Nokia says that BlackBerry isn’t their enemy
By Stefan Constantinescu on Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 9:26 PM PST In Financial/Corporate News
The target for Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s 2007 business mobility strategy isn’t the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) — it’s the millions of inboxes and corporate foot soldiers ignored by the push e-mail revolution.Think of it as bringing business mobility to the working masses, suggests Mathia Nalappan, Nokia Asia Pacific vice president for Enterprise Solutions.
Speaking at the company’s Showcase Nokia 2007 event in Bangkok recently, Nalappan told ZDNet Australia that his goal was to transform “mobile e-mail into SMS for the enterpriseâ€.
“When you look at the enterprise e-mail space today, most deployment is at the C-level and middle managers, the busy mobile executives. But they represent less than 2 percent of the total number of e-mail inboxes. The rest belong to less mobile mid-level managers and the masses below them, so there’s still 98 percent of the market that is wide open to us.â€
Nalappan said that while Nokia’s E61 phone had helped snare existing BlackBerry customers, “as it’s not only a BlackBerry-type of device but it runs BlackBerry Connect softwareâ€, the company’s strategy was to chase “mass adoption in the enterpriseâ€. This means unlocking those 98 percent of e-mail inboxes that belong to users which Nokia describes as "skimmers".
“These are people who just want to read e-mails and then take action,†Nalappan explained. “They are mostly read-only users who are occasionally connected and using lower-end devices. They’re the low-hanging fruit. But from a productivity viewpoint, this market is the key to expanding business mobility beyond the corner office.â€
Yet the sheer size of this user base is considered one of the main barriers to putting expensive devices such as a BlackBerry on every hip or in every pocket.
Nokia’s hope is to capture that market with a deft pincer movement comprising of the Intellisync Mobile Suite 8.0 "mobileware" platform and new handsets including a modest "fleet" phone for the masses.
Source: ZD Net
The only problem I have with BlackBerry’s are their choice of fonts. I feel like I’m sitting in front of a computer terminal from 1988. Font rendering is very important, it’s one of the first things I notice on any device I pick up.
Why am I talking about fonts when this article is about enterprise deployment? Because I know nothing about enterprise deployment 
How would a read-only user really require a “lower end” device? The only thing I could think of is not requiring a full keyboard.
A “modest fleet phone for the masses”? Um, older model RIM devices are available almost for 0$ at most providers last time I checked. I’m betting this “deft pincer movement” is going to be with crippled phones.
Here’s a better way to put “read-only” email out there for the masses. Offer either the RIM or Nokia push client for existing phones at a fee and require these phones to have a software license at the server. What’s the point of having a huge hardware install base if you can’t leverage it for more revenue and making a strategic move against your opponent?
I’m convinced that some mobile phone company is going to wake up and continue the relationship after the phone is sold.
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“These are people who just want to read e-mails and then take action,†Nalappan explained. “They are mostly read-only users who are occasionally connected and using lower-end devices. They’re the low-hanging fruit. But from a productivity viewpoint, this market is the key to expanding business mobility beyond the corner office.â€
…
Nokia’s hope is to capture that market with a deft pincer movement comprising of the Intellisync Mobile Suite 8.0 “mobileware” platform and new handsets including a modest “fleet” phone for the masses.