By silicon.com, 14 June 2004 14:25
Must a market leader innovate? It's a big question. When this publication asks almost any top-dog vendor, the answer is invariably an emphatic 'yes'. Ask their rivals and many a pundit and they'll have another view.
Companies such as Dell and Microsoft have a reputation for letting others make the technological mistakes - though this is slightly misguided in the case of Microsoft, which now boasts a mammoth $10bn annual R&D spend and has, some might more unkindly say, made plenty of mistakes of its own over the years, alongside its successes.
In mobile, it's arguable the situation is different. For much of the 1990s Nokia built a reputation as the mobile phone brand. This extended from low-end consumers (kids watching their pennies with text messaging) all the way through corporate IT departments and up to the boardroom (executives watching their fingers with text messaging).
Now there are new kids on the block, stealing market share mainly through innovation. Players such as Samsung and LG Electronics from Korea have made an impact, as have an increasingly revitalised Motorola and the Sony-Ericsson dream team.
At a big conference in Helsinki today - harping back to a workmanlike past - Nokia was asked about its future; whether it could continue to lead, whether it could command its desired 40 per cent market share.
A strange irony was at play. It is through embracing rather than ignoring the clamshell form factor that the company hopes to win back much of the mid-market. Its infrastructure and other businesses have been doing OK but it is in mobile phones where it lives or dies - and the last couple of years have seen uncharacteristic complacency.
So, for example, Nokia's swivel-design 6260 phone not only looks good but also ships with a VPN client and uses Series 60 on top of the Symbian OS. In other words, it addresses the style-conscious and serious business user.
Other handsets include an entry-level clamshell design, a 3G model and other smart phones that should prove popular. Initial impressions on handling them are good.
But the other half of the irony, of course, is that when Nokia has pushed the boat out, it has usually found the targeted market as cold as Helsinki's surrounding waters. Sales of the N-Gage game deck have so far been disappointing and the 7700, a stylus input multimedia tablet (of sorts), is now merely a prototype for products that may appear next year. The company continues to spend on R&D, though, with 3.7bn going into development in 2003.
The jury is out on the flip-open, Qwerty-keyboard 6810 and other initiatives but it looks like the company won't be afraid to bin more ideas as well as, in the words of one executive, "copy with pride" when necessary.
So to answer the original question: Nokia must be able to listen to end users and learn from competitors, to get things right and not cede more of its core market. But it also cannot hope to maintain its pre-eminent position by playing catch up 18 months after others have led the way.
That's the tricky problem it faces and one that will determine just how much the company's products are seen in your working environment and home.
Comments
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1. Robert Lewis
It's time the mobile phone market moved away from fashion accessory loadsa games, tunes and other junk, to a really useful functional comms device.
1. Forget the telephone handset pretending its a multi function cokmputer/ camera/ music box, with an optional bluetooth earpiece/ micorphone, and infrared communicating with an organiser which tihinks its a communciations device.
2. I want a four box wire free basic system that I can use as orgnaiser, computer and telephone and internet/comms devicve. I don't want to take anything out of my pocket unless I want to look at it, or press buttons on it that I can't press when it is in my pocket.
Box 1: let call it a CPU plus data storage which never comes out of my pocket except when I need to actually look at it. (Which is when I haven't got Box 2, below) So it has a small screen (palm pilot sized)and stylus input(palm pilot script) with multiformat slot for removable data cards. Size/ weight of current organaiser devices. Speech recognition software, so I can do without a keyboard, and sound so that I can listen to it when I don't need to look at it.
Box 2)stand alone pocketable screen with standard wire free interface to Box 1. Preferably flat, foldable, and waterproof (coffe resistant will do) - or any other screen that happens to be available - maybe via a PC/ laptop. Big enough for worthwhile internet/ email work. Who wants to read their emails word by word by word ...
Box 3: pocketable data entry device - strandard wirefree interface including - stylus tablet, qwerty or other keyboard, foldable keyboard - , any available PC sized keyboard. Prsonally I would prefer a 'microwriter' type keyboard. (Relies on pressing combinations of 4 finger keys and 2 thumb keys in spcecific combinations without actually moving fingers away from the keys - small, fast, accurate and you can do it easily without looking away from whatever/ whoever you are are doing at the time.Brilliant idea, but never marketed properly. Probably out of time on its patent.)
Box 4; mircophone/ earpiece with standard wirefree audio interface to Box 1. But alternatively use variety bof self powered mocrophones, amplifying speakers, digital amplifier - whatever. (And the CPU should have voice recognition for all functions - including data entry in case I don't want to use the keyboard)
plus Box 1 CPU to have standard wirefree I/O interface to any other self powered date storage/ processing device/ writing device - pc upload/ download, 'hard disk', cd/dvd/mini-disc reader writer, digital lense/camera etc.
Wirefree comms doesn't need great range - bluetooth range is about right - but must not be blocked by body/ clothing/ metallic objects in pockets/ briefcase etc.
2. Knut H. Flottorp
First, Robert, your comment made more sense than the article: Everyone wants functionality for their money and cares less about clamshell design.
What people also care about is quality. Nokia forgot this - and sales nosedived. As proper journalists you could have verified with the sales channels - e.g. the UK mobile operators about their fault statistics on various handsets - because there is no agreements with the vendors to disclose these figures.
However, Nokia has spent a lot of research funding into making telephones that last for 3 years. What you find is that some lasts for 3 months, other break at 7 and very few last 6 years - the memory degrades.
As to the functional phone, we have a prototype ready, based on Linux - with a 5" touch screen, BlueTooth and WLAN/and new successor to WLAN. It was simple to design and need not cost a fortune.
But I need more requests like your posting.
(Linux is used because that provides access to the "phone part")
BTW.: Windows cannot be used, because Microsoft use protocols that are not documented, are not part of TCP/UDP on IP. The mobile operators works as "routers", and will not route these packets. However, they will be charged for - which the subscribers will not appreciate. the packets are of the kind "I am Alive" - "Where is a Printer", "Is a new disk mounted somewhere". In a LAN this is relevant. To a mobile, this is nonsense.