From the piece:
“The first contact between Carl Zeiss and Nokia was in 2004. We approached Nokia about the idea of using ZEISS optics in mobile phone cameras, and we found we were on the same page. We got into a discussion with Nokia very easily – and both companies had a common understanding of the benefits of a partnership. It took less than three months to get from that discussion to signing contracts.”
“It all started in the snow. The first meeting of the management teams was in January 2005. There were five people from Carl Zeiss and five people from Nokia. They met in Finland, and went up to a guesthouse in snow-covered Lapland. The atmosphere was very open and trusting from the start. It was a good fit between people, as well as between companies.”
“I joined the team in May 2005, and preparations for the N90 were up and running already. The N90 was very challenging for us, because we joined the process at a late point. It was the first phone we’d worked on at Carl Zeiss and we had a lot to learn. Obviously Carl Zeiss is known for working with large, high quality, lenses made from glass. The plastic used in small, camera phone lenses, was a new material for us. We already had experience in working with miniature lenses. In fact, Carl Zeiss built a camera lens that small as far back as the 1920s, made out of glass. And, of course, Carl Zeiss is a world leader in producing microscopy lenses, which are even smaller than camera lenses.”
“What was really new for us was the scale and volume of production that was necessary for Nokia. We produce some of our bigger lenses in the hundreds, maybe in the thousands. Working with Nokia we were looking at producing millions of lenses.”
The N90 (and N93) were as groundbreaking at the time for their cameras as they were for their outrageous form factors... Will we ever see their like (i.e. the transformer) again? And, as I say, watch AAS on Monday morning, for a lot more in the same vein....