Well, more blood in the water as Nokia’s last best chance to compete with Apple’s iPhone gets the ax. Nokia, in an uncharacteristic public wringing of the hands, has admitted defeat in the smartphone market as Apple and Google have battered Nokia into a declining market position.
The CEO of Nokia likened their situation as being like a man on a burning oil platform: do you jump into the cold raging sea or wait to be burned to death? Presumably, the dramatic image is likened to the choices of going forward with the troubled proprietary OS dubbed MeeGo, based upon a variation of Linux and being burned to a crisp by Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android or jumping into the sea by dropping development of their own smartphone OS and going Android or even, ouch … Windows Mobile 7?!
Long the industry leader, Nokia was caught flatfooted as Apple taught the world what a modern touch screen smartphone had to be. Nokia, RIM and others haven’t had a chance to catch their breath as Apple out innovated them at every turn. Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop, knows that while Apple sells around 5% of the world’s phones, they suck half the world’s profits up. This leaves former heavyweights like Nokia with the table scraps. Selling dumb phones is a declining market, and Nokia knows they dropped the ball.
Expect the continued decline of Nokia, RIM and others as Apple surges. I also predict that the Android surge is over as Apple sells the iPhone through every carrier and directly as well. The market forces that have been driving Android are about to end as iPhone availability everywhere dries up the “I really want an iPhone, but I will accept an Android since it is unavailable on this network” mantra dies. Then the Apple lawsuits filed against every Android handset maker will also kill the platform.
Mr. Elop, welcome to an Apple world in the cell phone industry.
That’s another Greg’s bite for today.
(Greg Mills is currently a graphic and Faux Wall Artist in Kansas City. Formerly a new product R&D man for the paint sundry market, he holds 11 US patents. Greg is an Extra Class Ham Radio Operator, AB6SF, iOS developer and web site designer. He’s also working on a solar energy startup using a patent pending process of turning waste dual pane glass window units into thermal solar panels used to heat water see: CottageIndustySolar.com (http://www.cottageindustrysolar.com/solar/Home.html). Married, with one daughter, Greg writes for intellectual property web sites and on Mac/Tech related issues. See Greg’s art web site athttp://www.gregmills.com/ . He can be emailed at gregmills@mac.com)
