Nokia World 2011 opens with the Lumia 800

The people are filing in to the Excel One London auditorium as the opening of Nokia World begins. Stephen Elop will take the stage in ten minutes. Updates soon.

See it happen here http://events.nokia.com/nokiaworld/ and watch the world's reaction and commentary from the audience via Twitter here 

The announcements included the introduction of the Asha series aimed at connecting to the internet the next billion people who have not yet experienced internet on their mobile. Mr Elop was every bit the brilliant story teller and speaker but his co-speakers were an awkward let-down. Their efforts to build up applause from the crowd left everyone reluctantly tagging along. 
As the keynote finished, and the people filed out, the talk of the twitterverse which had #NokiaWorld trending, was that of the Nokia Lumia 800. This device codenamed Sea Ray before the announcement is ultimately a Nokia N9 with a Windows Phone 7 operating system. The popularity and marketing of the N9 looks to have been a strategic step towards the release of the Lumia. 
The Lumia 800 will integrate the best of Nokia hardware with the best of what Windows brings to mobile devices. The Lumia 800 will have a 3.7 inch AMOLED clearblack display from the E7, the body and camera (except a few more megapixels) of the N9 and a new 1.4GHz Snapdragon CPU and an 8MP full-focus camera like the N9.

Lumia 800 - It's the brother from another mother

The new Mango Windows Phone 7 operating system will be under the hood an improved Web browser Internet Explorer 9 and Nokia Drive, a free turn-by-turn voice navigation application with maps for over 100 countries.  An ESPN sports hub will be a new exclusive feature for Nokia Windows Phones that enables you to follow news, stats, scores from your favorite sports teams and players. The integrated social media/SMS/MMS/foursquare/twitter feed will simplify the way people interact with social media.  
We're looking forward in particular to the Microsoft Office Mobile and Outlook applications. Also proving interesting is the augmented reality Nokia Live View application and the "close friends" Nokia Pulse social media app that will make geo-tagging more useful. 
The marketing approach for this phone will see Nokia adopting various guerilla marketing strategies helping people to realise that you can "experience amazing every day". 
We hope that the phone's operating system, apps and hardware performance will live up to the amazing or we really will have to choose between two other existing ecosystems.