Nokiasoft's Slippery Slope (1)
Zax,
<< ... truly, if Nokia dominates this generation of Windows Phone as completely as Samsung dominated the original generation Windows Phone, it would not be a good thing for multi-manufacturer ecosystem. >>
I believe Motorola was the dominant manufacturer of Windows Mobile smartphones and towards the end of WinMob OS 6.x Sony Ericsson was putting the most significant effort into WinMob with their Xperia range while Moto was playing around with their various mobile Linux endeavors. I suppose that Samsung may have been the dominant WinPhone 7.1 OEM because of their global reach and brand recognition, but while Dell and LG really lagged I don't think HTC was far behind Samsung. In 2011 WinPhone market penetration by Samsung + HTC + LG + Dell was so negligible that it hardly mattered who was or was not the dominant OEM, and by what degree.
Nokia, not Samsung or HTC, became the dominant manufacturer of WinPhone 7 in Q2 of this year if not Q1. Even with WinPhone 8 on the horizon, if Nokia had not exerted the highly focused balls out effort they did with WP 7.5 and the WP Refresh, WinPhone would be all but dead today with little chance of being resuscitated.
I have been convinced from the outset, however, that if Microsoft (and Nokia) are going to succeed in building a viable 3rd smartphone ecosystem that can eventually overtake not just Blackberry but iOS for iPhones they need a considerably better effort from Microsoft's other WinPhone OEM licensees than they have received to date and I am hoping they get it.
It is good to see HTC putting some real effort into Windows Phone although in the early going their efforts (and Dell's) were better than any other original licensee. Samsung may have been the dominant WinPhone 7.1x manufacturer, but if every WinPhone manufacturer other than Nokia puts as little effort into the design, manufacture, marketing, and support of Windows Phone 8 as Samsung did with WinPhone 7.1 and 7.5, Windows Phone will never be a 3rd viable ecosystem.
Samsung's done one hell of a great job and executed superbly with Android and for the Google/OHA/Android ecosystem which they now dominate in both unit and revenue sales as well as profitability. Their WinPhone effort to date has been even worse than it was with Symbian (which they were a part owner of). At least with Symbian running the Nokia S60 UI they delivered models with cool differentiated design, very good high end fully loaded hardware specs (higher even than Nokia's NSeries range beginning with the L870 slider running Symbian OS 9.3 and S60 3.2 in early 2008 ...
... and following on with the full face touchscreen S^1 Omnia HD i8910 in 2009. They also put at least a modicum of effort into marketing their Symbian powered wares. They fell apart with support and particularly with updates. Meaningful Symbian model updates were handled by non-Samsung cooked ROMs. Samsung of course was upended by global recession as were Nokia and all of the old guard tier 1 OEMs, and by 2009 they were beginning to focus less on their Nucleos RTOS based touchscreen feature phones and more on early Android and bada quasi-smartphone development.
Samsung dropped the ball with the original WP7 'NoDo' update for the WP Samsung Focus and gave Microsoft a black eye in the process. HTC handled the updates very well for their HD7 and HTC Surround and they came to market clean with the HTC Arrive. Dell handled the Venue Pro update well and LG handled their Quantum upgrade rather smoothly. Samsung lagged HTC with the OS 7.5 Mango upgrade for existing models. I'd really like to see Samsung do a considerably better job with WP8 than they did with WP7 and aggressively take on Nokia and HTC as well as ZTE and Huawei within the emerging WinPhone 7.8/8 ecosystem. They are certainly capable of that even while they are trying to do something with Tizen, but for the moment their bread is buttered with Android.
While I don't totally agree with young Saad Hashmi who is the author of the 'provocative' blog post (below) that Surur of WMPoweuser covered and that you posted, but I certainly agree with some portions of it, and it's quite well articulated.
As for Saad's statement that "Nokia isn't selling 'Windows Phones' anymore" I can't say that I buy that. Nokia is establishing Lumia as a recognizable Nokia Windows Phone brand.
>> Editorial: Microsoft and HTC are trying to save the Windows Phone brand — from Nokia
Saad Hashmi (Editor/Founder)
Windows Phone Daily
September 20 2012
tinyurl.com
Do you know how it feels when your girlfriend/boyfriend goes behind your back to flirt with somebody else? Nokia does, and if we didn't know any better Microsoft may have found itself a new (or more accurately, renewed) partner in HTC.
I have to admit, that was the last thing I expected to see from HTC's press event yesterday. I expected the expected, perhaps a Titan X or a Radar sequel that bumps up the specs. Instead the world received the 8X and 8S, and these two devices represent the most exciting development to happen to Windows Phone in a while. However, the previous last most exciting development belonged to Nokia just two weeks ago when they announced the Lumia 920. At the time, that device looked like a shoe-in to become the new flagship for Microsoft to flaunt in front of the competition.
So here's the million dollar question: why are HTC's new handsets considered Microsoft's "signature smartphones"?
Before I attempt to answer that question, take a look at the Android world right now. It's undeniable that the software has seen incredible success, for users and manufacturers alike. People benefit from having a common platform that shares an app and services ecosystem, while manufacturers benefit from very flexible software that can be manipulated to give them a hardware edge. Yet the one thing that keeps all of those phones united is the very thing manufacturers are desperately trying to cover up: Android. Samsung doesn't sell phones with "Android", they sell "Galaxy" Phones. Long before that, HTC didn't sell Phones with "Android", because they sold Phones with "Sense".
Nokia isn't selling 'Windows Phones' anymore
While there has never been such a problem in the world of Windows Phone, that is because no brand has been strong enough to create enough separation from the software. That is, until Nokia came along. Just look at the exclusive app agreements, first party software like City Lens or Drive, their hardware accessories for wireless charging and NFC enabled speakers, and even their latest marketing slogan, Switch to Lumia. Nokia isn't selling "Windows Phones" anymore.
That's a problem for Microsoft. Recently, CEO Steve Ballmer said he expected Windows 8 to give "a lot of lift" to Windows Phone because of the matching interfaces and how well the branding was aligned between the two products. That all goes out the window when you throw in the word 'Lumia' — it just doesn't fit. Microsoft doesn't want people saying "I'm syncing my Lumia to my Windows 8 tablet"; they want them to say, "I'm syncing my Windows Phone to my Windows 8 tablet". With Nokia's emphasis on the Lumia brand, that may not be possible.
So, while Microsoft is still looking to Nokia for help establishing Windows Phone as a real third ecosystem, it also needs to make sure its own brand doesn't become a victim of their success. Enter the "Windows Phone 8X and Windows Phone 8S by HTC". Yes, those are the official product names of HTC's new duo (not just 8X and 8S), and according to statements received by The Verge it was a mutual decision between the two companies. Microsoft has even said it publicly with Steve Ballmer quoted as saying the devices are the, "Signature of the Windows Phone brand". While that does not mean a whole lot right now, it could be a subtle move towards a Nexus-like strategy.
When it comes to the phones themselves, I think Nokia has a valid argument against HTC for 'borrowing' some of the company's trend-setting features. However, if we were to look at the 8X and 8S through the proxy of Microsoft, it appears they wanted to distill the essence of what makes Windows Phones cool. The result is eye-catching colors, unorthodox design, and software unique enough to match. Once again, that's in large part due to Nokia, whose excellent global marketing campaign has managed to sell Windows Phones more effectively than anything Microsoft has attempted on its own in the last two years.
Borrowing in this case is for the greater good, and Nokia may just have to deal with that. ###
- Eric - |
