I Moved My Cheese

With the number of people who ask me “Which mobile phone?”, you'd think I'd

have it all sorted out when I need a new handset. Well. Very far from it.

It's a bit like with food and drink...which I enjoy way more than tech. I'm

always trying out restaurants, and giving instant replies to SMSs like “Where's

al-fresco Thai in South Delhi?” or “Good Korean in Gurgaon?” or “I'm on Brigade

Road... or LB Road...what's the Jap place here?” But when I have my own dining

to plan, out comes the spreadsheet, and into it goes an hour of research.

Buying tech products is a long and complex process for technophiles.

I know I have to upgrade my Nokia E51, like, last year. It doesn't even have

GPS (I use a Bluetooth dongle), its battery life is terrible, it's shaky with

apps. But I just haven't found the next one.

I've tested hundreds of phones over the years, but have mostly stuck to

Nokia, after an early Ericsson and a Siemens S10. My longest runner was Nokia's

6310i, with its week-long battery life, and GPRS, Bluetooth, and other features

ahead of its time.

But a phone ain't a phone today. It's a computer. An apps platform. And the

choice of a phone, especially for business users, often boils down to the apps,

and thus the platform.

My top app on my Nokia E51 is BlackBerry Connect. The best of both worlds:

the top email service, on a 12-key Nokia with T9 (my choice: I'm a heavy typist

and I dislike QWERTY pads).

Oh-oh... Nokia no longer supports BlackBerry. Neither on the E71, nor the E52

(my choice: slim, good battery life, GPS...in a 12-key phone). And why? Because

it wants to push its own Ovi email and other Ovi services.

But a corporate email service isn't a handset. You can't change email service

on a whim. And I'm happy with BlackBerry service.

So in essence, Nokia is saying that if I want to upgrade from the E51, I

should change my corporate email service....or else move to a non-Nokia handset.

I asked their CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, and he said you have to make some

sacrifices when you make a big shift.

The big shift is into services: a bit like IBM, Nokia wants to move from

hardware to services, along with the better margins and revenue. At the likely

cost of topline (and some loyal customers).

Well, a big shift has already happened. In a market dominated by Nokia, its

share of handsets (by revenue) is down from 66% in 2008-09 to 52% in 2009-10,

according to Voice&Data's V&D100 Indian Telecom Survey 2010. That's a 14% points

drop.

Who gained? Over 10% share was gained by the 'Indian' brands like Micromax,

Spice, Karbonn, Lava and Lemon...with their dual SIM cards, QWERTYs and Rs 5k

price tags. And Samsung gained 7% points, from 10% to 17%.

Nokia's already fallen behind the curve a few times, earlier with all-touch

phones, and, in India, completely missing the market demand for a dual-SIM phone

(it finally has one). It will have to move faster. In this market, the cheese

really does keeps moving. Or has Nokia found better cheese?

Oh, and I do have an upgrade option now. BlackBerry finally has a

numeric-key, T9-based Pearl 3G, minus the sticky pearl.

Prasanto K Roy is chief editor (ICT) at CyberMedia.



You can find him at www.pkr.in or twitter.com/prasanto