Nokia's Smart Move

 Following the announcement of the Nokia - Microsoft alliance, Fiona looks at what makes a technology company successful in a competitive marketplace...

On January 15^th Nokia announced it was closing its factory in Bochum, Germany. The announcement was closely followed by a leaked “burning platform” memo which depicted a grim picture of long term business prospects for Nokia. The memo was a wakeup call to suggest Nokia was about to reinvent its approach to current technologies. It was no surprise then when the statement came that Microsoft and Nokia were to form a strategic alliance, with Nokia replacing their existing Symbian phone platform with Windows Phone 7 platform. But the burning question is whether this is too little, too late to recapture the market share of smartphones, which has been lost to a new generation of technology pioneered by the Apple iPhone, Rims Blackberry and Google’s Android platform.

The smartphone market is complex and challenging predominantly because we are in unchartered waters, the rules have not yet been established…in fact there are no rules. Google understood and embraced this with the “android market” an online store where apps are downloaded. Developers writing in Java are able to utilise Java libraries created by Google. However, Google went further than this and published the Android code through an Apache license. Within one and a half years Android had captured a third of the smartphone market share.

Apple also understood that to be ahead in the smartphone market it wasn’t necessary to break the rules but to think beyond the rules completely, which it did with the introduction of the iPhone. The iPhone became a complete solution for moving data around so easily in some cases it was preferable to a laptop. The iPhone permitted unique levels of communication and internet access. All this whilst being portable enough to fit in your pocket and look appealing and chic to potential users. Just as the iPod revolutionised the way we listen to music, the iPhone changed the way we entertain ourselves. 

Here in the Objektum office we understand the importance of developing new ideas. By encouraging an energetic and vibrant workplace we are able to produce innovative software design solutions to keep ahead of the game. Most recently, we have produced the Lecacy Bridge which has the capacity to transform and modernise the traditional and arduous methods of code generation. 

 

The question remains will Nokia and Microsoft be able to clasp this level of creative and dynamic thinking. Or is it in fact a culture of rigid, conventional thought which has allowed the two companies to merge together successfully? Whatever the outcome the smartphone world just got interesting.