I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
DougalW flicked me an interesting Telco 2.0 article on how the industry is changing from the perpective of Nokia.
Worth a read.
Nokia’s dilemma: operator friend or foe?
Lot’s of good stuff.
Nokia has to yet to build an acceptable telephone. And it’s taken Apple to come along, release a cruddy 2G phone with zero “computer” features (download an app? nope!), and fix one of the deep problems of standard telephony: the voicemail user interface.
… going forwards, Nokia needs to become a different beast: an original services manufacturer. It’s the services that the users value most, well above the budget for a sexy new handset.
Which operator (until recently) had the highest ARPU and customer satisfaction? Answer is…. Nextel. Motorola built a custom push-to-talk service, where the handset, network and software worked together perfectly to solve a core communications need. The era of that particular product is past, but the lesson lives on.
blog
Rod, This is OT but I noted your Twittering
If you think Bang Bang is good this is even better just down the road a bit
http://www.aspoonfulofsugar.co.nz/
Cafe 121 on P’Rd has a great sandpit out the back for the kids too
I think it’s on the right track in some areas but not in others - and I think it misses the mark in some places.
Here is a newsflash - users do not value services as much as they value the following three things (in order)
1. Coverage
2. Handsets
3. Price
These are consistent themes that continue to come up time and again. 15 years ago coverage was about where you could use your phone in NZ to make calls - now it is about where you can use your device to access the net around the world. Same concept - broader application.
Once you know you can use your mobile in the places you are (or are going to be) then its about the device. You might be able to upsell music downloads and pictures, blogging & the rest but the ultimate test is what happens when you put your phone on the bar/ cafe table/ meeting room table / answer in a public place. That’s why iphone is a winner - people will buy it with or without voicemail UI changes. (Really - how many Voicemails do you get a day vs. SMS? iPhone is not about the Voice Mail UI) iPhone works because it makes you feel good about yourself. It’s not because you can sign into any IM programme on it.
I think the Nextel example is spurious - talking about Revenue without talking about margin is wasting time. It might have served a need but it only worked in the US environment.
Nokia’s issue is that they have drifted from their roots where they designed the best handsets, that were affordable, fashionable and easy to use. That last element meant that when Vodafone had Nokia and Telecom didn’t, customers didn’t move. period. It didn’t matter what we offered them.
That’s where they need to get back to - The point about building great user experiences for handsets that enhance communication is the most relevant insight in the article.It’s interesting that he doesn’t chart the decline of Nokia from when it took more than 10 key presses to send an SMS - at that point, Nokia started to get in the way of the user.
Lastly (for now!) we tried an application similar to the one he discussed where you could ‘nudge’ your nearest and dearest everytime you thought of him/her. Viral launch - no-one cared :)
How many of Nokia’s “issues” are a result of carriers (such as Vodafone) effectively dictating what features a handset will have? Feature sets focussing on Live! rather and data rates that stopped people from using 3rd party applications prevented grown in the mobile market.
Apple came along and told carriers what they wanted. Most laughed at the concept. AT&T on the other hand let Apple have their way and the rest is history.
On a side note I have some Aastra VoIP phones at home now and these do Visual Voicemail when running on my Asterisk box. It’s a very cool feature to have, not that I get many voicemail messages! :-)
Interesting press release - Nokia buying out Symbian and making it open source:
http://conversations.nokia.com/home/2008/06/nokia-to-acquir.html
Nokia’s buying Symbian is a clear response to the integrated hw/sw platform play Apple has been perfecting over the past 10 years. It’s also necessary to protect their high-end margins: “7% of the phones Nokia sold last year were for $300 or more, which represented about 15-20% of its cellphone revenue and 20-25% of its gross profit” (http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/where_nokia_could_fail_competing_with_apple_and_rim) which is the area directly under threat from the iPhone
On reflection, this news also represents a real blow to Microsoft Windows Mobile and Google Android. MS will be hard pressed to charge for Windows Mobile, and the most compelling aspect of Android (i.e. free) has now been nullified. This leaves Apple as their prime competitor.
Nokia buying Symbian a response to Apple? I think not.
Nokia is Symbian. They formed it as a co-operative but they were still the number 1 player supporting it. It’s been on the Series 60+ devices for a long time. There would be many 10’s of millions devices in the market now with Symbian on them
Anytime there were any major problems releasing Symbian onto devices Nokia would fly a planeload of engineers (I kid you not) to fix it with the operator in question.
This purchase is a smart move by Nokia.
Instead of having to fund it directly and make compromises with all the other players in the co-operative, they purchase it now, cap their costs, and open it up to other developers to work on it for free.
As for Windows Mobile - MS sell software, they will always have a model here (noting that the real powerhouse of their Mobile Platform is CE which they embed in all sorts of non-wireless devices).
I think this is a risk for APPL based on their single manufacturer approach for iPhone. I’d expect they would need to respond by licensing their OS. This is not a natural move for them. If they don’t then iPhone tops out as single digit market penetration over the long term compared to Symbian, Android, WinMob etc
Correction - 200 million Symbian phones shipped already - should have finished reading the press release. Mea culpa
Having worked for Nokia I’ve seen the internal attitudes towards Symbian. It’s definitely perceived as a core strategic differentiator for Nokia. The real problem is not with Symbian (as an OS/platform it’s pretty good), but with the UI on top, which for Nokia has been very broken for a long time. The problem is also with the quality of supporting software created by Nokia (see the terrible PC Suite) and Nokia’s ability to build a developer community around their platform (Symbian + S40/60/90… UI) - Nokia have largely abandoned all their previous attempts to build this community and shifted strategy to Ovi.
This move is absolutely a response to Apple and Google, and will successfully compete with Google, who’s only differentiation was ‘free’, but not with Apple, who’s total platform has a superior UI, equal or slightly better OS and MUCH better developer platform and supporting services. As the previous link shows, the greatest percent of Nokia’s profit comes from 7 percent of their sales, which are now open to direct competition from the iPhone.
For an informed discussion, check out this link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/24/andrew_on_symbian/print.html
Personally I don’t see Nokia’s global dominance under threat any time soon. When you sell lots of phones and have 39.6% of the market share, the iPhone will have no effect whatsoever. Bear in mind that the new iPhone seems underwhelming compared to version 1 from a features point of view. As with many cutting edge products, version 1 had some great features. Version 2 is cheaper quality (plastic back) and you are not locked into a plan where Apple clips the ticket. The biggest feature of the new phone is its thinner. Actually its thinner at the edges but actually thicker at the thickest point. No ones hand will recognize any of this because the differences are so small. Only Jobs would have the gall to try and impress the faithful with such a meaningless fact.
As mention Symbian is the OS on top of which Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc build their own UI. Under the new arrangement the above plus NTT DoCoMo pool their UI’s. I would have thought the UI is the easiest to make (or break).
In a review in the UK, a magazine said the HTC Diamond is better than the iPhone. At it sits on top of Windows Mobile. I saw one in HK a couple of days ago and it is very tiny.
Yes Nokia makes more revenue from smartphones but higher numbers from emerging markets (many of these phones Nokia does not make). What emerging markets give Nokia though is the upgrade opportunity as these markets mature. People everywhere are creatures of habit.
@Dermott Renne You are confusing check box features with usability. Sure if you line an iPhone up against just about any smart phone and have a list of features the iPhone would lose. Worse camera, slower 3G, bigger, less ‘open’, etc. BUT when you actually USE the iPhone it works. Try saying that about any other smartphone. You can’t. Blackberry does email better than anyone else, Windows Mobile has never been good, Palm should be where iPhone is now, but isn’t and Symbian while technically good with a great heritage just can’t get their in the usability stakes.
It will come down to people actually using it in the field and saying WOW! Drop in an iPhone Nano and you have a pretty compelling argument. Will they take 70% of the phone market like they have with the iPod? No. Will they be the biggest selling single smartphone? Yes.
They should be able to do what Palm started out doing with the Organiser but this time actually succeed.