[hasley]

http://blog.vodafone.com.au/blog/software-update-weekly-wrap-29022012/

[jraduga]

Even though Nokia Aust. Said they believe it is finished and just discussing with the carriers. I don't think they will respond to our previous requests, nor do I think that's it has been written and completed, it might be in the middle of writing maybe, but I doubt it.

In fact the silence from Nokia seems to imply that maybe they haven't even started to write it yet, and that they are just yanking our chains, After all the update site only says they are planning for it. Surely if it was ready and at the carriers it would say that it is waiting approval.

We might get it sometime this year but it wont be for sometime, maybe the middle of the year. To date we have just been LIED to, to get us to be quiet about it, whilst they release the lumia. If all the people who bought lumia realized that the backup service is almost non-existent, then I'm sure they would not buy one to start with.

[Paul_Grenfell]

Why is Australia singled out all the time? What have we done to upset Nokia?
Is it because a great deal of us purchased outright Generic phones, rather than go to Carriers?
Do Carriers have issues with Nokia?
Is it because of Lumia devices being are given priority?
What is their problem?
Now i know many Aussies will lap up the new 808, so are we going to have the same update issues with it as well..?

[craig_baldie]

---

Paul_Grenfell wrote:
Is it because a great deal of us purchased outright Generic phones, rather than go to Carriers?

---

I got my E7 and my partners N8 about 9 months ago from Telechoice on an Optus contract and they are both generic phones, no branding at all.
The same thing with our previous N97's through Telechoice. Glad I did as none of them had the extra stuff in the firmware.

I think its down to the Lumia launch and not wanting to detract from the new marketing push. But yet everybody who knows is aware of the 900 being release soon so the 800 is already obsolete.

Maybe if they had launched the 800 months ago with the rest of the world things would be different

[Paul_Grenfell]

Craig,
We may seem like a bunch of Whingers, but this is a big issue for many.
My N8 isnt even 2years old yet and not yet out of Contract.. The E7 is just over a year old, and already - both are no longer Supported..
Now, like many others, i will be hoping to upgrade the N8 to the new 808.
But what assurance do we have, that support for it, wont suffer the same fate??

[naustuser]

It seems that Nokia is not interested in the Australian market.  Why else would they be able to release Belle to at least some product codes in ALL other coutries except Australia.   I doubt you will get any assurances from Nokia that it wont happen again (next time) , when they cant even give reasons for the Belle delay (this time).  As much as I would like to replace my N8 with the 808, I see it as too much of a risk spending money in a phone where the company seems not interested in your market.

[jraduga]

I think its pretty simple. Nokia's marketing have no idea of how to do business in Australia. You dont push aside your current customer base due to the release of a new product. Theres an old a saying a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.

In this case, every existing customer is worth at least 2 non customers. You should be looking after the existing customers and then worrying about the potential new customers. The ONLY way you can hope to gain new customers particularly in a market place like the mobile phones industry, where there are so many options for customers, is to show how good you are at supporting them, how reliable you are and then how well your product works and functions.

A good example of this, is the company I buy tyres for my car from. Many years ago, I had just started a new job a few days before, but had to get the car rego done. which meant i needed tyres. I asked them for some cheap tyres to just get me thru, but they said they would put the right ones on and then said pay for them when i get the money. These guys gave me the tyres, so that i could register the car. I had bought from them before, so they looked after me and supported me. The following week when my pay came in I paid them first. These days , many years later, I dont even bother to ring around for prices, i just book the car in and pay them. They looked after me when I needed, so i continue to purchase from them. I tell everybody about them and how they helped me.

This is what happens when you support and look after your customers. Look after the customers you have, there is never a guarantee of new customers, but if you have looked after the customers you have, then they will tell others who will buy from you. If you dont you will loose more customers than you gain, and it wont matter how good your product is. There is no where in the world that this applies, more than Australia, its the kind of people we are. Look after us or loose all of us.

[jamo128]

If you keep a customer happy he tells his friends about the phone/company, the friends when they are in need of the a new phone will remember said friend being happy about the company and they are more likely to go with what made there friend happy..

Dont make the customer happy and your basically losing sales... Pretty simple really, but nokia does not understand that. 

basically what the above post said

[a340500]

Jraduga & jamo128 -fully agree but we all know Nokia don't care. So -I say to all on this forum - Pls don't buy Nokia any more. Your choice but after being Charred at the stake on multiple occasions, don't expect any support if you do.

[J_Lo_]

Hi Everyone,

Please be assured that we will deliver on our promise to release Belle in Australia and New Zealand.  Our local team are working as hard as they can to prepare the release.  In the meantime, we appreciate your continued patience.

Thanks

[wateratz]

Thanks J-Lo

I look forward to Belle on my N8....that will then get me through until the Pureview 808 comes available

Cheers

Craig Meads

New Zealand

[mixtrak]

First, I'd suggest people on the forum keep their complaints and pressure very much targeted at the decision-makers at Nokia. Please be civil to staff posting on the forum - they are not the ones deciding to withhold information from us! This goes double if you complain that Nokia is being rude =)

Anyway yeah I'm pretty tired of waiting too. A few weeks ago I would have strongly recommended to friends here in Australia that they considera Lumia (reviews are all very positive) or newer Nokia Anna/Belle device (OS is a bit clunky but is improving, is flexible, and was excited about Belle and now the 808).

Now, after waiting for a month with zero information except "it's coming sometime", I'm very hesitant to recommend Nokia devices. Nokia releases handsets and updates wayyy behind the rest of the world - Australian customers are clearly bottom of the list for them. For example, trying to hype the Lumia 800 here when our 4G network (on all carriers) is on the verge of  serious expansion is totally absurd. Surely the only strategy that makes sense is to release the 800 ASAP at a competitive price and follow it up with the 900 - but make sure it's an LTE model - at a more premium price.

The most frustrating thing is absolutely the lack of information. I don't want to keep checking for bloody software updates every bloody day. And now here I am wasting more of my time venting on a forum. Blech. I would much rather know what stage of development the Australian Belle update is at, and a rough timeline for release, than be kept in the dark. Even if coding hasn't started yet - please tell us where you're at and what your plans are, I think we would all feel better knowing.

Finally, this will all be moot for me in 6 months or so. I plan to upgrade to a 4G phone - and whereas a few weeks ago I would have waited for a suitable Nokia handset to be released here in Australia, I am no longer inclined to do so. If there be such a handset available from Nokia in 6 months it will be on my shortlist but I refuse to delay and delay in the vague hope that Nokia gets with the program. If that means I have to look at Android or whatever, I'm now totally open to that. I lived in Finland for a year and all my phones have been Nokia so I'm very loyal, but it's just been too bad a relationship for too long now. I think we should see other OSs

[jraduga]

---

mixtrak wrote:

---

fully agree with you. Many of these things I have been saying for sometime. There is no way I would buy lumia 610,710,800. The technology in The phone as far as features goes is way to far behind The times. They would have to be extremely cheap. Like less than a $150 outright honestly. It crazy to think they have release The lumia 900 for Canada and America only, especially when most of Australia is already covered by telstra and vodaphone 4g and optus has already completed several areas as well.

One would think that Nokia would like to be making sales, and The easiest way  to do this is to be in a segment of The industry where there is not much competition as yet. However with The lack of communication around simple things like what some of us have been asking including myself, like at what stage belle is at for Australia and decisions like not to put out a LTE 4G phone in this country as yet, I personally would have to wonder about The leadership of The company. Is Mr. Elop deliberately trying to run The company into The ground, so that he can sell it off cheap to someone like MS or to a company that has controlling interests in where he can resurrect The brand himself. Or is he just simple out of touch with what is happening in places like Australia, a country with a very high take up of new technology. All I know is that none of it make any sense at all.

[a340500]

Jraduga, love your comments "One would think that Nokia would like to be making sales, and The easiest way  to do this is to be in a segment of The industry where there is not much competition as yet."

It only confirms what I have been saying all along, Nokia Australia have got Morons on their marketing team..

Wake up Nokia and pull you head in!

[ninjapanda]

One month now ... what a pathetic company. And who do we have here? J_Lo has miraculously appeared from the fog which obscures any useful information from Nokia to reassure us. Where was the Australian nokia rep one month ago when we were irate and demanding answers? Nowhere. Now either J_Lo is actually out of the loop and knew nothing then, knows nothing now and is here to appease our need for an update of the situation and prevent another wave of collective anger. Or J_Lo is in the loop and knows something now and knew something back then, but decided to keep quiet about the status of Belle in Australia one month ago despite our pleads. Either scenario is is unacceptable!

From the very beginning all we have been after is concise, accurate information. All we have been given are large gaps of silence scattered with vague statements and promises which may or may not be fulfilled. From this experience should people wish to buy a Windows phone, I will unequivocally recommend they do not purchase a NOKIA Windows phone. This includes my fathers international company of several hundred staff and their willingness to shift away from Blackberry towards Windows. Afterall, if this is the service we get from the company today, there is no reason it will change tomorrow.

[Paul_Grenfell]

Surely there must be at least one Generic Code ready to upload on Servers by now.? That would keep a lot of us happy in the meantime.

[jraduga]

---

ninjapanda wrote:

One month now ... what a pathetic company. And who do we have here? J_Lo has miraculously appeared from the fog which obscures any useful information from Nokia to reassure us. Where was the Australian nokia rep one month ago when we were irate and demanding answers? Nowhere. Now either J_Lo is actually out of the loop and knew nothing then, knows nothing now and is here to appease our need for an update of the situation and prevent another wave of collective anger. Or J_Lo is in the loop and knows something now and knew something back then, but decided to keep quiet about the status of Belle in Australia one month ago despite our pleads. Either scenario is is unacceptable!

From the very beginning all we have been after is concise, accurate information. All we have been given are large gaps of silence scattered with vague statements and promises which may or may not be fulfilled. From this experience should people wish to buy a Windows phone, I will unequivocally recommend they do not purchase a NOKIA Windows phone. This includes my fathers international company of several hundred staff and their willingness to shift away from Blackberry towards Windows. Afterall, if this is the service we get from the company today, there is no reason it will change tomorrow.

---

First things first. J_Lo, is one of the good guys here. He doesn't work in the any of the sections that created this mess. He is an everyday staff member who is good enough to try to find out what he could for us. He helped us when Anna was an issue, keeping us as up to date as possible, and is helping again. He doesn't get paid for this, nor is it part of his job description as I understand it. At the very least his response is more than we have got from kerttu.

Kerttu who has been PM'd and doesnt bother about responding, who is also asked direct questions online and doesnt respond, and yet he is the one who is supoosed to do this job. Kerttu is the one who is suppose toknow what is going on. and yet he simply says in a post on one of the threads that he has no news on belle for australia yet.

As far as people being out of the loop, Nokia Australia from what i understand based on converstaions that i have had with them werent even told about the rest of the world getting it and not us. I put the blame on their regional H/O in asia.

Now thats out of the way the rest of what you say about windows phone i agree with, until nokia gets there act in gear and starts to send us up to date models eg models with 4G and a camera for video calls at least, then why would anyone buy technology that is no different to something that was around years ago. Nokia needs tobecome more transparent in what they do, they need to be more granular in what they say to us. eg. dont just say "no new news yet", you should be saying "at this stage we are awaiting responses from the operators about their needs for Belle"

I challenge anybody to tell me what is so great about a lumia 800, what is it that it does that honestly is different from past phones. What does it do that makes it better than my E7

[jraduga]

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Paul_Grenfell wrote:
Surely there must be at least one Generic Code ready to upload on Servers by now.? That would keep a lot of us happy in the meantime.

---

if you ask me Paul, I would say that they are still at the point of finding out what each of the telcos want added or removed. before they even start to write the changes into belle including things such as aust compliance. But i am only guessing.

I know last year after anna was released for australia, a product code for one of the phone i have was overlooked, it took somewhere around 2 months before it was ready and that was a generic.

[craig_baldie]

---

Paul_Grenfell wrote:
Surely there must be at least one Generic Code ready to upload on Servers by now.? That would keep a lot of us happy in the meantime.

---

Thing is there was a generic APAC firmware released for the N8 when the worldwide launch happend last month. There's more info on that in the Whirlpool forums.

[diprotodon]

As others have commented, it's been a month since Nokia rolled out Belle to the rest of the world, leaving Australia in the lurch.  It's time to let Nokia know in other forums how we feel on Twitter, as apart from J_Lo, we aren't getting any answers.  

I suggest letting @selop know how you feel.  @Nokia keep gloating how great #Belle is, remind them that we can't access it.  @NokiaAustralia don't discuss it.  Also remind media outlets of what they wrote a month ago. @cnetaustralia: http://www.cnet.com.au/nokia-skips-australia-in-symbian-belle-roll-out-339331369.htm

@zdnetaustralia: http://www.zdnet.com.au/nokia-skips-australia-in-symbian-belle-roll-out-339331369.htm (syndicating cnet)