Coming from an old Symbian user, then a Maemo 5 user, hearing about the change of strategy took me by surprise as did many. Nokia had adapted Windows Phone, phasing out Symbian, and Maemo/Meego would be a small group for ‘future disruption’. The word had ended!

Hit the read link to see my take.

The press reacted, Nokia stocks plummeted, angry fans voiced, well, their anger, and Elop was the man of the hour throughout MWC.  Nokia was back in the news, not for plummeting profits, or Android nipping at Symbian’s heels or an American blog returning a review unit, or some delay. They were in the news because they had announced a very bold strategy shift, gaining and losing fans, but in the end it got attention from all sides. The US technology blogs, who hardly showed any love, gave attention. Other news agencies reported Nokia centric news, not for a lack of devices during MWC but the potential future of the partnership between 2 elephants in the room.

Unlike the many times shifts have previously occurred, CEO Stephen Elop appeared to actually want to communicate what the strategy shift meant, for all stakeholders. Answering questions, doing many interviews, it was the case that this CEO was transparent enough and ‘cared’ enough to want to get the strategy across to all. This has not always been the case with past Nokia executives. Nokia needs a CEO that communicates, is transparent, and is not disconnected or simply pretends that Nokia in untouchable, or deny that they were caught unaware by the mobile ‘revolution’ taking place.

Elop accepts what happened has happened. That was the world he entered into, accepted, and strategized a solution. Symbian was losing dominance, the architecture of Symbian meant it could not evolve at the pace competitors could. Meego, while seen as a savior and the future, would have taken far too long. What must be noted here is that releasing a device with a beautiful UI is not enough. There needs to be applications, eBooks, mapping, cloud services, and a whole host of other parts of the ecosystem that would allow Nokia to compete against other ecosystems. Nokia was lacking and various missteps in the past, for instance with Ovi Share, Ovi music (yes it did well in some countries but overall not too well), Ovi files, display their lack of execution. Creating an ecosystem for Meego would take precious time, which coupled with Symbian losing its dominance, meant that Nokia as a whole would be digging themselves deeper into ground. In addition, in the lower end they were being attacked by Chinese competitors where they were also losing dominance.

Elop went ahead and surveyed options based on the assets Nokia had (imaging, hardware, maps) and the best option, where they were not just a hardware vendor, but a partner was WP. This was a partnership that allowed them to leverage and differentiate themselves, while generating revenue from advertisements and other areas.

In other words, Nokia put their assets to their best use while playing to their strengths, while they give away most of the software expense to a company known for its software expertise (in more cases than not for all you naysayers). Being just an OEM was never an option, and the loss of jobs would be far greater than with the older strategy, had they either continued it would likely result in losing market share and profits. This would have been impacted further had they chosen Android.

I believe, and only time will tell, that Nokia made the right decision given the options here. Meego was always meant to be ‘awesome’ and ship when ready. Having a small group of people working on Meego is a good thing, with a sizeable budget and relative freedom; it means that Nokia is looking to mark the next step in the mobile industry. Windows Phone can take things ahead now, but before looking for the next disruption, let us see if Nokia can get thing right ‘in-house’ in the immediate future.

Stay tuned for my comments of using Windows Phone 7 for the past 2 weeks or so coming from an N900 and Symbian.

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