Nokia / Microsoft and “the battle of the platforms”

It’s the last day of MWC and the news of Nokia and Microsoft’s partnership is still grabbing headlines. The keynote by Steve Ballmer’s and Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop was one of the key highlights of this year’s show. We heard Ballmer talk about the importance of creating a “third ecosystem” and how it will be [...]

2011: The battle of the tablets round 2…plus it’s smartphones knock out time

Not only has 2010 been described as the year of the tablet, but also the year of Apple Vs Android. The year started with the launch of the Apple iPad and is ending with Android tablets appearing all over the globe, being delivered by the likes of Samsung, Toshiba and Dell. In fact, with the [...]

The phoney war: Choosing quantity over quality

Which is better, an app store with 100,000 items, or one with 10,000 items? Commentators looking for a way to measure the relative success of the app stores find the “app count” an alluring model. When you look more closely however things are not what they seem. It seems that quantity has come to dominate [...]

Guess which party is the mobile leader?!

With election day rapidly approaching, one wonders what’s going through the minds of the main party leaders, although I think we can all guess what’s going through Gordon Brown’s today.

Nokia Ovi Disappoints

It never ceases to amaze me how Nokia excel at providing disappointing user experiences. They clearly don’t do it to irritate their customers on purpose so I have to assume they are just lazy or inept. I received an “Ovi Store Weekly” email today and had a quick look at the apps they are promoting. Usually [...]

Mobile World Congress highlights…

Were you at Mobile World Congress this year? With this year’s show now done and dusted, here are some of the key highlights of the show…enjoy!   Eyebrow raised: Vittorio Colao had a moan about Google’s search dominance. Vodafone, of course, entered into the first ever global carrier deal with Google three years ago, giving [...]

Warning – WiFi may cause Blindness!

A senior Nokia executive at a recent Mobile 2.0 conference told me that some of their biggest mobile operator customers were concerned that the newest Nokia phones (N97, 5800) will switch automatically to WiFi if they detect a network.  Some operators like the idea of users on “all you can eat” mobile web tariffs using [...]

Payment experience on the Nokia Ovi store – where’s operator billing?

Like many, we eagerly awaited the new Nokia Ovi store to see what was available and how easy it was to buy paid-for apps. The store did seem to be packed with free apps, mostly in the entertainment genre which is not surprising given Nokia’s penetration of the mass market. Business Week commented this week [...]

Could the Apple App Store overtake the Crazy Frog?

The Apple App Store seems to be on the same track as the Crazy Frog. Although Apple is very secretive, the App Store may be managing to achieve similar sales growth over its first year or so. While Apple’s sales are a tiny part of the overall multi-billion dollar mobile app and content market, since it is restricted to 20 million or so iPhones/iTouches it has captured the imagination of journalists and the technorati. It has re-invigorated interest in app stores among other phone makers and even breathed some life into operator portals.

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 [...]

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