Interesting Nokia handset, n-gage, which is as multi-functional as I’ve seen.

Good register review.

Interestingly, I quizzed my girlfriend’s thirteen yr old sister and friend about mobile phones – interested to see of they cared how easy to use something was. Apparantly Nokia are the coolest handsets around. The crucial thing to them is how things look (“…your friends can’t see if a phone’s easy to use, but they can see how cool it looks on the outside…”).

No big suprises there. However, they knew, verbatim, all the code of the various handsets, 6610, 3650 etc. I always thought the Nokia nomenclature was bad – unmemorable, unsexy etc. What I didn’t think about was a) Consumers make the effort to learn the product codes b) with so many products appearing, Nokia wouldn’t have time/energy to come up with cool new names for every product.

Even Apple, a great *namer* of products, use this method; who wouldn’t want a Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors)?

Frivolous observations aside, companies like Nokia have become the software vendors of the near future. As PCs become less relevant and mobile handsets (they are far more than phones) become more and more data orientated, the dominance of the Nokias of this world become more apparant. In fact according to Matt Jones, whose word I take as gospel – Nokia is the most popular compter interface in the world. Wow. No wonder Microsoft are worried and Nokia declare themselves a software company.

That means the Vodafone’s of this world suddenly find themselves as the Intel of the new world, as they control access to the cell infrastructure.

It’s a symbiotic relationship between the service providers and the handset manufacturers – deep discounting, sweeteners etc. In fact, Vodafone have arguably understood their role and special position *and* the fact that inconsistent interfaces cause customer confusion – by creating Vodafone Live – where the interface of the handset remains consistent, regardless of ‘ hardware platform’.

And they have the clout to enforce that. In my humble opinion, if Vodafone play their dominance astutely, they have the ability to be Microsoft and Intel all in one.

With the advent of Picture messaging, video, large screens etc etc, this could have significant ramifications for delivery platforms for performance support and possibly e-learning (you knew I’d get to point eventually!)