When it comes to writing about Nokia I’m practically a corporate cheerleader, hell I even moved to Helsinki to see if I can join the borg. On the other end of that spectrum there is Andrew Orlowski who seems to enjoy slamming everything Nokia has done recently. In the world of telecom it is absolutely critical to have such polar opposites and I look forward to buying him a round at the Smartphone Show.
Recently he asked the question “Where’s Nokia going?” and even says “Mobile operators will strangle Ovi, just as they strangled Club Nokia, by choosing their handsets from other manufacturers.”
To tell you the truth, I actually think he is right to some degree. Ovi is Nokia’s first step into getting more money from the consumer. It used to be that you purchased a device and that was it, the transaction was over. With Ovi Nokia is creating that ongoing revenue stream post purchase and making operators get their panties in a bunch. It starts with music and games, but what happens when Nokia starts offering ringtones, shows and even movies? I actually think Sony Ericsson will have tremendous growth in 2008 due to Ovi, but to say Ovi will die would be a mistake.
Nokia is going to restructure on January 1, 2008. This current matrix of platforms, enterprise, multimedia, mobile phones, etc. will turn into 3 pillars: Devices, Services and Software and finally Markets. In other words, Nokia is in this for the long haul. Ovi will be in the services and software pillar and they will make it work even if it means loosing a few market share percentage points. If Sony Ericsson tried to pull this off everyone would laugh at them and their single digit slice of the handset market, but you don’t mess with the Finnish giant. Besides, when Club Nokia was around the internet and more importantly data plans looked nothing like they do now.
The latest incarnation of the internet, Web 2.0 if you will, changed how people consumed information and actually enabled them to publish content as well. Nokia is prepared for that.
To be honest it is anyones guess at this moment, neither Andrew nor I are correct, but we sure do enjoying talking smack.