[Interest] Semi-OT: What could / should Elop / Nokia have done differently?

[karl.ruetz at ruetzdogz.com]

If I ran Nokia for a year I would analyze which mobile OS(s) is/are 
dominating the markets I want to penetrate.  Obviously iOS is 
proprietary so unless I want to write Apps for iStuff I have to look at 
Android and Windows (mostly Android).  It is possible that it would be 
best to make Android phones for the U.S., Windows phones for Asia, and 
Meego or Symbian phones for Europe.  Marketing analyses would answer the 
questions.  I may be wrong, but it does not appear to me that Nokia made 
its product decisions for the right reasons.

What I would not do is worry too much about looking different than 
Samsung, HTC, or any other vendor.  Make the primary question, "How can 
sell the most phones at a profit?" rather than "How can I differentiate 
myself from Samsung".  What's wrong with getting a chunk of the success 
that Samsung has had?

At one time, Motorola had the lion's share of the cell phone market.  
Then they got the Iridium bug.  I remember seeing the commercial of a 
guy walking at the north pole answering his satellite phone.  The 
question that popped into my mind was, "How many people are in this 
picture?"  Just how big is the market for $3,000 phones that cost 
$2.50/minute to use?  Can you really get a return on a $2 billion 
investment?

Nokia, I think, made a similar mistake.  How many people in the world 
are out shopping for Windows based phones?  If the answer isn't "most of 
them", then why build Windows based phones?  Is the tech that much 
better?  Can you build them a lot cheaper than Android?  If the answer 
is no, then choose a different OS.

Karl


On 2012-06-21 15:06, K. Frank wrote:
> Hello List!
>
> Most of us have been following and talking about this whole
> Nokia / Microsoft thing.  A couple of recent discussions on
> this list got me thinking about it again:
>
>    [Interest] Is Nokia officially done with Qt?
>    
> http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2012-June/002454.html
>
>    [Interest] Qt on Windows Phone 8
>    
> http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2012-June/002703.html
>
> I would like to ask a related, but somewhat different question:
> Clearly Nokia and Elop were and are facing a big business challenge.
> What might they have done differently?
>
> I'm hoping to avoid comments like this or that company is bad /
> stupid / evil.  It's easy enough to say that some folks did the
> wrong thing, but harder to say, okay, here's what they could have
> done differently.
>
> I think that it's arguably the case that:
>
>    Nokia missed the iPhone revolution
>    therefore faced a significant threat to their business
>    therefore needed to make a dramatic (desperate?) move
>    so they joined forces with Microsoft
>
> Now I like to hate on Microsoft as much as the next guy,
> and so on and so forth, but what might Elop have done
> differently?  It's his job to try to save Nokia (or as
> much of Nokia as he can), and not his job to try to save
> Qt in particular.
>
> It's not like Nokia could have partnered with Apple.
> (Or maybe they could have.  If somebody thinks that
> could have been the case, that's exactly the kind of
> discussion I'm looking for.)
>
> It's easy but not very helpful to say things like
> everybody's an idiot or so-and-so is a Microsoft
> tool or Nokia should have invented the iPhone before
> Apple did.  I would like to approach this like a Harvard
> Business School case study: Let's say you were appointed
> CEO of Nokia instead of Elop back then.  What -- in the
> face of the very real challenges Nokia faced -- would
> you have done?  And a follow-up question:  Let's say you
> are appointed to replace Elop now.  What -- given whatever
> water is already under the bridge, and in the face of the
> very real challenges Nokia faces now -- would you do now?
>
>
> Thanks, and best regards.
>
>
> K. Frank
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