Nokia: It's feeding time for Nokia's rivals. Whether Windows can help the Finnish giant get its smartphone groove back is debatable. Either way, the full switch will take two years. By then, Apple and devices powered by Google's Android operating system will have had ample time to take bigger bites out of the market.
Nokia needed to do something. It sold more than half of all smartphones in 2008. By 2010, its share fell to 38 per cent, according to Gartner. Meanwhile, the combined chunk of the market seized by Apple and Android increased from less than 10 percent to within spitting distance of Nokia. The clumsy software and dearth of applications available on Nokia's Symbian operating system left the firm in serious trouble. Users prefer the most functional handsets, and developers flock to the most popular platforms.
Engineers at Nokia can't just wipe Symbian from existing handsets and start cranking out Microsoft-powered ones. It will take time to ship devices that make the most of Windows. Mass rollout won't happen until sometime in 2012. This leaves Nokia in no man's land until then - as US smartphone adoption in 2011, according to Nielsen, doubles.
The Finnish firm reckons it will sell 150 million more Symbian devices during the transition. That could be optimistic. If Nokia doesn't think Symbian is the way to go, why would consumers buy handsets that use it? Likewise, apps will be slow in coming. Nokia may also introduce fewer Symbian devices as it refocuses on Windows. Finally, management will have its hands full with layoffs and corporate reorganization.
Apple, and companies using Android - such as Samsung and Motorola - will make a strong push to grab more customers during the transition. The market ate away more than $5 billion of Nokia's share value on the news. The company's competitors will be hungry for more.