Josh Polhans's List: Richard's References

• Nokia announced today that it is 'renewing its business mobility solutions and strategy'. Nokia will cease developing or marketing its own behind-the-firewall solutions. Rather than offering its own complete end-to-end solutions, Nokia will strengthen strategic partnerships and will form its enterprise offering by combining Nokia devices and applications with software solutions from companies such as IBM, Microsoft and Cisco.

  This represents a significant strategic change for Nokia. Nokia will continues to evolve its range of business focused devices (Eseries), but will partner with other companies to provide additional services: wireless email, VPN, VoIP and security software.

   

  One of the main products affected by the announcement is Nokia's Intellisync push email offering, which was the result of a $400m acquisition in 2006. Nokia's Intellisync solution has struggled to compete with Microsoft's Exchange and RIM's Blackberry offerings. Indeed the majority of Nokia's enterprise devices are used in conjunction with non-Nokia services such as Microsoft Exchange. It therefore, perhaps, makes sense for Nokia to step back from providing the server software for corporate wireless email.
• "We have very strong relationships with industry leading enterprise technology partners such as Cisco and Microsoft, as well as a broad range of operator and retail channel partners. Together with them, we will use our expertise in devices, as well as the combined channel footprint and customer base, to deliver a range of unbeatable end-to-end offerings for business. The initial success of the Nokia E71 with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync is a great example of the attractiveness of our new approach, " said Niklas Savander, EVP, Services & Software, Nokia. "We will also continue with our investment strategy to develop key consumer internet services in areas such as music, games, media, messaging and context based services. "

• June 24, 2008 8:36 AM PDT

• With the planned acquisition of mobile software maker Symbian, Nokia has decided to grab its future and run with it.

   

   Nokia's decision to acquire the remaining stake in Symbian that it doesn't already own is designed to accelerate the mobile phone giant's product development--and serve as an open-source operating system platform to other handset makers, wireless carriers, software developers, and chipmakers, analysts say. 

   As a result, Nokia and other industry players hope to create a stronger defense against Apple's popular iPhone, Google's pending Android phone, and Microsoft's mobile operating system, analysts say. 

  "Nokia realized that under the current structure (where they owned only a minority stake), they could only hope Symbian would unlock their operating system and open it up to developers, handset makers, chipmakers, and carriers," said Jim Kelleher, an analyst with Argus Research.
• okia and other electronics makers have formed the Symbian Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to create an ecosystem. The foundation is backed by carriers AT&T, Vodafone, and NTT DoCoMo and hardware competitors LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Ericsson. Also joining the foundation are STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.

• "Nokia wants to attract more development input from other sources and develop a reasonably good alternative to other operating systems that are being developed." 

   Of course, Nokia is also looking to bolster its own performance with the Symbian acquisition. 

  "Nokia is trying to accelerate its product development by acquiring Symbian and bringing development in-house," said Mark Sue, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

• Nokia has seen its worldwide market share steadily erode over the recent quarters from roughly 50 percent of the handset market to around 45 percent, Sue noted. 

   Three to four years ago, Nokia faced a steep challenge as its competitors launched spiffy, colorful slider cell phones, Kelleher said. Nokia had no such offerings in the works.

   "Nokia was guilty of having hardware with no slick, no color. It was just a lump...Nokia was caught short," Kelleher said. "But Nokia has since come back fast and fierce, with new changes to their phones."

  He added that the cell phone maker has come to the realization it needs more than just hardware to keep customers interested and up-to-date.

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• Emerging developments in the smartphone industry are expected to bring about new trends for enterprise mobility management, with formerly popular business smartphone options being replaced by new products from Google and Apple.
• A recent report from institutional securities firm Piper Jaffray predicts Android smartphones to occupy nearly half of the market share during the next five years, with an additional 20 percent to 30 percent market share taken up by Apple’s iPhone. The firm made its prediction based on the recent surge in growth for Android smartphones, as the study shows Google’s current 14.9 percent of market share in 2010 will grow to 23.2 percent by 2012. The prediction for Google overshadows the iPhone’s expected progress, which the report forecasts will increase from 15.9 percent to 17.6 percent during the same time period.

• Naturally, the research leaves little room for the long-time dominant Research In Motion and Nokia to continue to provide a significant amount of enterprise smartphones. As a result, the report speculates that either company could eventually adopt the Android system in order to stay relevant, and may even move to Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7.

   

  "Over time, we do not see the benefit of RIM and Nokia continuing to push proprietary software that can’t compete with the market and eventually expect one or both to capitulate and move to utilizing third-party software," the report explains

• The developments signify a major shift for enterprise mobility management, as Research In Motion’s BlackBerry has become a staple in the mobile management policy of a vast array of businesses. Business leaders may begin investing in secure mobile management solutions to prepare for the changing trends in business smartphone options. Businesses that have become acclimated to the BlackBerry for enterprise mobility may be presented with challenges if their employees begin introducing Android phones or if the company completely shifts its focus toward other operating systems.

   

  Also, as a separate Forrester Research study predicts more businesses will offer support for their employees’ personal smartphones, mobile management solutions can keep business smartphone plans in line to ensure employees use their smartphone of choice in the most efficient way

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• okia? Like I wrote in my stunned state, this is the beginning of the end. Nokia which for a decade said: the future of mobile phone handsets would go like the PC industry, to software and services. Because of that, Nokia had built a huge competent force in its software and services side, and bought full ownership of Symbian, the world's most used smartphone OS platform - and had already a near-completed replacement OS for Symbian, called MeeGo (developed with Intel). Now they abandon all that, and take onboard a brand new OS developed by Microsoft that has a miniscule market share, miniscule development community etc. This is not - mind you - that Microsoft Windows Mobile which in the past at one point was the second most widely used OS for smartphones (in the age before the iPhone haha). No, that has been killed.
• Anyway. Nokia now announces their partnership with Microsoft. They also say they will continue to support Symbian for a couple of years, and make 150 million more Symbian devices. And they will still support MeeGo as an open source OS and will release at least one MeeGo device this year.
• So? Nokia will support THREE operating systems? All the costs and confusion that this creates? If it wasn't confusing enough to support two? And who in their right mind now bothers to learn to develop for Symbian's updates and newer versions? When Nokia itself is going from Symbian to Microsoft? Obviously any smart developer who wants to develop for Nokia will do so on the Microsoft OS, not Symbian. And MeeGo? What a kick in the face of Nokia's last-year partner, Intel? This is really painful news for Intel.

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• Nokia’s phones have always been famed for their great hardware – best-in-class durability, the most powerful cameras on the market and sleek and stylish designs that sit beautifully in the hand. But what about a new OS to go alongside that? Here’s five things that you might look forward to on a Nokia Windows device.
• Great Usability
• Gaming at the next level
• Office
• Media centre
• Mobile Email
   If you’re one of the many millions of people who depend on connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server, then you may well be looking forward to the likelihood of improved support that comes with having MS as your mobile device’s operating system provider.
• crosoft’s Bing has already been using NAVTEQ mapping technology, Nokia devices have already been using Microsoft technology. There are many layers to this alliance, whether it be bringing Bing Search to Ovi Maps or navigation to Windows or simply combining the best brains in both companies to produce something entirely revolutionary.

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