Nokia Case

Although Nokia seemed well defined its products for each of those users, the reaction from consumers is not optimistic. The problem is Nokia's Symbian operating system is not very strong in internet usage. However, internet usage is critical for both entertainment and communication users. Consumers connect to internet to download music, applications and games, and to interact with others through e-mails and so on. So, Nokia Smartphone did not satisfy its customers.

Product differentiation in Smartphone is achieved through lots of applications, services and user experience. Since Apple opens its application store, Nokia follows its competitors and opened its 'OVI' store. In some circumstances, customers will buy a Smartphone based on its application stores. So, after-sales services are very important in Smartphone industry. The strategy for Nokia is not to be a leading applications provider, but to ensure that its competitors do not gain sufficient competitive advantage through applications.

The operating system of Nokia was Symbian. The strength of Symbian is robustness, but customers do not value this feature any more. Now, Nokia is expecting to regain its market share by integrated with Microsoft and promote its new Smartphone with windows operating system. Before cooperating with Microsoft, Nokia also launched several products with Meego operating system and received good sales. It seemed that differentiate the product by changing operating system is a good strategy to attract customers. But if Nokia cannot make a clear strategy for its products with different operating systems, this strategy will fail and Nokia may confuse its customers.