Nokia is in danger of trying to execute on a strategy that is spread too thin. The story today about Microsoft office arriving on Nokia phones joins yesterday’s piece in the FT Germany that Nokia plans to replace Symbian in its high end phones with Linux-based Maemo. Last month, a story appeared about Nokia offering Android-based phones — swiftly denied — that appeared to miss out on Nokia’s long term Maemo strategy. Beyond phones, Nokia has invested enormous resources into Ovi (maps & nagivation, digital music sales, email, media sharing, and the app store).
I struggle to see what benefit Microsoft Office will deliver on Nokia phones. Word, Excel and the rest are niche applications on mobile phones. Few use them as anything other than a document viewer even on those devices where the implementation is good. A better approach for Nokia would be to improve and enrich their phones’ Exchange support to improve email folder access and group calendaring. Perhaps, Office on Nokia is destined for a different class of device — a netbook — if so, Nokia must take care to avoid irrelevance.
Nokia must quickly revive its execution in core business areas such as high end Internet phones. Those devices may be small beer today, relatively, but they are tomorrow’s mid range phones, and next months’ entry level. If Nokia loses that high end Internet phone battle today it cedes its future.
Maemo should be a critical part of Nokia’s Internet phone strategy. It should be the device and software component of Nokia’s shift to Internet thinking and business models. And, given the pressure from rivals — Google & Android, Apple iPhone, Palm’s Pre, even Windows Mobile — the sooner Nokia brings new mobile phones to market that deliver a step change improvement in people’s experience of Nokia phones, the better.
Forrester clients will know I’ve analysed Maemo’s rise several times over the past couple of years — please get in touch for advice — most noticeably in these two reports:
“The N810’s importance is vastly greater than the niche, savvy, youth audience, to which it will appeal or that small sales of previous tablets indicate. With the Internet tablet range, Nokia is incubating both desktop-quality technologies, and a new business model that is independent of the constraints of the traditional mobile value chain.” Nokia Embraces the Whole Internet with the N810, November 2007.
“The Maemo-based tablets are a strategic play by Nokia. They are one of the most visible MIDs currently available. As Forrester advises, they deliver a strong communication and navigation application focus. With the extension of the platform to include cellular radio standards, future models threaten to replace high-end Internet-centric mobile phones.” Nokia to Evolve the Internet Tablet Range to Include Mobile Telephony, December 2008.
Orange are promoting social networking and Internet access on pre pay so-called ‘featurephones’ (see photo on the right). Consumers care about what their phones can do not what artificial term the mobile industry chooses. No one can define the term ’smartphone’ unambigously and no one defines ’smartphone’ the same as anyone else. It’s meaningless.
