Soon Nokia Store and Nokia Xpress Browser will be no more. As much as those had a promise of good things coming, they are going to be replaced with Opera Browser and Opera Store, that is if they haven’t already. Microsoft announced this sometime back after the announcement of Nokia X and Asha phones meeting their demise. Opera seemed a good long term strategy instead of spending money maintaining in-house software for dying platforms.
Nokia Xpress browser meant a lot for Nokia Series 40, Series 60 users with their data compression capabilities that saw as much as 90% of data costs saved at browser level. Opera will be taking that task even though the two cannot compare. This means that users of Symbian, Asha, Nokia X, Series 60 and Series 40 devices will be moving to all things Opera with a deadline for end of March. Irrespective of whether you had a paid app or not. Microsoft has not mentioned what the recourse for that will be.
Microsoft has reached a point where they believe that there is more benefits in sticking to one platform, that’s Windows Phone from low cost smartphones to high end instead of what Asha and Nokia X represented, experience close to Windows phone before transition. The entry level dumb phones remain for the market that’s just getting onto their first mobile phone, but long term plan is to go Windows Phone fully.
Do you use any of devices that will have to migrate to Opera store and Opera mini browser? Share with us your opinions and experience if you already have them in the comments section below.
