How The Synergy Of Microsoft And Nokia Is Going To Challenge The Existing Giants Of Mobility‏

The world of electronics is a rapidly changing environment where  new changes come every day. In the lifespan of mobile communication, the first revolution came in 2000s when the cellphones became ubiquitous. The mobile phones of this age were much more advanced than their counterparts in 1990s in size and functionality. As cellphones became more and more common, their size and price started to decline at a much faster rate. On the front of this revolution were companies like Motorola and Nokia which sold a lot of phones at this time. Everyone was amazed to see Nokia 3310 launched in 2000 which was so small in comparison to Motorola DynaTAC, the first mobile phone ever. After this Nokia, never looked back and launched a slew of budget smartphones at a low cost. At its peak in 2008, Nokia sold around 475 million smartphones and was the darling of the stock market.

But then suddenly, an unexpected revolution came into spotlight – the iPhone. Apple launched the iPhone in 2007 to worldwide acclaim and showed the world a new possibility, a new kind of smartphone. A smartphone which allowed you to do anything from watching videos, browse internet, take photos all with a touch. The whole market of smartphones changes overnight. Samsung saw this is opportunity and moved on to Android – a new smartphone OS inspired from iPhone’s iOS, but unlike iOS it was open source. All the phones being designed now were touch based except few small feature phones. The open source nature of Android gave the manufacturers an opportunity to release these smartphones at various touch points rather than the expensive iPhone.

But on the same time, one another software giant was shocked. The release and success of Apple’s iPhone had put them in a dilemma about their future – Microsoft. Microsoft judged their situation and an urgent meeting of the leads was called. There the executives decided that the current operating system was too old  and was not ready to take on the fight with the fluidic iOS. They needed something new. So, there they decided to create a new operating system from scratch; a new operating system which was born to challenge this new order; a new OS which was created for this new revolution. This is how Windows Phone 7 came into existence in 2010.  Rather than copying the same interface of Android or iOS, Windows moved to a new interface called as ‘Metro Interface’ with live tiles. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, in Finland Nokia was in distress, their market share was being leeched by these new smartphones rapidly. They needed someone who can control this falling giant and regain their market supremacy. Then, the board of Nokia took a radical decision, they choose Stephen Elop, a Canadian citizen who was leading the Microsoft’s Business Division to become CEO and becoming the first non-Finnish director of Nokia in its long history. Stephen took control in his hands from the beginning; soon after his joining he sent an internal memo to all employees titled ‘Burning Platform’ a daring memo which told all the employees that Nokia has to make a decision now about its future and a good one , otherwise they will be gone forever. On February 11 that year, Nokia announced a new strategy:

• They will have a long term strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a new ecosystem and Nokia will choose Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 as their new smartphone operating system. 
•  Nokia will focus on next generation technologies and will bring out meaningful innovations in its smartphones.
• Nokia will have a new leadership and a brand new organizational structure to focus clearly on speed, results and accountability.

 As a result of this partnership, Nokia has been releasing phone after phone on the Windows Phone platform and yes speed they have picked under Elop’s new leadership. Unlike earlier when there used to be a lot of time between new models, now the Nokia machine is churning mobiles at a much rapid pace. Results? Yes they are coming. The new Lumia series has got rave reviews all over the world and they are gaining commercially also. Just few weeks back Windows raced past Blackberry to become the third largest with a market share of 3.7%. This is still  minute in comparison to more than 60% share of Android, but still this marks an important milestone as it crosses an important psychological barrier.

Now, this is the time for Nokia and Microsoft to bounce back and reclaim their top spots. Android is too far away in the top. But in next two years, if guided properly, the joint alliance can leave Apple’s iPhone ecosystem behind. After the death of Steve Jobs, innovation has declined rapidly in Apple. Not even a single new product range has been launched. Only the same products are being launched with minor up-gradations. The launch of iOS 7 was a much needed input to the creaking old operating system. But still the world is waiting for that next revolution by Apple which they showed in the Jobs era. Apple is weak now and it will take them time to bounce back even if they could. Moreover, people are bored by the similar look and feel of both Android and iOS which are just poaching features from one another. They want to try something new; which is an opportunity for Windows Phone. So, what can be done to bring this change faster. I have some thoughts which are listed below:

 Lack of a Good App Ecosystem: This is a known fact that one of the biggest drawback of Windows Phone 8 is the absence of a rich app ecosystem. Many big names like Instagram, Vine, Google Maps, Flipboard and lot others. Unless this is fixed, it would be really difficult for the OS to catch up speed. Now, Nokia is pretty serious about it and has released a lot of their Nokia exclusive apps, but I believe the problem is with Microsoft side, which despite being the biggest software company in the world has not been successful in wooing the developers on its side. The newly released App Studio is a welcome step for the novice users who want to create apps, but don’t want to delve deep into the coding. Windows Phone needs to catch up and has to catch up pretty fast. I believe hackathons should be organized all over the world and then incentives should be provided to students in universities to make apps for Windows Phone.

·         Buggy Operating System: Despite being in the market for 2 years, the Windows Phone OS is still having some huge and creepy bugs. The storage issue bug which duplicates the photos and music stored on memory card is a big turn off. Microsoft should test the OS properly before releasing the OS in market, so that such shameful scenarios are not faced in future again.

·         Faster New Updates: It seems like Microsoft is not that serious about its mobile operating system or they are unaware of the trends here. After the launch of Windows Phone 8, not even a single update has been launched . In this fast changing market of smartphone with the cut throat competition between various tech giants, the need to launch updates better and faster than others becomes more important.

·         New Innovative Features: One more challenge that lies ahead of this alliance is to introduce new meaningful innovations to this ecosystem, in both hardware and software. Nokia has been leading in this area with innovative camera features like PureView, Optical Image Stabilization. The newly introduced Lumia 1020 is a piece of art and is a really good camera phone with a software app that lets user take full use of the powerful camera. Nokia is investing a lot in research to bring out some really cool phones. But, now is the time for Microsoft to also spearhead its campaign to make Windows Phone more better. They have  done a  good work with the creatively create Metro Tiles look, but a lot of more work is needed. Moreover, while adding innovations the companies should think whether really they are useful in real life or just they exist on paper. The innovations shown by Samsung are not up to the mark in my opinion. The features like Direct Call, Zoom are just waste.

·         Renewed Focus on Marketing: The one  area where Microsoft and Nokia are doing pretty well is the marketing. There has been a new impulse of Microsoft in advertisements targeting Google and Apple. This is required to challenge the current leaders. Some of the ads I saw were really great. Keep going on with this focus. 

Nokia and Microsoft has the required potential to create a niche for themselves in the mobile market. They may have missed some key steps and lost some wars, but the battle is still out there. What they need is a renewed focus and commitment and the mobile world is all theirs.

Spread of Ideas in the World

The 17th and 18th  centuries were a period of ideas and revolution, people started challenging their beliefs and started questioning the church. Finally after remaining dormant for so long, the human spirit of curiosity was taking over the brainwashed minds of people. As with any new change, people were reluctant at first with this new change in their lives. These ideas first affected the intellectuals of the age and gradually they came to common people.

One of the most radical ideas to affect the common man was science. Of course science was there from a long time, but it was not in the grass roots levels. It was being opposed by religion and superstitions at every step, countless of great minds lost their life due to the interference of Church. But people who believe in their ideas, don't stop on petty things like death. They keep pushing on their ideas and become immortal. Just take the example of Socrates who consumed poison rather than accept lies. With the advent of Industrial Revolution, science became a necessity and people realized that they cannot ignore it. The theories of scientists like Charles Darwin, Issac Newton, Leonardo Da Vinci influenced people and brought them closer to rational thinking.

Another idea that came into prominence in 18th century was 'Democracy'. The idea that all people are equal and they have a right to live the life as they want. Democracy enabled the people to vote and select the governments. It was a radical change from the despotism of the earlier ages. The Independence of America from Britain showed the whole world this new idea. The French Revolution further strengthened this idea and many people started seeing this new way of life. People started demanding their rights and revolutions started erupting all across the Europe. Governments first ignored this,but the success of French revolution shocked the whole continent. Kings and Queens were amazed, how the powerful king Louis XVI was executed publicly. As a result of this and other numerous acts, monarch across whole Europe started a parliament with representatives from people. Britain took a lead in this and started House of Lords and House of Commons (however they were started earlier than this period, but it further strengthened their power).

But even, after the democracy the progress in the standard and liberty of living was not as expected. The people who were given responsibility of the unions usually did not remember the same once they occupied top positions and quelled the protests by their own people. Moreover, the industrial revolution had changed the world and the capitalism had brought new challenges with it . The workers condition was deteriorating day by day and the concepts of liberty and equality were not being applied at all. Few intellectuals then realized that a change in ideas was required to conquer these new challenges. Thus, came 'Socialism'to birth. Socialism started with a simple idea that capitalism is evil. Private individuals only keep their profits in mind and don't work for the well-being of society. Moreover, cut throat competition in the society is not good as it results in wastage of efforts. In spite of this, state should take control of resources, production and services and thus distribute wealth equally to the people.

Intellectuals believed that this will bring an order to the society and fill the gap which democracy was not able to fill. Democracy believed that all people are equal and thus should share equal rights. But, in reality, it is not like that people are different as a result of their upbringing and their nature which also depends on their culture, family, education and myriad other factors. There will be a lot of difference between a person who is educated and the other who is not. Thus, if states takes the production and services in its hand, it can distribute it much evenly. Slowly this idea started to spread like fire especially in Russia where Lenin imposed it after the Russian Revolution.

Another idea that came during this Age of Enlightenment was 'Anarchism'. This idea was based on the idea that the best government is one which does not interferes at all . The people following this idea believed that there should be no government at all and individuals should be responsible for their and other's freedom and rights. This started with a noble idea and lot was discussed about this, but it never became popular as its whole concept was based on the existence of such an Utopian society where people are not selfish and people want to live in peace. Moreover, few groups believing in the anarchism started to become aggressive in their approach. Slowly, people forgot the real meaning behind this philosophy and attached it with violence and chaos which is still true today. Even in dictionary, anarchy means : "A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority."

Another great personality of this age was a German scholar Karl Marx who gave birth to Marxism. Karl wrote books like 'Das Kapital' and Communist Manifesto which appealed to workers all around the world for their rights. The ideas for marxism were taken in socialism and a large gathering followed his set of ideas.

Thus, we can say that this period affected the people of this world and changed the way we are living today.  An order of change came in the world and people moved from the past and accepted the future. An era had came to end, and new was just beginning.