What Nokia Got Wrong About Platform Strategy
Arctic Startup · Arctic Startup · 2011 · 10 min read
A widely read platform-strategy essay on Nokia that became one of ArcticStartup's most-read pieces and was picked up by Helsingin Sanomat.
In the eyes of the developers and the startup community, Nokia went from hero to zero in less than 3 years. Despite its still 44% strong market share, the company is losing more and more every day to Apple and Google, both of which had no previous mobile experience. Here is a list of 7 things they can do to win the hearts of app developers and startups again.
No fragmentation
The number one reason why small firms and coders are not investing in the Nokia platforms is because they are uncertain. When you develop an app for iOS or Android, you know it will work on every device in offering, with little or no extra work. This ensures you can reach their vast amount of users, without too much overhead.
In comparison, the N900 runs Maemo, the N8 runs Symbian 3, and future phones should run Meego. There was also the widget platform, Widsets. This is too fragmented. Of course, QT is often touted as an alternative, though it sounds more like a band-aid than a way to leverage the power of a specific platform.
Work with startups
The iPhone has iTunes and the largest app store. Android has the tight integration with its very strong service offering (mail, calendar, maps, latitude, goggles). Nokia phones have no killer apps; neither Ovi, Maps, or Nokia Music have managed to deliver functionality superior to its competitors.
The best way to address this issue would be to work with younger companies that excel at one type of product. There is a vast amount of startups that Nokia could either acquire or make exclusive partnerships with. Yet the company has been rather passive on that front. Nokia phones would be instantly better with exclusive deals with Spotify or Foursquare.
Make a better store
According to Jan Ole Suhr, developer of Gravity, the Ovi store is clunky. This, combined with the lower market share, obviously makes sales more difficult, and lowers the possibility of compulsive purchases that often happen on the Apple app store.
Create evangelists
Nokia needs a face. Sony has Kevin Butler. Apple has Steve Jobs. Microsoft has Ray Ozzie. It appears as if the company has no one who will excite the masses, talk to the crowd and communicate a strong vision.
Apple promises bloggers, designers and hipsters to live in a world of beautiful apps that "just work". Google offers freedom and openness. Nokia offers no strong differentiation. If it wants to excite the masses again, it will need to find a specific message and image that is compelling enough to attract power users and early adopters.
Rebuild trust
With the abandonment of the N97, N900, N-Gage (twice), and Widsets, the Nokia ecosystem feels extremely unsafe. This is a very serious problem for app developers, who will refrain from investing time and money in uncertain platforms.
Be more humble
The company is notorious for being difficult to approach. Earlier this week, when Techcrunch writer Mike Butcher asked to interview Anssi Vanjoki, he received a very cold and corporate treatment repeatedly.
In comparison, Steve Jobs answered emails from Gawker at 2AM. Shouldn't a company with a decreasing market share make more efforts to be approachable? That's exactly what Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz did, with very positive results.
The company has lost a lot of credibility in the tech community by repeatedly bashing the capabilities of the others, which could be recovered with more public presence.
Conclusion
With continuous negative momentum over the past 3 years, and the growing threat of cheaper Chinese feature phones that run on Android's open source platform, Nokia's fragmented proprietary offering feels tired. This could be remedied with more consistency and openness. What's at stake is not only the manufacturer's future, but a sizable chunk of the Finnish economy.