Guest Post

Death of a Ringtone: How Nokia’s smartphone software strategy failed and ultimately killed the brand

In this Christmas special edition we are happy to bring you the guest post by the title “Death of a Ring tone”. The article is authored by Donal O’Connell, Bruce Godfrey and Nick Filler. It is published by Waves Associates Ltd, which provides a Software Evaluation and Valuation service to a range of clients, including start-ups, VC fund managers and other investors, receivers liquidating a company’s assets, companies purchasing, outsourcing or developing software and those involved in mergers and acquisitions.For more information about Waves Associates and the services offered, visit: www.wavesassociates.com

Background

Much has been written about the ups and downs of the cellular / mobile phone industry over the past 25 years, and particularly the smartphone industry in more recent times. There seems to be a rule in this particular sector that the leading companies eventually lose their positions – often quickly and brutally. Mobile phone champion Nokia, one of Europe’s biggest technology success stories, was no exception, losing its market share in the space of just a few years.

In 1999, one in every three phones sold in the world was a Nokia handset and the Nokia brand was the 5th most recognisable brand in the world. Not so long ago, the thirteen note ringtone of a Nokia handset was the de facto soundtrack of the mobile revolution. By 2007, Nokia had achieved a market dominating position with more than 40% of mobile phone sales worldwide. But consumers’ preferences were already shifting toward touch screen smart phones and mobile applications. With the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in the middle of that year, Nokia’s smart phone market share shrank rapidly and revenue plummeted.

On 25th April 2014, Microsoft Corp. announced it had completed its acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business for US$7.2 Billion, and just recently announced plans to stop using the Nokia brand on its handsets altogether. Nokia as a brand has all but disappeared.

The demise of Nokia has mystified and fascinated many, given the tremendous success it enjoyed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, its roots in Finland, and its historical ability to re-invent itself.

So where did it all go wrong for Nokia? In practice, Nokia died from a thousand cuts rather than any one specific mistake, but the software cut was the deepest.

Mobile Phones become Smart phones

The convergence of digital technologies, the emergence of the mobile Internet and advances in technology integration enabled the smartphone era. The biggest issue Nokia faced was that they were a hardware company and not expert in software and software management. Any company switching from hardware to software or vice versa faces major challenges and Nokia was no exception.

Throughout much of Nokia there was a lack of understanding of the significance of software, how to manage it and what appropriate business models to adopt. The company was much more at ease with mobile communications technology and hardware such as electronics and mechanics, but faced major difficulties understanding, appreciating and managing software.

Building a Software Organisation

At the time the smartphone market development started, Nokia’s senior and middle management was populated by people with mobile phone business and mobile hardware backgrounds. Most were very experienced and capable people, but lacked experience of software and Internet based business models or of leading large software development organisations.

The company could have aggressively hired Silicon Valley or software industry experts in the early 2000s to prepare for smartphone and online service development. This may have injected some much needed software and Internet business understanding and strategy. Instead, Nokia chose to look internally for its software strategists and leaders.

At that time, software development process and discipline was lacking in many key teams – with the possible exception of cellular software – and this was impacting product quality and slowing progress in developing a smart phone platform.

“It’s only software” was a common refrain in Nokia, trivialising the problems associated with managing the increasingly complex software technology and architecture. Senior management could easily understand the process and status of mechanical tooling or printed circuit board design, but the same did not apply when it came to software – there was clearly a disconnect between software engineering and management.

Selecting a Software Platform

Tough decisions about which software platforms to support, and which ones to ‘kill’, were made slowly. Nokia tried to support multiple software platforms, variants and releases (Series 30, 40, 60, 90, Maemo, MeeGo) which meant ineffective and inefficient use of valuable resources, as well as fomenting internal rivalries.

Supporting multiple platforms put tremendous pressures on other parts of the company as well, not just the software community. Product Management, Services, Software Procurement, After-Sales Service … all these functions were stretched by the diversity of software options in Nokia’s products.

One could even argue that in Symbian, Nokia made the wrong choice of platform for smartphone development as it was optimised neither for real-time nor touch, requiring a huge effort to correct and leaving Nokia far behind the competition. Symbian, was clunky, complex and not consumer or developer friendly.

By the late 2010’s, with Android joining Apple in the market, the two main smartphone software platforms were Unix/Linux based, although they used different application programming languages. Fuelled by the explosive growth of applications in both Android and Apple ecosystems, development tools quickly emerged that enabled application developers to port their software from one platform to the other. Symbian was not in that club, but perhaps MeeGo could have been?

The MeeGo joint development with Intel promised a new platform which could gain wider developer acceptance and enable Nokia to refresh its smartphone UI, but after only one product launch, MeeGo was dropped in 2011 when the deal with Microsoft was announced.

In the end, for a variety of reasons, Nokia chose Windows Phone. After two years of making Windows Phone products, Nokia had 90% of market share for the platform, but only 10% for the overall smartphone market (by volume, Android now has 75% and Apple 15%). Since then, market share has dropped.

Connecting to Users

Despite all of the resources allocated to customer research, market analysis, business intelligence and consumers, Nokia was late to spotthe key trends in the developing smartphone market, most notably, touch UI and mobile applications.

Even if they were aware of such trends, the company failed to energise itself in those directions until competitors had led the way. Some key figures within Nokia even thought that touch was a novelty feature not to be taken seriously.

The lack of a coherent strategy for software and services,coupled with an overloaded requirements management system not fully integrated with holistic product management, caused a disconnection between consumer needs and delivery teams. Nokia became a follower, not a leader.

Creating an Ecosystem

Nokia struggled to create a viable Symbian ecosystem and monetise it in the way that Apple had done with the iPhone and iTunes. Most available Symbian applications were operator or business oriented, rather than consumer focused. Later releases of Symbian were not backwards compatible with earlier versions, so existing applications required extra effort from developers to port them to the new release. This caused a fragmented ecosystem that was confusing for developers and users alike. With over 1.2 million applications in both Google’s Play store and Apple’s iStore today vs. 300,000 in Microsoft’s Windows Phone store, the gap continues to widen.

Symbian application development support tools were poor and often delivered late, giving developers little time to finalise their applications before the new release was in the market. The acquisition of Trolltech and the introduction of Qt on the Symbian platform didn’t drive application development as hoped. For these reasons, the developer community did not thrive and grow, leaving the door open for Apple and Google.

Symbian also did not attract many licensees, the key ones who actually brought Symbian-based smartphones to market were Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Sharp and Sony-Ericsson – but in all cases the sales volumes were low and Symbian was eventually dropped. Nokia was left standing alone.

Nokia’s naivety in the software business also affected its software procurement function. Software procurement was split between different parts of the organisation with unclear responsibility and accountability. For example, there were two procurement functions responsible for software: direct and indirect. In the early days the responsibilities were clear, but as software technology developed to be functioning both online and on the device the waters were muddied.

Like so many corporate behemoths before them, the Finnish phone giant grew dangerously intoxicated on its success during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Having ridden so high for so long, it is perhaps no surprise that a degree of complacency and arrogance crept in. This led to Nokia believing that it had little to gain by adopting software from outside.

Building a Service Offering

Nokia’s online service strategy faired equally badly. Software services were run by a separate business unit within Nokia with a lack of coordination to smartphone software, creating a fragmented, uncompetitive and non-viable ecosystem.

Nokia tried to compete in maps and navigation, music, online apps store, photo library, games, messaging, mobile wallet and several other online services through both acquisitions and internal developments.

The responsibility for procurement of consumer services was split between product management, developer support, marketing and the sourcing function. Once again the need to manage the needs of these different entities caused an increased delay in decision making and thus allowed faster moving competitors to close the gap.

Nokia’s software mode of operation and organisational structure also posed problems as there were many very large software teams distributed across the organisation often disconnected from the customer and end-user due to a software ‘factory’ mode of operation.

The Ovi sub-brand was created in 2007 for Nokia’s services, but failed to create a coherent offering and by 2011 was just a media and apps store. Nokia was aiming for global domination, but in the end, only maps and navigation remained viable.

Where did it all go wrong?

Nokia entered the new millennium as a mobile communications giant and pretty much created the smartphone category for the mass market. In 2005, Nokia had over 50% market shares in smartphones and from 2005-2011 tried to develop an ecosystem and services that could rival Apple and Google, but it failed to …

•   Appreciate the importance of software to the smartphone business

•   Understand the key technology changes and consumer trends

•   Select a software platform that would support services and applications reliably and attract other                   smartphone licensees

•   Develop viable business models that included online services and mobile applications

•   Build a software development process that was integrated with holistic product management

•   Foster a developer community and apps ecosystem

•   Seek out the best expertise or partners to help expand into the software business

All of the issues listed above relate to software in one way or the other, and it is for this reason that the software cut was the deepest. Nokia failed to properly understand, manage and develop their software business. Software killed Nokia.

Innovative Product

CardFi – world’s first iBeacon Business Card

In this edition of newsletter, we bring you one of the most innovative products in the world, called as CardFi- the business card of the 20th Century! CardFi replaces all the hassles of paper business cards as it is going to revolutionize the way by which the businesses associate network with each other.

CardFi is an iBeacon integrated device. iBeacon is the name for Apple’s technology standard, which allows Mobile Apps (running on both iOS and Android devices) to listen for signals from beacons in the physical world and react accordingly; on its demand, one can activate if he or she wants to exchange business card. For networking purposes, in an exhibition or seminar the user can leave it ON all the time. The CardFi device is much more than a ground-breaking device & mobile App, it is an iBeacon integrated business card and cloud contact manager.

How it works?

As the user turns ON the CardFi(Device or App), everyone in his proximity will receive a notification with his details, once they add and he confirms,  exchange of business cards happens.

CardFi will even save in his “Cloud”, the location, time and the people, with whom he had made the interaction. It is not only easy to follow and manage, but one can also immediately add notes and reminders for each contact that has been added. CardFi can be synced with all other contact services like Google, Linkedin, Outlook and many more.Every CardFi user will receive a unique cloud ID. It instantly provides business information, name, location, contacts, etc. The CardFi device is lightweight and has a long lasting battery. So, with such innovative features, it’s a definite call to ditch the age old paper business card and to embrace this little smart card!

Exclusive interview with Mr Shabudeen K M, CEO of Inventivo Solutions Pvt Ltd

In this issue, we are extremely happy to publish interview of MrShabudeen K M, CEO of Inventivo Solutions Pvt Ltd.Mr Shabudeen is the founder of Inventivo Solutions, a Bangalore based start-up. He previously worked for Inet Business Solutions, as head of marketing and business development. Mr Shabudeen carries a rich experience of business development and entrepreneurship with innovative thinking and strong strategic capability. He is always driven by challenge, with good interpersonal and communication skills that provide the ability to operate effectively at all levels and across all disciplines.

Origiin: Hello Mr. Shabudeen. It is a great pleasure for us to interact with you and publish your thoughts in this interview.

Mr Shabudeen: Thank you, pleasure is all mines!

Origiin: Although India operates the biggest education system in the world, yet Right to Education is still a dream for many. Despite increased literacy rate shown in the last decades, there are big differences in the quality of education in India. What inspired you to work in this area?

Mr Shabudeen: It is rather unfortunate that despite levying a tax to fund education and enacting a law to ensure access to education for all children, the Government has not succeeded in improving learning outcome in schools. We are still stuck in the traditional chalk-and-board style of instruction.

Sadly, since teaching is no longer considered a noble profession by many teachers, poor supply of quality teachers is impacting the students. Growingly, students too are burdened with plenty of doubts expecting some support system to help them cope. Parents too are occupied in their own competitive spheres and strapped for time. Further, they too are challenged by their limited subject knowledge to assist children with their studies. This alarming situation has only resulted in several tuition centres mushrooming, acting as profit centres for many.

With the huge gap in the student-to-teacher ratio, not being able to get the teacher’s individual attention in learning leaves them to merely work by rote; instead of learning by understanding the concept.

I realized that this harmful and growing trend is only going to produce poor quality of human resource product in our country. This inspired me to innovate and launch the next generation education tool “Teacher 24/7”, which will be a boon in changing the way students will learn, happily!

Origiin: Teacher 24/7 the flagship product from your company, seems to revolutionise the whole education system for kids. What role does innovation play in this educational tool kit?

Mr Shabudeen: We are happy to see the smile and confidence in every child’s face after they take “Teacher 24/7“home. The fear of asking the teacher repeatedly to clear any doubts is no longer there. They are at the relaxed comfort of their home with “Teacher 24/7“helping them go through the very lessons taught by the teacher – any number of times, at will, till they are completely clear of doubts, in more ways than one.

Also, classes and lessons missed on account of leave of absence too, no longer pose a concern as the student remains fully updated to the current point of the curriculum and confident by simply watching the subject videos, at home, in bed, while travelling, outdoors or anywhere convenient. The student is fully prepared for school upon return and in par with the classmates.

Origiin: As we know innovation is a buzz word today but how can innovation be channelized in the right direction so that every innovative product gets translated into business growth of enterprise in the future?

Mr Shabudeen: As a matter of fact, innovation may be both good and bad. We need to understand to which segment the innovation devised is catering to, and since it is the student’s community it could be a problem if not directed in the right way. We were very particular that “Teacher 24/7“ does not facilitate anything apart from its intended purpose that can be misused by the students. For example, the Tablet PC is devoid of internet, camera, WiFi and Bluetooth etc, but equally compensating the same with value and fulfilling their education needs. And once this is achieved, I believe business growth is taken care of.

Origiin: What are the basic ingredients to have a successful innovative product in the market?

Mr Shabudeen: It is quite simple. However innovative your product may be, at the end of day, it has to be affordable and the market needs to see the value for money to determine the success of your product and to a great extent I believe we have probably achieved it with the way we have devised our pricing for “Teacher 24/7”.

Origiin: In your opinion what are the greatest challenges to innovation in India today? Is it lack of expertise or lack of awareness or a lack of strong enforcement mechanisms?

Mr Shabudeen: Innovations created at the expense of considerable investment of resources, demand a matching Intellectual Property Rights(IPR) regime. Gaining full benefits of innovation requires an effective and efficient framework across a wide range of policy areas, calling for an integrated approach and cooperation between business, governments and society.

Origiin: Are there any challenges that you face while introducing Teacher 24/7 to customers in terms of acceptability or cost etc?

Mr Shabudeen: The real challenge we look at is only to change the mindset of the parents, they need to accept the fact that things are moving rapidly and digital era has come to stay in a big way and this is how future learning is going to be. Our pricing has been one of our strengths too. We have made it very affordable that most of the parents are pleasantly surprised at the cost-on-value that “Teacher 24/7“presents in comparison with tuition fees.

It is a choice for the parents keen on supporting their children with their studies with “Teacher 24/7“, as against the hourly tuition teacher.

Origiin: How important is protection of any innovative product in terms of patent, copyright or trademark to prevent IP infringement?

Mr Shabudeen: As I mentioned earlier, it is very important because as long as we have a good legal framework for protecting IPR, which is still evolving in India, it will only encourage more innovations to be unleashed in the Indian market and help many of our start up innovative companies to compete fiercely at world level.

Origiin: Thank you so much Sir for your valuable inputs. Wish you all the best in your life!

Innovative product

Teacher 24/7TM – A teacher with you always 

Teacher 24/7TM a product from Bangalore based, Inventivo Solution, redefine the process of learning for students. Teacher 24/7TM is all set to replace the traditional book system by effective and interesting digital systems. This product has been designed with the backdrop of school going children’s issues like coming home with baggage of doubts from school, fear of repeated request to the subject teacher or being absent from the school etc. Such reasons are enough to make them lag behind their peers. These problems often lead them to the road of tuition centres whereby parents drain up hefty amount of payment.

The solution offers by Teacher 24/7 is simple,whereby every student registered for Teacher 24/7™ will be presented with a Tablet PC for free. The Tablet PC will contain the complete syllabus of the class for the year and as the name suggests, it is like a personal teacher,teaching every student his/her subjects, at any time, and any place.It is an interesting and effective medium of learning for slow learners and easy way of catching up, if classes are missed due to leave/absence by any student. Not only this, it also proves to be a good alternate to spend time with, instead of watching television, as good number of students get glued to television sets after school hours.

Thus, Teacher 24/7™certainly is an innovative product as it makes book reading  quite interesting  and engaging where by parents also need not worry about finding the right tutor for tuition. So with this animated e-learning tool kit, students are definitely going to have a fun learning session with productive time utility. 

Interesting patent

Title of the invention: Pillow with retractable umbrella

Publication number:       US6711769 B1

Publication type:            Grant

Application number:        US 10/378,324

Publication date:             Mar 30, 2004

Filing date:                     Mar 4, 2003

Inventors:                       Marielena Jane-Prats

ABSTRACT:  A pillow with a retractable umbrella, comprising a pillow assembly with first and second ends. The first and second ends have a channel extending there between. Fixedly secured onto the first end of the pillow assembly is a supporting assembly with third and fourth ends. The supporting assembly has a cavity between the third and fourth ends to store items within, and has a removable end-cap to access the cavity. Extending from the supporting assembly is an umbrella assembly. The umbrella assembly lying within the channel in a stored position. The instant invention having rotating and swivel means for positioning the umbrella assembly while in an erect position. The invention may be stored in a case for easy carrying and in an open position, allows a user to lay his/her head on the pillow while covering their face from sunlight.

Interview with Mr Mallesh Tigali, Owner of Purna Organics Pvt. Ltd.

In this issue, we are extremely happy to publish interview of Mr Mallesh Tigali, Owner of Purna Organics Pvt. Ltd. located in Bangalore.

Mr. Tigali who has past experience of association with many renowned companies like Wipro Technologies, Accenture and Digital Equipment India Ltd; is presently heading one of the leading organic farm in the country. Purna Organic is an innovative organic farming dealing with many innovative products as well as online training of gardening for the Urban society for coping up with space and time problem. The farm offers solutions to them who have little time to devote and yet dreams to own a garden in their little available space. Mr Mallesh is an expert in incubating new businesses and practice areas, thereby contributing towards society by delivering healthy organic products and educating laymen how to carve a beautiful, healthy garden by themselves.

Origiin: Hello Mr. Mallesh. It is a great pleasure for us to interact with you and publish your thoughts in this interview.

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: Thank you and I appreciate your efforts in helping the world get better by introducing some of the innovations in the green space.

Origiin: Being an engineer by profession and such a long term association with hard core technology, how did you shifted to agriculture and organic farming? Would you like to give a gist of your journey?

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: Well, being in IT, I have seen many of my colleagues suffering due to bad eating habits. As we are progressing, the various types of medical ailments are on the rise. It is observed that our elders generally have better health condition as compared to the young generation. One of the key reasons for this is the quality of food they used to have. Many of us do not realize that the food that we eat is laced with a huge amount of chemical residues, which are extremely harmful for the body. The food is neither fresh, as it travels from far off places in un-hygienic conditions. No wonder, our share of green export is declining and many produces are being rejected at international level.

Origiin: Please tell us a little about Purna Organic to our readers. How the idea behind online training of farming “e-Gardening” got conceptualized?

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: We have been offering regular gardening workshops, like many others across the country. Typically, in these workshops, individuals come and attend the session, ask some little questions and then walk out. Many times, they become inquisitive when they start working in their own garden but have no access to communicate with us to resolve their queries. In order to solve this issue and make this better, we engage the individuals for over a period of 4 weeks during the weekends, and walk them through the gardening skills so that they have first hand experience of sowing; raising the sapling, de-weeding, carrying out nutrient/pest management, harvesting and so on. The main challenge here was that people wanted to enroll for this, but were not ready to travel 4 times for over a period of 4 weeks to our location. Also, we had around hundreds of inquiries from across the country where people want to know about how to set-up and maintain a garden. We had instances where individuals had attended our training program, travelling all the way from Mumbai, Chennai, Coimbatore, Vijayawada, Mysore and so on. I would admire and appreciate those individuals for their commitment to gardening, but would feel sorry for the ordeal that they were going through for their travel. That’s when I started working out on a plan to see how we can integrate gardening with technology to enable a garden enthusiasts who are sitting in any part of India (read it as world) to attend, learn, ask questions live. I am glad to say that we have completed 1st batch and the 2nd batch is progressing very well, where we are teaching garden enthusiasts across the country.

Origiin: Purna Organic has developed many innovative products like that of planter box, which is equipped with automatic self-watering facilities. Have you sought any IP protection in terms of patent, copyright or trademarks for the wide range of your products?

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: Yes, for the self-watering, we have applied for a patent to protect our innovation. This innovative product will help watering the plant using an automated process, where the plants will absorb as much water as they need and whenever they need.

Origiin: What are the hurdles that you had to overcome while setting out this brand name at large in the country? What has been your driving force?

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: Some of the hurdles are like increasing the awareness on Organic Gardening across our urban people, hand holding them all along the journey, getting them addicted to organic food that is grown by them and eaten, while it is still fresh, logistical challenges when we started sending across India. Hand holding customers, who are outside Bangalore and not able to come and so on.

Origiin: What sort of customers reach out to your farm? Would you like to share some of their feed back or experiences?

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: We have customers from all walks of life. Some of them are engineers, doctors, businessmen, and teachers and so on. One of the quotes, “when everyone was crying because of the rise in vegetable prices, I was just smiling.”

Origiin: Would you like to give any advice to young aspirants who carry the same zeal like yours to venture into entrepreneurship and contribute to society?

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: There is a great deal of satisfaction in giving back to society. Perhaps, each one of us can give back to society and work towards improving our country and our people.

Origiin: Thank you so much for your valuable inputs. We wish you all the best to you!

Mr. Mallesh Tigali: Thank you and it has been a pleasure. Wishing you all the best and good luck in your future endeavours

Innovative product

Self Watering Planter Box: A Product by Purna Organic

Your dream of owning a terrace garden can just be fulfilled by this unique product from Purna Organic, a Bangalore based start up which is extensively dedicated to bring out more greenery in our surroundings with its varied range of gardening products. One such product, which caught attention of many, is the Self watering planter box. This box is unique because it is self-watering the plants, which are planted in it. This innovative planter box is made with of food grade high quality plastic. The containers are very easy to install with the water outlets in your garden or terrace, which can be used to plant any plant-lets of your choice. The planter box comes in three variants, such as automatic self watering, semi automatic and manual watering system based boxes.

This self-watering planter box is a revolutionary technology that helps to keep your garden fresh even when you are out of station as it delivers water through a simple mechanical procedure as and when there is a shortage of water in the planter box. So without the hassle of being worried when and how to water your dear garden, you can enjoy the planned vacation.

Self-watering planter box, which fulfils your dream of possessing a beautiful garden surely an innovative product and deserves applauds.