Future Technologies, Products & Services
Tired and beaten as we close out on a Friday
By Charlie on 29 August 2008
ESPOO, Finland – I think I just want to be difficult today and point out some hard-hitting articles that have given me much to think about. There are issues that people bring up and focus on when the true problem is deeper. It’s kinda like folks saying the emperor has no hat, when in actuality he’s buck naked.
So, I’ll be be pointing lower than the hat.
Stuck in neutral
Matthew, on Darla Mack’s site, expresses his disappointment with Share on Ovi. He cites a lack of helper apps, a lack of users, a lack of simplicity, and lack of reasons to use it. Harsh.
Despite this, he received some comments supporting Share on Ovi (though Mr Scruff seems like some Nokia employee to me, he cowardly did not leave a URL or email address or real name – why?).
I don’t want to go into the features of the site. I’ll leave that judgement up to you. What I do want to bring up is that when one designs an online service, one does not know if it will be a hit or not. You do your best, deliver your best, and hope for the best. Consequently, if your company (like Nokia) is getting deeper into delivering online services, you have to expect a few duds or slow starters. Also, when buying companies that have been around for some time, there should be some indication of the future from the track record the company has had.
Share on Ovi used to be Twango and was already a few years old when Nokia bought it. It now has a specific place in the portfolio of services Nokia offers, is charged to provide a particular experience for users, and is slowly getting integrated into the Nokia world. I have seen how Twango became Share on Ovi, with significant changes, and it is hopeful that the momentum will continue. But, in the end, it is users like Matthew who will make or break the service. So, then, what does the future hold for Share on Ovi?
(H)Open for business.
I mentioned earlier how some of the Nokia Flagship stores were getting less than stellar traffic, despite prime locations. Well, another retail concept has someone doubting Nokia’s retail ambitions. Ricky Cadden, the Guru himself, discusses the Nokia Future Vision Showroom. He equates them to the (now-gone) Nokia Experience Centers. His frustration is that they are ‘exploratoriums’ not stores.
The real issue here is ‘what is Nokia’s retail strategy’. And I realize I have no clue (really, never thought of it). I think this calls for some digging and interviewing of the folks behind this.
As Ricky said, the US has been a challenging market for Nokia and touchy-feely vitrines of phones won’t cut it.
What do you think? Can you cite examples as to where Nokia should take its branded retail stores?
Washed up on the Left Coast.
Good news. I can pack up and go home now. Michael Arrington has called Nokia ‘irrelevant’.
Oh, darn, I spoke too soon, as all of the comments on the mocoNews post came to Nokia’s defense.
But that’s not the point. I don’t know if Michael meant it in the absolute ‘Nokia, who?’ sense or in the relative ‘crikey, Nokia, you’re a mess’ sense. But, what I hear is that Nokia isn’t part of the things coming out of Silicon Valley (where so much that has defined our world today has come from). Yeah, it might sound like hubris, but if Nokia is irrelevant in Silicon Valley, then a huge chunk of its influence in the future of the Internet and mobile just might not be there.
How do you read this? And I don’t want this to devolve into a Europe vs. North America thing (and I will step aside, since I’ve been part of this discussion for a very long time).
Going from hard to soft.
With that in mind, I did find some interesting articles on the software Nokia makes for their devices (and go read some of the comments, too).
Krisse on Allaboutsymbian compares the software on all the mobile devices Nokia manufactures in a large overarching review. Richard Bloor on SymbianOne does a litmus test of the platform promise of S60. And coolguy010 muses on how far things have evolved between the Nokia 6600 and the Nokia N95.
That’s a lot of software, a lot of devices, and a lot of platforms. And let’s remember that Nokia has had other platforms and software for mobile devices.
I wonder if relevancy in certain circles is a platform preference rather than usability of a platform. Also, examples abound of poor platforms dominating a market. So, with the three from Nokia, plus the various other ones out there, is relevancy of a single player actually possible? Is it such that at this moment, no one is supremely relevant, but only marginally ahead in mind-share at any one time? Do folks like Michael come back to us and say, “nope, not there yet. Go back and try again!”, egging us on to improve and impress. Could be.
As for me, it’s all up for grabs and things can flip in a blink of an eye. Y’know, the blink when you finally look down and see the emperor is way underdressed for the occasion.
Image from laihiu
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Tags | Nokia, Nokia Experience Center, ovi, Share on Ovi, Twango
August 31st, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Thanks for taking notice of my thoughts, Charlie. As you know, I’m always up for the conversation, should the opportunity arise. I believe the only thing that was good about the Experience Centers was the number of them throughout the country. While I understand that it’s no small potatoes opening up a retail store, specifically one in an area in which you haven’t any brand recognition, I can’t help but notice that, currently, Nokia’s ‘retail presence’ in the U.S. (and I frequent Best Buy, Fry’s, and the like, just to see) consists of two rather ’boutique’ stores in major cities, and the N95 8GB in stock at Best Buy Mobile locations.
Incidentally, the 3 Best Buys that I’ve seen the N95 8GB listed, it’s priced at $750, which is absurd for 2 reasons:
1. You can easily hop onto Amazon and pick it up for at least $100 less, if not more
2. It’s there next to the other phones that top out at ~$300-400 retail, not to mention the mess of contract-subsidized handsets.
In other words, it’s doomed before it’s even stocked.
Where are the N95-3s, or the N78s, or E71s? Nokia now has a total of 8 announced S60-powered smartphones with dual-band 3G (850/1900MHz) support for AT&T’s 3G network, at all ranges of price, and yet the only model listed at the United States’ largest electronics retailer is the one that’s a year old and still the most expensive? That just plain doesn’t make sense.
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September 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
Los Angeles – 13th largest metropolitan area in the world and no Nokia Store. None. No Nokia presence in a region with over 16 million folks, many of them quite wealthy.
Not only do we nice folk in SoCal need a Nokia store where we can go to touch & feel the latest Nokia, but also where we can purchase all the accessories for our current and past Nokia phones. Also, a repair center at the store would be beyond lovely, then I wouldn’t have to do DIY repairs to my N95 with my brother’s solder gun (now, it is fixed and I didn’t have to ship it to Europe for repair).
In the LA metro area the folks at Apple have 17 stores that sell & repair iPhones. There are at least 100 AT&T stores in the same region that sell iPhones. No one is selling Nokia Nseries devices to nearly 20 million folk with incomes that would qualify for the Nseries demographic. And when my N80 bricked during update last year, I could not find a single repair shop in all of the West Coast to help me.
Thus, Nokia Store plus Nokia Repair in one building in a location in SoCal = Win Win.
Really piss off NorCal Mr. Arrington by making SoCal a Nokia hot spot. NorCal folks love to think they are superior to SoCal…
;oD
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September 1st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I’ve visited a Nokia Flagship store maybe twice. I do like the store windows and the campaigns because they show some extra effort. But the reason I don’t go to the store that often is because there’s really nothing much to see. And if you want, you can test all the phones on the market in the bigger home electronics stores and compare the prises.
I know that the Flagship stores are supposed to be places where customers can experience the Nokia phones and stuff. Maybe the problem is that there’s not really a clear picture in the public’s mind of what the experience is. What’s there to experience? The new phone model N-123? The video screens? The sofas?
I think the Nokia stores should try to offer more services, more competitive prises and become more approachable = more reasons for stopping by.
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September 3rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I’m not sure increasing the number of flagship stores is really the best way to increase the mindshare the various Nokia lines have in their respective markets.
Instead, more targeted advertising would likely have greater payoffs in the long run. For instance, I’ve been seeing quite of bit of Nokia product placement lately such as ExpressMusic devices in music videos and the fact the almost every phone related item in the movie Cloverfield was Nokia. But why stop there?
I remember being at a concert a while back sponsored by Helio (a former US phone company). The only way you could tell it was sponsored by them was it said so on the ticket and they had their name projected on the ceiling. Instead, imagine Nokia sponsored the show with their ExpressMusic brand and went further. Possibly an ‘Experience ExpressMusic’ kiosk out in the merchandise area where concertgoers could play with devices before the show starts.
You could do the same thing with E series devices at business conferences to reach out to the suits.
I’d have to imagine that focused advertising has the potential to sell more phones at a lower cost than flagship stores. After all, where Nokia seems to win the most customers in when potential customers fiddle with Nokia devices, so it makes sense to maximize the number of those interactions. Just a thought.
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