Friday, September 6, 2013

Nokia RIP

Long time no blog!

Microsoft is acquisition of the services and hardware business of Nokia is a desperate attempt by the former in the smartphone and tablet market in these days and age. There are always a flip side of a coin, but I see this corn is not shinny on neither side.

MS is in a Catch22 situation in the phone market. It needs more apps to appeal customers and app developers need more phone sales to justify their effort in developing on the Window platform. MS's products (except the Xbox) are never been the 'apple' in most customers' eyes. It probably goes back the the bad-haired Bill Gates vs the smartass Steve Jobs back in the old days. The big mouth Steve Ballmer doesn't help neither. So, my guess is that Nokia's name will remain on the phone, cause MS phone just doesn't sound right! 

With a blip on the smartphone market of mere few percentage points, regardless how iOS and Android fight the heart of each other. People are just not gonna jump on the Window phone wagon regardless. Unless they can come up with some killer features or apps. As the smartphone market is maturing, it's gonna be really hard for MS/Nokia to come up with anything. Just see how the tablet market is gonna peak in 2 years and the rest of the markets are developing wearable gadgets, you see the picture?

Of course, MS/Nokia is not gonna go away for at least in the next 8-10 years. MS has a war chest of money. It makes lots of money from patents that Android phones are using. Actually, it would make more money from Android than its Window phones. So, MS would have enough cash to fund its platform. Also, the corporate side may be the inroad that they would go. With Blackberry on the death bed, corporate IT guys' smart understanding the Trojan horse of Android, iOS is the only game in town. But Apple is never a nice guy to corporates, so MS surely has the chance. Anyhow, the corporate market is still only so big!

Anyway, being an ex-Nokia user myself. I really feel bad for the Finnish giants. They make durable phones with LONG battery life. I'm sure Nokia phones will become collectibles as well as key tools for the underground given what Snowden have disclosed and gonna disclose. In an alternative universe, if Stephen 'Trojen' Elop has not grabbed the top chair in Nokia. Nokia would be on Android and it would probably fight neck to neck with Samsung these days. What a big fxxking 'What if'?! 

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