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Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

computerworld.com

21–30 of 41 posts

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#21
Nokia pioneered (essentially) the strategy that Google is using with Android. After all, Series 60 sure looks a lot like Android in terms of positioning, roll out, and ecosystem. It was a winning strategy for Nokia that saw their Symbian based software on hundreds of devices from many different manufacturers.

Nokia's issue isn't strategic, it's a huge problem with execution. Series-60 succeeded as much as it did in spite of itself. I was personally involved in (as an outside company) several S60 projects that simply failed. The number of manufacturers who took a run at making a S60 phone is a really impressive list. The number who succeeded at it, is far less so.

I've been confident in predicting widespread for success with Android largely because I see the parallels between S60 and what Android is doing. The difference is that Google appears to have the talent to actually execute on the vision. They're pushing a quality product forward with the agility to compete favorably with Apple, RIM, and everyone else.

If Nokia fails it will be a failure of a broken engineering culture. The lack of apps on their platform can be placed firmly at the feet of their development platform. My failed startup involved an attempt to build a S60 app. It took my partner and I 6 months to get the thing built (it wasn't a large or particularly complicated app) thanks to all of the idiosyncrasies of that platform. This despite having spent the previous 5 years working with S60 on a much larger and more complicated project (which was also a nightmare).

To succeed in the mobile space you need a strong platform, with strong UI concepts, and strong developer tools that help them get their job done quickly. Apple and Google both have that, Nokia does not.

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#22
post #19

> There is huge, unmet demand in the world for a phone that does nothing but make calls. The Nokia 1100 [...] is a very simple GSM mobile phone produced by Nokia [...] the world's best selling phone handset as well as the best selling consumer electronics device in the world. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 ) IMO the author has a point about the smartphones, but completely misses the mark here. It's very po…

It's very possible that low-end smartphones will take over the dumphone market soon

Unlikely. There's a few elephants in the room here, the biggest being battery time. You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night, in exchange for being able to play angry birds...

Also take a close look at the issues of your (presumably) high-end smartphone. Now, when was the last time you tried to use a low-end smartphone?

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#23
post #9

If offering user choice is a bad idea, why is Android doing so well? I believe they're out-gunning apple in market-share now, and there are tons of Android phones to choose between.

No single Android phone does as well as the iPhone. You're comparing two completely different things.

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#24
post #22
post #19

> There is huge, unmet demand in the world for a phone that does nothing but make calls. The Nokia 1100 [...] is a very simple GSM mobile phone produced by Nokia [...] the world's best selling phone handset as well as the best selling consumer electronics device in the world. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 ) IMO the author has a point about the smartphones, but completely misses the mark here. It's very po…

It's very possible that low-end smartphones will take over the dumphone market soon Unlikely. There's a few elephants in the room here, the biggest being battery time. You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night, in exchange for being able to play angry birds... Also take a close look at the issues of your (presumably) high-e…

And add to that the cost of paying a provider for 3G Internet connection every month, and the allure of a phone that lasts for a week and can make calls and send texts shines through.

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#26
post #23
post #9

If offering user choice is a bad idea, why is Android doing so well? I believe they're out-gunning apple in market-share now, and there are tons of Android phones to choose between.

No single Android phone does as well as the iPhone. You're comparing two completely different things.

He's comparing the only thing that matters any more - ecosystem mindshare.

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#27
post #22
post #19

> There is huge, unmet demand in the world for a phone that does nothing but make calls. The Nokia 1100 [...] is a very simple GSM mobile phone produced by Nokia [...] the world's best selling phone handset as well as the best selling consumer electronics device in the world. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 ) IMO the author has a point about the smartphones, but completely misses the mark here. It's very po…

It's very possible that low-end smartphones will take over the dumphone market soon Unlikely. There's a few elephants in the room here, the biggest being battery time. You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night, in exchange for being able to play angry birds... Also take a close look at the issues of your (presumably) high-e…

> You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night, in exchange for being able to play angry birds...

Reminds me of portable (laptop) computers.

Weak processors. Awful graphics performance. Heavy. Awful battery life. You'd be nuts to make one of these your sole computer.

Until those problems mostly went away. Today, most computers sold are laptops.

I think it's unwise to assume that the drawbacks of current smartphones are permanent.

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#28
post #26
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No single Android phone does as well as the iPhone. You're comparing two completely different things.

He's comparing the only thing that matters any more - ecosystem mindshare.

Try something with your non-technical family members:

"What do you think of the iPhone?"

then

"What do you think of the Android ecosystem?"

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#29
post #22
post #19

> There is huge, unmet demand in the world for a phone that does nothing but make calls. The Nokia 1100 [...] is a very simple GSM mobile phone produced by Nokia [...] the world's best selling phone handset as well as the best selling consumer electronics device in the world. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 ) IMO the author has a point about the smartphones, but completely misses the mark here. It's very po…

It's very possible that low-end smartphones will take over the dumphone market soon Unlikely. There's a few elephants in the room here, the biggest being battery time. You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night, in exchange for being able to play angry birds... Also take a close look at the issues of your (presumably) high-e…

There's a few elephants in the room here, the biggest being battery time. You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night

There's no fundamental reason Android devices won't emerge that have awesome (or at least, way better) battery life. We haven't seen demand for that in western markets simply because the high end phone space is dominated by flashy hardware and high end features. Android is very flexible and scales down to surprisingly low end device specs.

Re: Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast

#30
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very possible that low-end smartphones will take over the dumphone market soon Unlikely. There's a few elephants in the room here, the biggest being battery time. You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night, in exchange for being able to play angry birds... Also take a close look at the issues of your (presumably) high-e…

> You'd be surprised how many people would give you a blank stare if you told them their next phone needs to re-charged almost every night, in exchange for being able to play angry birds... Reminds me of portable (laptop) computers. Weak processors. Awful graphics performance. Heavy. Awful battery life. You'd be nuts to make one of these your sole computer. Until those problems mostly went away. Today, most computers…

Note the last word of the sentence that I replied to.

Eventually we'll be moving around in flying cars. But not in the next few years.

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