635 comes packed with lightning fast 4G LTE capabilities, so we have the full range of radio requirements.

So let’s go to a quick demo of that new variant, in particular the dual SIM phone so you can get a sense of that.

So we’re going to start off and you should be seeing up there the Lumia 630. First of all, this is a relatively low price device carrying on from the 520, and you can see that the three column capabilities are visible even on these smaller screen sizes on these lower priced devices, which is a big step forward.

Now, you can also see the beginning of the way dual SIM represents itself in Windows Phone 8.1. It’s really simple to use and understand.

So across the top you see two different colored tiles for each of the two SIM cards that are in the phone. On this particular device Karan has red tiles for the calls and messages from his first SIM, and he’s named that SIM “business,” and he has orange tiles for the calls and messages from his second SIM card, and that one he has named “personal.” Now, this helps to ensure that there’s no confusion or overlap between the messages and call history from one SIM versus the other.

But some of us want to work differently, and we may actually want to have the call histories and texting and everything blurred between those two environments or integrated, in which case you can just change the setting and the two SIMs make the phone work as one device with two different calling paths, which is really amazing.

Now, something I like is that you can also go to your contacts in your people hub, and you can specify for individual people which SIM card should be used when you’re texting or calling that individual. So without having to switch between SIMs you can just say, hey, when I’m calling my son I want to use my personal SIM or whatever the case may be.

Now, in many markets, particularly emerging markets like India and China, Brazil, this dual-SIM capability is critically important. Analysts suggest that in the year 2016 people will buy more than 100 million dual-SIM smartphones. The Lumia 630 dual-SIM capability opens up that market to all of us, so I’m really, really excited about that.

Now, the Lumia 630 is designed for hypersocial people who love to play games, and we have their favorite games. You can quickly go to their favorite Xbox game by tapping on the screen, or as we saw with Joe earlier today, you can use Cortana.

Now, it’s really great news that Cortana, as it’s rolled out around the world, will be available on the entire range of Windows Phone 8 devices, including the 630, our most affordable Windows Phone 8.1 device.

Today, our competitors have various voice assistant capabilities, heavily biased towards the high-end devices. We are bringing that innovation to all of the different price points, so that innovation is available to everyone, which I think is really good. It’s going to be good for your applications. (Applause.)

Now, for the really, really price conscious consumer, someone who might have just bought into a Lumia 630, perhaps as their first smartphone, these devices are also great ways to get the benefits of the equivalent of an expensive fitness band or wearable device.

What we are doing is introducing into these devices something new called SensorCore. This is a very low-power sensing capability that tracks motion and location. So now people can use their Lumia to keep track of their steps and calories burned using, as Karan is showing, the Bing Health and Fitness application.

You can even have this working when the Lumia device is in your pocket or in your bag, it doesn’t matter. This thing keeps track of your movements so that you can follow your improvements and your progress, built right into the device.

Now, let’s go back to the home screen. Final point I want to make about these devices is they are Lumia devices. So there’s many things we’ve come to expect as part of that experience, including Nokia MixRadio where you get at no additional cost the equivalent of your own personal radio station with more than 30 million songs, the cost of which is built into the device. You can save music offline, you can pin to the home screen your favorite playlists and all of that to make it a truly personal experience.

Similarly, you can use HERE Maps, you can download those maps. And again in many of the markets in which we sell devices the ability to download off of Wi-Fi a map and then not to be using over-the-air wireless charges to do that is fantastic.

Here Karan has pinned to the home screen a particular location, the Terra Gallery, where we’re hosting a media reception later today, so the journalists here today can get firsthand experience with these new devices.

So the Lumia 930, 630, 635, Karan, thank you very much for joining me onstage. Thank you. (Applause.)

Now, all of these great experiences are packed inside these robust devices. The 630 and 635, for those of you keeping score, 1.2 gigahertz Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, at some amazing price points. So SensorCore, pictures, videos, MixRadio, HERE Maps, all of that are just going to operate so well.

So in short, the Lumia 630, the 635 deliver people an entry point to the Windows Phone experience with absolutely uncompromised performance.

Now, these devices, the Lumia 630 and 635, will be the very first Lumia devices that are being sold with Windows Phone 8.1, and that will be in the month of May.

We have received more operator support for the launch of these devices than any other Lumia device to date, and that’s based on the growing number of applications, the success of the 520, and everything that we have going. So literally hundreds of operators will be ranging the 630 and 635. We’ll start the rollout in Asia, move through India, the Middle East, South America and Europe, and will be here in the U.S. broadly with our partners starting in July. So you’ll see this ripple around the world, and we expect to sell a lot of these devices.

Pricing, the Lumia 630, 3G single SIM will be priced around $159. If it’s a dual-SIM device it will be $169. And if it’s the 635 4G version it will be $189, all before taxes and local subsidies. Here in the U.S., of course, the pricing’s quite different based on the operators, but very, very aggressive price points for a device that is going to compete amazingly well with anything that’s coming from the competition from a specification perspective.

So some great new devices coming for you. Thank you. That’s really good. (Applause.)

Now, you have also seen a pattern from Nokia and obviously from Microsoft that as we build some of this great innovation we want to make sure that you can build on it as well. So the great hardware, the great software that you see, we’re also trying to continue to build new opportunities for developers.

I want to say first of all a very heartfelt thank you, and that is thank you for adding 500 new applications to the Windows Phone store literally every day. So thank you very much on behalf of Nokia and Microsoft for doing that. (Applause.)

But to take this even further, I’m also pleased to announce that we are bringing developers to all of you two new SDKs, a new imagine SDK and a new sensor core SDK.

For imaging today we are releasing a preview of our imaging SDK 1.2, which makes creating the next generation of imaging apps faster and easier. The final version will be available in just a few weeks. It includes things like image manipulation capabilities, filter effects and on-screen rendering.

As well the new SensorCore SDK is based on that SensorCore technology we demonstrated with the health and fitness application. With the SensorCore SDK you’ll be able to create motion-based applications that are location- and context-aware while using very, very little battery power.

With these two new SDKs our ambition is to help all of you give people some really unique experiences.

So in summary, I’m pleased to introduce the new portfolio or if I may say the beginning of the new portfolio of Lumia devices built on Windows Phone 8.1. Today, it’s the 630, the 635 and the 930, but of course the existing Windows Phone 8 devices from the 520 to the 1520, which will all soon be running Windows Phone 8.1.

So yes, today is an exciting day for all of us, but I know that myself and all of my colleagues at Nokia are truly looking forward to when we can come together with our colleagues at Microsoft. We will continue to open up new opportunities for Microsoft, for our partners, for you, our developers, and most of all for people around the globe.

Thank you and we look forward to sharing more with you in the very near future. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Now, if I may make one last comment to introduce the next speaker, you may have noticed a lot of things are changing at Microsoft, a lot is going on, and arguably one of the most profound changes is that for only the third time in Microsoft history there is a new CEO of the company. So it is a great honor and privilege of mine to introduce the new CEO of Microsoft, Mr. Satya Nadella. Please join me. (Cheers, applause.)

END

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