Gorilla Hunting is Dangerous

I’ve been reading articles recently about the demise of Nokia as a world leader in cell phones. I know the psychology is to pile on the big guy when they are tilting to one side and try to push them to the ground. There is some sort of primal satisfaction in bringing the big animal down.  But, I’ve dealt with Nokia mano-a-mano and they will not, by any means, relinquish their dominance in the market. Whereas the once mighty Motorola (the inventor of the cell phone!) stumbled from first to fifth place in the market by, some would say, largely because of inept management, you cannot say the same for Nokia. There are incredibly smart and able people in that company from top to bottom. They are and will continue to be a major force in defining the industry’s future. For anyone to even think that Nokia is “toast,” as one reporter suggested, is ludicrous. I’m no great defender of Nokia and they certainly don’t need me to stand up for them. They can be quite a challenge to work with but are the 800-pound gorilla. I’ve seen them push the entire industry to expend enormous resources to explore potential technologies that might never see the light of day. They drive the cell phone supplier industry with seemingly impossible requirements that ultimately pushes striking innovation. Nokia knows very well that the cell phone, as we know it today, will be nothing like the device we will see in the coming few years. They are out there trying to figure out what will stick with the consumer. So they came out with an ugly, clunky, overpriced, me-too netbook. So what! You can do all the market research or focus groups you want, but until you put something in consumers’ hands, you aren’t really going to know what the right product is. We have recently seen major, too-big-to-fail, world-leading companies crash and burn, particularly in the financial and automotive segments. So big companies do, indeed, go under proving that any company is at risk. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the report of Nokia’s demise is greatly exaggerated.