

How Nokia got bamboozled by Hollywood - dalton
http://daltoncaldwell.com/nokia-hollywood-bamboozled

======
aik
Few points:

1\. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say Nokia is dead (if even
as a stand-alone company). They have several great things going for them
today, it's just hard to see if you're not looking beyond the current quarter
or two (which I've found is a common symptom of blindness).

2\. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say they flushed every piece
of software they have ever built down the toilet. Firstly, they're still
releasing non-WP phones. Secondly, a lot of their skills are in innovating
within hardware, which they're very much still doing great stuff with.

3\. The takeaway from the article is that if you are a tech company, you
shouldn't become a media company (or get into media). Firstly, wouldn't Apple,
Google, and Microsoft have never entered the media industry if they would've
followed this? Secondly, this takeaway is a great example of the innovators
dilemma [1]. The two opposing strategies could just as well lead to failure --
a. Following this "takeaway" advice and being too afraid to join new "value
markets" (e.g. innovating within media), and so you just keep on running with
what works [3a]; and b. Not following this takeaway advice because you realize
you can't stay on top forever with your current strategy, and so you make an
attempt to enter new disruptive markets even if it means cannibalizing
yourself [3b].

[3a] I think this blanket advice has problems -- media may have been a good
thing to get into because the media integration could have caused (or did?) a
major disruption in the existing market (I believe this was Nokia's belief and
a cause for why they did what they did). Thus not trying new things like this
could cause failure as well, as new players enter the market and take their
marketshare (e.g. Apple with music and media at its core).

[3b] Though Nokia failed at it.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-
Revolutionary-B...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-
Revolutionary-
Business/dp/0062060244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340596253&sr=8-1&keywords=innovators+dilemma)

~~~
duskwuff
> _2\. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say they flushed every
> piece of software they have ever built down the toilet. Firstly, they're
> still releasing non-WP phones. Secondly, a lot of their skills are in
> innovating within hardware, which they're very much still doing great stuff
> with._

Ehh... While Nokia does still have a significant number of non-WP phones, most
of them are "feature phones" (non-smartphones). With the price differential of
smartphones plummeting at its current rate, even as the phones become more
powerful, I strongly suspect that the "feature phone" market is going to
largely evaporate outside developing nations within the next few years.

(The remainder of Nokia's phones are running Symbian OS, which is widely
regarded to be an evolutionary dead end. Nokia, unaccountably, still has some
phones in the pipeline which will use Symbian, but I doubt there will be many
more, nor that they will be very popular.)

As far as hardware innovation goes, as long as Nokia sticks with Windows
they're going to be pretty limited in that respect. My understanding is that
Microsoft has some pretty strict hardware guidelines for WP7+ devices.

~~~
aik
I agree most of the non-WP phones are feature phones (though the Aisha line is
on the border from my understanding), and that feature phones are going to
evaporate outside developing nations, however the "developing nations market"
is still very large and potentially very lucrative.

------
protomyth
Nokia also didn't get the whole movie tie-in thing. The version of the Nokia
8110 featured in The Matrix didn't exist as a purchasable product. This
defeats the purpose of product placement.

~~~
gcb
I had that phone to develop content for it. Ah, wap and page deck days... or
something.

It was fricking cool. The same phone as neo. With a feature that they left out
of the final cut in the film. ...Aim lower end of phone at someone a few feet
away, press button, laugh as target takes a piece of plastic to the face.

That started to happen a few months after we got the phone. So it's pretty
obvious why it never 'existed' as a consumer product.

~~~
protomyth
They did later release the Nokia 7110 which had the spring-loaded cover, so I
guess they got it to work. The phone in the second movie is not even a Nokia,
it is a Samsung SPH-N270. Samsung sold it as a limited edition.

------
wmf
Content is Not King, version N.

[http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/ar...](http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/833/742)

~~~
dredmorbius
Odlyzko is among the few true geniuses of the Internet era. Calls the Emperor
has no clothes and backs it up with solid reasoning and hard data.

------
GFischer
My Nokia N86 came with The Matrix trilogy (on a propietary, DRM format). I
really didn't "get" it (though they did show off the screen nicely).

Other phones came with popular bands.

After reading this article, I understand why they did.

------
damian2000
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't nokia still the biggest seller of mobile
phones worldwide, by number of units shipped? not smartphones sure, but just
general mobile phones.

~~~
sohamsankaran
Not anymore. Samsung claims that position now.
[http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-knocks-nokia-from-global-
ph...](http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-knocks-nokia-from-global-phone-top-
spot-27224993/)

------
SeoxyS
In other news, "bamboozle" is a word. Wow.

