May 26th, 2009
Long time announced Ovi store has been launched worldwide. Is it enough to bring Nokia back to the trone?
In my opinion it’s not only Nokia to play the main role in this “come back”. It will depend even more on software developers. Currently the average price of a game on Nokia store is about 10 US$. Compare that to average iTunes game of 1 US$ and you’ll understand my point.
As I wrote before, it is difficult to maintain the business case for Symbian development where one may count on pricing the application at 1 US$ and counting on short-term return on investment. Unless Nokia simplifies further the licensing and testing costs and times with their accredited test house partners and improves device interoperability.
It will also take some time to get to the market. Have all the average Nokia users known that Ovi store is being launched? Don’t think so, while all iPhone and iPod users know about iTunes even before buying their device. Also, what about already known and well established application distribution Web sites and mobile operators? Will they continue to distribute applications? Will average user then visit them all to check for the featured application, and to compare the price? Will operators still charge less then developers?
Too many questions to confuse a phone user…
Tags: Apple iTunes, Nokia Ovi
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May 22nd, 2009
In April 1979 a TV series called Mobile Suite Gundam featured a giant robotic suite piloted by a human who was seated inside machine. Not only innovative in the world of manga and anime this serie, still popular 3 decades later, inspired creation of biosuites and robotic design.
Sunrise studio started construction of a full scale Gundam at Tokyo’s Odaiba to mark the anniversary. gundam30th
Tags: gundam, Tokyo
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May 15th, 2009
Three years ago I’ve migrated from Windows to Mac OS. I wrote already about all the advantages and I’m pretty sure you all know about them already, so I won’t repeat them.
This time I’d like to share some toughts on migration to iPhone. Two years ago I’ve got Nokia N95. That amazing small marvel packed with hardware features and connectivity. I tought, that was the ultimate mobility gadget. What else might one want. When Apple released IPhone I was so dissapointed it was not 3G. A year later, as I wrote last July, I was watching very few fans waiting in front of Softbank store in Tokyo to get the latest 3G iPhone. Still remember Japan Times article highlighting all that was still missing on the latest IPhone. I tought that Apple still has to go a long way to reach Nokia’s success with their handsets.
Than came the iTunes store. Quickly filling with tens of thousands applications. In all categories, if not free than very reasonably priced. Almost free compared to prices of equivalent Nokia applications.
At the end of my two years contract with my phone operator I’ve decided that the choice of applications outweighs all dissadvantages. Here I am blogging from my new iPhone while old N95 is off- line waiting to transfer remaining photos and videos to my Mac. The “fruit vendor” from Infinity loop won!
Tags: apple, iphone, N95, nokia
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April 23rd, 2009
Just as I wrote earlier, Microsoft reported the second consecutive drop the first in its 34 years history. Who among you cybernauts out there remembers when IBM abandoned their OS/2 operating system with its nice GUI and left the PC desktop to Microsoft?
The time has come for Microsoft to admit that the marriage with PC industry is not enough to maintain its dominant position. Linux and Mac OS made a dent in desktop OS huge cake.
On the server side, after IBM’s attempt to acquire SUN failed and Oracle succeeded, the collateral damage to Microsoft is also iminent. Giant like Oracle will certainly make a fresh push on Solaris operating system as the main platform for their software products. Hmmm, what will Oracle do with Open Office?
Cloud computing is also weakening Microsoft office market position. More and more individual users are switching to Google docs and other Web application services. The traditional safehaven of Microsoft is corporate world, but that is also quickly changing as companies are cutting costs by switching to centralized Web based services instead of costly for maintenance and licensing client applications.
After the boom in the wired decade, the time has come for the progress in software development in this wireless decade.
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April 23rd, 2009
Checking headlines from mobile phones industry one can see a striking similarity with the PC industry shifts in recent years. The world is saturated with hardware and people are not interested in spending money just on the gadgets but they want content. To illustarte this Nokia reported 90% quarterly profit drop from the Q1 last year. This is mainly due to the significant drop in mobile devices sales. They have decided to transform MOSH mobile content sharing Web site to Ovi online store (in a move similar to Apple opening iTunes store to iPhone applications). Obviously Nokia is not interested to share application and content distribution revenues with third parties. But we’ll see during the month of May if this strategy is not a little bit late.
PC sales are also on a significant drop. While analyists are blaming on economic crisis, it might be that personal computer users are just tired of buying hardware for the sake of it, and are more interested in the high quality applications and content. Is this why Microsoft is rushing into the new version of desktop Operating System leaving Vista with the record shortest life time? We’ll know more on Thursday when the operating systems giant reports its financial results. So far it is clear that those who invest in innovation win…
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