Can Nokia's 42MP camera phone (1020) generate more sales for Nokia?

Nokia recently released a phone with 42MP camera, the Nokia 1020. A brilliant marketing ploy, however the camera as Nokia put is takes 5MP pictures but allows finer details especially images that are far away. Will consumers be enticed to buy this device?

When we look at today's world there are a lot of us who use our phones to take pictures. Some of us even turns it into a hobby, publishes pictures in Facebook or Instagram or other forms of Social Media. In the past month I have observe people who likes taking pictures, most of them carry a separate camera from their phones and casually use the phone to take picture. However the common thing is that pictures taken with the phone are immediately shared on social networks. In my own little world of observing people, for Nokia's 42MP camera phone to be successful it must first and foremost should have all the capabilities of smart phone today coupled with an ecosystem of use application and social networks much like what Android and iOS have.

The problem with Nokia's 42MP camera is that it runs on Windows Phone 8, which in itself is a self is a let down to most users considering that more than 80% of the market prefers Android or iOS devices…

If you are buying this Nokia 1020 with 42MP camera, please let me know your motivation for doing so.

the future of OS wars….

Today, most of us who have some exposure to modern technology are aware of the the OS wars going on, battles rage by Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM. Little do we know the future of mobile OS is actually waged not for us adults but for young ones. We all know that smartphones are design for 2 year olds… and future wherein 10-year olds are  buying their own smart phones have arrived. Let's take my 10 year old daughter as an example, there are 23 kids on her class. 13 have iPhones, 5 have Samsung Androids and another 5 various Android devices. If you notice on this very typical example of a European school, there are no BlackBerry and no Windows Phone and all of the 10 who do not have iPhones yet want iPhone 5.

Let's pause for a bit and look the the no-shows. BlackBerry is releasing its OS 10 after more than a year of delay, it already has lost its edge and its customer base has abandoned it by allowing all other smart phones to connect to office and enterprise networks. Windows Phone claims to overtake iPhone and its 19% market share by 2016, a very ambitious goal, nevertheless a very daunting tasks. My view on my own little works is that Android and iOS will stay, BlackBerry might disappear and replaced by Windows Phone.

How about you? What do you think?

Who will win the Mobile OS wars?

With the global smartphone penetration expected to increase 3 billion smartphones in 5 years, or half of the world's pollution the positioning of various OS platforms are becoming more and more important. Now considering the various devices powered by smartphone OS then that market far exceeds half of the world's population. With such a very big and lucrative market OS and platform developers continue to fight for market share, iOS and Android is now very powerful, however some platforms have fallen or falling. The most glaring example is BREW and Symbian. Although there are four times more devices shipped by Symbian compared to Windows phone devices in 2012 they do now have the ecosystem to generate the kind of fire works that iOS and Android are currently enjoying. 60% of BREW developers indicates they will stop using it since its at the end of its life cycle and Qualcomm is quietly preparing for its discontinuation. Symbian has the highest rate of developer abandonment amongst all platform at 52%, especially that Nokia have declared that Microsoft is its preferred smartphone platform.

Vision Mobile mapped the performance of various OS below.

Blackberry is never far behind BREW and Symbian and is very close to becoming an endangered if not extinct platform. RIM has significant difficulties competing with iOS and Android even considering the expected release of the BB10 platform this year especially with email and instant messaging commonly available across  all platforms, Blackberry has lost its edge. As a result RIM investors are pressing the company to break up and sell all its assets. 14% of BlackBerry developers are abandoning the platform, even though the platform still brings considerable revenue to developers, the main reason being the very weak sales and market position of BlackBerry devices.

Samsung's Bada is next in line in the list of platforms being abandoned, with 49% of developers planning to drop it, it will end up to be an pure South Korean platform that is immature, substantially buggy and only limited to low-end smart phones. Samsung is losing its bargaining power towards Google's android which is now also penetrating the low cost smart phone market.

Windows Phone, the new kid on the block is the new cool: Even though  Windows Phone sales continue to disappoint, a year on, with 2.6 million devices sold in Q1 2012, according to Gartner, interest among developers continues to build up. The majority of developers who plan to adopt a new platform, plan to adopt Windows Phone (57%). Overall, 42% of developers using iOS and Android indicate that they plan to adopt Windows Phone and while the intention is slightly stronger among developers using mobile web (44%) or other, less popular platforms, intention doesn’t seem to vary significantly by the platform developers currently use.

Now there is a duopoly between Android and iOS, who will be the most dominant is still to be determined, although  Android is currently on a clear lead, there is a threat coming from HTML 5. Cross platform development is on the rise with 72% of iOS developers using Android and 64% of Android developers using iOS. The future of smart phones are pegged on this 2 giants. However for cross platform functionality HTML 5 is entering that space. This means that the choice between native applications and HTML 5 will be a cat and mouse game, where native applications will alway be in the forefront in terms of capabilities and feature set, HTML 5 will leverage in its cross platform functionalities. As Tom Hume, founder of FuturePlatform argues, “User expectations will always be formed by the native platforms, and native will always be a step ahead of HTML, as that’s in the interest of platform vendors”. He explains that “today, HTML5 performs poorly with new user interface paradigms like Microsoft’s Metro UI. Tomorrow, HTML5 will need to catch up with ambient sensing. It’s always going to be a cat and mouse game.”



The question is how will shape the ever growing smart phone market. So take your picks. As for AmanziTel being in the Customer Experience Management sphere, we support most of the platforms today and will continue to do so as long as there are consumers using this platforms. Although we have focused mostly on Android and iOS, while Windows Phone is of interest the platform is too closed for higher penetration amongst developers. How about you, will you pick one platform from the other?