Interesting write up. This is news to me. - David Damore

very interesting writeup - perhaps it's the same issue as with twitter - bloggers/writers/journalists only flock to palm and iphone and ignore the rest - same with twitter. is nokia in the same bag as microsoft currently? - Allen Stern

Allen: I think Microsoft is in a better position and has more time. Why? Because people will continue to buy Windows and Office for the forseeable future and Microsoft can continue to fund cell phone development until they get it right. Nokia does not have that advantage. - Robert Scoble

well nokia will continue to have the cheap phone segment until (or if) apple/palm etc get into that space - what about motorola? i use a samsung phone on sprint btw - Allen Stern

What about Asia, Robert ? How is the Asia mobile tech developers compared to European ones ? - Clarence Chiang

Allen: yes, but that space is going to be unprofitable and uninteresting and will soon disappear around the world as people realize what they are missing with more full featured phones. - Robert Scoble

Clarence: Android and Microsoft are keeping Asia in the game. Nokia is too stuck on Symbian. - Robert Scoble

Or, more accurately, Nokia is too stuck on the current Symbian. If I were at Nokia and Symbian, I'd be starting over, or at least starting with Android, forking it, and doing something remarkable with it. - Robert Scoble

So basically Nokia needs to "Pull a Pre" - Clarence Chiang

Clarence: yes. - Robert Scoble

Clarence: the problem is that Palm already pulled a Pre which took the leadership position away from Europe and got Nokia kicked off the mobile leader's table. Nokia now must fight its way back onto that table and that's not going to be easy. - Robert Scoble

part of the issue is that whatever nokia does now, it's going to be compared to the iphone. similar with bing and google. i've said all along that if you are going up against the big players, you need to be much better, not just a little better. changing perception and behavior is very hard. i faced this for a decade with toilet paper :) - Allen Stern

Robert: You would have more of an understanding on how long it would take for Nokia to turn things around (i.e. take Android and do something remarkable with it). Can we expect to see Nokia fight its way back to the round table in 1 or 2, even as long as 5 years? - Jim Halligan @jim

The interesting news from Nokia that's gotten my attention lately is their agreement with Intel to start using Medfield chips in their next gen mobile devices (see: http://money.cnn.com/2009.... That's projecting out quite a long way though - at least into the latter part of 2011. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Jim: the question then is does Nokia have five years? I don't think so. They are already three years behind. It will be interesting to see what I learn later today at Nokia Research in Cambridge. - Robert Scoble

Nokia cornering the low cost phone market == Microsoft cornering the OS/Office suite market. Having a big cash cow can slowdown innovation in other areas. - Clarence Chiang

Clarence: yup, true. It's sad to watch, though. I actually liked coming to Europe to see innovative devices. Now I just say "meh" when I see the latest devices and go back to talking to the developers building cool stuff for iPhones and Twitter. - Robert Scoble

I think it will be interesting to see what MS will do to get developers excited in the next few years. No one is building anything on Symbian, and it's laughable to see what's in the Ovi store. I saw a "recommended" app today for 'Sunset Cheetah Wallpaper'. I'd consider that a huge FAIL. The developers are an enormous part of this market, and I think Nokia missed that from the beginning. - Jim Halligan @jim

But we are missing the point. Nokia is just a dialling&sms'ing-machine; iPhone is a personal mobile web services kit, or something better. : ) - Erhan Erdoğan

I'm thinking India at first, but mostly sparsly parts of Asia would be 2 watch 4 mobile. Russia would be an interesting 1 2 watch 4 mobile. I could go into the whole blog entry into that, but don't have the brain juice at this owly hour! - polou/indigo_bow

It's going to be an interesting temptation for Nokia to just focus on the low end in the developing markets (Asia, Africa esp) where the smartphone just won't penetrate. There's still a ton of money to be made in those markets. My guess is that it would take 18 months to get a Pre-like refresh for Nokia done, but within the corporate bureaucracy of Nokia (the same bureaucracy the felt the N97 could compete at the top levels) there still may not be the realization of how screwed they are. - Beau Giles

You've got to remember that the majority of people, anywhere in the world, just aren't tech savvy. Sure SF might be full of people that use high-end smartphones, and they're slowly gaining traction here (mainly due to the iPhone and Blackberry), but I text my friends, I Twitter to engage with readers and techie people. Twitter has, what, 20 million or so users worldwide(?)m and there's like a billion mobile users. - Steve Farnworth

I appreciate it all connects together, but the truth is people need simplicity in their devices and feel their cost effective. The Savvies want everything, but the majority want cheap services. If operators didn't lock up their markets and lock-down phones things would be better I suppose. But in Europe it's hard to get fair priced Euro roaming, data or contracts that don't emphasize text and calling as where value is. A lot of operators even lock down SIP in phones like Nokia to prevent it being used outside of their network. Stop us being operator driven and you'll open up the tech. - Justin Howard

All game changing brands you mentioned developed a completely new mobile OS. For an existing vendor like Nokia or MS such a change needs far more time. I agree that Nokia and MS should jump on the web platform and specially on the user experience and usability train. Nokia did a start with Nokia WRT - did you know that new Nokia devices are using WebKIT? A sign on the horizon? Dont know. Maybe your statement is a bit too early - but yes, they definitely need to catch up. - bishoph

Very interesting analysis, however you've missed an important part of why Europeans have hit the texting hard :- Price! Texting has all but become costless for most european mobile users. Most of the operators have moved to a model where you either have unlimited texting or a very large number for cheap. The arrival of the iPhone has changed things though, as more and more operators are now providing what they call «unlimited» internet access (believe me it's cheaper than any offer you have in the US) for a steady monthly fee. Also I would have to beg that the UK is not a good model for what is happening in the EU as they have traditionally been behind and have expensive subscription models. I travel regularly in the metro here in Paris and during my regular travel I will see a smartphone or iPhone in use every 5 minutes. - Thomas V. Fischer

Very interesting post on a very important subject; there is much to say about this. The main point, Robert, is that you are right, but only from an early adopter's perspective. The iPhone is like the Macintosh of smart phones, but the "early majority" value a variety of other characteristics to which Apple have never attached enough importance for that market, notably "interoperability". - John W Lewis

John: over and over in my career I have heard this argument and it almost always turns out to be wrong. Why? Early adopters usually do a good job of dragging others into their worlds. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Of course, I'd like to point out that pretty much every smart phone including the iphone relies upon a very important bit of European tech... ARM ;) Also, I have to raise a good point that texting will not go away and it's useful to have in addition to web access. Why should I have to waste time jumping thru authentication hoops to submit a message to a site or an email that a person might not even be able to access for whatever reason, when a few seconds spent on a quick text is pretty much 100% likely to reach them and get the message across. Don't forget that it's not just Europe where texting is massive, all across asia it is just as big. And quite a few of us have been using the web for a good few years on our mobiles now (I, personally, have never liked nokia phones and have been using the likes of XDA's etc up to my current iphone since 2001/2002). Txting is quick, easy and does the job where needed. Just remember that there's a load of us using *both* as and where the need fits :) - alphaxion

you are missing several significant pieces of picture on helicopter level, most probably due to american hype after fruitty-phone industry :) and that's good - it will give us precious time to finalize both plan B and plan C, while you think europeans are self-confident idiots who stuck in *texting* :) please continue your "Iphone and Palm über alles" song - you are doing right... I mean right as we need it ;) - A.T.

Yes, early adopters develop patterns of usage and behaviour which diffuse to the (early and late) majority and everyone moves forward. But, the products which appeal to each group differ. Each successive group requires the technology to be buried deeper, more concerns to be removed and more support to be available. When I buy products from my local Apple Store, as a business customer, they are not even interesting in establishing a relationship, never mind developing it. They are not competing for the majority market; if you mention a competitive product their eyes glaze over, as if you have blasphemed. In a way I love it, but it is like buying from Bang & Olufsen! It is not about Apple or RIM or Palm or Nokia; there is room for Porsche, Mercedes, Saab, Citroen, BMW, Audi, VW, Ford, GM ... umm, well there was! - John W Lewis

A.T. I hope you being inside Nokia, can change it for the better. Remember, I told you Nokia browser is #!!$ about a year ago. It still is. It is also one of the reasons, why "flagship N97" was first giggled at, and now is openly laughed at. Having said that, I just bought Symbian device from Samsung. :) cause I care less about visual effects, and more about multitasking and huge application base that Symbian still has. (Garmin, TomTom, etc.). But I can imagine that I will have to change device, once Google wave is rolled out to to Android and iPhone by end of 2009. - Павел Романовский

Robert the problem here in Italy is that you have no flat internet at an affordable price (like ATT in the US); so using the web is too expensive (ant thus we are keeping the old texting habits) - Mevio

@ Steve Farnworth I believe we need 2 distinguish more categories of tech savviness. Why because in developed countries or even between countries tech savviness are defined differently too. I actually have friends and relatives living in different corners of the world 2 know how technologies r being utilized. Texting in Africa and India (there r other countries too) r popular. In Japan, using texting, video viewing, Internet browsing, purchasing r popular. In Canada, texting r a way to communicate. - polou/indigo_bow

In the grand scheme of things 'mobile phone' Europe and the US are small markets. Manufacturers are looking to ship millions of devices, but if those devices don't work or have features that don't work in the majority of markets there will be no market for them. Look at the UAE, and most of Africa. No point in having an iPhone there, you can't use it to it's full potential, and mobile data is either non existent or expensive, but they are huge markets. Plus it's largely our own fault. Look at the huge adoption of Motorola's RAZR. A truly god awful phone that sold by the bucket load because it looked cool. And on the subject of texting in Europe, we do it because it's cheap. For most of us it's actually free as it's inclusive in some of the cheapest cellphone tariffs on the planet. And we don't pay to receive phone calls unlike in some countries I could mention. We're not that backward on this side of the pond you know. - Gilbert Harding

You are right - on the hardware/software front. The market is dominated by US, Canadian and Far eastern manufacturers and equipment designers and Nokia is stuck in the low cost and 'boring' standard business phone market (non-smartphone).However Europe is now leading in the operator market, with low tariffs for Internet data particularly in the UK - how about £7 ($10)a month for near unlimited phone data, or £15($25) per month for 3G tethering, or PAYG deals of £2 ($3) per day unlimited? - Ian D. Nock

And with regards to the devices... I see a lot of iPhones, but I see a lot more 'Blackberry' like smartphones, although this is spread between all the manufacturers, with Blackberry themselves at the top, followed by a smattering of Windows Mobile based devices and some (but not a lot) of the E63/E71 devices. Europe is dead from hardware, but has now moved on to deep penetration of services. - Ian D. Nock

Finally people start noticing - the tech media world (and that includes the social media circle) is so focused in it's little closed bubble it doesn't realize that most of the world does not care about the effects, bells and whistles that gets the insiders so excited. Most people buy mobiles like I do - especially in the developing world which is where mobile growth and innovation is happening - cost, battery life, antenna power, robustness. The way to go to tap these markets is not client side, it is cloud style offerings that work on older phones. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Also re text on the Tube, the Tube does not offer underground service and what you get is intermittent services or low signal, conditions under which SMS works better than voice and data... have a look at what people use above ground :-) - Ian D. Nock

Are you saying that Europe is behind because the "cool new phones" (palm, apple, RIM) are from non-European countries? Or because we use SMS and MMS while you never had the network to do so? Now there are the devices to explore data networks on mobiles, but those devices are available both in USA and in Europe, with the advantage to Europe that have lots of HDSPA coverage, and in average better coverage than USA. Remember that it was we, Europeans, who frowned upon an iphone that had no 3G? - Marcos Marado from fftogo

The loss of leadership in web & better application enabled phones is mostly not due to device manufacturers of Europe but mobile operators. Mobile operators see web as a threat rather than an opportunity. They keep their mobile network as a closed garden and do not want to let free web services leak thru these walls, since they want to charge for everything. Web is much different than mobile marketplace. Free entry of new services, low to free costs, freedom of choice for users etc. While mobile operators want to control every new service and take a substantial revenue from these. Well when web style free marketplace will take over mobile world, operators will need to change as well. I think SMS/MMS craze is something operators are insisting. And Nokia needs to follow the operators rules and market. - Kaan Bingol

From my observations Nokia is not only making market share with low end phones, but a large amount of business people are buying the E71 and Nokia has put the price up since I got mine in late 08. As for Apple until China Unicom actually launch (the new launch date is Feb 2010) the iPhone is too late there are numerous 3rd party copies and HTC has brought out numerous touch phones before and after the iPhone was launched. - Damian Holmes

Robert: The early adopters and techies pull the non-techies through when prices drop. We've not seen a smartphone that is cheap enough to buy and put on a SIM-only £15pcm contract or pay as you go over here, so they're just not needed. Also, we are all involved in open-social-networking on here. The majority of people I know and text only have a Facebook which they only let their friends see. Even people I know with iPhones use texting more than social networking apps. - Steve Farnworth

Kaan: I don't see that much on "Operators liking walled gardens", what I see is "texting does it and is almost free", against the "a data plan costs 7.50€/month for 100Mb on my mobile". Most tech savvies I know of, with exception of those who get their phone bills payed by their employees, don't don't use data on mobile because it is "too expensive". Actually, I think Samsung's idea of having cellphones that support two SIM cards simultaneously is great and will help a reshape of the landscape, because it will let you use one sim for phone/SMS and other for data only (where you can use one of those 3Gb of downloaded data per month for a fixed fee, now popular in Europe for internet connections on your laptop) - Marcos Marado from fftogo

@Marcos I'd also point out that it wasn't until the 3g iPhone finally came out that europeans started to buy the iPhone, before that it was just the apple faithful and a few that didn't care too much about net speed that queued for it. I distinctly remember seeing the footage of the launch and there was a total paucity of lines. The original iPhone had a bigger impact in the us. - alphaxion from iPhone