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What Nokia Must Do To Stay Relevant In Mobile

Posted by Soulskill on from the introducing-the-3d-cloud-social-farm-phone dept.

snydeq writes "Mikael Ricknäs reports how Nokia can turn around its three-year slide in the mobile market — one that has transformed the company's iconic N95 into a distant memory given the pace of innovation at Apple and around Android. Completely underestimating the impact of the iPhone, Nokia took too long to realize that Symbian's lack of touch capabilities would hinder its ability to compete in the smartphone market. Moreover, the company's move to open source the OS has significantly slowed down Symbian's development, according to analysts, leaving Nokia with both a lack of support from other vendors and a platform on which competitors can keep a close eye. Meanwhile, developer interest in Nokia's Ovi app store is nearly nonexistent. 'Nokia's problems are still fixable but the window is closing. I am not optimistic that they will be fixed in 2010 because there isn't much time left; if they aren't fixed in 2011, Nokia will be in big trouble.'"

11 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Did the author completely overlook,,, by JesseL · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... the N900?

    As far as I'm concerned the only thing Nokia is missing is a better marketing campaign for their product that compares very favorably with the Apple and Android offerings.

    --
    "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
    1. Re:Did the author completely overlook,,, by SquarePixel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nokia has a significant market share in mobile world. Not just the toys. Apple only has one product line while Nokia has many, many different phones suited for quite much everyone, and is generally looked up to in the business world (as is HTC too). Not everyone cares about buying some simple games from the app store, you know.

      I think the story would be better worded as "What Nokia Must Do To Compete With Apple", as they already sure as hell know what to do in the mobile world.

    2. Re:Did the author completely overlook,,, by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Correction: "What Nokia Must Do To Compete With Apple and Android in US Smartphones"

      For non-smartphones especially around the world, both Apple and Android do not have much of a presence compared to Nokia

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    3. Re:Did the author completely overlook,,, by JesseL · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess you missed the first sentence of the article.

      Nokia still sells more phones than Samsung, LG, and Research in Motion (RIM) put together, but its inability to produce high-margin, high-end smartphones that can compete head to head with Apple's iPhone and Google Android-based smartphones is causing it major problems.

      Companies that want to make money and stay is business tend to have diverse product lines, catering to multiple niches and price points.

      --
      "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
    4. Re:Did the author completely overlook,,, by MrHanky · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The N900 is cool, but something of a niche product, and the only one of its kind. It's not for those of us who would consider Maemo but not the 181 grams. The iPhone seems to have aimed for a sweet spot between pocket friendliness and usability, and Android comes in just about every form factor if you have other priorities. Nokia is in trouble if the N900 is the only competitive smartphone they sell.

    5. Re:Did the author completely overlook,,, by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One only needs to look at price to see why the N900 never caught on. People don't care that its unlocked too much, what they -do- care about is that a price of $650 was something that no one wants to pay for a phone. $100? People would have bought it. $200? People still might have bought it, $650 not subsidized? The average person doesn't want to pay that much for a phone.

      When the average person sees that they can get an iPhone for $200, a BlackBerry for $100, an Android device for $100, a palm device for $100, a Windows Mobile device for $50 or the N900 for $650, people aren't going to buy it. People don't care that it is cheaper because you can use cheaper plans than the iPhone allows, they see an outrageous initial price and won't buy it.

      In all honesty, the only people who buy their phones unsubsidized are geeks like you and me. The average person will never pay $650 outright for a phone.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    6. Re:Did the author completely overlook,,, by nightfire-unique · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You took the words out of my mouth.

      If Nokia put together a team of 500 to focus exclusively on Maemo (not this Meego junk they're moving to), they could obsolete all other phone OSes within a year. Frankly, all Maemo needs is a reskin (too dark), better priority and swap management, X enhancements (smoother transitions), a simplified SDK for Windows users, and advertisement. The apps will come, especially since so many are potentially available as a direct port.

      The n900 is the best technology thing I've ever owned... it would be a tragic loss if they abandoned it.

      --
      A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
  2. Re:Favorably? by mickwd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's the equivalent of saying a fully-fledged mobile Linux computer (with a really nice front-end) is nothing but a nice browser, while the other platforms do so much more...

  3. Re:Favorably? by migla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not going to argue with you, because you're right.

    I'd just like to point out that marketshare isn't awesomeness.

    In the marketplace, fartapps and other apps are the thing nowadays, sure, but come on, the N900 is basically a debian computer in your pocket that can also (often) make phonecalls.

    Sadly, awesomeness doesn't equal marketshare either, of course.

    --
    Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  4. why bother? by yyxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nokia makes great hardware, but they obviously have problems putting together a good UI or development platform. They are unlikely to come up with something better than Android, Chrome, or iOS.

    So what Nokia should do is ship Android and build whatever software and hardware innovations they want on top of that. I think Nokia Android phones would be spectacular. Symbian^4? Sorry, not interested.

  5. Re:Favorably? by Pax681 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You wrote: "The only fix for Nokia now is to go Android, then the fact they make nice hardware means something again.". Nokia has been well known for making good quality phones, but this is not the reality any more. Hasn't been for past 2-3 years. Flagship product N97 had so many flaws you can not even list them here. Do a google search. N900's hardware has been a nightmare! Just browse talk.maemo.org and you will see why if you are not aware already. Nokia phones used to be good quality phones some 2-3 years ago, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case any more.

    i have said it before and i'll say it again

    the N900 is a sweet smartphone.. i LOVE mine.

    Nokia were VERY up front when they released it saying that maemo was "stage 4 of 5" and that it wasn't a phone that was for everyone. it was very much a niche of a niche phone.

    the ovi store to be quite frank ISN'T where you get yer apps.. you get them direct to your phone from repositories. these can be accessed simply by adding them to your phone settings

    check here for the settings

    also you will find that maemo on the N900 is soon to undergo a change in that it will be going MeeGo - in a sense.

    it's still going to have the debian based maemo under the bonnet and then the Meego UI.

    Full on MeeGo is Fedora under the bonnet

    how many of the people currently slagging off the N900 have actually had hands on experience with it? not too many i would hazard a guess