Nokia is set to reorganise its corporate structure from January 2008 as part its move towards becoming an 'Internet company'. Nokia's current structure of business groups and horizontal group will change to three main units: devices, software and services and markets. Currently S60 devices are produced by the Multimedia group (Nseries), Enterprise group (Eseries) and Mobile Phones group. The new structure sees a greater emphasis on software and services a main stay of which will presumably be the S60 Platform.
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I wonder what this means for the sub-brands like Nseries, Eseries and XpressMusic. With three separate phone-making units it made sense to have three separate sub-brands, but if they're all rolling into one big unit does this mean the brands will re-unify?
Probably not, as Nseries has proved to be so popular and Eseries devices are definitely aimed at a particular market (businesses) rather than consumers in general.
I would actually argue that with the unification of the device side and separate solutions/applicatons/software side it is now easier to ensure consistency in product offering AND to better differentiate the "sub-brands". For example, if this structure had been in place at the time, wonder if E50 would have been released as a 6xxx phone instead? Calling it E Series always seemed a bit forced to me (as did E60).
With a stronger support/solutions/security/apps focus the E Series could find its more natural own ground. On the hardware side the most natural ground is of course the qwerty offering.