There’s been some clever uses of the foursquare API to date, however, this one just may take the cake… or the candy bar in this case! The clever “Heads” at 1000Heads and the always innovating minds at Nokia have dropped a way cool bombshell on the attendees of a Social Media Week event in Glasgow [...]
Checkin at Social Media Week With The Nokia Foursquare Vending Machine
Comment on What’s the best-case scenario for Nokia? by B.Smith
Backlink: http://gigaom.com/mobile/nokia-market-share-microsoft-future/#comment-642228
Microsoft cannot lose in mobile.
Yes, I know I've been writing about Microsoft a lot lately, but the rumor going around this week that they might be buying Nokia is just too juicy to pass up. A couple of weeks ago, I'd made a few suggestions in the newsletter about some concrete things Microsoft could do to get ahead in mobile, and, while one has already happened (them buying Skype), I didn't suggest that they go out and buy Nokia, mainly because it seemed so unlikely.
Now, I don't have any knowledge one way or the other as to whether the two companies are even talking about a sale (I certainly haven't heard anything concrete about a deal beyond what Eldar Murtazin published the other day), however there's no doubt that a merger between the two companies would be one of the biggest things to ever happen in mobile.
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Why Would Microsoft Buy Nokia?
Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/sCHtON_ueMM/
Today's wacky mobile industry rumor is that Microsoft could be interested in buying Nokia's mobile phone division, on the heels of the companies' Windows Phone 7 partnership.
Now, this is pretty out-there. The deal would be huge -- Nokia's market cap is $32 billion -- and it would be a big shift in Microsoft's focus. So it's easy to laugh this off as a big, silly rumor.
But there's one reason why Microsoft potentially buying Nokia actually makes sense.
Because it's the only way that Microsoft could ever make enough money off Windows phones to matter.
Apple, HTC, and RIM have shown that when a smartphone company is performing well, there is a healthy amount of profit to be made. Apple likely makes a few hundred dollars in profit per iPhone sold, for example.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has been trying to use the Windows model for mobile operating systems for the last several years, and that just doesn't really work in mobile. The per-device license fees are just too small -- likely less than $15 per phone -- and don't add up to big-enough numbers to make much of a difference, especially for a company as big as Microsoft.
If Microsoft did buy Nokia, and could somehow, miraculously, figure out a near-Apple-like quality of hardware and software integration, and sell a bunch of phones, there's quite a lot of profit that can be made. (Especially if they can do something creative with Skype, which Microsoft bought last week.)
And that's why Microsoft may want to own the whole thing, and not just sell Windows Phone 7 licenses to Nokia, who makes the real profit on the device sale.
(Yes, this could potentially alienate other potential partners, like HTC, Samsung, etc. But if it's not going to get Android-like distribution from those companies, that's a risk worth taking if Microsoft can make all of the profits from Nokia smartphone sales. Meanwhile, a Nokia-Microsoft deal would almost certainly end the potential for Microsoft to acquire RIM.)
Again, this is way out there, and would be very risky. But it's not completely stupid.
Read: How To Use Your iPhone On Vacation (The Right Way!)
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Here's Why Microsoft Buying Nokia Might Actually Make Sense (MSFT, NOK, RIMM)
Nokia is obviously in a tough spot in the smartphone industry, but it can still be helpful for small companies to work with them, if the economics work out.
Take Foursquare, for example.
Not only is Nokia developing their Symbian apps for them -- apps that Foursquare may not have made otherwise -- but it is also promoting the Foursquare app and brand around the world in Nokia advertisements.
We spotted this one last week in tiny Tarifa, Spain, on vacation. But Foursquare mobile partnerships exec Holger Luedorf tells us that they are all over the place.
Luedorf says it's hard to tell if the ads have helped grow Foursquare's user base, but they definitely help generate brand awareness.
Of course, most startups won't get this sort of treatment. There's only one Foursquare, one Angry Birds, etc., and it helps to be a cool brand that bigger companies want to align themselves with.
But the point is that industry giants like Nokia and Microsoft, which are st rugging in mobile, still have a ton of cash to throw around at smaller companies.
So even if they aren't as strategically important as developing for Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc., it can be smart to work with them.
Don't miss: Take our photo tour of Foursquare's NYC headquarters →
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Here's Why It's Still Smart To Work With Nokia (NOK)
Every year, Apple starts selling an updateded iPhone in July.
You'd imagine executives at the world's biggest cellphone company, Nokia, would be working their butts off during that month, dealing with an annual seismic shift in their space.
You would imagine incorrectly.
According to Adam Greenfield, a design consultant who spent two years with Nokia, July is the month executives at the company always check out – until September.
“In mid-July, Nokia House is a ghost town,” Greenfield tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
“If you need a decision and the key person’s at the summer cottage? Forget it. You’ll resolve that issue in September. It’s something that hampers their agility.”
No kidding. According to the same Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, Apple gets 3X more revenue per employee as Nokia and HTC gets 2X.
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Nokia Execs Go Missing For Two Months Every Year (NOK, AAPL)
