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Reinventing Nokia – The Mobile Hardware Giant

No one would have expected to see Nokia  struggling by 2011. But then that’s what happened, after a huge drop in profits in the last few quarters and loss of its No1 status in Europe, Nokia is in shambles.

Few days back Nokia sold its Symbian Development to Accenture, and gone with the company are its developers and testers as well. But more importantly few months back Nokia announced an alliance with Microsoft and decided to dump Symbian for Windows Phone Operating System.

Nokia has always been associated with Quality and Performance of its phones. When most phones lasted few years, Nokia devices would last twice longer. And whether it reception, battery performance or ruggedness, Nokia was the Honda  and Toyota  of the Mobile world.  Nokia was also one of the early entrants  into Smartphone business, they have brought some of the popular Smart phones in the last decade be it the 6600 or N70, N93,N95 and E61 etc. But Nokia is a victim of their own success, content with a aging Symbian platform Nokia failed to get on the Post iPhone , touchscreen bandwagon.

Though Nokia released quite a few touchscreen devices, the operating system was clumsy and not user friendly, crashing smartphone OS was ok during the early days of Smartphones, but now  they cant be tolerated.  With highly competitive platforms in Android and iOS, Nokia  had all but failed in High End division. And low end market is populated with copycat chinese phones which perform more functionality than Nokia with half the price.

But aligning with Microsoft and dumping its Symbian OS is a step in the right direction,  Nokia still has the best hardware in cellphones, what it is missing is the software. With Microsoft deal it achieves exactly that, and now Nokia can concentrate on improving and establishing itself the leader in this segment. Microsoft is also reinventing itself in the Mobile space, one of my Gripe was the hardware on the windows phones, it used to be either Motorola or some unknown company. No major hardware player was associated with windows phones, but with Nokia,  Microsoft gets just that.

With Windows 7 phone platform creating so much excitement , definitely this is the best that could have happened to Nokia. With launch of N9 , Nokia did show a Meego (Linux) based device, but for next few years Nokia might just concentrate on Windows Platform and occasionally release Phones for Android as well.  And with a backing from Microsoft , Nokia will be finally able to break into US market, earlier due to carrier control in US  , Nokia never had its best phones in the  US market.

It would be just great for consumers with one more great option in terms of the phone hardware.

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Future of the web and HTML 5

With push from Apple and Google, finally HTML 5 appears to be the future of  web. Even Microsoft which has tried very hard to push its Silverlight, has given in by implementing HTML 5 support with IE9. With Windows 8 expected to bring  HTML5 apps to mainstream consumers,  HTML 5 adaptation cant get better boost.

But days of HTML 5 only sites are still years away, last week I was playing with some of the popular tags and could immediately notice remarkable difference between Google Chrome and Firefox in their support and implementation. And IE9 is  not ready for adoption in enterprise. Over next few years there will be arguments and  counter arguments regarding what is best for future of HTML 5, unlike the past where Microsoft used to set the rules in HTML game and rest followed, we have other players already in the game and Microsoft would be expected to follow Standards.

With the advent of HTML5 the biggest benefit will  be for low power devices, on the other hand Adobe Flash and  Microsoft’s Silverlight will be the biggest casualties. And with advent of HTML apps, Microsoft’s dominance in OS realm will be seriously threated by likes of Google and Apple, overall exciting phase awaits every computer user.

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Time to get rid of CTC figures in Indian IT

In a very strong move against companies misleading  candidates with false CTC figures, IIM’s have instructed companies to  give  a more accurate information on Salary. They have advised companies to shoe exact minimum cash component a candidate will receive  excluding Bonus and performance pays. And companies can specify another component MEP, ie maximum earning potential which can include bonuses, and other variable components.

In Indian IT industry the CTC is another way of companies inflating salary to lure employees. CTC – Cost To Company, in many cases is irrelevant to employees.  By showing a bloated figure including maximum variables and other  non cash contributions companies often cheat potential candidates. It is a sad fact that this is how many of our leading companies like TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) , Infosys et al make offers.

With the move from IIM’s this should also be enforced in all colleges and universities to protect students and providing more easy way of understanding their future salaries.