Just the last couple on the dance floor...or something more serious?

This week Microsoft and Nokia announced plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would mean Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal Smartphone strategy integrating all the associated components including the Bing search engine. Conversely Microsoft would integrate Nokia’s map service into its own and would utilize Nokia’s extensive billing agreements making it easier for consumers to buy Nokia Window based phones.

With ComScore claiming that 50% of Americans will own a smart phone by the end of 2011 this seems like a smart move from two titans not used to playing second fiddle in the markets they operate. But between Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry and Google’s Android operating system, both Nokia and Microsoft have struggled to keep up in one of the fastest growing and changing markets. Indeed Microsoft’s mobile OS powers only 14% of smart phones in the US and even less are a considering a Microsoft OS for their next upgrade.

So will this partnership change the current trend and give Microsoft and Nokia a stronger foothold in what is shaping up to be an interesting battle for dominance in the smart phone market place.

To recap, Apple revolutionized the smart phone industry with the launch of the iPhone back in 2007, gradually overtaking RIM’s Blackberry as the ‘must have’ device with only businesses keeping RIM in contention. Before the iPhone smart phones were seen as the domain of the business user and as such RIM’s Blackberry was very business rather than consumer centric. But despite the hype of the iPhone 4, Apple’s recent march to prominence seems to have been halted mainly due to Google’s strategy of making their Android OS open source. According to Neilson, Android accounted for 43% of all new smart phones sold in the last 6 months, and now account for a similar market share as both RIM and Apple. Indeed as the chart below shows RIM continue to lose market share, with Apple holding steady but Android climbing fast.

It is too early to tell the impact in the US of the iPhone now being available on the Verizon Wireless network, but worryingly for Microsoft is that not only are they a long way behind but they are falling further.  Enter Nokia who have also seen better times and now find themselves trailing behind Samsung, LG, Motorola and RIM, and worse still heading in the wrong direction.

So the question is can both companies be more successful than they have been individually? On the face of it this seems like an ideal partnership with both companies offering complimentary skills, and having an opportunity to save significant costs. But with any strategic partnership often success can be more dependent on chemistry than pure economics. Nokia’s CEO, ex Microsoft Executive Stephen Elop, in a letter to employees describes the company’s position as the equivalent of standing on a ‘burning platform’.

So is this simply a final desperate act of self preservation, or will necessity really prove to be the mother of invention? It seems clear there is room in the market for a middle of the road solution. Developers claim Apple control their ecosystem too tightly which may restrict their ultimate penetration capacity, whilst Android has the opposite challenge of maintaining version control to ensure the OS remains cross functional for Apps over the long term.

But the ultimate factor may be how the two cultures work together, and whether such a partnership of convenience can really be successful without it being consummated. There is a European culture of living together but will that suit the America propensity for marriage? I suspect this announcement may simply be the first date on the road to something more permanent for both companies, either marrage in the shape of a merger or children in the form of a joint venture.  As I suspect that only with a greater level of commitment from both companies will they be truly able to meet the challenge of competing with the current industry titans. And if that happens I would not bet against Microsoft who have a strong history of impressive comebacks.

If it's not an iPhone Why would I want it?

xtranormal iPhone parody

The business headlines this week have been dominated by Steve Jobs decision to step down as CEO of Apple, with Tim Cook the current COO taking over the reigns. Jobs says he will still retain input to all key decisions but the omission of a targeted return date as well as the lack of detail around his current illness have led some people to speculate he may not return.

As a result of the decision, released on a day the markets were closed and the day before expected positive financial results were posted, Apples shared dropped about 8% in European markets but then seemed to bounce back ahead of US markets opening on the anticipation of a positive firts quarter earnings report. The question that remains though is what is Apple, if anything, without Steve Jobs?

In most scenarios this would be ridiculous question. Apple has 47,000 employees and Jobs himself did not design, manufacture and distribute the iPod, iPhone, iMac and iPad. Duff McDonald writes in CNN Money.com that “Steve Jobs is a wonder, but he is not a one-man $300 billion corporation. No one is.” And whilst this is true I suspect the reason most commentators are on to something here is less to do with Jobs himself and more to do with the substance of the legacy he is leaving behind.

As I posted last summer Apple relies more on innovation for its success than most other companies. Already there is a hungry pack chasing with alternative smart phones, light weight laptops and ergonomically efficient tablets. You only have to view the “iPhone vs. HTC Evo xtranormal parody” which got more than 11 million views to appreciate that much of Apples success is based on good marketing that encourages us to buy what we ‘want’ rather than what we ‘need’.

And importantly key to that innovation and promotion is Jobs himself. As I mentioned in my previous post Apple were stagnating before Jobs came back and he reinvigorated their product line and restored the brands ultra-cool status.

Whilst Jobs is not the ‘brick and mortar’ of the company he is the award winning leading man. The question is does Apple have another showman in the wings to ensure the ratings lead continues? There seems to be enough current momentum in the short term but only time will tell if Apple after Jobs can retain the same cache beyond that.

I wish I still believed in Santa Claus

As I watched my children get excited about Christmas this year it brought back memories of my own over excited anticipation when I was young, and how magical it was to believe in something like Santa Claus. Of course as you get older the experience changes and whilst Christmas is still a wonderful time it is not for the same mystical reasons as when you were a child.

That also got me thinking about my experiences as a manager and how when I first started out I had similar idealistic views about the senior managers and executives I worked for. They always seemed to be so knowledgeable about the company and the industry in which it operated, inspiring such confidence and self belief that you felt you were a part of something great. Sure there were set backs but that was never anyone’s fault and still you felt that the companies destiny was in the hands of what appeared to be these management gods.

But as I progressed in my career and climbed the management ladder, I gradually started to feel like the magicians assistant - privy to the sleight of hand that was sold to the audience as magic. The excuses became familiar and upon closer inspection were often more about protecting thier position than the success of the company. This was both a wonderful and sad realization. It was great learn that the path to senior management was not so herculean a task and indeed was even reachable for mere mortals like myself. But at the same time some sense of wonder was forever lost. Sometimes it is nicer to suspend reality and to hope that great managers really do inhabit a different world. But when you finally find out that they are little different to us mere mortals you realize just how slim the margins are for success, and that the secret is less a mystical ability and more practically down to honest hard work.

At times like that it is nice to reflect on more magical times when reindeer could fly and all I had to do was not be naughy.

Beware Free WiFi!

The release last week of the Firefox plug-in Firesheep has reignited the debate over the safety of using unsecured WiFI networks for accessing the internet.  Firesheep is a Firefox extension that makes it simple for users to scan connections to an open Wireless router, and then highjack the connection.  Whilst this technology has been around for a while, Firesheep simplifies it to the “point and click” level of use, meaning even the most remedial web user now has the capability to hack your Facebook account.

Firesheep works by monitoring all traffic between the wireless device and port 80 on the web site you are accessing.  It captures the userID and session ID of the web connection and then spoofs it allowing the user to access the site as the other person.  Whilst this access is only for the length of the session it would still allow the user to post comments, and or send tweets and emails.  More seriously if the change password function is not designed securely the user could change the password and hijack the account entirely.

One way around this is to ensure you only ever access websites via HTTPS (port 443) which will prevent Firesheep from being able to read the traffic.  But many website do not support HTTPS, even less as a default.  Facebook for example allows access to the login and home pages via HTTPS, but this is not the default access – you physically have to ensure you type it in to your browser window.  Even then when you navigate to other pages e.g. the profile page, it reverts to HTTP.  Mobile web applications e.g. the iPhone Facebook app, are of equal concern since most use unencrypted web services making them equally vulnerable.

The good news is that at present Firesheep only contains the keys to unlock about 26 of the most popular web sites and web mails services. But this is only round one, and more applications like Firesheep will soon be released with even greater access levels.  So until the website providers respond forcing all access via SSL or something similar my advice is to stay off public wi-fi networks if possible, and where you have no choice ensure you always access via a secure connection such as HTTPS.

Apple is currently the ultimate in cool. But can it last this time?

Last month I had the pleasure of giving a lecture to some post-graduate design students at the Pratt Institute in New York.  During a discussion about sustainability I was suddenly conscious that out of around 20 students, all of whom had their laptops open, only 2 had PCs whilst the rest had Macs.

Elastic People

Have you ever been in the situation when you introduce a new way of doing things to someone who seems to embrace the change, only to discover that the next week or month they are back doing things the previous way?    I have previously posted about how change management is difficult but it is important to understand that people avoid change in many different ways.  The most common is a general reluctance to accept the new way forward because they do not agree with it - what I call inelastic behavior.  This is understandable because people get comfortable the way things are.  When you present a new situation to them they resist it initially until they gradually get used to the idea and over time the new situation replaces the established baseline.

Too small to succeed

"Too big to fail" is the popular term of the moment but sometimes managers can make the mistake of thinking the opposite is true i.e. that their business or department is too small to succeed.  This particular manifestation is when companies put off common best practices using the excuse that they are for big companies only.  Implementing processes and procedures is a great example of this where managers will cite they do not have time or that they do not want to be slowed down by needless bureaucracy.  This is simply an excuse for poor planning because the reality is that the difference between big companies and small companies should not be whether they have processes and procedures - they both need them to survive -  it is at what level of detail those procedures should be written.

Metrics versus atmospherics

As the political world reacts to the 'stunning' upset of Scott Brown's senate election in Massachusetts the media is full of talking heads saying "the people have spoken" and this marks the turn around point for Republicans. They say it is the beginning of the end for the Obama presidency. But on closer inspection Scott Brown won his senate seat with a majority of little more than 100,000 votes. That equates to 1.7% of the Massachusetts population or 0.04% of the US population. Does such a marginal change in the political landscape merit such hype?

Planning for the New Year

"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump,  bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.  It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it, and then he feels that perhaps there isn’t."

A. A. Milne

As we start a new year invariably our thoughts turn to New Year resolutions and how we are going to make this year better than the last.  In management if you have not already started working on your 2010 plan (most large organizations will have started this process in September of the previous year) then it is not something you should put off for much longer as the window of influence for the year is rapidly shrinking.

Removing the reset button

As we exit the ‘noughties’ and prepare to enter an exciting new decade it seems an appropriate time to reflect on change, as this seems the only constant we can predict for the future.  Managing change is difficult.  People work to type and even though you can introduce new ways to do things it is hard to prevent old habits coming back and people reverting to the previous ways they did things.  I recall a friend once telling me that it is less about how you tell your child not to do something, and more about how often you tell them.  I guess this is a trait not limited to children and is part of the reason change is hard, and change management itself has developed into a discipline in its own right.  It is important to bear in mind that maintaining change can almost be as hard as enacting it in the first place, as often there are embedded reasons why things have occurred a certain way in the past.