Versatile Amphibian

It surprises me that Nokia's latest set of poor results have been greeted with such happiness by the markets. A loss of $360Mn and further smartphone share to Apple seems like another nail in their coffin. This time last year I thought that Nokia's position as #1 handset maker was retrievable, but now I'm not so sure. I actually do buy the idea that Windows Phone can be a viable 3rd way against iPhone and Android (how the world has changed - I recall Operators being terrified of Microsoft 5 years ago, now they're willing them on...), however the strategy of announcing Symbian/ Meego's death a year in advance of it's launch seemed utterly crazy. Perhaps Stephen Elop decided it was best to focus them on one thing and halt the propensity to get distracted that had prevented Nokia succeeding in the preceding years. The trouble is that Nokia's travails are now front page news in the broadsheets, which means that 30-40% of the phone buying population are aware of...

A great article in Slate about the price of heavier cars in terms of road safety. As a long term driver of small, lightweight vehicles, it makes disturbing reading, even before one considers the environmental damage associated with 2T four wheel drives. I think that the idea the author proposes of increasing fuel duty to account for the additional health costs makes perfect sense. I fail to understand why in the UK we feel the need to pay for a vehicle licensing body like the DVLA (at the cost of 100's of millions of pounds) to ( ineffectively ) police road tax, when we could save a huge amount of money and gaurantee compliance by putting additional fees on fuel. Oh, and it would actually target those who pollute the most. Anyway, back on road safety, I remain really excited by the potential of self-driving in this area, even if it is only allowed on major trunk roads. British roads are quite safe but if one death can be avoided by mass adoption radar cruise control , brake assis...

A short post from me to day to flag that our new paper on success factors for mobile apps was published last week. Although it's quite a simple piece, the press coverage has been very favourable. Here's a few excerpts: Sunday Telegraph - Sunday Telegraph Silicon - Seven ways to stop your mobile app becoming a flop Guardian - Most branded apps are a flop says Deloitte. But why? New Media Age - Less than 1% of mobile apps hit 1m download mark Warc - Branded apps miss the mark Drum - Location information apps most downloaded, research finds Computer Weekly - Deloitte: the killer app could be killed off IT Pro – Smartphone users prefer Angry Birds to brands' application downloads. Tech eye - Branded apps are a mirage Inquirer - Nokia and Apple are leading European smartphone usage

Some great chat in the office today about the relative merits of the SIM card. I rather boldy claimed that in 3 years no new smartphone on sale would have a SIM card, the technology having been replaced by software SIMs. Needless to say, this view was not universally agreed with! Advocates of mobile operators and mobile banking providers decided that the former would never agree to ship such devices as they disintermediate them and that the latter would hate them for security reasons. I'm not so sure about either counter-argument, personally. The thing that hardware manufacturers really like about soft-SIM is that it makes it very easy to sell direct to the consumer - no messing about with holding stocks of SIMs, just choose the cheapest monthly deal, connect to iTunes or Android update and 20 seconds later the device is activated. Combined with 2 hour number portability , it really increases customer choice and disintermediates the service provider. The trouble for operators is th...

I can't help but think that the unveiling of HMV's new 'strategy' is the final nail in the coffin for music on the highstreet. Quite how they think that selling high end headphones (a product that couldn't be better suited to online merchants) and competing with the well established live performance players will save their business is beyond me. For me the future of such retail is in the creation of physical experiences that seamlessly and additively blend with online. For example, the use of augmented reality and near-field technology to enable consumers to sample on the highstreet (or even on the Metro ) and receive digitally on any device or promptly to their home. I've also written before about the role of HMV and equivalents in curating digital content for consumers faced with the unlimited choice of digital. Again, this is curiously missing as a positioning for HMV - imagine being able to walk into their store, sample some branded music, apps or games exp...