The Paradox of Choice - Live Examples

There are times in our life when we are showcased with mountain of options. While options are good, too many of them just kill productivity and profitability. After reading 'Inside steve's brain'; and relating my own insights/experience into this. I am beginning to understand fully why 'More is actually less'. Below are few example of the same. Which One would you buy? [gallery link="file"] The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz

Ovi SDK few thoughts

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Ovi SDK does seem to be a step in the right direction. These are the few things which I thought would help accelerate its adoption:
  1. Integration with Older Devices
  2. Make it Cross-Platform - provide/allow integration with other platforms (i.e. iPhone/Android/BB) - Remember 50:50 strategy you guys are working on..
Though its early stages, a quick try of things did show a lot of potential. I am happy. These are the things on my wish-list:
  • Integration with Full-Device capabilities
  • I really want the camera integrated for trying out Augmented Reality stuff.
  • Hey how about integration into something like GWT :), it saves Java programmers a lot of time and effort.
  • Navigation API is coming up shortly
I will post few examples/samples when I get some time.

Of Mindshare and Volume

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While reading Engadget I found an interesting take:
Does this make Nokia the "undisputed leading player in the smartphones space," as the company's chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo put it? By sheer volume of devices, perhaps -- but mindshare continues to be a problem that we're guessing they're eager to see if Maemo 5 and the N900 can solve. (emphasis added)
Main Entry: mindshare
Part of Speech: n
Definition: the development of consumer awareness about a specific product or brand in hopes that they will buy the product or brand
I understand that many are pretty much having a go at Nokia for serving the rest of the Mobile Market not just the high-end. Nokia with its infinite wisdom has played well with Telcos and believe me this strategy works. At any given point of time the bread and butter of many Telcos comes straight from Nokia (or similar manufacturers) users in all Developing & European Countries. Many Middle class families just cannot afford to buy a high-priced phone for themselves or for that matter their Kids. The biggest market in general is not at the top, but rather in the middle and bottom. So if you intend to make it big aim at the market which can get you there.
Innovation happens elsewhere.
Nokia seems to have recognized this and working hard towards becoming a more open company. I admire that. In short - all it matters is the market you can address with a given platform:
@tech_rumbling Apple sells apples, Nokia sells fruit ;) #NW09
What Nokia is doing in short can be called as a Platform Strategy rather than a Product Strategy.

Nothing yet, someday you got to finish this.

Is there a good measure of success for a platform rather than numbers? Here are a few I could think of
  • Services used by users (and potentially paying for them).
  • Money earning potential for all who are involved in delivering the services not just from the hardware..
  • Opportunities for developers to build amazing apps which directly compete with the manufacturers offering. (look atEmoze, Seven...)
  • Promotes openness & innovation in its systems and provides options to customers to change and use the handset in any way they please. (Nokia & Google adhere to this).
The key to deciding which platform to build on needs to consider the above and the commercial reality of getting things done.AppStore has done a real Gold Rush and now many are re-thinking as to how this may materialize. I am not trying to get into AppStore bashing, then again it has changed the industry in more than many ways.

What should Nokia do? - a developer's perspective

"We are not on the defensive," Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, President and CEO, Nokia said at the Nokia World 2009, held this week in Stuttgart, Germany. "We are on the offensive."
I have always admired Nokia for its devices - My mom still uses her 3300 religiously (its 6+ years old phone by the way). Yes there is stiff competition ahead for Nokia. Competition is Good. Its understandable what Apple, RIM & Google are doing which has caused some grief for Nokia. Nokia's hardware still rocks - believe me my phone has taken so much of beating that other phones normally give up.
We are putting a relatively big part of our future into the hands of third-party developers because this is the only way we can be relevant to consumers - Niklas Savander, the head of Nokia's mobile internet services unit
- That's a brilliant strategy. There are loads of things which need to change from within for Nokia, here are few which came to my mind when I was watching the NokiaWorld event:
  1. Though I appreciate that not all devices are made equal there should not be too much diversification - this is killing Developers productivity. - S40 . S60 & Maemo
  2. Keep all the devices up-to date all the time. - Learn from RIM, Apple & Google - they do an excellent job. - Don't forget your older customers just because they did not buy a new device from you year over year.
  3. Use the same firmware across the devices using the same platform - firmware releases should be portable - For example firmware for devices using S60 such as E90/E71... /N95/N97 should be *almost* the same - yes it can be done.
  4. Promote interoperability, if you want developers to develop for different platforms you have to help them do it. We really don't have large teams like the ones you do. Java still rocks in this respect - provide more functionality and improve it.
  5. Yes, you might argue that Qt would be better than Java - but with all due respect finding a Java developer is much easier than one with C/C++ skillset - I hope you are aware of that. - I like the fact that Google uses Java as its language for development on Android - its a good strategy.
  6. Thanks for the OVI SDK - it looks awesome - In general we developers would want to develop a software which can be as portable across more manufacturers; not just Nokia. I would love to get more comments on this from other developers.
  7. Work with other players - please - collaboration with your competition in few aspects does provide good results.
  8. Get the top-management to follow and read the posts on Nokia's hardware / software - its very important that they get the feel for what's happening.
If any mobile developers do read this, please do keep me in the loop as to what you think about it. I would love Nokia to read this... feel free to forward it across the board.

Hello World

This is the first post. We wanted to make it memorable.. here are a few ways you can say hello world: Java: 
1 public class HelloWorld {
2
3     public static void main(String args[]) {
4         System.out.println("Hello World");
5     }
6
7 }
8
9
Groovy: 
1 def name='World'
2
3 println "Hello $name!"
C++: 
1 int main(int argc, char** argv) {
2     cout << "Hello World";
3     return (EXIT_SUCCESS);
4 }
Python+S60: 
1 import appuifw
2
3 data = u"World"
4 appuifw.note(u"Hello " + data, "info")