Is Nokia still king of the hill?

Every now and then it is time to ask whether companies that have dominated a sector - a Cisco, Intel or Microsoft, for example - have still got what it takes. Without exception, market leaders are routinely predicted to be on the decline, not able to bet on a commanding position in, say, five years.

So should Nokia be counting its chickens?

Today saw the company make something of a surge. At its 'Mobile Internet' conference in Munich, Nokia had to put out a press release to explain the dozen or so other press releases it was also disseminating that day. At least that's how it felt.

But that isn't much of a criticism because Nokia has announced a range of offerings - from sleek small phones, to weird, data- and multimedia-centric handsets, from network-ready peripherals to new server and web services software - which show why it is a leader.

The devices silicon.com got its grubby hands on we liked. But - and there always is a but - question marks remain.

Nokia depends on operators and they are the same operators who, in many cases, are shackled by a need to exploit 3G, the same 3G that they have sunk billions of various currencies into. It is therefore in Nokia's interest to make 3G workable, and as early as possible.

Of today's announcements, none were 3G-related, though the new mantra du jour seems to be all about '3G-style services', a piece of semantics which means MMS, for example, can be passed off as '3G here today'.

Nokia does have a 3G phone, unveiled alongside Sonera's '3G-style services' earlier this autumn, though it is far from perfect. And there are Nokia 3G terminals available for the Far East for CDMA2000 networks, though you can count them on one hand versus the several dozen from the likes of Samsung, NEC and quite a few other non-European manufacturers.

The problem is that Nokia is a major backer of the W-CDMA 3G standard and isn't too inclined to sell into a CDMA2000 3G market which will show up some of W-CDMA's shortcomings. Nokia will point out W-CDMA will eventually be a much bigger market, and it's right. But what would it have to lose by exploiting CDMA2000 in the meantime?

The question Nokia doesn't want to answer would be a couple of years from now. Why, users might say, are 3G handsets much cheaper in the Far East and US, even allowing for subsidies? If Nokia doesn't sell to these markets so much, it won't be such a sticky comparison to field.

So yes, the 2.5G products out today are to be applauded. Nokia's designs remain a winner. But when it comes to the bigger question of the march towards 3G, think of those other industry giants for a moment, moving at their own pace, often as others around them make innovations more quickly - yet getting their way in the end.

Nokia is in that league but ask yourself: What effect is that having on the roll out of 3G in Europe?