Before we go any further I would like to underline that this web site is not a rumours site. I see speculation and spreading pointless rumours as two very different things. Lets move on.
In part 1 we discussed about the backgrounds and current situation and shed some light on Nokia’s possible options. You can read part 1 here.
Nokia is an engineering company build and run by engineers. This has been a great recipe for success until Apple’s iPhone changed the industry. Nowadays, if you want to succeed, your main priority needs to be in software, which needs to be easy to use and attractive. Unfortunately for Nokia its operating systems are nether. Nokia is still the leader in hardware development but when it comes to software it is in serious need of help. Of course this might change fairly soon with MeeGo. What Nokia needs are designers and managers who value designers over engineers. Nokia has already taken first steps towards this kind of mentality by hiring people like Peter Skillman who joined Nokia from Palm.
Yahoo!
Yahoo! is a great software company with a lot of expertise. Unlike Google Nokia and Yahoo are not rivals. Nokia is already in a partnership with Yahoo. Nokia provides Yahoo with maps and Yahoo handles Nokia’s Ovi email service. Win-win for both. Could this existing partnership be explored even further? Yahoo and Nokia seem like a good match. Yahoo is well known, it has the talent, it’s American, it’s not a rival and Yahoo needs something new to fight Google with. At the moment Yahoo does not have major presence in the mobile world. And they need to enter this space before it is too late. Apple has iOS, Google has Android, Microsoft has WP7 could Yahoo have Nokia?
Like mentioned earlier, Nokia and Google are rivals. But so are Apple and Google and still they co-operate in search and navigation. Google is in a desperate need of developers. Although Android is much more popular as a platform as iPhone, Apple App Store has double the amount of available apps than Android marketplace. Ovi Store’s situation is even worse. Nokia is relying on Qt, which also Google has used previously in its desktop applications. Could Google and Nokia merge their app stores in order to attract developers away from the Apple camp?
Opera
Opera is an interesting company. It has great, innovative products for both desktop and mobile use but still they have never really taken off. At the moment the current browser that ships with Symbian^3 devices is pretty much unusable due to its terrible UI. My personal opinion is that Nokia should acquire Opera and integrate it with Ovi. This new Ovi browser would be available for mobile and desktop, as well as Android and iOS. If done right this could be the greatest Trojan horse since the original! It would also fix one part of Nokia’s software problems and assure that the browser would never again become a problem.
Search
I have a strong feeling that Apple will enter the search engine war in not too distant future. It would make perfect sense. They could distance themselves away from Google for good without having to rely on Yahoo or Microsoft. This is exactly why Nokia should do this now. By purchasing Baidu (Chinese), Rediff (Indian), Yandex (Russian) or Lycos Nokia would immediately increase the credibility of Ovi. By combining navigation services with its own search engine, Nokia could enter mobile advertising market with new and better tools. This might sound risky to some but “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” (Einstein)
What do you think? Join the discussion on Twitter!
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