The Ideos is championed as "an affordable smartphone powered by the latest iteration of Android 2.2." And one of the headline facts is its price: "Between US$100 and US$200, depending on the market."

Nokia's bonds are currently rated A with a negative outlook at Standard & Poor's and A2 with a stable outlook at Moody's Investors Service, the sixth investment-grade level at the ratings companies. It is ranked A- with a stable outlook at Fitch Ratings.

With a skimpy 8% share of the US market, according to the research firm comScore, Nokia trails Samsung, LG, Motorola and Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry.

During a question and answer session on Twitter, company executive vice president Niklas Savander made it clear that the company won't be turning to Android to reinstate its ailing market position.

Ericsson, the world's largest maker of telecom network equipment, said Friday that an industry-wide shortage of key components had contributed to an 8 percent decline in sales in the second quarter, echoing concerns raised earlier this week by Nokia.

Nokia's smartphones outsold the iPhone by 8.4 times. The Finnish company sold 14.5 million smartphones that quarter. And remember, that was only a fraction of their total mobile phone sales...

Apple posted a video demonstrating the antenna issues in Nokia's smartphone. The phone drops from seven bars to two when held in a similar manner to the grip that causes problems on the iPhone 4.

Nokia, which is losing market share in high-end smartphones as it struggles to finish the flagship N8 device, has seen two-thirds of its market value wiped out since Apple's 2007 introduction of the iPhone. The company may name a new CEO to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as early as this month, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

Texas Instruments has said weaker-than-expected orders from one mobile phone customer, identified as Nokia by some analysts, caused second-quarter revenues to miss Wall Street forecasts.

Renesas Electronics and Nokia are deepening their collaboration by forming a strategic business alliance to develop modem technologies for HSPA+/LTE and its evolution, according to Renesas. As part of this alliance, the companies have entered into an agreement whereby Renesas is to acquire Nokia's wireless modem business for US$200 million.

Nokia says "users are free to hold their device any way they like without suffering any signal loss."

MeeGo combines Intel's Moblin software with Nokia's Maemo into an open source OS designed for netbooks or mobile phones. The project released an early version for netbooks in May and said at the time that it would come out with an early release for mobile phones in June.

Stepping up its rivalry with Apple and Nokia, Google outlines plans to court developers and put its operating system on lower-priced phones in China and India.

The Linux-based operating system will power Nokia's flagship smartphones, while lower-end phones will still run on Symbian.

Nokia will launch a digital music service in China, in a high-risk move to make inroads into the world's largest mobile phone market where sales have been crippled due to Internet piracy.

Nokia has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Novarra, a web browsing company based in Chicago. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2010 and following the acquisition, Novarra will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nokia.

"I am hearing rumors that Micron maybe buying Numonyx. This deal would only make sense to give Micron a one stop memory source for wireless and all other applications, especially to satisfy Nokia..."