You can imagine my surprise, when I got on the event location.
Didn't recognize any faces on queue, not even the types of persons. First of all, people were dressed in strange ways: no over expensive business suits nor "just out from basement" garments. Then there were far too many women. Never seen that many female software developers, even when counting all together. Didn't recognize what people were talking about, didn't really get the jokes. Still there was lots of Nokia banners, so obviously I was in the right place. Lots of Nokia N8 everywhere.
Nokia Dealer Night is a get-together for people who sell Nokia mobile phones and accessories. It's a training session, expo, party and team spirit raising event for those hard working women and men who are on the frontline on field, actually meeting those troublesome customers day in and day out. These are the people who sell all the devices for which we software developers write software for.
Why did a software person receive invitation for hardware event?
There was a short "business seminar" before the main event, for business seminar participants. Presentations about success stories on Nokia devices, available services, sharing experiences and showing demos. That's what I was invited for, but unfortunately the last confirmation email I received didn't mention B2B seminar - and so I missed it!
Not complaining at all, Nokia Dealer Night was a very useful reality check. Got to meet people I'd never meet otherwise, learned what kind of issues are important for them, got to see how Nokia markets hardware for hardware people, got to see how Nokia markets software for hardware people. There was about 20 demo spots crowded with people - most were about software. OVI Store in general, several Nokia services, games running on N8 (Angry Birds is everybody's favorite), Yle Areena (web TV service), mapping services, wine guide etc. Was happy to meet a few fellow developers, too.
What I liked best?
Main speaker didn't shout "Developers, developers, developers", but "when you sell a device, sell a service too"! Got a warm feeling that Nokia really does care about software developers. It's not just the recent Ovi Store announcements (individuals as Ovi Publishers, free signing), but they are also asking hardware sellers to push software, too! That's thousands of new market points!
