Can Nokia be a good Internet company?
All the buzz of MobileMe disaster of Apple, somehow reminded me Nokia willing to be an Internet company (or should I say trying?) As a respected Hardware and Software company (they still do great), do you think Nokia can make a good Internet company? Or would it be a too big piece to chew?
It’s not hard to see that Apple’s failure has much to do with a wrong strategy (i.e launching the service toghether with iPhone 3G). However, also shows that, brand, money, blindly attached fans are not enough to succeed on Internet, and even Americans can fail in that arena. I am sure that they will take their lesson and somehow will succeed to compensate. But how about Nokia? Finland is too far from US, not only in miles, but also in mentality, speed, approach etc. As a company, who hasn’t had any luck (or chance) in U.S market, will they be able to steal the heart of US consumers? If it’s true that Internet business goes through U.S, what kind of chance do they have?
I will not bring up statements. I haven’t thought deep on that, therefore at the moment this is just a question. I would like to learn how you think about Nokia brand together with Internet and take my thoughts deeper.
August 6th, 2008 at 3:52
Hi Ugur,
I think Nokia has their work cut out for them. They definitely have the luxury of deep pockets and top notch research to help them but we all know it takes more than that.
In large companies like Nokia there is always redundancy, even politics and competing entities inside the firm. Right now though it’s pretty clear that the right-hand doesn’t always know what the left hand is doing. Think of the multiple login’s required for their ever growing array of software services (Mosh, SportsTracker, N-Gage, Ovi). Compare that with Yahoo or Google’s single login for all services. And what about Widsets and WRT, a little similair aren’t they? I know there is greater strategy in place that is slowly coming into play but it’s a little disenfranchising getting there from a user standpoint.
Nokia embraced the future earlier than other pre-iPhone companies by declaring itself an internet company. Of course Apple did the internet software part first and the hardware second. You could argue which way is backwards but I don’t think it’s the Apple way. Let’s hope Nokia can close the gap before another disrupting company comes along and takes a bite out of their bottom line.
August 6th, 2008 at 18:09
Hi Rob,
I definitely agree that they have all the financials of the world and top talent people. As you say, these are not (always) enough to catch success. I am highly aware, Nokia is a huge (I mean huge!) corporation, which causes redundancy, huge bureaucracy and snail slow reaction time. These might not be fatal in mobile business (if you have 40% market share), but for an Internet company.. I just can not imagine how Nokia could make a Internet company with todays perspective..