SpotlightJune2017

By David MacDonald I f you were a parent to a teenager in the year 2000, it was likely an expensive Christmas. The PlayStation 2 was released in October, the Razor Scooter craze just started, and the Nokia 3310 hit the shelves in September, offering a world of mobile calls, texts, heavily-pixelated games, and a reliable and durable battery. Following a trend that has seen the likes of the original 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System remade for a generation born during President Clinton’s second term in office and a Canada still reeling from its 1996 World Cup of Hockey loss to the United States, Nokia has reintroduced the Nokia 3310 to the market. At the time, the Nokia 3310 made the Finnish multination- al communications and informational technology company the world’s biggest mobile phone manufacturer. It wasn’t until the iPhone and Android Revolution of 2007 and 2008

respectively that Nokia began to fall off the map. And fell hard they did.

According to Gadgets 360, Nokia’s Devices and Services division was eventually sold to Microsoft in 2014. But after a 2016 licensing agreement between the Finnish company HMD Global and Microsoft, the Nokia 3310 is reborn in a big way. The Nokia 3310 (2017) features a 240x320 pixel, 2.40-inch display, 16GB of expandable internal storage, a microSD slot, a rear-facing 2-megapixel camera, it runs Series 30 and is Bluetooth and FM capable. And if it’s any concern to you, Nokia or their Devices and Services division was in no way involved in the design or manufacturing of the Votomatic Voting Machine used in Palm Beach County during the Bush vs. Gore 2000 presi- dential election.

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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JUNE 2017

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