Nokia, throwing out the baby with the bath water?

It's been quite an interesting 12 months as a Nokia-centric developer, not only did Nokia jump off their "burning" platform, but they seem to be puncturing their floatation devices, thinking they are somehow avoiding further danger.

Let's take a look at some examples of real, currently working, not-in-the-future Nokia assets and features that they either don't understand, have forgotten about or don't know how to fit into their new strategy:

Flash Lite

In 2005 we complained to Nokia that most of their product managers didn't know what they could do with Flash on their devices, 6 years down the line, we are still getting "I didn't know Flash could do that?" or, "We have Flash on our phones?" from Nokia managers. During the recent Nokia CommunicAsia event, we were introduced to Marco, the new SVP of Developer & Marketplace. Marco was there to tell us about how we are going to reach the "next 250 million" (or billion, can't quite remember!). First we were blown away by the N9 slide interaction & Meego's maturity. Then we got into the details of what's out there for S40. For those of you who don't know, S40's are the "feature" phones that Nokia sells most of in developing markets. Though the high-end gets all the media attention, the low-end is Nokia's bread and butter in South East Asia. So we were told about the web services, a new browser, Java and a vague indication that Qt might come to S40 (no, I don't think they will offer backwards-compatibility for the majority of S40's out there). I was waiting for him to at least mention Flash Lite, I mean some of these devices have a 1ghz processors and touch screens, Flash Lite totally rocks on it! (And honestly, web-services are great, but a 240x320 screen is just too small these days for data-intensive stuff, the user-experience will be 2001 levels at best.) But no, not even a word, not a mention of the ONLY platform that you can realistically target in-market S40/S60/S3 devices for (don't tell me a small team can do this with Java). Not only is Flash Lite integrated into the S40 theming engine, it's also supported by all devices dating from 2005, which everyone seems to be forgetting, this whole backwards compatibility issue (which allows us to reach the current market, not the possible future market). Of course we raised this afterwards, Marco didn't seem to like the idea of "too many languages" - OK, possibly good strategy, but Flash shouldn't be one of those excluded - you guys paid for it (Steve Elop even brokered the deal!) and if finally used properly can give Nokia a wealth of unique and existing content on their low-end devices. I can understand that being new at the job, there is a lot to come to terms with, and it's not exactly like Nokia has taken advantage of Flash Lite since they got it, I can understand that it doesn't look very "hot" right now. I can imagine that there aren't many supporters of Flash inside Nokia, what data/results do they have to back up their enthusiasm (download stats and renewed focus on engaging smaller developers?). This new direction was a bit worrying because it demonstrated that the guys really had their heads way up there in the high-end - to please the media/investors? The message to the low-end was vague and confusing, not something that is really what we are looking for now. We also have another "Osborne Effect" happening, with the announcement that Qt coming to S40, won't this reduce Java development, the same way as the announcement of Qt reduced Symbian's attractiveness? Why invest time developing in a shrinking language if something superior MIGHT arrive, especially with no clear indication on when and how it will be implemented. What worried me was that this was coming from the SVP for Developers, someone who obviously has a big role in the future direction of developer offerings from Nokia. Marco himself is a developer with gaming experience, so we truly expected him to see the merits in the platform - otherwise, we have to ask, does Nokia at an upper-management level really care to listen to us developers in emerging markets (Java shrinking with 30%, Flash growing with 22% this quarter), or the developing markets needs?

This could also be another case of strategy over technology. The most obvious reason for this sudden cold shoulder could be that Silverlight is part of the mix with Windows Mobile, and maybe it was part of the deal signed? If I were Microsoft, I would also try to keep Flash from competing with Silverlight as much as possible, and it doesn't seem like Adobe is actively going to try and push Flash on Windows Mobile until there are a fair amount of handsets out there. The fact that Flash wasn't even available on Meego at launch also means that even deep within the nerd ranks of Nokia, Flash is taking a secondary priority (Good news: Flash Lite will be coming to N9 soon). Look XNA for doing high-end games really gets us excited, and we know the MS developer tools rock - but not the prospect of using it for casual games or learning Silverlight. Our experiences with Adobe taught us never to rely too much on the platform provider. The current Silverlight offering includes a lot of freebies that Microsoft can transform into paid services at any time, talk about stepping from one shifting sandbank to another. Also, you think our Mac Flash guys are going to be happy having to move over to Windows?

Update: A new competition has been announced to develop "next-generation" content for S40, think Flash Lite is on the list of technologies? Nope.

Themes
One of Nokia's most active group of items on their store is personalization content. Themes - yes, those things. Some of the reasons I believe they are so popular is because a) the default Nokia themes are dead boring/ugly b) it's about the only thing that one can customize, since there are too many shapes of Nokia's for cases. No one else really has them on the high-end, so Nokia is slowly just letting go of it. Letting go is a strong word, but almost, if there is not a champion/evangelist for a technology, how long will it last? The same thing happened with Flash Lite screensavers on S60, just removed in an update, no explanation. No, "Sorry we killed the flourishing Flash Lite screensaver market". The Meego device for instance has a no set theming engine. Only wallpapers and ringtones, so obviously none of the high-end people saw the value of themes. Guys, it's a differentiator, just because you sucked at marketing it, doesn't make it less relevant/cool. Look at your Ovi store download stats! Nokia has the opportunity to continue to make direct money from personalization, where Apple for instance loses most of that to 3rd parties who make physical cases and accessories. It's pretty obvious right? Your Carbide.UI team is doing an EXCELLENT job, don't let all that good work go to waste!

The Emerging/Developing Market
I feel that Steve Elop is trying to move some of the intellectual power to the US.... this is good and bad. Good for the high-end market, bad for the low-end/developing market. One of the biggest failures in terms of Flash Lite was that is was being run from the States, where they really had no idea about how emerging markets work, only developed ones. Try getting funding/support for Flash Lite for a project outside the US, if it wasn't with one of Adobe's partners, or if they weren't getting paid, they were not interested, and who would fund something in the US where there was virtually no Flash Lite presence? What do you mean they don't have credit cards? What do you mean they can only download 100K? What they can't afford a smartphone? Aren't they going to upgrade in 6 months? The US way is to wait for these people to magically upgrade or get richer... that doesn't help the 250 million people with Nokia phones currently and the fact that at least 80% of the world is poor, and that ain't changing soon. Not saying that Finland was that in-touch with the developing market (it's a super first-world country after all), but it had a certain respect for the fact that this market had to be supported (even though they didn't listen to requests for Dual-Sim phones, until they lost serious market-share). Moving core decision makers away from developing markets is not the way to go.

... and of course: Meego & Nokiasoft

Looking at the N9, only one thought springs to mind: Microsoft must have paid a LOT to have the Nokia/Microsoft announcement made so early, there is no way they would have been able to get support for the deal after the Meego launch, it would have been too strong a contender. It also killed Symbian sales, and Nokia seemed to be surprised? They must know about the "Osborne Effect" - maybe Steve Elop was an unwitting Trojan horse. Was the world really so desperate for Nokia to announce something so early? I mean it sure didn't do the stock price of Nokia any good. Would have been fine if a Windows phone was coming out 3 months after the announcement, but 2012, come on! I predict that the first Windows Nokia phone will be a success, but I hope it's worth the cost.

In Conclusion...
So there, at least I have said it - let's hope that Nokia at least pays some attention to the needs of their consumers, most of the stuff I'm concerned about has to do with consumer experience at the end of the day. I am just sad when I see Nokia make moves to further decrease the already terrible user experience. They are leaving many of their users behind, creating a gap that they might not be able to cross. A lot of Nokia's current plans in terms of increasing user experience depend on your next phone purchase to also be a Nokia, with the timelines they are talking about, they are expecting it from consumers for another 6-12 months.... after they have been waiting for something since the launch of the iPhone, I just don't see that many people being loyal. If you have a way to reach and impress your current consumers and clients, those that are on 2-year upgrade cycles, it's almost crazy not to! Isn't that what builds loyalty, especially during a time like this? Just continue creating better Nokia Store experiences for all your low-end devices!

ps.
Your new model naming convention totally sucks, please fix. Another case of listening to the consumer, but giving them something worse. It was probably an executive who came up with the idea to model the naming convention after that used for luxury sedans, this executive forgot that BMW doesn't bring out 40 models a year.