As many of you know I have been working with Nokia on an initiative that will launch in September. Working with them has been exciting as they have made it their mission to be "the largest interactive media network in the world."
They intend to do this by continuing to use their vast social media presence. Their phones facilitate billions of conversations. People use their technology to express and broadcast themselves. Nokia is taking MEdia Now to the next level in over a 150 countries.
The article in Fast Company Nokia Rocks the World: The Phone King's Plan to Redefine Its Business is a glimpse at how Nokia has positioned itself outside the US. Having worked with them and their global teams this article reflects how they are viewed outside of the United States.
When reading the US based comments on the article it seems the failure to partner with the US carriers continues limit the brand's potential to be the every man's (regular guy/girl) alternative to the iPhone in the US. For those of us who work with the Finland based company we got the joke that, Tero Ojanperä was maing about "the fruit company in Cupertino".
If Nokia could partner with media companies and carriers here in the US we could see an influx of smarter than iPhone devices in our market. Nokia’s lack of penetration into the US smart phone arena isn’t due to a lack of “smart phones”. (Nokia has a plethora of smart phones lets remember apple only has one.) In the US market we are limited to the phones that carriers put in their retail stores. In NYC, there are 2 to 3 carrier retail stores in a city block. The relationships between Nokia and US carriers is well documented. Until that changes Nokia will continue to have a challenging time in the US. In the US, iPhone and Blackberry have defined the apps and smart phone space. That could change.
Nokia makes an amazing social phone/camera/video/storage device, and now with Ovi I can get apps like Facebook, twitter and bebo at the Ovi store. Today with my Nokia N97 I have a powerful social computing device that fits into the palm of my hands. I have bucked the hipster apple iPhone trend. Now that everyone in the US has an iPhone or a Blackberry it is now counter culture (punk-global connected citizen) to carry a Nokia.
