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.
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