Nokia in the Doldrums? How has overlooking software and interface design thrust Nokia into crisis?

Hear the word smartphone and what pops into your head. Invariably an iPhone or Android with their sleek interface design and functionality. One undeniable tech trend of the last four years has been the explosion of the smartphone and mobile devices market. Another underlying trend is the shrinking market share of Nokia and the Symbian S60 smartphone operating system. In the best of times the symbiotic (excuse the pun) led to both topping the charts and Nokia eventually buying the company behind the OS. A few years on and you almost have to ask yourself how it could all seem to go wrong. So wrong in fact that both Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s reportedly have put Nokia on “negative credit watch” concerned with Nokia’s ability to compete. And all of this despite Nokia still being the largest mobile phone manufacturer! As for Symbian, it has now been overtaken by Android.  Could it be that complacency in interface design and in product iteration simply allowed other platforms to innovate and offer superior user experience? In a leaked memo, Nokia’s CEO candidly describes their situation as “standing on a burning platform”.

How might Nokia address interface design shortcomings?

Nokia is a company that makes great hardware but the focus now is on software and interface design. Symbian’s User Interface design simply appears below par. This has a lot to do with the fact that it is intended to be used with all manner of phones and interface designs, be they smartphones or regular “dumbphones”. On the other hand Android and iOS, for example are specifically designed for high-end touchscreen phones and this is reflected in the interface design. Nokia’s (and Intel’s) MeeGo OS doesn’t seem up to the task with the CEO admitting that “at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market”. Had Nokia woken up earlier it might have purchased Palm (which created underwhelming hardware) for it’s roundly praised webOS when the company was up for sale. Indications point to Nokia turning to Windows Phone 7, with its innovative ‘Tiles’ interface design. Makers of Android handsets have had a head start in developing for Android and often implement proprietary user interface designs onto the Android OS (HTC’s Sense UI, Motorola’s MotoBlur, Sony Ericsson’s Mediascape). Windows Phone 7 is not fragmented like Android and could be deployed by Nokia immediately. With a major announcement from Nokia expected at this year’s World Mobile Congress we shall soon find out.