It's an open secret around the industry that some carriers (especially more powerful ones) basically ask the phone manufacturers to be good boys and make the phones just as told by the carriers - not so much of gimmicks allowed.
But the manufacturers need to innovate despite all this - if they only try to stick to the manufacturers' guidelines and specs, they will soon find themselves lacking in unique differentiation factors and therefore competing solely on price.
And "competing solely on price" is equal to "getting one day destoryed by the Chinese cheap labor". In China, things are so cheap that they sell computers by weight.
I think Nokia's acquisition of Loudeye will greatly help the company to provide an end-to-end mobile music experience. Hence a smart move - In fact I think Nokia as a company is pretty smart.
Personally, I have some friends over at Nokia. At one time, I was taking a stroll with this guy who'd been with Nokia for years. It was around the time when Nokia's market share had slided to a mere twenty-something percent, possibly a historic low.
I asked him what was going on. He said, "It's just that Nokia people have been too proud. That's all. We are not dumb, and we will come back hard. You gotta watch out."
And that's exactly what happened. Look at Nokia today - they're amazing.
Although due to the professional conflict I guess I'm not supoosed to say this, but I like Nokia -- for these reasons.
1. The company is smart and successful - see above, plus the fact that they are making 10 phones a second and yet generating around 33% of profit margin.
2. The company alone represents a good portion of Finnish economy while being not evil. This is remarkable - how many global companies are feeding large number of countrymen, while not so much evil? (The "not evil" part excludes Russian Oligarches, who by the way do feed large number of countrymen.)
3. They seem to be doing a fairly good job of treating its people right. I haven't seen many guys who had been with Nokia and say bad things about the company. Yes, I've heard some stories but Nokia is a big company and therefore it would't be able to please everyone.
* Picture source: Mobile Crunch
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