4 ms·

How Nokia got bamboozled by Hollywood

56 points by dalton 14y ago

wmf 14y ago
Content is Not King, version N. http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/833/742 http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/ar...
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  Odlyzko is among the few true geniuses of the Internet era. Calls the Emperor has no clothes and backs it up with solid reasoning and hard data.
GFischer 14y ago
My Nokia N86 came with The Matrix trilogy (on a propietary, DRM format). I really didn't "get" it (though they did show off the screen nicely). Other phones came with popular bands. After reading this article, I understand why they did.
SeoxyS 14y ago
In other news, "bamboozle" is a word. Wow.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
protomyth 14y ago
Nokia also didn't get the whole movie tie-in thing. The version of the Nokia 8110 featured in The Matrix didn't exist as a purchasable product. This defeats the purpose of product placement.
- gcb 14y ago
  I had that phone to develop content for it. Ah, wap and page deck days... or something. It was fricking cool. The same phone as neo. With a feature that they left out of the final cut in the film. ...Aim lower end of phone at someone a few feet away, press button, laugh as target takes a piece of plastic to the face. That started to happen a few months after we got the phone. So it's pretty obvious why it never 'existed' as a consumer product.
  - protomyth 14y ago
    They did later release the Nokia 7110 which had the spring-loaded cover, so I guess they got it to work. The phone in the second movie is not even a Nokia, it is a Samsung SPH-N270. Samsung sold it as a limited edition.
aik 14y ago
Few points: 1. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say Nokia is dead (if even as a stand-alone company). They have several great things going for them today, it's just hard to see if you're not looking beyond the current quarter or two (which I've found is a common symptom of blindness). 2. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say they flushed every piece of software they have ever built down the toilet. Firstly, they're still releasing non-WP phones. Secondly, a lot of their skills are in innovating within hardware, which they're very much still doing great stuff with. 3. The takeaway from the article is that if you are a tech company, you shouldn't become a media company (or get into media). Firstly, wouldn't Apple, Google, and Microsoft have never entered the media industry if they would've followed this? Secondly, this takeaway is a great example of the innovators dilemma [1]. The two opposing strategies could just as well lead to failure -- a. Following this "takeaway" advice and being too afraid to join new "value markets" (e.g. innovating within media), and so you just keep on running with what works [3a]; and b. Not following this takeaway advice because you realize you can't stay on top forever with your current strategy, and so you make an attempt to enter new disruptive markets even if it means cannibalizing yourself [3b]. [3a] I think this blanket advice has problems -- media may have been a good thing to get into because the media integration could have caused (or did?) a major disruption in the existing market (I believe this was Nokia's belief and a cause for why they did what they did). Thus not trying new things like this could cause failure as well, as new players enter the market and take their marketshare (e.g. Apple with music and media at its core). [3b] Though Nokia failed at it. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business/dp/0062060244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340596253&sr=8-1&keywords=innovators+dilemma http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-B...
- duskwuff 14y ago
  > 2. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say they flushed every piece of software they have ever built down the toilet. Firstly, they're still releasing non-WP phones. Secondly, a lot of their skills are in innovating within hardware, which they're very much still doing great stuff with. Ehh... While Nokia does still have a significant number of non-WP phones, most of them are "feature phones" (non-smartphones). With the price differential of smartphones plummeting at its current rate, even as the phones become more powerful, I strongly suspect that the "feature phone" market is going to largely evaporate outside developing nations within the next few years. (The remainder of Nokia's phones are running Symbian OS, which is widely regarded to be an evolutionary dead end. Nokia, unaccountably, still has some phones in the pipeline which will use Symbian, but I doubt there will be many more, nor that they will be very popular.) As far as hardware innovation goes, as long as Nokia sticks with Windows they're going to be pretty limited in that respect. My understanding is that Microsoft has some pretty strict hardware guidelines for WP7+ devices.
damian2000 14y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't nokia still the biggest seller of mobile phones worldwide, by number of units shipped? not smartphones sure, but just general mobile phones.
- sohamsankaran 14y ago
  Not anymore. Samsung claims that position now. http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-knocks-nokia-from-global-phone-top-spot-27224993/ http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-knocks-nokia-from-global-ph...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

56 points by dalton 14y ago

wmf 14y ago

Content is Not King, version N. http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/833/742 http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/ar...

dredmorbius 14y ago
Odlyzko is among the few true geniuses of the Internet era. Calls the Emperor has no clothes and backs it up with solid reasoning and hard data.

GFischer 14y ago

My Nokia N86 came with The Matrix trilogy (on a propietary, DRM format). I really didn't "get" it (though they did show off the screen nicely). Other phones came with popular bands. After reading this article, I understand why they did.

SeoxyS 14y ago

In other news, "bamboozle" is a word. Wow.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

protomyth 14y ago

Nokia also didn't get the whole movie tie-in thing. The version of the Nokia 8110 featured in The Matrix didn't exist as a purchasable product. This defeats the purpose of product placement.

gcb 14y ago
I had that phone to develop content for it. Ah, wap and page deck days... or something. It was fricking cool. The same phone as neo. With a feature that they left out of the final cut in the film. ...Aim lower end of phone at someone a few feet away, press button, laugh as target takes a piece of plastic to the face. That started to happen a few months after we got the phone. So it's pretty obvious why it never 'existed' as a consumer product.
- protomyth 14y ago
  They did later release the Nokia 7110 which had the spring-loaded cover, so I guess they got it to work. The phone in the second movie is not even a Nokia, it is a Samsung SPH-N270. Samsung sold it as a limited edition.

aik 14y ago

Few points: 1. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say Nokia is dead (if even as a stand-alone company). They have several great things going for them today, it's just hard to see if you're not looking beyond the current quarter or two (which I've found is a common symptom of blindness). 2. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say they flushed every piece of software they have ever built down the toilet. Firstly, they're still releasing non-WP phones. Secondly, a lot of their skills are in innovating within hardware, which they're very much still doing great stuff with. 3. The takeaway from the article is that if you are a tech company, you shouldn't become a media company (or get into media). Firstly, wouldn't Apple, Google, and Microsoft have never entered the media industry if they would've followed this? Secondly, this takeaway is a great example of the innovators dilemma [1]. The two opposing strategies could just as well lead to failure -- a. Following this "takeaway" advice and being too afraid to join new "value markets" (e.g. innovating within media), and so you just keep on running with what works [3a]; and b. Not following this takeaway advice because you realize you can't stay on top forever with your current strategy, and so you make an attempt to enter new disruptive markets even if it means cannibalizing yourself [3b]. [3a] I think this blanket advice has problems -- media may have been a good thing to get into because the media integration could have caused (or did?) a major disruption in the existing market (I believe this was Nokia's belief and a cause for why they did what they did). Thus not trying new things like this could cause failure as well, as new players enter the market and take their marketshare (e.g. Apple with music and media at its core). [3b] Though Nokia failed at it. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business/dp/0062060244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340596253&sr=8-1&keywords=innovators+dilemma http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-B...

duskwuff 14y ago
> 2. I don't believe it's an accurate statement to say they flushed every piece of software they have ever built down the toilet. Firstly, they're still releasing non-WP phones. Secondly, a lot of their skills are in innovating within hardware, which they're very much still doing great stuff with. Ehh... While Nokia does still have a significant number of non-WP phones, most of them are "feature phones" (non-smartphones). With the price differential of smartphones plummeting at its current rate, even as the phones become more powerful, I strongly suspect that the "feature phone" market is going to largely evaporate outside developing nations within the next few years. (The remainder of Nokia's phones are running Symbian OS, which is widely regarded to be an evolutionary dead end. Nokia, unaccountably, still has some phones in the pipeline which will use Symbian, but I doubt there will be many more, nor that they will be very popular.) As far as hardware innovation goes, as long as Nokia sticks with Windows they're going to be pretty limited in that respect. My understanding is that Microsoft has some pretty strict hardware guidelines for WP7+ devices.

damian2000 14y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't nokia still the biggest seller of mobile phones worldwide, by number of units shipped? not smartphones sure, but just general mobile phones.

sohamsankaran 14y ago
Not anymore. Samsung claims that position now. http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-knocks-nokia-from-global-phone-top-spot-27224993/ http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-knocks-nokia-from-global-ph...

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]