Nokia And The Rear View Mirror Perspective

People just do not realize the speed and magnitude of the collapse of Nokia. Last week I attended the Mobile Monday Poland conference, which by the way was a great reactivation of the event. But I could not (and still can't) believe what I heard there. About Nokia and Symbian and how both dominate the mobile market. Industry experts during the discussion panel pointing out Symbian still has the biggest market share among mobile web users down here. Yes it was true a week ago and it still may be true today. But I am not so sure about tomorrow and certainly it is a matter of months Symbian will be wiped out.

Application development takes weeks, months. And they are developed to last for years (I mean, more than a year). So selecting a platform based on yesterday's market share is like driving a twisting mountain road looking at the rear view mirror. Absolutely irrelevant perspective, ending up with a crash. Well, I am talking obvious things.

But there was nobody who cried "watch out", "look ahead". May be because Nokia was sponsoring the event and the attendees felt obliged not to upset the sponsor. So now on this subjective, non sponsored blog I cry "watch out" and "look ahead". The sales of Nokia phones have stopped already. Ask the channel resellers... Ask people around, who is buying or is considering buying a Nokia phone...? Following a number of mistakes by the management, the company is falling off a cliff and the top talent is fleeing. Even if the CEO is fired now by the board, it will take time, a lot of time, to recover, if a recovery is possible. NOK had a market cap of around $150B in 2007/2008. Today it is worth less than 20% of that. And falling.

Nokia invented a smartphone (remember the "Communicator" series back in the 1990's?). And was first with almost everything Apple and Google offer today on their platforms. But unfortunately I do not think Nokia will come back. And looking forward, this lesson may be important for Microsoft. With no mobile platforms in the portfolio and the crowd turning towards the touch and Web experience, being the king of a wired desktop world may not be enough to feel safe about the wireless, deskless future. Powerpoint alone may not be enough to carry the load of the entire behemoth.