The fun Apple-related history reveals we saw last week continue. A confidential internal presentation spotted within newly-published archives shows that at least nine people within Nokia realized the huge threat posed by the iPhone the day after it launched.
Sadly, senior execs failed to listen, and in just seven years Nokia went from owning the smartphone business to exiting it …
As we recently noted, there’s a strong tendency to imagine that a company which is dominant today will forever remain so.
The day before the iPhone launch, Nokia had around a 50% market share in the mobile phone business, with no other company coming close. Not only was the company financially dominant, but Nokia was also the cool, stylish brand at the time. It was the brand teens wanted to be seen to be using.
Yet the company’s senior execs failed to realize that the launch of the iPhone changed everything. That keyboardless smartphones were the future, and Apple was the brand that would become cool while Nokia would be left in the dust. It took just seven years for the Finnish company to exit the smartphone business.
Things could have been very different if the company had listened to a team of nine people, who put together an internal presentation the day after the iPhone launched.
In the executive summary spotted by Fahad X (via Daring Fireball), the team said:
Apple iPhone is a serious high-end contender.
iPhone touch screen UI may set a new standard of state-of-art. New UI paradigm that has a promise of unparalleled ease-of-use. Cool, seamlessly integrated internet applications. Nokia needs to develop touch UI to fight back.
The new user interface may change the standards of the superior user experience for the whole market. Commented as “visually stunning and incredibly responsive.” User interface has been a big strength for Nokia, so the UI may be the biggest threat that iPhone presents.
iPhone will capture the coolness in US media. If Apple succeeds in this target at the announced price point, it will create a new high-end market.
John Gruber notes that the team didn’t get everything right – they failed to appreciate the role that would be played by web access, or the way Apple would reinvent mobile apps – but still: if Nokia’s board had listened, it might still be making smartphones today.
Image: Nokia
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