23 January 2012
If you snooze, you lose
The pace of development in the mobile phone sector has speeded noticeably in the last couple of years. Now, major mobile phone companies are having to upgrade their smartphones two, sometimes three, times a year. Alongside that, executives are having to make critical business decisions that could make or break the company; witness Nokia's decision to go with Windows Phone 7. Meanwhile, Apple seems incapable of doing anything wrong as it rolls out iPhone after iPhone.
Nokia lost its 'hero' status when it failed to appreciate the threat posed by Apple and didn't have competitive products available at the right time. Ericsson, another erstwhile 'hero' of the mobile phone business is now mired in the apparent train crash of ST-Ericsson.
Another company under pressure is Research in Motion (RIM), the developer of the BlackBerry. BlackBerries used to be the tool of choice for executives the world over; the ability to receive email wherever you were spawned a generation of so called CrackBerries, renowned for their inability to put their smartphone away.
But times change and RIM is seen as vulnerable and the focus of acquisition talk. Now, its strangely entitled 'co ceos' have moved aside in favour of what appears to be a 'new broom'.
The mobile phone world has gone quickly from a place where it was relatively easy to do business to one in which if you snooze – even for a moment – you lose.
Author
Graham Pitcher
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