Nokia Plan I - 20 Jul 2011
Nokia has now made the necessary changes into its products and
organization. With the introduction of its first and unfortunately its
last but very impressive Meego phone, Nokia will miss the opportunity to
make it into a product line, because of
letting all the Meego people go, and focusing on Windows.
So, we only need to wait for the
Windows Phones to kick in? This will take some time, however. The
Windows Phone 7 is also limited with some of its functionality, e.g. it can
only support cameras up to 8 Mpixel.
In the mean time, we want to share some preliminary info
about the upcoming results for Q2 and Q3 of 2011. According to our
collected information, the Q2 has been
really bad, and on Q3 the Symbian market share is expected to seriously plunge.
Nokia's only substantial profit currently comes from the S30/S40
phones, and they have also been hit hard in that category by the
increasing.
Nokia's best phone selling time has always been Q4, and we should not focus on
the very bad Q2 and Q3, but rather put all of the focus on Q4. Will Nokia have
enough of the high-end products to sell for the Christmas time? The Meego
phone and the first Windows Phone will most likely be ready for Q4.
However, it looks like to be very difficult to convince the customers to adopt the Windows
Phone, when there are more lucrative Android phones available for a
lower price range. Our firm belief is that Nokia will recover,
but this will happen in H2 2012, when they get their portfolio into a
better shape with more phone models.
Nokia Plan I - 16 Feb 2011
Here is a suggestion for Nokia about what to do. However, let's first go back a
few years to see what happened there...
2002
Nokia was developing their mobile sites and Club Nokia to sell content
to the phones. The download codes were more successful, and Club Nokia
was closed in 2003. The business was just
getting profitable, when the management pulled the plug. The reason
was that Nokia's market share started declining, so the management
wanted to stop all activities that threaten or seem to threaten the
operators' business - including the selling of downloadable content.
This very successful predecessor of the iPhone shop was teared down in
2004.
2004
R&D had created an internal report stating that the Symbian Operating
System should be replaced
with Linux as soon as possible. Alledgedly the report listed several
issues and conerns about the Symbian OS. Symbian OS was originally not designed
for a modular approach, and there was serious concern about its
capability to perform in a complex environment. In the meantime the
Symbian OS software team was growing in the numbers. Finally it got so
large and influential that it became larger than life. It was able to
obtain all the necessary resources it might require. However, there were some
irritating voices speaking on behalf of the Linux OS. So, the Symbian
OS team hired a resource to fight it off with BSD. The job of this BSD
fighter was to battle the Linux people and give the working space for
Symbian to focus on its growth. The right course of action at this
point would have been to outspin the Symbian OS software unit into a
separate company, but the management was unable to see or do this. The
Symbian OS unit was the master of the company.
2010
New CEO, Mr. Stephen Elop is chosen for Nokia. He coming from
Microsoft realizes that Nokia will need a fully functional operating
system as soon as possible. Microsoft Windows Mobile is his obvious
choice. Convincing the board of directors requires time, but finally
they agree to the CEO's persuasion with devastating results on the
stock market.
Analysis
As everyone has already pointed out, the cooperation has huge risks
for Nokia and only upside potential for Microsoft. So far Nokia was
paying for the Symbian OS development, and now when moving to use
Microsoft Windows, guess who again will be the only company paying for
the OS development. Even though Microsoft has deep pockets, and has
paid all the OS development so far, there is little belief that MS
will continue sinking huge sums into the Windows development. They now
have a wealthy paying customer. Also, how does this MS case differ
from using Android? Nokia will be a device manufacturer in either
case. Then, about the mobile advertizing income. If MS does not have
mobile advertizing customers, then it will be veri difficult to obtain
them. Nokia getting a portion of little money is even less little money.
Corrective actions
Nokia could use the MS Windows in some of its models if an operator is
specifically requesting the Windows OS. Nokia has always wanted to be
in the business that grows faster than the average market. Ring any
bells which OS is growing faster than the market. At this point it
seems that Nokia believes it can still dominate the market and
therefore has become larger than life.
Updates will be added soon...
Sources and disclaimer
This article is based on the interviews and views of the former Nokia employees and
might contain some inaccuracies. However, the information here is
believed to be true.