Friday, July 16, 2004

New Media Age: Can Nokia Set the Standard?

Nokia’s recent 3G platform initiative has gained cross-sector support.
But, asks Mark Mayne, will this be enough to shut out Microsoft?

December 2001

Nokia launched its latest mobile initiative on 12 November, aimed at the creation of a common platform for 3G mobile technologies. Although similar announcements have been made in the past by both Nokia and its rivals, this was supported by a huge range of players. AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, mm02, NTT DoCoMo, Telefonica Moviles, Matsushita, Vodafone, Fujitsu, NEC, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Symbian all joined, although Microsoft declined.

One issue raised is the possible impact this may have on similar industry initiatives, such as the GSM Association’s m-services initiative, launched earlier this year. M-services was backed by operators such as mm02, Deutsche Telekom and AT&T, and handset manufacturers such as Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and Alcatel. Nokia even sent out a statement declaring support for the standard. However, issues like instant messaging dogged m-services. The four handset manufacturers all have their own enhanced messaging standard, and Nokia produced Nokia Smart Messaging.

The theory was that Nokia would retain competitive advantage, but now that the handset market has collapsed it seems this isn’t such a huge issue anymore. Additionally, the GSM Association originally said that the first GPRS m-services handsets would appear in October this year, a boast that’s yet to be realised, lending weight to the idea that m-services weren’t as widely adopted as the GSMA had hoped.

Absent from the latest Nokia-led initiative is Microsoft, not a firm well known for its open standards initiatives. “The jury is still very much out on this,” says Stephen Griffiths, founder of wireless developer Wonderwerx. “It’s a good idea for the handset manufacturers, because it blocks out Microsoft, but then many joint agreements prove fruitless in the long term. Microsoft is looking to gain traction in the handset market on it’s own terms, through .Net, which doesn’t allow for Open Source initiatives. I don’t see this derailing any previous industry moves like m-services, because the standards for most of these are set and it would be counterproductive to change them now.”

“As Microsoft doesn’t have much market share at the moment, this range of industry players stand a good chance of shutting it out of the market,” continues Griffiths. “The agreement also marks a trend in the mobile market, as manufacturers try to remove traditional areas of overlap to maximise profits. One major way to do this is to encourage developers with easily available source code. Motorola announced six months ago that it would distribute code, and Nokia can’t afford to get left behind. It needs to guard its 30% market share. In this light it could be seen as a spoiler tactic.”

According to Dale Vile, service director of wireless consultancy Quocirca, “Nokia is trying to use its dominance of the consumer sector here to move into the developer community and from there into the corporate space. However, Microsoft has a huge lead in the corporate and PDA areas, which have their own developers already. As most corporates are yet to take the plunge on mobile corporate apps, gaining control of this market depends on getting users on board now. In this case, the users are the developers.”

He continues: “I really don’t see Nokia providing anything more than a competitive irritation to Microsoft’s Pocket PC platform. But it’s not a black-and-white picture. It depends on whether you look at the corporate or consumer market.”

As Griffiths points out, operators need to be involved here to access a greater range of services. “Operators currently rely on Nokia for many of the more popular consumer apps and this must change, to give consumers choice,” he says. “NTT DoCoMo is involved because of its European arm, not because it wants to act on this initiative in Japan. The technology gap is too great.”

It seems this new initiative is an effort to close the door on Microsoft, certainly in the consumer space, and will mainly affect Europe. But it’s worth remembering that the lack of concrete standards from m-services and other joint agreements doesn’t bode well. It may well be a case of scrapping old agreements in favour of new, but will the new be any better? One thing is certain: the rise in partnering agreements and open standards will continue, as firms try to cut development costs and rollout times. This can only help the industry.

Copyright © 2007 Breakthroo Limited. All rights reserved
Breakthroo is powered by → ExpressionEngine