Mobile Matters

Transition rap

2012-04-11T16:03:00.000+03:00

What! Have you heard there's some transition going on at Nokia?

Due to the transition process, generally all current employees can stay on the payroll through the end of the year 2011, even those possibly impacted by the reductions. (21.4.2011)

As we move our primary smartphone platform to Windows Phone, this transition of skilled talent to Accenture shows our commitment to provide our Symbian employees with potential new career opportunities. (27.4.2011)

Strategy transitions are difficult. We recognize the need to deliver great mobile products, and therefore we must accelerate the pace of our transition. (31.5.2011)

During this time of transition, we expect competitive pressures to continue. (21.7.2011)

With each step, you will see us methodically implement our strategy, pursuing steady improvement through a period that has known transition risks, while also dealing with the various unexpected ups and downs that typify the dynamic nature of our industry. (20.10.2011)

And, while we progressed in the right direction in 2011, we still have a tremendous amount to accomplish in 2012, and thus, it is my assessment that we are in the heart of our transition. (26.1.2012)

We recognize the planned changes are difficult for our employees and we are committed to supporting our personnel and their local communities during the transition. (8.2.2012)

Our disappointing Devices & Services first quarter 2012 financial results and outlook for the second quarter 2012 illustrates that our Devices & Services business continues to be in the midst of transition. (11.4.2012)

We are navigating through a significant company transition in an industry environment that continues to evolve and shift quickly. (19.4.2012)

This transition rap was compiled from Nokia's press releases and quarterly reports. Only transition seems to do fine at Nokia House.

//Harri

Keep your mobile strategy clean

2011-12-21T22:40:00.000+02:00

Today I had a lively discussion about the fundamentals of mobile strategy. This is one of my favorite topics, and I have written about it also earlier, made notes about mobile strategy and how mobility is not speciality, just to pick some of my old postings.

Today’s topic was mostly about how much mobile strategy should handle about technical issues, terminals, protocol versions and so on. My position is that in mobile strategy work you should handle these issues only little, to make strategy more general and goal oriented.

I have noticed - not strictly related to mobile issues - that many sales oriented people who don’t deeply understand technical components and their relations to each other, are excessively worried about these questions. Often their opinions nicely follow the opinions expressed in latest issues of popular newspapers or websites and equipped with this information they are ready to attack any discussion with strong opinions about XML5 [sic], for example. Because these new acronyms don’t land safely on their technical perspective, all of them seem to have a huge importance that will shake the world, day after day. New platform version coming, major news, rewrite strategy!

This leads to strange phenomenon: nontechnical people seem to be too excited about technical topics, whereas technical people take things calmly and explain why some new acronym is not necessarily that important.

What this has to do with strategy? Well, nothing if you do strategy work as intended - create a vision about your future analyzing strengths and weaknesses, creating for your company a roadmap to the future. Strategy paper is not something that will tell exactly what to do, but instead tells which directions to take. In mobile domain one could make plans about taking customer processes to mobile devices (to increase customer satisfaction results), improving mobile tools for traveling workforce (to save costs and speed processes), enriching marketing with a touch of mobile (to attract new customers). All this implemented in a managed, secure and cost-effective environment with measurable results.

Make a mobile website using HTML5 isn’t mobile strategy. Improve marketing reach with mobile solution is strategy.

Create some application for iPhone (because all others have done it) isn’t mobile strategy. Improve customer satisfaction with mobile solution is strategy.

These thoughts lead me to some simplified tests to assess if your mobile strategy is a collection of short term actions or does it have more value. Assume situation February 10, 2011, right after you have finished mobile strategy work and you were full of enthusiasm about Nokia’s Symbian plans and you were sure how it will seamlessly fit to your existing IT and partner ecosystems. Next day Symbian was slaughtered, what happened to your forward looking plans?

More quick tests: What happens to your strategy if application stores suddenly change their acceptance criteria? What if revenue share models change dramatically? What if tomorrow some fruit company from California launches new mobile device that is superior to anything we’ve seen so far? What if NFC readers keep on ” coming next year to mainstream”, just as they’ve been for more than five years already? What if iPhone isn’t cool anymore? If any of these events shake the foundation of your mobile strategy, consider changes.

Mobile strategy is the guide that shows you the direction where to go. To decide whether to create an application or mobile website is tactics, and that’s another story.

//Harri

Crackers active in Finland

2011-11-13T22:04:00.003+02:00

Background for international readers:

November 5th a list of 16.000 names, street addresses, email addresses and id numbers was leaked and finnish yellow press was spreading panic. Later some organizations admitted that their systems were cracked.

November 12th a new list of half a million email addresses belonging to finnish users was leaked. Yellow press making big headers.

November 13th a partial list of passwords was leaked, list was claimed to belong to the leaked email addresses. CERT-FI confirmed that passwords are real and finnish news services are now full of discussions about the situation.

Any ideas where some of the email addresses and potentially also passwords are coming from? Yes.

List has 52535 addresses from gmail.com domain and 86 of the users use the same trick that I do: append some additional text to the email address using address alias. I've done that myself to track how my email address potentially spreads, but this time we can read hints about the cracked sites cleanly from the address list. There are not many sites that can be discovered this way, but certainly something related to ice hockey, cars, calorie counting and personal finance management.

//Harri

Nokia Lumia pricing comparison

2011-10-26T14:28:00.000+03:00

As always Nokia today gave a price indication with launch of new devices, Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. The price is of course always "excluding taxes and subsidies" because local taxation and market situation will affect the price.

To estimate the real street price of phones, here is a small table to show how Nokia estimated prices for some of their latest smartphones so that you can compare the Nokia estimated price and real street price when phone finally became available. Is Lumia 800 expensive or not, you can judge yourself. Looks to me that Lumia 800 should retail much cheaper than N9 16GB, but comparison is somewhat difficult because Lumia 800 (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK) and N9 availability areas don't overlap.

Device	Estimated price	Estimate given
Lumia 800	420€	26.10.2011
Lumia 710	270€	26.10.2011
N9 16GB	480€	27.9.2011
N9 64GB	560€	27.9.2011
E7	495€	14.9.2011
N8	370€	27.4.2010

//Harri

Nokia's value is falling

2011-09-22T09:14:00.000+03:00

It's been a while since latest post to this blog, I've more or less moved from blogging to Twitter as that medium is much more conversational. This time I just didn't manage to compress my thoughts to 140 chars.

Today, September 21st, Nokia's market capitalization is 15.7 billion euros and stock price has fallen 46% this year (Source: Nasdaq OMX).

Another fact is that Nokia's total cash and liquid assets were 3.9 billion euros at the end of second quarter this year (Source: Nokia's interim report).

It is also a fact that Google acquired Motorola Mobility in August, mostly for its patents, for 12.5 billion dollars (approx. 9 billion euros). According to reports, Nokia's patent portfolio is better than Motorola's both in terms of quantity and quality and for example every iPhone sold generates royalties to Nokia.

How Google actually evaluated Motorola's patents is not known, so we must make a wild assumption. Let's assume that over half of Motorola's value was coming from patent portfolio and because Nokia has more and better patents, we can round sum up a little bit. Let's say Nokia's patent portfolio is worth 7 billion euros, quite possible figure based on Google's Motorola deal. (In fact after Motorola deal J.P. Morgan valuated Nokia's patent portfolio to 5.4B€, but wildest evaluations were close to 20B€).

Now it's time for some math:

Nokia's market capitalization 15.7B€
- Nokia's cash assets 3.9B€
- Nokia's patent portfolio 7B€
= 4.8B€

This calculation shows that without cash assets and patents Nokia's core business is valuated below 5B€, or to put this in different words, only 1/3 of Nokia's value comes from what they do today.

However, Nokia owns 50% of NokiaSiemens Networks, Navteq maps (when Nokia bought Navteq price was 8.1B$), has factories all over the world, sold in last quarter over 100 million devices, more than 1.3 billion people use Nokia devices every day and Nokia is still one of the most recognized global brands. Despite reductions, Nokia has an army of talented people working every day to create new devices that their effective manufacturing and logistics can push through their global sales channel practically to every village in this planet. Yet, that doesn't seem to have much value.

Or maybe investors just don't believe that life as Microsoft's hardware department will be great business.

//Harri

I'd take the browser

2011-02-04T15:14:00.003+02:00

I just realized that once again I am going against the flow, and this time it is about whether to do mobile applications or mobile websites.

I think it was back in 2001 when I made my first mobile application, it was for Nokia 9210 and Symbian was still called Epoc. To make an application for that device was a very painful process, supporting documentation was nonexistent, there was hardly anyone to ask help and SDKs and tools were jurassic. When application was ready, users didn't dare to even try installing it, because the whole concept of installing stuff to telephone was beyond their comprehension. Despite of that I wanted to create applications and not browser content.

Constantly I was challenged about applications vs. browser question. Users had just experienced the transition from desktop applications to desktop browser solutions and of course wanted to know why mobile world was different compared to desktop world. The reasons for applications were simple: terminals were lacking many features and only applications could fill those gaps; data networking was very expensive, unreliable and circuit switched; browsers supported only WAP and user's didn't even know how to configure it. That's why I wanted to create applications, luckily there was no fragmentation at that time.

Fast Forward 10 years.

Today's devices are primarily internet data satellites and most of them have capability to do also old-fashioned voice calls. Devices are online all the time, switch between networks transparently and some have better screen resolution than office monitors had ten years ago. Devices are filled with capabilities, including great (or bearable - you know who I mean…) browsers. At the same time new device platforms pop up everywhere, old platforms get updates, fragmentation spreads around the business and still applications are the most hyped thing. It doesn't make sense. No matter which platform you choose for your application, you rule out most of the users. If you pick browser solution and implement it wisely, you can reach 96% of devices instantly if that is needed. Today I can't help suggesting customers by default to choose browser and forget applications, unless a real reason exists to decide the opposite. Because typically browser is also cheaper choice, customers can invest remaining budget on marketing and attract users that way. When your first application is published, you have just scratched the surface but with browser you probably are done already.

Why everybody then wants applications today? Probably because it is so easy to go with the herd and application stores give you visibility and some coolness-factor? Of course there are cases when an application is a must, but looking at top-100 applications from any listing you can easily see that "let's duplicate our browser content with our application" is the most common specification used. And if you think application store is a great way to get publicity for your application, you certainly are not alone. In Apple AppStore only you have over 300.000 friends, sharing your hopes.

//Harri

John Wayne trying to save Nokia

2010-12-26T22:42:00.009+02:00

A couple of days ago Helsingin Sanomat published an interview with Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's former CEO who got sacked this September. In this personal interview OPK tells about his feelings for the first time after he stepped down from his Nokia position. It's a good read, please take a look.

For quite some time Nokia hasn't been famous for innovative products and its new rivals have made Nokia look like an old struggling giant. Nokia has been hit by the Innovator's Dilemma.

Think for a second what would you need in order to be "innovative". I'd list things like time to think, seeing things from a new perspective, vision about future, sharing ideas with unexpected people and hard work - and this is just a start.

Then read carefully OPK's interview, especially the part where he tells about his work routines. Twelve hours spent daily at the office and after that working some more from home. He had vacation only a couple of days annually and for five years he couldn't visit trot races - his favourite hobby. Christmas lunch with friends he had this year first time in fifteen years!

How do you think an organization acts when the leader works like John Wayne, trying to alone save the entire company? My guess is that next management levels are trying to follow him, because they think it is the right way to work in this company. The more you work, the better you are and get closer to promotion. No casual meetings, no lunches with friends, no hobbies, no vacation. Just work.

If you work like that, you will lose most of the things that I feel are the requirements for innovations. If you don't have any slack in your calendar, when does your mind work freely? If you don't even have time to meet friends, how can you get exposed to fresh thinking? If you work like that, can you evaluate the innovations presented to you and decide where to invest?

Another small detail that caught my eye was that OPK will probably never buy an iPhone, he wants to remain loyal to Nokia. Many times I've thought that Nokia's top executives shouldn't only be allowed but instead forced to use their competitors' products in everyday use for a month or so. If they see something nice in their products, Nokia could proudly imitate those features - that's what their competitors do, anyway. And finally they would know what struck them.

//Harri

Ovi Store disappointment

2010-10-26T20:14:00.000+03:00

Earlier Nokia's Ovi Store has had some usability challenges, to put it politely. Having used new Ovi Store for some time with N8 I've been quite happy with it as there has been a major improvement to user experience. Application discovery and installation work acceptably and sometimes I've even found myself browsing the store just to see what's available.

After many installed applications I started to wonder that I never received any notifications about application updates. You know, sometimes developers do make mistakes and release fixes for those or even add new features to applications. Must say I was shocked when I was told that missing update notifications was not because Nokia developer ecosystem has reached the ultimate quality level but because Ovi Store doesn't support update notifications!

Ok, no update notifications then. Before application is installed from Ovi Store, there is a button to download the application and after installation is finished, the same button allows me to launch the application. I can't download the same application again - is the purpose that I must uninstall the application before update?

How am I supposed to update an application I've installed from Ovi Store if I know an update exists?

How would I know there is an update available because Ovi Store doesn't show version numbers?

Why does Ovi Store offer me the same application again and again for download even if I have it already installed?

Has somebody really wrote specification that states this is the way an application store should work?

Below are some screenshots if Ovi Store is not familiar to you.

//Harri

I like N8!

2010-09-19T19:12:00.004+03:00

Nokia is going through interesting times. Stephen Elop will begin his job next tuesday and in a month new N8 will become publicly available. I've had a pleasure to use N8 for some time in everyday use and that device must be put to the same category as 2110, 9110 and 7650. N8 is a great and exiting device. Really, that wasn't a joke! Let me tell you why.

N8 is not a piece of plastic. As soon as you hold the device in your hand, its aluminium body feels solid and robust.

N8 has capacitive touch screen, say goodbe to stylus.

N8 has amazingly good camera with a xenon flash. Takes as good pictures as my digital camera and I can read my email, call wife and check Facebook with N8 - something my camera cannot do.

I didn't think HDMI connection has any value before I connected N8 to my TV and watched the pictures together with my family. HDMI and great camera is a good combination.

N8 is fast, something I haven't been able to say about other Nokia phones lately. You touch the screen and there is an immediate response. Screen orientation changes without shaking the phone. Virtual keyboard is fast and easy to use. Music player with album art performs just as it shoud do. And so on...

N8 looks good. To whoever I have shown N8, comments have been somewhere between "Wow!" and "Oooh!". What's most interesting is that young people, those digital natives, have been very excited about the device and its looks.

N8 is stable. It hasn't crashed.

N8 has new homescreen that has three configurable views. If you don't like old S60 application menu, you won't need to use it as everyday tasks can be launched directly from homescreen. If you can't live without old S60 menu, it is still there.

By the way, I have been using N8 with pre-commercial softare, that has probably tons of testing and debugging features still built in. When commercial software is released, I expect N8 to become even better.

Nokia is back in the high-end smartphone competition.

//Harri

All these different devices are the same

2010-09-11T16:13:00.005+03:00

While smartphone competition is heating up, many analysts have asked when Nokia will start using Android in its devices, instead of Symbian. Most of the answers to this question have been the same, how Nokia would then differentiate itself from all the other manufacturers who use Android? In general, how could a manufacturer differentiate from all the other competitors using the same platform? Here are two ways to do it, both of them I would highly appreciate as a customer.

Superior hardware quality

Thinking about Nokia, their hardware quality is still unbeatable. Take an E-series device and hold it in your hand, it feels rock solid and durable. Then repeat the test with - let's say - HTC Hero and you feel the difference. You might not want to do this, but drop both devices to concrete floor - which one is still working?

OK, I have had HTC Hero and touchscreen has now broken three times in a year and device is again getting repaired. That's why HTC Hero is used as an example here. And yes, I haven't dropped it to the floor.

How do you differentiate from competitors if all are using the same platform?

Make sure your device has better and more durable hardware!

Give an unbeatable support statement

No matter which platform the device is running, there will be new platform versions and sooner or later the device becomes outdated. New applications will benefit from new platform services and you are missing all those. When will your device get an update - or will it ever? Has the manufacturer forgotten its old customers? Here is again a good way for manufacturers to differentiate: make a bold promise to customers that they will not be forgotten and they receive new platform versions in a timely and expectable way. What this would mean? Here is a sentence that you are free to use: "If you buy this device, we will provide you new platform software within three months after the release or give you an immediate information if such an upgdare cannot be made because of a major hardware incompatibility."

How do you differentiate from competitors if all are using the same platform?

Make a statement that your device will be kept up-to-date, also in the future!

//Harri

Smartphone is like a car

2010-09-10T13:00:00.000+03:00

When you buy a car, you are not only bying the actual vehicle, but also taking for granted you are able and allowed to access the whole travelling ecosystem with roads, gas stations, repair shops and so on. The car is your key to these services and if car for any reason is not able to access the ecosystem, it is not fulfilling it's purpose. Imagine a beutiful car that is not able to use normal road network; some enthusiasts won't care but for rest of us it doesn't sound like a good deal. At least it doesn't solve the problem of transportation.

When you buy a smartphone, you are not only buying the actual device, but also taking for granted you have access to networks, application stores, interesting media content, easy payment services and so on. Smartphone is the key to these services and smartphone without these services is like a car without the road. Some enthusiasts would love a great smartphone even if it is unable to communicate with the ecosystem, but that doesn't make a business case.

The magic equation is in this sense is:

hardware quality * software quality * services * price = terminal success

Nokia's recent problems have been in software and services, Apple's problem is the price and my recent Android experiences show that their problem is in hardware quality.

//Harri

Marketing with Ovi Store error page

2010-07-23T14:21:00.005+03:00

Although Nokia during latest quarter sold more smartphones than before, they are loosing faithful Symbian customers to other platforms. Time to do something?

Some days ago I received from Ovi Store an SMS that promoted a local application

Well, I wasn't using anymore the S60 device, but HTC Hero instead. When I clicked the link from the message, it opened the browser and displayed a message

I'm not a marketing guy, but wouldn't this be a great place for trying to get a customer back? After all, this page is displayed to somebody who has previously owned and actively used a Nokia device but who has swithched to other manufacturer's phone. Opportunity to tell about latest news and improvements and make an offer for new Nokia phone?

//Harri

Wishlist to Mr. Sports Tracker

2010-07-13T20:28:00.003+03:00

Dear Mr. Sports Tracker, I’ve used your application many years already; this is what I’d like to get for next Xmas.

Fix the constant application crash. Checked statistics for my latest 10 exercises and only one of the recordings has finished successfully. For the other 9 recording Sports Tracker has restarted the phone and thus stopped recording; I have a couple of times observed how phone suddenly restarts when Sports Tracker is running. It was quite easy to reproduce before I disabled the automatic phone lock after 30 minutes. When locking after 30 minutes was enabled, Sports Tracker sessions used to stop exactly at 30:02 or 1:00:04.

Add a “power guard” feature. Sports Tracker is very battery hungry application and even though I unplug my phone from charger just before I start Sports Tracker, battery will drain before I return home. I’d like to enable setting that closes Sports Tracker before battery has dried completely - that is also a security feature that would keep my phone usable if something nasty happens while I’m out.

Add reminders. For long and concentrated training sessions I’d like to get reminders that alert according to my wishes. For example on a hot summer day I’d like to get a small alert every 15 minutes that reminds me it is time to get some drink and an hourly alert that reminds to get some carbohydrate.

Allow preplanned routes. Allow users to plan their routes (with Sports Tracker website, Google Maps, whatever) and upload the route to application. During exercise Sports Tracker application can give to user simple routing instructions or warn if he is no longer following the route.

Add weather information. For every outdoor exercise I’d like to get automatically current weather information stored.

Get training accessories to your online store. First thing I’d like to buy is a reliable bike mount that would allow me to use my heart rate belt with Sports Tracker application. Using HR belt while cycling doesn’t work if phone is in jersey’s rear pocket; I guess bluetooth signal is just too weak to go through my body.

Final wish: get the new website running.

Just in case you didn’t notice: I didn’t write these features should be free. I’d happily pay a small monthly fee for the new SportsTracker application.

FYI: I use Sports Tracker (version 3.05) with N96 (firmware 30.033).

//Harri

I hope mobile identity won’t fail in Finland

2010-05-20T23:12:00.003+03:00

Later this year - maybe - there will be mobile identity infrastructure setup to Finland, operators are ready to issue certificates to users and service providers are starting to offer the benefits of this ecosystem to the end users.

This all sounds similar to the situation that was in Finland at late 90’s when PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) was setup with high hopes. Later this system has been documented as a failure. I hope mobile identity project will not become yet another failed technology driven infrastructure project in Finland, but I can see some dark clouds.

User expectations will not be met

During last six months I’ve heard a handful of presentations about the new mobile identification system and all have included an idea that users will love the system because they no longer must remember tens of passwords to access their accounts in numerous systems. Passwords will be replaced by “secure and easy” mobile login. Unfortunately I’m afraid that it will not happen and users will be disappointed. Reason for my doubt is that MobileID transactions will cost for service providers and they can’t see the reason why they should pay for operators for every single login event. Instead of password replacement, MobileID will be used during registration to ensure user’s identity and after registration user will be authenticated with username and password, just like before. Also for special cases like password recovery MobileID can be used, but user who has hoped that passwords will not be required anymore, will feel fooled.

About user expectations: does somebody really think that most of the services will start using MobileID and developers for example in Silicon Valley are just waiting to get their hands-on experiences about MobileID? No, MobileID is a domestic system that will (or will not) be used by domestic solutions. Don’t expect to get rid of passwords anytime soon!

No exact information available

The system should be available next fall, but technical and economical information is not yet available. Operators cowardly refuse to say anything about the cost of joining and using the system, they only agree that using the solution will of course cost something. In Finland the price will most probably compare to Tupas-pricing, that is approx. 0.20€ per request.

Only for individual users with good income

In presentation slides the certificate issuing process looks nice, but that is only the case if you are a person who has signed a direct contract with the operator. If you are a business user and contract is made by your employer, what will happen? Nobody seems to know.

What if you are using a prepaid account and don’t have an agreement with the operator? Nobody seems to know.

Future proof until...?

When personal identification number was launched in Finland nobody was paying much attention to how it was used and stored - after all it’s just your birthday and some additional bytes. That was the case until it was understood that personal identification number identifies person in almost every system and that information can be abused.

Now with MobileID we are no longer talking about personal identification code but about FINUID (Finnish Unique Identifier) that is “just a piece of data that identifies the user, so nothing very confidential and it can be stored in systems everywhere to identify the user” (and also mapped to personal ID). Someday the same happens as with personal identification and the use of FINUID will be strictly governed and hence the use of MobileID authentication will require careful reasoning and so on... So please, don’t come saying that this infrastructure manages “only” FINUIDs that are stored to multiple transactions logs during the identification process.

My humble request for MobileID providers is: please, don’t create a WAP-like expectation gap between the hype and reality, publish pricing information ASAP, make system available for business and prepaid users and be more exact right from the beginning about allowed FINUID handling.

//Harri

Living with an eBook reader

2010-04-16T09:37:00.004+03:00

For people who have used Kindle or other eBook reader my notes might not be very interesting, but I have to confess that I haven’t used an eBook reader before. Thanks to our local public library, I have been able to try BeBook reader for a week. For quite some time I have wanted to get a reader, but paying hundreds of euros for test hasn’t felt like a good idea.

First impression from BeBook is that you don’t need a manual to read a traditional book.

Next challenge was to find something to read. Reader can show pdf-files but screen isn’t good in handling graphics, lines are broken and page breaks jump to strange places. Line breaks are also a problem for a plain text file downloaded from reader homepage, text becomes like an artsy poem.

I’m afraid eBooks will remain geeky toys as long as book discovery, downloading and reading cannot be done using the same device. For a short test it is doable to browse content with desktop, connect cable and copy files to an external drive. However, I wouldn’t do that any longer, especially if I would read newspapers or else often updated material. Remember how mobile applications were geeky until Apple productized discovery and installation to a consumer solution.

Just by reading about eBook I haven’t understood how an ePaper display really feels. At least I assume it is because of display’s nature that page slowly flickers from white to black and back to white before new page is readable. Not nice.

After the one week test I still think that eBook is a nice idea (having a whole library in a small device, as marketing department puts it, you know) but needs user experience design. Put the engineers to vacation and design the service ecosystem so that it works as nicely as iTunes, for example. Too much effort is wasted on thinking what device could do, but I’d like an eReader that does the primary thing well, from end to end.

After all, blank paper sheet is the ultimate open platform for endless opportunities but printing makes the book. Pile of blank paper is not the best book (“you can write your own story”), nor is supports-everything-‘cos-we-can’t-decide reader the best reader (“you can customize the reading experience as you like”).

Next thing would be to test Kindle, but it's unclear if it works wirelessly in Finland and I will not pay $500 to check that.

//Harri

Don't be shy about available software update

2009-11-18T23:19:00.002+02:00

Some years ago it was a big secret when Nokia (or any other manufacturer) published a firmware update to one of its terminals. The reason was simple: if people didn’t know about the opportunity to update the terminal, they didn’t rush to the service point and so didn’t increase Nokia’s warranty costs. Also users tried to avoid update as long as they could because they were forced to leave the terminal to the desk and - depending on the queue - update could potentially take days.

I wonder why they are still so shy about available updates.

Why Nokia just doesn’t take the great opportunity to run new marketing campaigns when they publish firmware updates to existing terminals? Make a big fuzz about it! Yes, there can be a press release if something very big happens (end users read corporate press releases, sure) or a news article on some professional website but that’s it. You can very easily find horror stories about new Nokia terminals that have huge problems with initial firmware release. Later those bugs are fixed, but the bad word-of-mouth marketing is still out there. How can people change their opinion about the terminal if they still hold the impression that software is buggy?

Software update is also a very smooth process with new Nokia phones. I took all this for granted before I started to use HTC Hero. Well, HTC was also quite silent about the firmware update but somehow I became aware of it. Upgrade process was more than messy: first I wanted to make a backup before I continued. Then I understood that there is no backup software included in the device. Luckily there are many backup apps available in the Android app store, but which one of those to choose? Do they work? I installed the backup app with best user testimonials and made my first Android backup. Then I was ready to continue with the upgrade, but it required a Windows PC - big problem for a Mac user. Then I found a PC, installed some HTC application and was able to continue with the upgrade. Process crashed twice (did I brick my device?) but third try was a success. Then after data restore I realized that every installed application was gone. Some data files and settings were restored, but every application and all personalizations had disappeared. Lots of work and Hero was OK again. Not easy, must say.

Compare that to Nokia process: run FOTA upgrade from device and that’s it.

Completely different thing is the shortness of the period when phones really are supported. Typically there seem to be a couple of updates for a model quickly after the release and then terminals just fade away from the update process. I don’t like the attitude that an expensive device is considered as an outdated model after a year, especially when there still are bugs that cause crashes. I can understand that sometimes there are problems but I can’t understand that those are not fixed.

//Harri

Mobile augmented golf

2009-10-26T14:31:00.004+02:00

Last week I was lucky enough to get an invitation to TEDxHelsinki event and I'm still excited about the quality of the event as well as the whole concept. It is just too easy to stick with your familiar thoughts and habits and reinforce the skills where you are at your best. Try sometimes to listen presentations outside of your comfort area and be prepared for an idea storm. You can start the journey from the TED website and remember my old investment tip.

I also had the opportunity to try playing golf (just to educate myself about what that is about). As a complete beginner two things bothered me and I think both of them could be solved by using latest mobile technology.

Where is my ball?

It was a surprise how much time is spent on trying to find the ball even if everybody saw where it went. When the small ball is somewhere 100 meters away in the long grass, it takes time to find it even if you know where to search. Why not put a small transmitter into the ball and use mobile phone (or similar) as a receiver. Even better if multiple phones could be used for that purpose so that they can together triangulate the ball's location. Sure, it can be against the allmighty rules of the golf but anyway, it would make playing faster and easier. Unless searching the ball is an essential part of golf experience?

Where to go next?

We were playing on a course that was unfamiliar for all of us. At least I felt that it was difficult to know where is the next tee or where is the hole. This is all very easily solved with a smart use of mobile augmented reality solutions that can display this information on a screen nicely. As there are already many available products for AR itself, the real task would be to make golf course information available for the applications.

I was told that golf etiquette would never allow applications like described above. That can be true but because I'm not a golfer I'm free to innovate....

//Harri

My 100th blog post, mixed salad of mobile stuff

2009-10-04T18:24:00.007+03:00

When I launched this site long time ago, I had previously blogged at Forum Nokia. Because I was disappointed to the lack of dialogue at that site, I though hosting my own site would be a good way to get also non-technical readers and promote open discussion. This is now my 100th posting here and there hasn't been much discussion. I've heard many other bloggers saying the same - it is not motivating to post updates without any feedback. Lately I've found myself more often writing small updates to Twitter, instead of making a longer post here. In the future I plan to post here if there is something very interesting, but that will be more irregular than before.

I guess my problem is that I don't like reviewing new phones (there are enough sites doing that) and also I don't write about some new ower-hyped technologies but instead like to watch issues a little bit higher. When topic is not locked down to concrete technology terms but handled in a more abstract level, new ideas arise and old fixed mindsets can be left behind. By the way: this is also something that is recommended in a great book Fast Strategy: How strategic agility will help you stay ahead of the game by Yves Doz and Mikko Kosonen.

Today I was checking my old notes about different ideas I've had in mind someday. If you need something for a school project or whatever, this list might have something for you.

Get the facts about mobile email

Mobile email is an interesting field with many hype words and misunderstandings. That got very clear during the Nokiagate earlier this year. Many users seem to believe that "push email" is better than "pull email" because it consumes less battery and uses less data. Is it really so? What I would like to do is to run a series of tests where phone is connected to an email server and receives the messages using scheduled IMAP connection and some push mail solution. Then I would like to analyze the data volume and also the energy consumption. For the latter you can find a tool from Forun Nokia so that you really can get the hard facts about the case. If you have done this testing or will do it, I'd like to know the results, please.

Some applications for S60

Long time ago I had an idea about an application that connects phone to some home sensors. This is still a development area that hasn't got many solutions and might hold some business possibilities.

Another idea I got when travelling is a simple night clock that you can use without trying to press any keys in your device. I already made a simple application that just uses S60 accelerometer and displays a huge clock when device moves. Use case is this: you wake up in the middle of the night and grab your phone. As soon as it moves, clock is displayed without any keypresses and you can fall back to sleep. If somebody wants to grab the idea and productize it, please go ahead.

Make applications sync their state

I am using many different terminals during the week and hate when applications lose their state when switching between devices. I must find the radio stations for every device, I must setup the podcasts for every device, SMS messages are always in the wrong device and so on. Solution would be an application level sync so that the application state is sent to server for others to read. Imagine yourself listening a podcast with one device during the day and continuing the same podcast from the correct position at the evening with another device - that would be a benefit of application sync.

What I would like to do next is to write the 10 questions to evaluate a Mobile 'Expert' like in this article that puts your Social Media 'Expertness' into a test. Any ideas what to ask?

//Harri

Keep Snow Leopard waiting

2009-09-04T10:24:00.002+03:00

This week I've updated two MacBooks with Snow Leopard. Problems so far:

Cannot send email anymore using our corporate server. Our server accepts only encrypted connections with user authentication. When I try to send messages, mail client just keeps on asking the password even though server answers that authentication is valid. I'm not the only one, check here.
Our second machine had fonts messed up after the upgrade. Old documents were suddenly unreadable because the font was kinda packed, many characters were drawn to the same position. I was able to fix this problem by going to Font Book, selecting all fonts and validating all of them. Then I deleted and reinstalled the fonts that failed the validation - this fixed the problem. Again, I'm not the only one having this problem, check here.
I wasn't able to watch some videos with Safari's vlc-plugin before I put Safari to 32-bit mode. To do this, open the properties for /Applications/Safari and select "Open in 32-bit mode". This is not probably Apple's fault, but annoying problem after the upgrade, anyway.

//Harri

Comment moderation turned on

2009-08-28T09:54:00.002+03:00

Small piece of information about this site: I've turned on comment moderation to keep spammers away. All real comments will be accepted without delay, that's a promise!

//Harri

Sports Tracker, again

2009-08-23T22:22:00.007+03:00

Once again I'll write about my favourite application Sports Tracker (ST) because latest edition of Finnish business magazine Talouselämä has a short article about the new company that will continue the development. Longer version of the article is available from Talouselämä's website (Finnish only).

The article tells how the ST core team has founded a new company and how this initiative is part of Nokia's "Innovation Mill" (I wrote about that earlier).

According to the news, Nokia didn't care about ST anymore, because "everybody who is interested about this application has already installed it". That's just crazy idea, ST has been so badly marketed solution that only those lucky enough to know about the application have installed it. Dig this: July 2009 edition of Wired had a cover story about "Living by Numbers", i.e. solutions like ST. Was ST included in the story? No. If this solution doesn't exist for Wired, it doesn't exist for average users.

Based on the article, ST is now in search of the business model but using the service will remain free. However, the phone application will be on sale in some channels and not free anymore. I've always thought that ST is so good solution that I'd even pay for some extra services but if the client application would have had a price tag, I guess I would never have downloaded and tried that. Here are some ideas for business (in no particular order), but please think again if it really is beneficial to charge for the basic application. ST is not just an application, it's a solution.

Keep the basic solution free and create a subsciption model for extended features (classic "freemium" model). One example of premium services I'd be happy to pay for is the weather information. Whenever I record new activity with ST, premium version could add the current weather information to the event. Also improved training analytics features would be worth considering.
Partner with gyms and connect ST to their client registers. When user visits gym for excercise, that information could also be stored to ST's database. That way ST becomes the storage for all sport activities, not just outdoor sports. Compare this to solutions that are only for runners: ST is already far ahead those and with this feature comparing ST to others is just waste of time.
Create a partner network of trainers that can analyze user's exercises and suggest them improvements in training schedule. Something like "this is how I've trained so far, what should I do to be able to run marathon in 6 months?"
Partner with insurance companies. User's who can display long records of healthy life from ST database can get their life insurance cheaper, for example.
Sell special hardware. Polar's hear rate belt is a good example of hw that really adds value to ST. I remember when I once went to Nokia flagship store and tried to buy one - just to learn that it is not available. It seems I wasn't the only one disappointed, based on Polar's support site.
Sell service to large companies, specifically to their HR department. Encouraging employees to take care of their health saves costs. Take a look at Pekka Niska to see an example what this means in practice.
Allow open innovation and publish API's to add entries to your database. The more users have personal information in ST database, the more value it has to user and to the company hosting ST. There is also a possibility that somebody else writes the client applications for iPhone, Android, Maemo and all the other current and future mobile platforms.

//Harri

Update to Nokiagate

2009-08-18T17:05:00.001+03:00

After the summer it's good to catch up what has happened for "Nokiagate" lately. For those who don't know what Nokiagate is, read my posting that started it all and follow the case from here.

I did receive a couple of calls from Nokia during the summer and they were interested to hear my opinion about how they managed the situation and how their processes could be improved. I told them that it appeared as if there was no process at all to handle security reports like this and it took far too long from my initial report before action was taken. After the starting difficulties things began to go smoothly when the conversation channel was opened.

I just ran a quick test with some updated terminals I had available and here are the results (device / firmware version / result):

E75 / 110.48.125 / Opens connection without asking permission, content unknown.
5800 / 30.0.011 / Opens connection without asking permission, content unknown.
N96 / 30.033 / Account can be created in offline mode, OK.

It looks that E75 and 5800 still go online without asking user's permission. However, new firmware ensures the validity of server certificate and doesn't anymore let me examine the contents, but the connection goes to ccds.serviceactivation.ext.nokia.com. Let's hope they have removed password information form the request as they earlier promised, unfortunately I cannot verify that.

//Harri

Are SMS alerts an opportunity or an expense?

2009-08-05T22:32:00.005+03:00

Just now there are two major factors that shake the ground under the (postal) logistics business; first is the economic downturn and second is the almighty internet. The combination of these two means that the volumes in their business have fallen significantly and will continue to do so. As an example, volumes for Finnish Post have decreased between 9% to 16%, depending on the product category.

Someday the economic situation will improve, but internet and electronic communication are here to stay.

There is a major trend to move away from paper invoicing to electronic invoicing because of the huge cost savings. Deutsche Bank estimates there is a potential of €54 billion savings if invoicing process is improved, and that’s just in Germany! It is safe to assume that volumes of paper invoice are going to drop dramatically in favor of electronic invoicing.

Let’s leave business-to-business invoicing aside and concentrate on business-to-consumer invoices. In the B2C world the problem is how to send the electronic invoice to the customer, the scene is very fragmented and solutions are many. The selected media should be reliable, fast, common and cheap.

Assume that someday electronic B2C invoicing is working flawlessly and you will in some digital way receive the minimum information that’s needed to accept the invoice. What’s missing from the business’ point of view? Today paper invoices come with customer newsletters, marketing material, offers and so on - invoice has become an “advoice” that carries much more information than just the invoice. At its best advoice concept is so powerful that customers are delighted to receive the invoice, because of the attached content. When everything is electronic, what will happen to advoices and this media? The progress reminds me of the banking business in the 90’s - banks created products that allowed customers to do self-service instead of visiting the offices. Later banks understood that maybe they succeeded too well in allowing self-service as they had lost contact to customers. Now banks and insurance companies try to get customers sometimes visit the office, but results haven’t been good. How to sell new complicated products to people without personal contact?

Ok, what’s my point? Finnish Post has a service that allows companies and organizations securely send messages (e.g. invoices) to customers; it’s like an email system that allows only pre-approved senders to send messages. When new message arrives, user will get an alert to his email inbox and he can login to see the message.

This summer system was upgraded with an option to send also SMS alerts when new messages arrives to inbox, end-user price is €0.25 message. This is a mistake, messages should be free and here is the reason why.

I can easily understand why there is a price tag in the alert message, it’s just the easiest way to secure the decision maker’s background in the current economic situation. "Customers want SMS, let’s put it there and charge for every message" goes the easy rationale. Last year there were total 2.1M messages sent through the system. Just taking list price from an SMS-aggregator shows that if they had sent alert for every message, the cost would’ve been about €72.000. I don’t think that is much if compared to other media that they use for marketing: with that sum Finnish Post can’t even get two front page ads in a major newspaper - and that's just the printing cost. Comparing a print media ad to a highly engaging SMS message with a call to action and immediate return channel is like comparing a steam train to a sports car. Studies have shown that Blyk’s answer rate for SMS’s has been around 25%! If Finnish Post were able to do the same, they (or their customers) would have received 500.000 replies from end users. (Yes, this is not a fair comparison because Blyk’s model depends on having a very homogenous user base with information about personal preferences, but that’s still an evidence how SMS marketing works at its best.) Can you see the business here: trend towards electronic invoicing suddenly becomes an opportunity instead of a threat, but that needs some new thinking.

In short: it’s is just wrong to punish users who want SMS alerts. If that channel is used well, Finnish Post could in fact reward users who accept SMS alerts with information about new message and a short ad with a clear call to action.

//Harri

Quick study about media companies' mobile sites

2009-08-03T06:58:00.004+03:00

In my previous entry I wrote about a small study I made to see how top 100 Finnish companies have arranged their mobile presence. In short they havent done much with it, as only 8 companies had some kind of a mobile website that I could discover.

Frustrated about the bad results I made a second test, this time I took ten Finnish online media houses. The companies tested were not picked from any top-ten list, but those were the sites I use myself.

I tested for the existence of .mobi site, site with m-prefix and possible device detection with automatic redirection to mobile site. For more information about the tests, please check my previous posting.

Results

This time I was able to see more mobile sites than before. Two sites had mobi-site and three had registered the domain but there was no service. Four companies haven't registered mobi-domain and one domain name was taken by some other company. The sites that had mobi-service were Yle and MTV3.

From ten tested sites seven had mobile service available in m-address (e.g. m.yle.fi), one redirected to original desktop browser site and two didn't use this server name at all.

Device detection and redirect to mobile site seems to be the most difficult test. In the top 100 company study only one company had deployed such a system, this time two sites (Digitoday and Taloussanomat) were able to detect mobile device and redirect user to mobile site when he tries to access the base service with his mobile.

This time there were three sites that were able to score 2 out of 3: Yle, Digitoday and Taloussanomat - kudos to them. Previous test round didn't find any company that was able to score more than one out of three. It looks that media companies have far better understanding about mobile browsing than top 100 companies do.

List of sites tested (random order)

yle.fi
mtv3.fi
nelonen.fi
helsinginsanomat.fi
iltasanomat.fi
iltalehti.fi
digitoday.fi
taloussanomat.fi
kauppalehti.fi
uusisuomi.fi

//Harri

Study: Top 100 Finnish companies and mobile websites

2009-07-22T08:57:00.005+03:00

Lately I’ve had many disappointments with corporate mobility especially in customer care. There had been situations when I have wished for a mobile access to some simple information, just to discover that it doesn’t exist or is not discoverable.

Because I started to feel that Finnish companies are not up to date with mobile solutions, I made a small study that reveals big companies are really missing the mobile opportunity. No mobile marketing. No mobile customer care. Just mobile silence.

I took a list of biggest (by turnover, excluding bank and insurance) 100 Finnish companies from Kauppalehti’s site. The things I wanted to verify were:

does company have a mobi-server (e.g nokia.mobi)?
does company have an m-server (e.g. m.nokia.fi)?
does company have an automatic device detection (i.e. mobile users are automatically redirected to mobile site when accessing the main corporate site)?

The reason for these tests is that whenever I don’t know if a company has a mobile site, I try these two combinations (m.company.com and company.mobi). If those don’t match, I practice wishful thinking and try the main company site, just to see if there is some smart redirect to mobile site. After these three tries I usually will give up and understand that the company will not deliver information to mobile devices.

Test setup and results

Tests were conducted between June 19th and June 21st. Original list had 100 companies, but one of those doesn’t seem to have a website (or it is down all the time), so the results below will sum up to 99.

Mobi-domain

In this test I tried to access the company’s mobi-website (e.g. nokia.com) with a desktop browser. If site was found, I also tried to access it with a mobile device (Nokia N96) to verify the contents. For found mobi-domains I also verified whether those really were registered for the company.

Domain not registered	33
Domain not registered by company	29
Domain redirects to desktop website	5
Domain is registered by company but has no website	27
Mobi domain has a mobile website	5
	99

From the list of top 100 Finnish companies only Elisa (operator, content not available for non-Elisa customers), Lassila-Tikanoja (password protected internal service or CMS console?), Nokia, St1 and Valio had a mobile website.

M-service

In this test I tried to access company’s website from address m.company.com. Because mobi-domain solution is often criticized for some extra costs for registering and administering the domain, I expected to see more mobile sites this time.

No m. service	97
Mobile site available at “m.company.com”	2
	99

Only two companies (DNA and Toyota) from 100 had mobile site available at m-address (m.dna.fi and m.toyota.fi). Note that none of the “mobi companies” from above are in this group.

Redirect to mobile site

Because there is a possibility that company puts its mobile service to some other address and automatically redirects mobile user there, I also tested top 100 companies for automatic redirect. Test was made so that I accessed company’s main site with desktop browser and mobile browser (Nokia N96) and verified whether the content was the same or not.

No device recognition and redirect	98
Mobile user redirected to special page	1
	99

The result was that only Hewlett-Packard has deployed mobile device detection and redirect to mobile website.

Notes about the results

The results are poor. Using this criteria only 8 companies from 99 have really thought about mobile access and the potential benefits. Of course some companies may have mobile sites at mobi.company.com, mobile.company.com, www.company.com/mobile or something else. Those were not tested, because as a user I don’t like to guess many times just to see if there is a mobile site or not. Why not use “de facto” names or automatic redirect? Comparing “mobi” and “mobile” to “m” means 8 or 13 extra clicks with phone’s keypad when writing the website address, for example.

None of the companies was able to score more than 1 out of 3 and the list included 3 operators and 1 device manufacturer - they should know how to do the trick.

It looks that 32 companies have some plans with mobi-site, because they have registered the domain but not yet published a mobile service there. I hope they understand the possibilities and didn’t just register the domain to protect it.

Size doesn’t matter in mobility. World’s largest company Shell has a subsidiary also in Finland and they scored zero points in this test. No mobi-site, no m-site, no device detection. Ironically, Shell’s chairman of the board is Jorma Ollila, Nokia’s previous CEO and current chairman of the board.

This survey was only about the companies, not about the brands, trademarks or such. I’m aware that many corporations have mobile sites for their brands, but that was out of the scope.

//Harri