Remembering Nokia, and How It Changed Our Lives

In all industries, companies rise and fall. Some, sadly, fall quicker than others, and this is perhaps no more true than in the dog-eat-dog tech industry.

Within this decade alone, we've seen Apple rise to become a giant, watched as Google spread its wings to become much more than a search company, held our breath as HP suffered the equivalent of a near-death heart attack as it announced its pullout from the PC business (only to schizophrenically do an about-turn soon after), and mourned the slow crumbling of RIM Blackberry. Even so, arguably the greatest shock arrived a mere five days ago when Microsoft announced to the world that they had purchased the entirety of Nokia's phone manufacturing business, and licensed their "Lumia" and "Asha" brand names. Nokia, as a phone company and brand, was no more.

You've probably read the news, witnessed the collective shock expressed by the many tech blogs out there. But we believe that, more than anywhere else in the world, those of us living in Asia will be the loudest mourners at Nokia's funeral - over the last few decades, Nokia has gradually built a fortress here, with an overwhelming majority of phone owners having purchased a Nokia at some point of our lives. Not seeing the familiar, two-arm logo grace another boot screen will surely be a huge mental shift for many of us.

All of us on the Suburban KID team have owned Nokias. Through this article, we'd like to offer a tribute to our "Connecting People" devices that have changed our lives, in ways both big and small.