Nokia’s Big Operating System Choice
Nokia claims that it will unveil its long-term operating system roadmap on Feb. 11. We all know why this is crucial. Most of us have not seen a Nokia smartphone user since before the last Iraq war, and Nokia smartphones no longer show up on airport radar or sonar systems.
Just by looking around, one must conclude that Apple, Android and BlackBerry have a joint 99% or greater market share, with Nokia being focused on some obscure lagging-indicator geographies in far-away lands.
The U.S. may be in the process of spending and regulating itself into an economic basket-case, but in the area of smartphones, it holds the indisputable thought leadership position. Apple and Google lead the way, with Canadian neighbor BlackBerry still growing like a weed, and the main competitors are Hewlett-Packard (Palm WebOS) and Microsoft — not some company in Scandinavia or Asia.
So let’s handicap Nokia’s options for trying to salvage a future for itself. There are four major options at hand for Nokia:
1. Android. Sometimes it’s best to not over-think it. Android has already, in a short time, become the most well-developed smartphone ecosystem, despite several important flaws, including lack of corporate/government grade security. Android gives the user the greatest amount of choice with respect to form factors, hardware vendors, and carriers.
Most major smartphone reviewers have been asking for more models such as Samsung’s Nexus S, which offers the “pure” Google experience without any value-subtracting interface overlays common to devices produced by vendors such as Samsung itself, HTC, SonyEricsson, Motorola and others. It gives the end user a superior software experience, and upgrades to the latest versions of Android faster than any other device.
In addition, Nokia would be able to enter the market the fastest by offering this “pure” Android experience just as with the Samsung Nexus S. It could do so in a variety of form factors — portrait keyboard, landscape keyboard, no keyboard, small screen, big screen, etc.
Nokia could also write its own software overlay to Android, as most other major vendors have done. While I think this would be a waste of time, because consumers just don’t want it, it’s certainly possible.
[Cross-posted at The Street]
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