Top Three Priorities For Nokia
There’s no doubt about it - with iPhone V1.0, and now iPhone 3G, Apple caught Nokia asleep on the job. iPhone changes everything, and Nokia’s lack of credible response suggests that their senior management is: a) in denial about this; and b) doesn’t know how best to respond. Apple is, today, a small player in the mobile world. However, having fixed the critical business and technical problems with iPhone V1.0, Apple is now on a steep trajectory that will see them become a major player in the mobile world (update - it took 74 days to sell one million iPhone V1.0s; but just 3 days to sell one million iPhone 3Gs). How should Nokia respond? Herewith, what I think the top three priorities for the company should be.
1) Build A “Better” iPhone
Is iPhone the perfect mobile device? No, it’s not. That means, there’s an opportunity to build a phone that’s better than iPhone. What’s now the No. 1 problem with iPhone? The touch screen keypad doesn’t work well enough. Nokia should build a phone that is exactly like the iPhone (functionality, user interface, sensors, quality of materials, dimensions, screen resolution and size etc.)… you know, match the iPhone on every level… except it should also have a great quality slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Oh, and while they’re at it, they can double the storage, put a faster CPU in it, and include a better camera. Is that a technical challenge? Yes - but what do they pay their R&D people for? It’s not a difficult brief to understand - build an iPhone with a great slide-out keyboard.
2) Take Control Of Phone Software/Firmware Updates
Nokia needs to recognise that Apple’s control of iPhone software/firmware is a winning strategy. Mobile phone operators have no clue how to provide a good service to their customers. They never will; and the truth is they have no desire to.
Once Nokia has done this, they then need to focus on improving the device over time. Nokia currently ships phones with crappy, unreliable, buggy OSes. Nokia got away with shipping rubbish when all the competition did the same. This is not good enough now that Apple is bring quality software to mobile phones. Time to start dedicating the proper resources to shipping super-high-quality software.
3) Take Control Of Deployment Of Third-Party Applications
Nokia needs to recognise that Apple’s strategy of controlling deployment of third-party applications to phones is a winning strategy. The mobile operators are clueless about this (see point 2 above). Nokia needs an App Store, just like Apple’s. No creativity required. Just copy Apple.
Bottom Line
Nokia needs to play catch up with Apple, and then overtake it. It’s not difficult to do: copy Apple’s winning strategy, and ship hardware that is superior by addressing iPhone’s key weakness. What are they waiting for?
So, will Nokia implement the above changes? I doubt it. My bet is that they will continue to cede control of their devices to useless mobile phone operators that don’t care about customers. And their response to iPhone, when it arrives, will be a poor, slow, cheap plasticky imitation with crappy buggy software that delivers an infinitely worse user experience compared to iPhone. In other words, I suspect Nokia’s management is still in denial about iPhone; and they still don’t know how to respond…
Asam Bashir wrote:
Still think they should talk to Apple and look at the possibility of an open-source version of iPhone OS X, iPhone Darwin + Safari and webkit - not like they’re gonna be able to do it themselves in the short term. It’s not enough to just copy Apple, Nokia won’t be able to do it, but if Apple helps them a little, could be a nice win-win for both.
Posted 14 Jul 2008 at 1:09 am ¶
simon wrote:
I’m not sure that Apple needs to collaborate with Nokia. Apple is doing just fine as they are: they have the best strategy; the best phone software; the best phone hardware; and the strongest phone brand.
Posted 14 Jul 2008 at 7:57 am ¶