Yesterday I made my predictions on Nokia’s new platform strategy. They should be treated as pure guesswork, but they are informed guesses. I based them on public information.
That information comes in the form of statements from Nokia’s CEO at the earnings call. I made a table of all the statements that dealt with platform decisions and my interpretations of those statements.
You may do your own interpretation, but to me there is significant evidence here to support my predictions.
| What Elop Said | My interpretation |
| In certain markets where there’s a greater preponderance of competing platform devices, we have some competitiveness problems | We have problems in the US |
| Broadly the conversation about operating system and positioning of relative operating systems in different places is something that we’ll reserve for the February 11th meeting, | Different markets require different operating systems |
| The general comment I’d like to make though is that in today’s world it is the case that given the different price performance characteristics of different chipsets, we get into situations, where the best experiences are not necessarily delivered by systems that are capable of delivering the highest end experiences. We have to be very mindful at what level of the price curve we deliver what type of device with what operating system. | Different price points require different operating systems |
| When I think about geographies, the area, I’ve mentioned this indirectly during my comments, but I’ll be more precise in answering your question and that is clearly, there is a pattern of disappointments in the United States. A pattern there where efforts have been made, competitiveness, challenges exist and we very much need to address those | We have problems in the US. We’re going to address these. |
| That’s why I characterize very clearly in the framework for the decision making ahead, that whatever the strategy is that we outline on February 11th, we very clearly will be ensuring that it gives us the opportunity to reopen doors in markets such as the US and some others where we have not recently been present | We are going to enter the US with this platform |
| With respect to the question of ecosystems and so forth, it’s important to note, in my opening comments, I referenced the fact that there are today different ecosystems and different patterns at play | Different OS for different markets |
| If you like the high-end ecosystems where there is particular rate of momentum and share gain taking place. At the same time, the dynamics at the very low end of market which itself is an ecosystem of sorts, is very different with very different demands and expectations | High end and low end require different OS |
| I’ll just offer that observation that today broadly in the world without any specific comment on us or our competitors, there are multiple ecosystem patterns that need to be considered | More on the need for multiple OS |
| I’d also point out that very critical in whatever combination of ecosystem or ecosystems or whatever our strategy outlines, the need to maintain sustainable differentiation between ecosystems and within the ecosystem relative to our competitors in that ecosystem is a top priority. In everything we consider, that’s something that will be very much on our mind. | What we chose gives us some degree of differentiation–It’s possible concessions were negotiated |
| With respect to comparisons to other ecosystem shifts and things like that, the real thing that one must focus on is the quality of products in the market, the momentum that one already has | Symbian is not going to disappear |
| As we’ve described the Symbian momentum that we have today; a consideration of shift of ecosystem, certainly you have to consider that potential of market share changes | Symbian will lose share |
| With respect to the ecosystem comment, without getting into specifics of different options and things like that in detail, what I will say is that the word catalyze is to imply that there is a wide variety of participants in our world, and that includes competitors, it includes operators, other technology firms and so forth who in many respects have a common interest relative to the potential strength of other ecosystems and how they may develop over time | Partner is a tech firm that has common interest — i.e. market entry |
| The catalyst of an ecosystem could be considered as making sure the right conditions are formed in the right companies, work in such a way that alternatives emerge in a marketplace that may not exist today | Looking at growing the market for the partner– Microsoft |
| We made a decision to not proceed as people have thought we would proceed | This is not going to be business as usual |
| You’ll see that pattern of decision making from us in terms of being very crisp about what constitutes great experiences and ensuring that that is what we are delivering to our customers. | This is a marketing-led effort. We’re going to stay on message and not waffle on about technology |
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