Nokia, Prepare for War?
I normally don’t just link you to someone else’s article without adding enough of my own thoughts. However, I’ve just finished reading and rereading and then rerereading Michael Mace’s fascinating article on the war that is about to ensue between Nokia and Apple, and quite frankly, I don’t have anything to add.
Here’s the link. He starts off with a perfect quote from an ancient proverb: When two elephants fight, the loser is the jungle.
Basically, Michael takes a very outsider-looking in glance at the mobile industry by studying the two gorillas in the ring - Nokia and Apple - without taking sides at all. Please be warned, you should NOT, I repeat NOT simply breeze through this. I’ve read it several times now and all I can say is, I’m PUMPED to see what goes down.
I love my Nokia, that’s common knowledge. However, (and this was going to be an entire post, but now it’s not) with the iPhone price plummeting, and the vast number of apps that are now apparently available (I ain’t talkin web apps here), I’m awfully tempted. Nokia’s going to have to step it up in several key places to really remain a contender.
Personally, I think they’re ready for it. They’ve obviously been working on the Music Store, accompanying desktop app, Ngage, and Ovi for a LONG while now, and I’m confident, but slightly skeptical. It’ll be incredibly interesting, to say the least.
Read through Michael’s article and see what you think.
Wow, that was a great read. Thanks for the link!
Since the iPhone price cut, I’ve been batting around the idea of buying one. I’ve been a Symbian/Nokia user for years, but there are a few things that never seem to change (e.g. Contacts app) and I thought I might see if I liked the iPhone’s setup more. I wouldn’t feel bad about spending as little as $300 to test it out.
In the end, I decided to stick with my trusty E61 for a little while longer. Honestly, I think we’ll see more significant changes in the iPhone before we see more significant changes in Nokia phones (if only because there is more to change in the iPhone, due to its relative infancy). If the few things keeping me from buying an iPhone now are addressed in a 2.0 version, I’ll definitely buy one. Conversely, if somehow Nokia releases a sort of E series/N series hybrid, I’d probably buy that too. Honestly, I imagine the former is more likely to happen sooner.
As far as the music store thing goes, Nokia better do something that separates itself from the iTunes store. It will be difficult for them to go head on with something as well established as the iTunes Store (I know I’m coming at this with a very U.S.-centric slant). I don’t think N-Gage games are enough. I can’t imagine an N-Gage capable phone replacing my DS anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong, N-Gage is cool, but I wouldn’t pay extra for that novelty (N81) and I don’ think I’d care to use it on a normal phone’s button layout (every other phone). I could be wrong…
We’ll soon see….should be an interesting ride!
One of the best articles I’ve ever read on this particular topic. The TIME article he linked to at the end of his post was excellent as well. These are definitely exciting times -
What an insightful commentary, and well written too. Thanks for sharing it here.
I agree with all of the above, exciting and interesting times ahead. Change is happening so fast these days that Apple’s price slashing even has some industry experts perplexed.
Fact is they got quite a few key ingredients:
1)Feature packed phones (the most advanced around)
2)Services Galore
3)Online gaming
4)Music
All they need now is the sexy/sleekness that they so muched needed. Now that might easy, but for Nokia strangely it’s not. For a long time their philosophy has been beyond strict looking phones. To go sexy they’ll need to do their homework. 2008/2009 are going to be interesting to see how this works out.
Absolutely great article. Reading it for the 3th time already =)
Nokia=domination!