Microsoft & Nokia Redux

A year ago I wrote that Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia looked “like it was intended to guarantee that at least one major manufacturer in the world would be producing phones based on Microsoft’s software”.

Well since that time a lot has happened. Steve Ballmer has been replaced by Satya Nadella as Microsoft CEO. Microsoft has acquired Nokia's handset business, turning the once proud jewel of Finland into just another MS porridge product.

Apple has a new cell phone and has take several steps further into the minute control of the entire Apple eco-sphere, much to the benefit of their bottom line. Android, the ubiquitous cell phone software is no the most "used" computer operating system in the world, although unlike Microsoft's Windows and Mac's operating systems, it's basically provided at no discernible cost.

Not long ago, I used to think these were things of some import, but lately I have found that I care less and less about winners and losers and I care more about ownership and control. And you know what? We're losing this battle. Both Windows and Apple have taken steps to lock down the devices running their operating systems; with the ultimate goal of generating revenue of the parent OS when ever you install and in some cases, use the software running on the device.

This is already true of Apple's IOS. And Microsoft's Office 360 and Adobe Photshop have embraced a pay as you go for use of their products. And as for Android, Google cares less about what type of device you're running so long as it is fuelled with Google products that reinforce Googles advertising empire and lately with its own productivity apps (Google Docs). Further, it controls what's run in the Andoid space, through it's control of the Play store.

At one point in time, you could run whatever program you liked on your device and it was nobody's business or concern save your own. Now increasingly you need Apple, Microsoft or Google's permission to down load and install a piece of software. The door has been completely closed, but it's getting harder and harder to do. Only Linux is different, and other than a few die hards like myself, it seems forever destined for obscurity.

Somehow, I don't think this bodes well.

Written: by Rick Gregory

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The Mobile Platform

It is undeniable that the mobile platform has become and will continue to be an important part of business. But more than that, mobile platforms have become a standard of living for younger generations.

Recently, Rick and I had a conversation about the importance of smartphones. Rick argued that mobile devices had become so important because younger people are constantly “on the go.” Young people tend to work more jobs, travel as often as they can, and go out more often than someone who is older. In short, young people move around a lot more and having a mobile device is an easy way to guarantee connectivity with the rest of the world without the bulk of a personal computer or laptop.

But I think it is more than that. It is true that many of my friends and colleagues only have smart phones and do all of their personal computing on that device, and that they tend to travel around a lot. However, I think the prevalence of mobile devices harkens to something greater, something more than just convenience and mobility.

We would all have these if it was just about mobility.

For many people today, their online presence can be as important as their offline one. For example, every morning, I wake up, I check the few online comics that I follow, and I check my facebook, twitter, email, etc. During the day I use the internet professionally and to research the various things I am personally interested in. I share funny things with my friends and various followers and read interesting articles about the world around me. When not using the internet, I using other features on my compute such as movie players, word processors, code compilers etc. In the end, I spend most of my day interacting with a computer, be it a phone or a desktop.

My life might as well be this.

 So when I travel, it is not that I simply want to have internet access, it is that so much of my life involves using computers. The technology is an integral part of my day and, frankly, I couldn’t work, or do a lot of my hobbies without it.

So when I leave my home, I bring my phone to make sure I have access to the tools I need to make it through the day. As technology becomes increasingly prevalent in day to day life, the access to mobile platforms will only become more important, and it is important to consider that when planning the future of technology in your business.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

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Microsoft & Nokia

September 11, 2013

The best phone I ever had was a Nokia 6120. It wasn’t smart, it didn’t text, it was just a dual band (analogue/digital) and had an incredible standby of 14 days and talk of 3.5 hours. Considering that my previous phone was a Mitsubishi that had just 15 minutes of talk time, about 6 hours of standby and weighed 225 grams, the Nokia was a huge improvement.

Over the next several years I had a variety of cells phones, but none has held the same spot in my heart as the Nokia 6120. That is one of the reasons why I experienced a sense of loss when the once proud Nokia sold its phone business in its entirety to Microsoft at the beginning of September. Before that, Nokia had struck a deal that saw one of Microsoft’s senior VP’s Stephen Elop became Nokia’s president. He announced almost immediately that Nokia would jettison all but the Window’s mobile platform. As I recall, Nokia also got billion dollar cash injection, presumably to help grease the skids for Windows mobile.

This began a process whereby Nokia turned its back on trying to develop either its own mobile platform (Symbian) or partner with others (Intel and Meego) to do so. These were genuinely serious efforts. Integral to both was the Qt multi-platform C++ GUI library. Qt offered software developers a standard set of programming interfaces that could be deployed into any number of platforms. All you had to do was to take you Qt application and compile it under the OS you wished to target.

Initially developed by a company called Trolltech Qt’s motto was ‘Code Less. Create More. Deploy everywhere.‘ And this was certainly true in the Windows-Mac-Linux worlds and with the acquisition of Trolltech by Nokia in early 2010, it appeared that with Nokia’s deep pockets that Qt was destined to also run under whatever mobile OS you wanted. This at the time struck me as a serious long term vision for Nokia. It would leverage it’s undisputed global manufacturing reach by having software that was designed from the ground up to run on anything. It didn’t workout. A scant 14 months later (April 2011), Nokia sold it’s Qt business to a Finnish company called Digia shortly after hooking up with Microsoft and Elop.

So what happened? How did a long term strategy that needed several years to work founder in a period just months?

Well, I think several things happened. First producing at mobile version of Qt to work beyond Nokia’s Symbian platform turned out to be harder than people thought.

Also, by the end of 2010, it was clear that Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platforms were runaway successes, garnering between the two of them and impressive 49.5% market share. And Qt had nothing going on these market share giants’ platforms.

As you can imagine... big platforms.

Nokia actually gained market share, but it was growing at an annualized rate of 30% while Android had a rate of 615.5% and Apple was still growing by 85.9%. It must have seemed to Nokia’s board as they searched for a CEO in the winter of 2011, that their Qt strategy wasn’t going to bring in results soon enough to matter. Hence Nokia started to cast about for a different strategy. What is truly confounding in all this, is why they thought a Microsoft alliance made sense. Microsoft had a minuscule 3.1% market share in 2010, down from the preceding year. Plus their rate of growth was falling. Citation: all figures taken from http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/01/android-beats-nokia-apple-rim-in-2010-but-firm-warns-about-2011/.

So Nokia wasn’t exactly lining up with a proven market winner, quite the contrary. At the end of June 2013, Apple’s share of the smartphone had declined to 13.2% while Android had soared to 79.3%. Although Microsoft platforms experienced strong growth, their overall share was 3.7%. From Nokia’s point of view, their strategy of focusing exclusively as the MS platform, had to be seen as a bust. They were in serious danger of becoming another who also ran, like Blackberry – too late to the market to gain any lasting traction.

Slippery when late.

Thus Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia looks like it was intended to guarantee that at least one major manufacturer in the world would be producing phones based on Microsoft’s software. Can the strategy work? The odds are against success, but Microsoft are superb marketers (and Nokia is no slouch either). And the mobile space, phones and tablets is a must win situation for Microsoft. Expect them to pull out all the stops and spare no effort in this fight.

And the time is propitious for change, as Microsoft looks for a new CEO. I’ll be keeping an eye on Elop, as he appears to be a logical choice to work the strategy.

Written by: Rick Gregory

Image Sources:
http://www.thetelecomblog.com/2013/09/04/its-official-microsoft-acquires-nokias-mobile-division/

http://gambarhp.com/nokia/nokia-6120-1715.html

http://davy.preuveneers.be/phoneme/?q=node/1

http://www.zivaveng.com/rec/66-Elbit-Elop

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Images/GiantsKircher.jpg

http://www.wpclipart.com/cartoon/signs/more_signs/warning_slippery.png

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