Nokia-soft
I started writing this in late February / early March of this year. An unexpected, career-related eight-month long break from writing followed. In the interim, I tweeted on all things sundry. Parts of this post are therefore anachronistic, and IMO, amusing.
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Some time ago, I asked people on Twitter what my next post should be about. The message was clear: people wanted to know how I think the Microsoft-Nokia stratagem will play out in the long term. Here are my thoughts on the subject.
Let’s go through the history as quickly as we can to build context. Back in 2003 when Microsoft launched its Windows Mobile platform, Nokia and the Symbian coalition it had founded was Microsoft’s primary competitor. Over the years, Microsoft made major strides against Nokia by bagging Motorola, Sony & Samsung (all three were part of the Symbian coalition) into its mobile OEM fold. It even managed to get Palm to make Treos with Windows Mobile. Then RIM came along and messed both Microsoft & Nokia up around 2005. That’s when Exchange support appeared on S60 devices. The iPhone changed the game in 2007 of course, and old enemies across the industry became strange new bedfellows. Office was about to follow on to Symbian then too. Finally, both Microsoft and Nokia went through resets. To Microsoft’s credit they managed to do that faster, and having other profitable assets helped.
The deal itself happened for 3 reasons for Nokia:
1. Nokia made a deal with the other old devil: Intel. That was a failure waiting to happen. Maemo might have survived at Nokia, but MeeGo was DOA.
2. webOS went to HP instead of Nokia. (or HTC. Also, Amazon did not bid)
3. Elop.
Microsoft’s trio of reasons were as follows:
1. Microsoft had zero exclusive WP7 OEMs, unlike Android.
2. webOS went to HP instead of Nokia.
3. Elop.
As you can see, the migration of Elop & webOS combined together to create Nokia-soft. I don’t like it per se, because it means the lines in the industry are blurrier than ever. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, the natural thing would have been to have the 5 mobile ecosystems in the market in the long term, like so: Apple+iOS, OEMs+Android, RIM+QNX, OEMs+WP7, Nokia+webOS (with OS X & Windows on PCs). Instead we’ll end up with: iOS, Android & Windows as the three ecosystems across the board within 5 years. RIM is on deathwatch and webOS has already failed, imo. It doesn’t matter which OEM is supporting what after that.
Now, focusing more specifically on Nokia-soft (until Win9 rolls along and Elop has to deal with Sinofsky), I feel a diagram summizes my understanding of the relationship best:
What might the outcome be in 10 years? The MS nerd might not be around for that. In this crazy industry many of the current major players might have gone bust too, by then. Yet in an ideal (and impossible) situation we might see:
1. Nokia and Microsoft form a “Nexus” device relationship on mobile. (Microsoft + HP-PC do the same for non-mobile. Microsoft + Samsung collaborate on all 3 screens).
2. Skype becomes a global multi-mode communications service integrated with the Facebook graph.
3. Microsoft + Nokia disrupt healthcare IT and robotics.
4. Bing/Navteq and Xbox/Nokia<media> never manage to break Google and Apple’s respective hold on search/maps and media delivery, but continue to provide decent alternatives.
This is all assuming that Microsoft does not implode. (and Mossberg retires)
