Nokia and the new handset naming scheme may just be shining us on

Nokia missed the smartphone revolution by ignoring the U. S. market (among other things), and is a company that is floundering to figure out how to get back in the game. Getting onto the Windows Phone 7 train with Microsoft is a big bet that Nokia is hoping will push it back up the market share charts. No matter how you view this partnership, it is clear Nokia needs to up its game to attract the savvy smartphone customer of today. Yesterday Nokia detailed its new process for naming new handsets, and it makes me wonder if the company is just having some fun at our expense.

SplatF points to a blog post by Nokia's Phil Schwarzmann where he announces that Nokia  will follow a simple process for naming all its handsets starting with the Nokia 500. All Nokia phones going forward will have a simple 3-digit product name where the first digit indicates how expensive the phone will be. So a Nokia 900 will be top-of-the-line and the 100 will be pretty cheap in price and functions. This new method according to Schwarzmann allows Nokia to release a lot of handsets without confusion, Nokia 100, 101, 102, well you get the picture.

While this whole system smacks of poor marketing and bad business practice, I can't help wondering if this claim by Nokia is just the company having some fun at our expense. Besides being a horribly bad idea, the last link in Schwarzmann's blog post may be an indication he's just shining us on. It's a Rickroll so don't click it, you have been warned.