Instead of the usual tutorial we're now presenting a special editorial feature on what will happen to the internet tablets.
The future of Nokia, Maemo and the Internet Tablets
In the opinion of this writer, if Maemo (the software platform which runs on Nokia's internet tablets) is to survive, it urgently needs to respond to two recent events:
1) The Economic Crisis
Over the past months various financial problems have come together to create an environment where people spend much less money than before. Most companies are warning of falling sales in the near future or even reporting falling sales right now.
Any electronic gadget that hopes to succeed in the current climate needs to be reasonably priced and serve a clear purpose. People are much less likely to spend money on expensive frivolities if they're having trouble paying their bills.
2) Nokia has announced a low-price touchscreen smartphone, the 5800, with more advanced higher-end models on the way too
Nokia originally dabbled in touchscreen devices with the 7710 smartphone back in 2004, and indeed this is what led to the internet tablet project in the first place. The phone was never released globally and it was only given a low key release within Europe.
However, Nokia has now returned to the touchscreen smartphone world with the recently-announced 5800 XpressMusic. This offers a gadget broadly similar to the Apple iPhone but at roughly half the actual unsubsidised price. When bought on contract the 5800 is likely to cost $0, and some networks may even offer a negative price through cash rebates. As its relatively low price suggests, the 5800 is being pitched at a mass market audience, but it seems likely Nokia will release more expensive Nseries-branded touchscreen smartphones in 2009, to compete with the iPhone more directly.
If the 5800 sells well Apple may respond with their own lower-cost models, and of course other manufacturers aren't going to stand still either. For example, there's absolutely nothing to stop Samsung releasing their own near-identical rival to the 5800, as both Nokia and Samsung hold licences for the Symbian S60 platform (the 5800 will use a brand new version, S60 5th Edition).
Whatever happens, thanks to competition it looks very likely that touchscreen smartphones are going to become significantly cheaper and better in the very near future, with built-in features that are very similar to those on Nokia's internet tablets.
Nokia's tablets cannot compete with Nokia's smartphones
Half the target audience of Nokia's upcoming touchscreen smartphone range is very clear: people who are interested in the iPhone. Nokia is offering them something that does a similar job but is cheaper and/or has more functional hardware.
The other half of the target audience is equally clear: people who are familiar with Nokia's S60-based smartphones and want a touchscreen model. Nokia's current smartphones outsell all their rivals combined, so it makes sense to appeal to existing customers as much as potential new ones.
In short, these upcoming smartphones know who they're for and know what they're supposed to do. That makes them easy to market, easy to develop, easy to improve and easy to write software for.
But who are Nokia's internet tablets for? Until now the question has mostly been dodged by Nokia, they seem more interested in building a platform rather than a profitable consumer product.
However, this question has to be answered now, partly because the tablets have to justify their development expense to the parent company, and partly because they must not try to provide the same product as the upcoming touchscreen smartphones.
One of the golden rules of business is that you don't run two totally unrelated product lines chasing after the same audience. You might sell the same product under different brands, or many variants of the same product, or you might make unrelated products aimed at different audiences, but the bottom line is that you should never be your own rival.
As things stand, the tablets in their current form seem functionally very similar to a touchscreen phone with the telephony removed. To the ordinary user the tablets are inexplicably crippled, like a laptop without Wi-Fi, or a television set without a remote control. But adding telephony would cause severe overlap with Nokia's smartphone range, so that doesn't seem likely to happen.
What's the answer? What can be done to keep the Maemo platform alive in this situation?
One possible answer
This writer has an idea with many potential advantages. For example this idea could:
- Give Nokia's Maemo-based devices a clear mainstream purpose without overlapping with Nokia's other products
- Allow Nokia to tap into a fast-growing mainstream market that they have so far left completely untouched
- Allow Maemo devices to complement phones instead of competing with them, so people might want to buy both
- Make e-mail, instant messaging, word processing and other text-intensive applications much easier to use in Maemo
- Make web-based services much easier to navigate
- Make apps ported from desktop Linux much easier to use
- Make command lines and alternative OSes/distros much easier to use on the same hardware
- Make it easier to attach multiple USB accessories including keyboards, mice, printers, DVD drives etc without worrying about external power supplies
- Make it easier to attach and use Maemo devices on large screens such as televisions and computer monitors
Here's the idea:
Instead of tablets, Nokia should make Maemo-based mini-laptops.
They could be physically similar in size and shape to the Asus EEE PC, with somewhat similar hardware too (a 9 inch screen, proper clicky keyboard, multiple USB ports, a VGA/TV out socket, ethernet, SD card slot etc).
It would no longer be pocket-sized, but it would still be portable enough to take with you for surfing at cafes, taking notes at lectures, using on train journeys etc. The larger screen and keyboard would make it far easier to use whether you're a casual user or a hardcore hacker, and life would be easier for developers too as the hardware would be more similar to a normal PC.
Trying to get Maemo devices into people's pockets is not an option without telephony, and adding telephony is not a sensible option for Nokia. (Maemo could perhaps become a phone under a different manufacturer, but so far no other company has manufactured Maemo-based devices of any kind.)
Above all, putting Maemo onto a mini-laptop would give it a clear target audience: people who are currently interested in devices such as the EEE PC or Aspire One. These users don't necessarily want Microsoft Windows, and they don't necessarily want a high power computer either, all they want are the main functions (web browsing, word processing, e-mail, Skype, instant messaging etc) in a small package at a reasonable price.
Wait! This idea has been suggested lots of times before!
This idea has indeed been suggested before on various forums.
What hasn't happened before is the coming together of all these forces: global recession, Nokia releasing their own touchscreen smartphones, and cheap Linux-based mini-laptops becoming popular with mainstream users.
The time is right for this to happen, it would make perfect sense to do a Maemo mini-laptop now, that's why we're publishing this article.
The one thing that is not an option is carrying on as before.
But the whole point of Maemo is to be pocket-sized! It can't work on anything bigger! And it can't work without a touchscreen!
If Nokia or someone else wanted to do it, they could adapt Maemo to work on other types of devices.
Here's an intriguing link for example:
http://blogs.gnome.org/lucasr/2007/02/09/hildon-desktop-scalability/
What's the point of Maemo on mini-laptops? There are so many other suitable OSes already with much larger userbases and bigger hardware sales.
...and the answer to that is:
What's the point of Maemo on handheld devices? There are so many other suitable OSes already with much larger userbases and bigger hardware sales.
Why doesn't Nokia just make Maemo phones?
Because, as noted above, it would be in direct competition to Nokia's Symbian touchscreen phones.
Manufacturers deliberately avoid direct competition between separate product lines because it duplicates their development costs without increasing sales. And in the case of two separate software platforms, it would make each one weaker by splintering their userbase and third party support.
Why doesn't Nokia dump their Symbian phones and make Maemo phones instead?
Very unlikely to happen while Symbian phones sell 60 million a year and Maemo tablets sell so little that Nokia don't bother publishing any sales figures.
Also, Symbian phones have a lot of support from phone network operators who use the platform to deliver various network services. Because so many people buy their phones from networks, these kinds of relationships are very important to manufacturers.
On top of that, many of Nokia's new internet services (Nokia Maps, Nokia Music, N-Gage) are built around the Symbian S60 platform.
But Maemo is open source, surely that makes it better than closed source Symbian? Doesn't Nokia believe in open source any more?
Things have changed.
Since Nokia took it over recently, the Symbian OS has become royalty-free and is going open source as the Symbian Company has been replaced by the Symbian Foundation.
