Nokia is set to launch a virtual reality product in the USA next week.
The product is the first from a Company that at one stage dominated smartphone sales in Australia.
Ironically the Company will see itself competing up against Microsoft’s HoloLens offering, it was Microsoft who acquired the Nokia smartphone brand for $7.2 Billion and within 18 months was reporting record losses to the failure of the acquisition.
Nokia will also find themselves competing up against the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift and the Google-backed Magic Leap as well as offerings from Sony, HTC, and Samsung.
According to Recode, Nokia’s forthcoming VR kit will be built by its Technologies unit, the business responsible for handling Nokia’s patents and intellectual property, as well as the launch of the N1 tablet last year. Nokia Technologies is the smallest of the Finnish company’s three units – alongside Here and Networks – which it kept after selling its device manufacturing business to Microsoft last year.
ZD Net said that not much is known about the VR product but Recode’s report follows Nokia Technologies sending out invites to an event next week with the cryptic tagline “Nowhere/Now Here”. While it’s been interpreted as a reference to Here, Nokia’s maps business, that’s a separate unit to Technologies and is reportedly about to be sold to a trio of German car makers.
Nokia told ZDNet it doesn’t comment on rumour or speculation.
