S60 Open to new features

Visiting the beautiful warm weather of Florida makes you wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to live in Finland (like myself). Just arrived in early this morning, checked in to the Caribe Royale and saw all the nice pools (no WiFi here, only LAN. Grr!!) , then realized I don't have my bathing suit!! Ah well, I'm here on business, not pleasure.

I worked the Symbian stand last September at CTIA Wireless 2006 in Los Angeles. I wasn't overly impressed with that event - it was quite small and only people in the industry were in attendance. Talking with people who have a passion for mobile technology is much more enjoyable than chatting with people who have a job in mobile technology. But CTIA Wireless 2007 is supposed to be much bigger, they're due to have 35,000 guests from 100+ countries and 1000+ members of the press. Should be a great event!!

At 5pm the S60 screw (shown below) met up to go over the demos, our messages for the event, and last minute details. Then at 6pm we had a Nokia-wide meeting - the room was packed with 100+ people. Each of the demo groups briefly went over their presentations, a representative from Nokia security went over security-related reminders, the COMMS people did their thing. The demoers were really fired up, people were cheering and clapping and obviously anticipating the next three days. The S60 crew then went across the street for some Chinese food, then off to bed.

I'll be working the "Device Showcase" tomorrow in the Nokia stand - all our latest devices will be on display, similar to how we did it at 3GSM. I've been up trying to memorize all the details of each of the devices (you all probably know them better than me!) I'm working the afternoon shift so I can sleep a bit later tomorrow then hit up the fitness room before I'm off. I'll having my camera with me, I'll be sure to have photos and another blog post for you tomorrow. Good night!

From left to right: Minna, Dan Shugrue (U.S. Marketing), Heidi (event coordinator), Ganesh (web browser guru), Eero (Operator sales), Jouni (MRKTNGman)