What Nokia Must Do To Stay Relevant In Mobile

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.'"

Comments

Did the author completely overlook,,,

[JesseL]

... 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.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[SquarePixel]

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.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[migla]

I hope the (soon to become) MeeGo line will be relevant. I want linux on my phone and I mean close to a desktop GNU/Linux distribution, not like Android that might as well have some other kernel for all I care (almost). Android isn't Linux in the overloaded sense we sloppy humans have come use the name.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[UnknowingFool]

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

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[JesseL]

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.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[MrHanky]

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.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[Darkness404]

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.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[unix1]

They just can't get their act straight.

Apple came out with the iPhone and followed down the same path with respect to both customers and developers.

Google introduced Android and their efforts are just as consistent.

Nokia, on the other hand, bought Symbian which at the time was mostly a feature phone OS, introduced Maemo which used GTK, then acquired Trolltech which was Qt, then ported Qt to Maemo and dropped GTK, then started porting Qt to next version of Symbian, then dropped Maemo and started work on Meego. Now, what next? There are too many moving parts, and too much uncertainty, at least as far as "smartphones" are concerned. Are there politics going on inside the company? If so, someone has to take charge and make some tough technical decisions.

I personally like Qt and find it easy to program with and I hope they use that as their tool in their future phones and tablets; but, in general, Nokia needs to find a clear direction and stick to it.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[SquarePixel]

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.

That's only because US has got used to telco's cheating that way. Everywhere else in the world a person buys a phone and then gets (a much cheaper) separate contract for it. It was only a few years ago that the operators started offering the US-style subsidized plans, and they always end up costing a lot more.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[DrunkenPenguin]

Traditionally >90% of the finnish people have been using Nokia phones, but this is changing now very, very rapidly. Nokia is seen as a "lamers choice" in Finland at the moment and the youth + older people are buying Android phones and iPhones more and more every day. Nokia is seen as a loser here in Finland at the moment. Well - let's face it - Nokia is a loser! 70% market value drop in recent 2-3 years - that's just something that's hard to believe, but unfortunately it is true.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[cduffy]

Undoubtedly, my suspicion is that the N900 was a skunk-works power play to light a fire under everyone else's asses, and I believe MeeGo and the Qt transition is the result.

If I recall the story correctly, the precursor to the N900 was very much a skunkworks project, and built at a point when Nokia was contractually prohibited from selling a phone running Linux; the N900 was thus a relatively small step that was easy to take once that contractual prohibition was no longer in place.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[autophile]

I hope the (soon to become) MeeGo line will be relevant.

Readers should not confuse this with, in order of increasing danger, the LG Migo, which "is perfect for your kid's first phone," the Bhutanese Migo, which is "known by the Nepalese and Tibetans as the Yeti, and to the Chinese and Soviets as the Alma," or the Lovecraft Mi-Go, which "are large, pinkish, fungoid, crustacean-like entities the size of a man with a 'convoluted ellipsoid' composed of pyramided, fleshy rings and covered in antennae where a head would normally be."

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[kangsterizer]

in the rest of the world buying your phone subsidized actually end up costing you slightly more. on the other hand, carrier subscriptions are extremely cheap "phoneless".

For example I pay 1EUR/month (thats 12EUR/year) for unlimited 3.5G, unlimited calling on the same carrier and land lines (theres a fee to other mobile carriers, and international of course).

The same one with a 2-300EUR iphone4 cost smth like 30 to 45eur per month during 12 to 24 month which is more expensive, locked during 6month (after 6month u can unlock and you want to change carrier you've to pay the rest of the phone;. slightly more in fact, once again).

In this case buying unsubsidized is actually better.

Re:Did the author completely overlook,,,

[nightfire-unique]

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.

Re:Favorably?

[mickwd]

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...

Re:Favorably?

[migla]

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.

Ah, Galen Gruman

[BasilBrush]

We had a ill-informed article by Galen Gruman just yesterday. And here's another.

Nokia took too long to realize that Symbian's lack of touch capabilities would hinder its ability to compete in the smartphone market.

Symbian OS has ALWAYS had touch capabilities. It was originally released on a PDA called the Psion Series 5 under the name Epoc 32. That was a device with both a touch screen and a full qwerty keyboard. Touch was absolutely central to it. In all the smartphones Symbian OS has been released for, the OS itself still has touch central to the UI code. In the case of Sony-Ericsson, they released phones that used those touch capabilities. Nokia always chose not to. To release phones without touch screens. It was always Nokia's decision, never anything to do with the OS not being able to do it.

How can you take a tech author seriously when he makes false accusations based on a complete lack of knowledge of the facts?

why bother?

[yyxx]

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.

management at fault

[dnaumov]

Disclaimer: I hold Nokia stock

What Nokia needs to do is replace it's top management. Unless some drastical measures are announced within the next 2 weeks (Q2 report coming up), the stockholders are going to be demanding that too (just look at Nokia stock trend over the past 8 years, it's really not particularly pretty). The problem is the arrogance and incompetence of the long-time top company officials like Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (the CEO). Nokia's current situation is very similar to Ericsson a decade ago. They had a very strong market position, but grew arrogant and slow, while the market churn kept on speeding up.

Re:Favorably?

[Pax681]

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

Re:Favorably?

[wintermute000]

Yeah but that misses the point entirely.

N900 is a sweet phone but a niche phone as you have pointed out yourself. Its missing many features present in the top end droid/iphone software. Simple things like double tap to fully justify a column of text in a webpage, and with Froyo the one big standout - the browser - is left in the dust.

For example my friend has a n900, he is a linux dev so for him its awesome.

I run a fedora server @ home and have tinkered with linux for years, but no coding beyond basic scripting, and for me the 'openness' of the n900 doesn't mean much as I can't code for it and make it do all the crazy things you see people hack it into. Sure I can copy/paste other people's efforts but would that compensate for not having all the stuff I'm now used to in Android 2.2 (even 2.1)? not a chance.

As for the repos, its nowhere close to even the android app shop let alone the apple one. For most people, once the basic phone bit is acceptable (and it pretty much is, left handed fruit aside lol) its all about the apps. I don't know if you have much experience with the iphone or high end droid phones but my friend made the same point, 'there are apps in repos'. I let him play around with my N1 for a bit and he was flabbergasted with the amount of apps/functionality available, and that's just android, let alone the insanely big iphone apps market.

So the n900 is a great tech demo, great hackers tool for linux devs, but it ain't exactly worth a ---- in the fight for the smartphone market. Now they're going meego, you wanna bet how many issues there will be with version 1? Meanwhile droid will move up to version 3 and iphone keeps getting more polish, power (lockdown and anti apple backlash too lol). Every minute a polished software/hardware combo is not on the market they are losing.

As for asia/europe, sure there are lots of nokias around and it is still one of the best options for non-smartphones, but for the high end, nobody wants a nokia, they ALL want an iphone or android. There is NO buzz around nokia at all.