Running On Fumes

Despite reporting an operating loss of over 1 billion dollars, Nokia managed to pull off a feat to mollify the investors - 1 million Lumia Windows Phone device sales. That’s actually quite a respectable result considering the device has yet to make a showing in markets such as North America and Australia.

But aside from that, Nokia’s future doesn’t appear to be looking any brighter than it was a year ago, in fact maybe it’s even a little bleaker. What Nokia use to have in the market was exclusivity and scale. The tandem of those two factors ultimately led to Nokia’s commanding success. 

Nokia has neither of these two factors today, aside from the exclusivity of being a 100% committed Windows Phone partner, but really that’s only working for Microsoft. The N9 running Meego Harmattan was certainly an exclusive, but with the promised commitment to run full steam with Windows Phone, Meego Harmattan’s potential may never be realised, or at most, a peripheral pursuit. 

Of course, it’s not like Meego Harmattan had a big chance anyway.

And scale, is something Nokia simply can’t obtain given the R&D required to build any good smartphone, especially if you’re Nokia and really trying to deliver with a bang. Nokia’s now signature polycarbonate shell in the N9 and Lumia 800, 900 models is a feat of engineering that simply couldn’t have been achieved if the company had floored it and delivered a tsunami of Windows Phones in generic form factors and hardware variations. 

The only segment where any economy of scale is possible, is in feature phones, once Nokia’s money-reeling gem but now declining precipitously in developed markets. Of course, there’s still money to be made there, and with most cellphone vendors relaying their focus to encompass smartphones 100%, Nokia is really in a position to take full control of the feature phone market. But there’s a reason why the world and the industry is stepping with both feet into the smartphone pool, it’s because not doing so would be committing to a world that will cease to exist in a very short time.

For Nokia, it’s even more crucial than this. As a company undergoing a brand image overhaul, investing excessively into feature phones would do nothing but hamper Nokia’s planned course to become viewed as a forward thinking company. Consumers can’t think of Nokia and see number keypads anymore.

Aside from the fact that Nokia no longer has significant leverage in the development chain to pump their business anymore, there’s also the issue of getting consumers to sign a contract to their phones which run on a platform that hasn’t gained the amount of traction that the company probably thought it would. Aside from getting the nod from reviewers, consumers are yet to see the great value proposition in Windows Phone.

Sure, 1 million sales exhibits promise, but it’s early days. The company has most likely skimmed the piece of market that gravitated towards Nokia in the first place, but from now on, it’s war and Nokia needs to pose some real fight - not only to lure consumers away from the eminent iOS and Android, but also to funnel them away from the other Windows Phone vendors in HTC, LG and Samsung among others.

The latter, an easy task that the company should win, but the former being a spectacularly tall order.

It stands to beg the question of why Nokia didn’t pursue the Android paved path in the first place. I can imagine it being an appealing option, Nokia’s acclaimed hardware quality and design paired with an OS that has solidified its position in the marketplace. It’s always nice to be on a winning team. But Nokia took a risk with Windows Phone, as a consumer I applaud the path they’ve taken, and from Nokia’s vantage, I would’ve done the exact same thing. 

Success in Windows Phone will yield a significantly greater reward that would be irksome to supplant, whereas success with Android would simply be providing another option, as opposed to a different option. 

It’s an uphill climb from here, and by sucking dry their loyal customer base in the first million sales, Nokia is essentially running on fumes. But since when is business not an uphill battle?  Build beautiful things, make sure people know about it and you can’t really go wrong. 

Also on A Pony For President

Categorising Samsung's Galaxy Note

No doubt, one of the most talked about unveilings at IFA is the Galaxy Note. A 5.3 inch Android 'device'. Categorising this device into smartphone or tablet is becoming an interesting dilemma - too big to be a mainstream smartphone, too small to be a tablet, and too advanced to fit into the PDA crowd. Hear me out as I provide my insights into what Samsung's Galaxy Note really is and what it means to us.

This year, I believe that the world of consumer technology has created and embraced what I see as the three musketeers of our computing lifestyles - PC, tablet and smartphone. All these devices augment the experiences of each other, and thus far none are capable of fully replacing one another. I couldn't possibly replace my phone with a tablet, and my tablet is simply not powerful enough nor practical enough to replace this laptop I'm typing on at this very moment. I think that one of the main things that holds back any of these devices from convergence or replacement of each other, is something that by its very nature simply cannot be fixed - its size. If people could comfortably fit an iPad, or even a Blackberry Playbook into their pockets and hold it to their ears during a phone call, people would very well do away with phones.

Unless you're the highly materialistic type like I who simply loves to bathe in collections of electronic devices, the lesser the number of devices that you have to deal with and manage is better. Hence the popularity of smartphones because they take on the purpose of a multitude of devices. All of this makes the unveiling of Samsung's potentially category pioneering Galaxy Note at IFA in Berlin all the more interesting. Cutting back from the trivial matters of detailed specifications, the Galaxy Note is a 5.3 inch 'device' with an incredible high resolution Super AMOLED display. As you can probably see from the image above of DJ Lee holding the Galaxy Note, the device is larger than Samsung's already large Galaxy S II smartphone but without looking entirely out of proportion. It's hard to believe that what is in his hands is a 5.3 inch display, which is certainly workable for a pocketable mobile workspace.

So, can this Galaxy Note succeed in converging tablet and smartphone for those who want to be burdened by less? It's certainly a compromise. Personally, the pockets of my jeans will only just hold a device of this size with a convincing shove. And then, it's not the greatest feeling (or look) walking around feeling a huge rectangle in my pocket pressing against my leg. On the other end of the spectrum, its size can also be considered to be too small. Even the Blackberry Playbook was criticised by many as being an inch or two below adequacy for a great web experience. Sure, the Note is great for the people who are willing to make the compromise to streamline their own device portfolio, but for the users looking for the best end to end experience, it's not going to happen here.

We can't look at the Galaxy Note and attempt to categorise the product simply based on its size. It comes with a stylus, which has been shunned by Apple but in actuality has some really useful practicalities. We've already seen such a stylus implementation in HTC's 7-inch Flyer tablet. The stylus was used to draw at a level of accuracy that fingers alone do not permit and also to highlight, circle and make notes on the screen at any time. The concept was great because it emulated the way we like to manipulate content in the traditional way of pen and paper and how we often highlight and underline things. The stylus of the Galaxy Note takes this idea and integrates the stylus deeper into the product as such allowing us to use the stylus to navigate the device as well instead of just drawing. From use cases demonstrated in the official promotional video we can really get a sense of the wide-ranging possibilities of the underrated technology of touch-pen input.

Perhaps, Samsung isn't looking at the convergence of the devices, but rather creating something...semi-new. It could be called a tabphone? Meh. Or perhaps a smartlet - that's cute. The point I'm trying to make is that I personally don't see this as a really really big smartphone for really really big people.

As the name suggests, the Galaxy Note is perfect for such use cases like note-taking which is something that is actually abominably hard on touch keyboards. It's funny how we often don't notice these little things that we want until someone shoves it into our faces. That's what Samsung have done here; taking notes on any touch screen keyboard of any size isn't a situation we dream of being in, let alone having to take such notes in speed. The stylus merges the benefits of both traditional handwriting and the digital capabilities of mobile devices - given the Galaxy Note is able to handle accuracy and speed simultaneously, we could have a really capable 'jotting down' PDA-like contraption with unprecedented versatility. The problem with pen and paper is that once you finish writing things down, that's really all you can do with it. For it to be digitised, the convoluted process of scanning must be endured, and even then the simple image file that it becomes is limited in its capabilities. The Galaxy Note can change this simply through its digital nature.

I know you're thinking that a stylus isn't a huge innovation, in fact it's really not an innovation at all as styli are considered by many as previous generation technology for when we didn't have effective capacitive touch displays with big meaty buttons for our big meaty fingers. But the stylus isn't dead and it was never dead, it's just that everyone is simply so engrossed in the smartphone spec war to embrace true innovation and forward thinking.

The Galaxy Note is certainly not for everyone, but for those who are blessed with large hands and don't often wear skinny jeans will probably love the practicalities that this 'little' contraption provides. Living with a tablet for a month (Blackberry Playbook), I can't imagine my life without one, it is honestly the most liberating feeling being able to take almost the whole quota of my digital lifestyle with me everywhere without being weighed down. With Galaxy Note, if one embraces what this device offers I'm sure it will eventually morph into an essential in much the same way.

So is the Samsung Galaxy Note the start of a new trend? The return of the PDA? To be frank, it's niche factor is too large for it to be embraced by other manufacturers. I still stand by my digital trio of smartphone, tablet and PC. The Galaxy Note probably won't be purchased on its merits as a note-taking device or a PDA if you like, but for anyone that has pockets capable of housing 5.3 inches of Super AMOLED goodness and is looking for a smartphone - meet 'smartlet'.