Disruptive Technologies: Mobiles Vs The Rest

Now, I just wrote about how mobiles could kill the watch brands. With Samsung Galaxy Gear, the battle for the wrist is official. If Apple gets in, it will be more interesting. If this was not enough, Adidas has launched a smart watch while Nike already has one.

Now the other day, I was watching TV and saw Priyanka Chopra, the former Miss World, movie star and a favorite for brands in India, promoting two different brands with conflicting interests. In one ad, she is promoting Nikon. In the other, she speaks of Nokia as a listening brand and how the camera in Lumia allows one to take pictures in the low light.

Strange isn't it? Or at least that is what I thought. I posted my opinion about this conflict on my Facebook status. Interestingly, few friends felt that Priyanka was not professional. But that was not the point. She is quite fine in pocketing the money offered by the brands. It should have been the brands' responsibility to ensure that there are no conflict of interest.

Conflict of interest?

On the Facebook status, some felt that there was no conflict of interest. They said one was a mobile phone that has a good camera and the other was a camera brand. Why am I seeing a conflict? Because I saw a sign of disruption. How? First Canon, then Olympus and Fuji exited the low-end camera business.

So, Nokia Lumia 1020 will come with a 41 mega pixel camera. How long before the mobile industry brings cameras that are more sophisticated and capable? Now that is disruption for you. Like classic example of computers replacing typewriters. Emails and electronic transfers have hit the humble neighborhood post office. Telegraph is already history.

As I had said, if Gear and similar devices make watches irrelevant, then there is every possibility that Cameras will also be eaten by mobiles. Going by the looks of it, in future, any device that doesn't multitask is likely to face a death. So, TV can no more be TV, it has to be smart. Gaming Console is not just gaming console, they have to help us watch movies, organize our pictures and listen to music. Watch is not a time observing device, it has to help us read messages, take calls, shoot pictures. Or as Nike and Adidas want it, be our health monitoring device.

While it seems easier for technology companies to diversify, would it be possible for traditional one-category brands to diversify into the technology sphere and stay relevant. Say, would Swatch and Titan start making watches that can be a smartphone? They currently rule the wrists but will it be easier to transform themselves into a technology brands? Will Canon start making phones with much better camera than Samsung or Nokia?

Let me take the risk of predicting the future, here. I think it will be the technology brands that will win the battle. Why? It is the world of Digital Natives who are exposed to technology brands from very early on. Once they grow and find their beloved brands offer more, they are more likely to continue patronizing them. On the other hand, Watch or Cameras come later. Think about it. Children start taking pictures using mobiles and pads much before they are handed over a camera.

The era of technology brands is ushering in, I suppose. Time for other brands to watch out and take steps to evolve and protect their territories.

Oh, by the way, did you read about Google's self-driving cars! 

Nokia Android Phones! Why Not?

I am not sure who wants whom more desperately. But now I feel Microsoft wanted Nokia than the other way. And I am not sure why Nokia decided to marry one partner rather than bed with many at the same time?

As I wrote in my previous blog about the closed architecture and open architecture, I am not sure what Microsoft wants to achieve going forward. Did it want to go the close architecture way like Apple? Or did it want its own handset like Blackberry? Or it was just about the patents and technology of Nokia that they went after.

Whatever be the reason, I cannot understand why Nokia gave itself away so meekly.

Google's Android is a thriving platform. It has given fillip to many brands and a great chance to gather market shares. India's Micromax is a great case study. I certainly will write about the great Indian brand soon.

Nokia like its competitors in the market, Samsung, LG, HTC..., could have had a stronger play if it had kept an open mind to work with any environment. Its brand equity, reputation for making sturdy phones and great network would have definitely worked in its favor. HTC for example is quite agnostic. It produces models in both Android and Windows platform.

Somehow I think the Finnish owners took a rather easy way out. 

Why Apple Can Never Be No. 1?

Android has 1 bn activations!

1 bn! That's roughly about one-seventh of world's entire population! Almost the entire population of either India or China. Android is the biggest, no doubts. 

Interestingly, history seems to have repeated itself. The architecture of PCs first was closed with each player having their own design, and then IBM standardized it. This environment was and is dominated by Operating System (OS) and Chip combination of Wintel who actually grew the market. The brands productized and marketed.

Mobiles were also segmented with each brand defining its architecture till iOS and Android started scripting the road map. 

In many ways, Android ecosystem is similar to IBM PC whereas Apple has retained its philosophy of being closed. The benefit of an open architecture is that the market is grown by many of its constituents. Whereas Apple is solely responsible for growth of its devices. Imagine a cart driven by many horses versus the one with just one horse. Which one do you think will run faster? 

I wonder if the Late Steve Jobs underestimated the power of the multi-horse chariot steered by Google. Even if he had seen, which I assume he did, I am sure nothing could have changed the way Apple approached the market. Being the sole owner of its ecosystem is at the core of its strategy.  

But I think Apple should do two things, differently. 

1. Products at multiple price point: The problem with Apple is that we see only one product at a time. iPhone 3 has to be killed before iPhone 4 is launched. And iPhone 5 has to be over iPhone 4, itself. So at any point of time, a consumer has only one option from Apple, limiting the market size. Apple could do better by planning products at different price points. Why can’t 3 co-exist with 4, 4S and 5?
2. Look East: America without a doubt will remain a strong market for Apple. But then there is a mighty chunk of willing fans in this part of the world. Though little late, Apple has finally started to focus on East, especially the big emerging markets. If you noticed, India got a special mention during the last results for being a high growth market. I personally know many acquaintances who jumped at the opportunity to own iPhone 4 and 4S.

Apple already has a great brand equity and its technology leadership is unquestioned. But it always loses out due to its close architecture. What Apple needs in my opinion is smart product planning. Products at different price points. 

It may still not be enough to beat Android base, but it would certainly shore up its numbers.  

What is wrong with Nokia?

Nokia is still the world's largest mobile handset maker. That may change predicts a recent article in The Economist. Samsung is likely to take over as the new number one handset maker. Am not sure why Nokia is losing out so badly despite having a reputation for producing sturdy devices.

I don't care much about the lower end of the market, but Nokia's strategy in the higher end of the market is flawed. Simply flawed. Nokia has aligned itself with Windows for the smartphone segment. And I really don't understand the need for Nokia to be married to just one environment when it could have been in bed with Google, too. If I am not wrong, Windows phone has not made any cut, not even the Windows 7. In the technology market, it is more important to be aligned to the leader. Or be independent differentiated like Apple.

What stopped Nokia from following HTC strategy? The latter churns out phones both on Google and Windows platform.

What stops Nokia? If nothing does, what is wrong with Nokia?

Blackberry's Beachhead Strategy

Close your eyes. Take deep breaths. Let your mind relax.

Oh sorry, no, I wasn't trying to teach you yoga or meditation. Far from it. I am thinking Blackberry. A piece of device which keeps you strangled to your workplace. The Email Phone.

But yes, do close your eyes and think about Blackberry and tell me if you see what I see. A phone that comes only in Black color. Think about people who use it. You will visualize corporate executives fiddling with it, running their thumb quite stylishly on the side of the phone. Like Aladdin would do to the magic lamp. Voila, like the Genie, comes your official emails. Think about the ads. It was functional. No, I mean the ads were good but the message was focused on functionality. Oh I also see a slightly beautiful Curve. But yes, again in black. Oh, I can also see Lewis Hamilton. Was that iPHONE? No, that was Blackberry trying to do iPHONE. That was black, too.

If you have used it, you will notice that the UI is hardly any great. It is not bad, though. I am not sure how many owners use it to browse the internet. My guess is hardly anyone.

As my colleague, Deepak Chopra rightly puts it - Blackberry is an office phone! It is not a phone one buys. It is often pushed down your throat by your employer so that they can keep you tied to work even when you are not in office through the end of your thumb.

This Research In Motion's technology marvel was also in a true sense a real convergent device. It allowed Voice and Data to work seamlessly on one single piece. Though data here largely meant - official mails.

So the recent ad campaign of Blackberry took me by little surprise. Black wasn’t missing but there was Whiteberry, sorry white Blackberry. And it wasn't about email, the ad featured youngsters accessing social networking sites. Then I heard a radio jingle which mentioned many features that would entice the social networking addicted youth.

Yes, these are all signs that Blackberry now wants to go mainstream! And I must say that it was inevitable. There were only two options for RIM - be a chimp by becoming better email phone or aim to be a guerilla. And it chose wisely to be a guerilla. Or at least, attempt to be one. But before I try to predict whether it would be successful or not, it would be good to analyze this situation from theoretical point of view. And where else to turn, but to Geoffrey A Moore!

My obsession with Geoff Moore seems never ending. Someone who has followed his work will be able to see that RIM was intelligent in adopting a beachhead strategy in the mobile industry. For non-starters, this strategy evolved from the Allied Forces' attack on the Normandy Beach in the final attempt to over throw Hitler's regime during the Second World War. Allied Forces instead of spreading its attack thin chose Normandy in France as their entry point to Europe that was virtually controlled by the German Forces. And the rest is history.

RIM segmented its market pretty well; it chose a market whose requirements were unique and unmet. As its technology enabled access to emails much faster than the rest, it chose to serve the Corporate World. And not just anybody in the Corporate World. It became the preferred device of the top executives who traveled a lot and whose lifeline was emails.

Over a period of time, despite coming in one single color like Ford's T-model, Blackberry has built a reputation of its own and definitely become an object of desire. It has come to denote power and position one holds in an organization. However one may rant about Blackberry eating into one’s personal life, it definitely beats Nokia's Vertu in terms of being an aspirational product. This despite the fact that Vertu has precious stones and metals embedded.

But in the technology world things change at a much faster pace than one would imagine. Apple that was riding on its iPOD's success, decided to enter the mobile market through iPHONE. And through iPHONE, it gave jitters to Nokia, the largest mobile phone company in the world. While tumbling the pins in the mobile phone market, it has started eating into Blackberry's protected market. If you are a lowly mortal, like me, mailing to your boss from laptop or PC, you would have noticed that he promptly replies to you and there would be a small line after his signature stating that 'this mail has been sent from Blackberry'. But oft late, you must have seen some sprinkles of 'this mail has been sent using iPHONE'.

Apple is certainly giving jitters to everyone. And that is why I said that Blackberry had only two choices - protect its existing turf, which would have become more and more difficult, or fight a war and expand its territory.

So, Blackberry decides to follow its own bowling pin strategy. Blackberry's association with email is very strong. Email means internet. And internet is going strong. Adoption of mobile phone is happening much faster and it surely is going to displace the PC/laptop market. That is the technology trend. The other trend is consumers’ behavior. Today, Social Networking is a way of life. Twitter, Facebook and the likes are our communication tools. Mobile phones being the device of the generation, Blackberry naturally is positioning itself as the device for youngsters. Proof? Look at the ads and the message.

But in my opinion, mobile phones may also not be the future. To me the iPAD and Kindle seem more like it. But I wouldn't be surprised that the real convergence happens somewhere in the middle. Yes, and that will be the most convenient to users.

So, can we expect an iBERRY? My guess is a big YES!