Nokia VP Compares Android To Peeing In Your Pants To Stay Warm

from the a-turn-of-phrase dept

It's no secret that Nokia hasn't really done that well in capturing the modern smartphone market. With the proliferation of iPhones and Android devices around the world, Nokia has seemingly stumbled quite a few times. Even if it's made some cool phones with good software, it hasn't really captured the public imagination. This has resulted in some people asking if Nokia wouldn't be smarter to just adopt Android itself, and give up on Symbian. However, a Nokia VP (who's actually leaving the company) reportedly responded to such a question by claiming that phone makers who embrace Android are like young boys who "pee in their pants" to stay warm during the winter. In other words, such a strategy may have (very) short-term benefits, but can lead to much bigger problems in the long run. I'm not sure that's actually true, however. And, from a company that hasn't been achieving much of anything on this front for quite some time, I doubt that those who have embraced Android sense that they're just wetting their pants right now either...

Filed Under: android, symbian
Companies: nokia

UK Patent Office Approves Software Patent... Rationalizes The Decision

from the and-here-we-go... dept

The UK has held out against the idea of software patents for a while, but with Nokia pushing hard to get a patent on a piece of software related to the Symbian mobile operating system (which, ironically, Nokia has agreed to open source), last year a court ruled that the patent office in the UK had been too quick to dismiss the patent application, and an appeals court agreed. So, it should probably come as no surprise at all that the patent office has now granted the patent in question. What's amusing, though, is how it rationalizes the decision. Rather than just saying "uh, the courts said so," it claims that it allowed the patent because it's "more than just a software program," saying that the invention was a "technical contribution." Apparently, the new rules mean that as long as software makes a "technical contribution" it can be patented. But... uh... what software doesn't make a "technical contribution" of some sort?

Filed Under: patents, software patents, symbian, uk
Companies: nokia

Nokia's Open Sourcing Of Symbian Shows How Closed Markets Become Open

from the fear-not dept

Originally I wasn't going to write about Nokia's decision to purchase the rest of Symbian and then open source the code, but a few people have written in to ask about our take, and the more I think about it, the more interesting it becomes. There's certainly been a palpable fear lately among some that things like the locked-down iPhone represent a dangerous "future" to be avoided.

But that doesn't seem to have much historical support. New markets often are driven initially by locked down and proprietary solutions, but openness tends to prevail in the long run. The reason many markets start out with closed and proprietary solutions is that you need a comprehensive enough solution to address the market, and it's often difficult to do that in an ad hoc manner. A proprietary solution gives control to one person or a small group of people who can easily drive the project to where it needs to be to drive adoption. However, in the long run, more open solutions then win out, because competitors realize that the real game is being a platform, which is more important than being the comprehensive supplier. And the way to become a platform is to sign up as many developers as possible, and free them to make your platform much more valuable. That's much easier to do in an open or open source environment.

This is why we're seeing this particular decision to open up Symbian, and also explains Google's open approach with its Android offering. It also explains why Apple's iPhone, which was totally closed at the beginning, has been slowly opening up to try to combat the rise of more open competitors.

Finally, this move by Nokia is a recognition of the economics of infinite goods. Just as IBM helped massively boost its services business by betting big on Linux, Nokia recognizes that freeing up Symbian helps turn it into a services company as well. Freeing up that infinite good (the software) helps generate more demand for the scarce "services" provided by the company. There may be some stumbles along the way, but on the whole this is exactly the type of bet the company needs to be making. And, at the same time, it shows that there's little to fear concerning a future world of "closed" systems a la the iPhone. Every such closed system is merely an opportunity and an invitation for competitors to become more open.

Filed Under: mobile, open, open markets, open source, operating systems, symbian
Companies: nokia, symbian