This morning I read a review of the new Nokia N9 phone. The author seems very impressed, using radical statements like this: "It is easily the best looking device on the market today .." (specifically, thus, better looking than the iPhone 4S)
Generally this seems to be a common sentiment with the N9 as long as they approach the product itself and not the company behind it (and specifically the decisions of their management); it seems that the product is felt to be really really good, at least as far as the end-users are concerned.
As we all know by know, this is sort of ironic, since Nokia decidedly killed the software platform they used to build this phone. When asked about making that decision, they have mentioned in the interviews things like the "oh-s-t moments" when they realized where they were, which apparently they felt was way far away from where they should have been. Now I know that there are a whole lot of things that are involved in their minds and that I certainly don't know much at all about what had contributed to their decisions; still, hearing the reviews of the N9 really would prompt to wonder if they REALLY were that far away, and/or was this not workable somehow?
Be that as it may, I found it all to be very strange at the time, and I still do; even more so now after reading the reviews, since all positive reviews of N9 end with something like "It is a spectacular phone, but I wouldn't recommend buying it", and that more or less comes down to the fact that the manufacturer has killed the product before it was launched. It's kind of a shame.
Now they have their new plans and they may well sell some Windows phones later on. And the people that lost their jobs are surely competent and will most hopefully find new jobs and/or start new companies, which may well in aggregate turn out to be good for the country in the long run.
But here's what worries me in what happened:
Before the decision was announced, effectively killing Nokia's in-house operating system development, there was a period of agony and painful discussion that seemed to come out from inside and around the company. In the end, the consensus sentiment was that we (collectively, as Europeans and/or as Finns) cannot possibly do this. It was felt that developing a mobile operating system / software platform was just too much to handle. The sentiment was that the "mobile center of gravity had moved to the US", apparently followed by the feeling that there is nothing we can do about it, leading to a decision to stop trying.
That really worries me.
It's like an 8-year-old schoolboy who, doing his math homework (that is super easy for him), just stops working and does nothing, because he has decided that it is just too hard. If left by himself he just may fall asleep and never finish the work. But if you just give him a little question to push him to try, just even a little bit; all of a sudden the assignment is complete. But if he decides that he cannot do it, he will never be able to do it!
I came across the same sentiment in the Philippines when a venture capital investor (who had invested in a promising new startup) went for a trip to Silicon Valley, then came back home and told the management of the company that he had invested in that "there is no way we can compete with the guys from Silicon Valley", and decided to quickly pull out his investment and kill the promising startup (which was well on its way to develop a super substantial product).
What's the similarity between these three (Nokia, the schoolboy and the investor)? It is the DECISION TO GIVE UP. And stop trying.
Having seen the N9 now, for me, proves wrong what I already knew was wrong. Although Nokia's software efforts were far from perfect, at least they were putting in the effort necessary to at least MAKE IT POSSIBLE to succeed. If you don't do your homework, there is no way you can expect to have a good grade! If you kill the startup you have already invested in, it will surely not be able to compete.
These examples are of course just isolated, but I think I can see something consistent in the attitude. Perhaps there are yet more similar cases out there? If so, we better stand up for ourselves already. Yes, WE CAN compete against the guys in Silicon Valley. Really. It is possible. We just need some self-confidence. And some courage. And old-fashioned hard work.
If you don't believe me, just read some N9 reviews. Just ignore the fact that Nokia decided to concede it.
