Nokia - the one to watch?
Nokia, is one of the most impressive adaptive businesses of the last 100 years. Most recently, the company showed its resiliance in the 1980′s when its business was beginning to slow due to increased competition. The common strategy of the day would have been to cut costs to maintain profit levels.
Instead Nokia, flew their product teams around the world to understand what people were using their phones for. Strong strategy comes through experiences and what they learnt resulted in a dramatic “s” shaped growth curve and set the standard for the handsets we’ve been using for the last 20 years.
In comes Apple, plucky new comer, fresh from success over the last few years with iPod and iTunes. Very strong in the early rounds, the best innovative ideas in the game. Still licking those wounds from the big, very public beating received from Microsoft. Out to prove that it can get it right.
Will history repeat itself?
So will Nokia adapt to the competition? Rather than copying and emulating, will it quickly evolve to be a stronger, faster growing business? The next phase of the “s” curve?
On the other hand Apple, who are already following their typical pattern, will innovate fantastic products, with great user interfaces. However, the success of a product isn’t just about great usability, it’s about what people want to use the device for and they are sticking to their walled garden approach.
There is one key difference this time. Instead of playing to its strengths, Nokia is tending to run with the pack. The Apple app store has created a huge amount of hype and resulted in a series of copy cat announcements, of on-handset app stores. Apple’s app store has seen some early success but it’ll be interesting to see if people continue to develop apps if it proves to be difficult to monetize – unless you are one of the lucky few to appear in the top slots!
An on-handset app store will be difficult for Nokia, but if it can break away again and enable the open internet model by improving the browser and empowering the developer community, they will be a force to be reckoned with.
As much as I admire Apple and the dramatic acceleration they have brought to the mobile web, my money is on Nokia to be the winner in the long run.
Filed under: Business, Mobile web, Off portal, app store | Tagged: app stores, Apple, apps, internet, mobile browsing, Mobile web, Nokia
Interesting insights. I donot however fancy Nokia’s chances for two reasons: I am not too sure the Finns are “open” enough to partner with newer and faster evolving partners in the eco-system ( I attribute this closedness to the Finn culture). Secondly, Nokia needs to think beyond hardware –> It needs to think from a consumer perspective, trend,habit and usage. Currently Nokia makes software to fit into its hardware–> Not quite the approach.