Has Nokia turned the corner?
Never mind the profits, look at the potential
January can be a cruel month, because it's when big firms unveil their latest financial results.
Nokia's ones are particularly frightening: it's made big losses in every sector and operating profits are down £1.17 billion.
If those results were a sound, that sound would be "yikes!" - but I'd like to think that the next sound Nokia makes is going to be more of a "boing", possibly followed by a "yippee".
Things can't get much worse for Nokia, and I reckon they're about to get much better.
When the first fruits of the Nokia-Microsoft marriage turned up, I wasn't impressed. "Where's the magic?" I asked. I was wrong. It turns out that the Lumia's got a little bit of magic after all.
If you look again at Nokia's results, you'll see that it's sold a million Lumias.
That's significant because it's roughly double what everybody expected it to do, and while it's nothing compared to Apple's smartphone sales it's still a big step in the right direction.
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So are the latest Lumia handsets, which are gorgeous.
CEO Stephen Elop's comments in our recent interview were impressive too: the partnership with Microsoft means Nokia can spend its money not on the plumbing, but on "those things where we can differentiate, where the innovation is truly meaningful."
The financial results are appalling, of course, but instead of jumping from a "burning platform" into a fire, it looks like Nokia has found a better place to be: rather than going "how can we tweak what we've already got?", the company appears to be thinking "what can we do that would be really cool?"
That's good for Windows Phone too, because unlike other partners Nokia doesn't have an Android business to fall back on. For Nokia, there is no Plan B.
Maybe it doesn't need one, because Plan A seems to be starting to work - and I'd love to know what tablet-shaped plans the firm has for Windows 8.
There's still a mountain to climb, but I think this time Nokia's ascending it rather than falling off the side.
Nokia hasn't been this interesting since The Matrix.
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Liked this? Then check out our Ballmer says Windows Phone now a 'strong third ecosystem'
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Contributor
Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.