Over the past ten years, I’ve probably been part of at least 100 discussions along the following lines:
- A: Wouldn’t it be good if people buying phones in shops would ask for Symbian?
- B: But there’s no room on a phone for yet another brand. The manufacturer’s brand and the network operator’s brand don’t leave any spare space.
- A: How about something analogous to “Intel inside”? How about “Symbian inside”?
- B: Have you any idea how much money Intel spent, to create their “Intel inside” brand? If we do have money to spend on building a brand, it should be a B2B (business-to-business) brand, with the mobile phone industry learning about Symbian, rather than a B2C (business-to-consumer) brand.
- A: But, despite everything, wouldn’t it be good if people buying phones in shops would ask for Symbian?
- B: People buying consumer electronics are disinterested in operating systems. Do they specify the OS when they buy a TV? If they’re aware of the operating system, it means something has gone wrong – the operating system has spilt out of its shell, and the phone is mis-functioning.
In this conversation, I’ve been “Mr. B” around 100 times. However, times are changing. That’s why I included this forecast in my previous blog posting:
I foresee a time in the not-too-distant future where consumers will be asking phone retailers for assurance that their intended new purchase is running the Symbian platform. It’s conceivable, I guess, that these consumers will ask, “But is it an S^phone?”
These consumers will have learned that the Symbian brand stands for the following:
- Ready support for a huge variety of interesting, capable, enchanting, intuitive add-on applications (which can run in background as well as in foreground);
- Excellent battery life and operating speed;
- Minimal worries about software defects or device security;
- A strong likelihood of a great user experience.
Here’s what’s changed.
First, the widespread existence of online communities means that, with a favourable wind blowing, a consumer brand can be established nowadays with much less expenditure than before. Instant web connectivity allows timely and persuasive ideas to spread much more quickly. So a brand like “Symbian inside” need no longer cost the earth to create.
Second, many consumers no longer view their mobile phones as “just another piece of closed-functionality consumer electronics”. They have learned that their mobile phones are powerful computers in their own right. And that predisposes them to be more interested in the underlying technology.
Third, in particular, an increasing number of consumers have learned that smart mobile phones can become host to an enormous number of interesting add-on applications and services. That’s why I suggested that the first thing consumers will think of, when they hear that a device is powered by the Symbian platform, is that the device will provide “ready support for a huge variety of interesting, capable, enchanting, intuitive add-on applications”.
Fourth, many large companies in the mobile industry no longer have such a black-and-white “winner takes all” approach to on-device branding. They are learning the greater benefits of a collaborative approach. Just as they increasingly appreciate the benefits of sharing the development effort (by pooling software contributions into a common underlying platform), they also increasingly appreciate the benefits of sharing the marketing effort (by raising public awareness of the extra benefits of devices that have a powerful embedded open development platform).
Finally, a renewed focus on the needs of developers (so that developers will truly enjoy their work, and enter into a highly productive “flow” state) has thrown up some interesting connections. Many developers enjoy working on products that have strong public visibility. The possibility that Symbian might become a high-profile success in the eyes of consumers will give at least some developers an important extra boost in their work. That’s yet another reason for us to take this idea seriously.
I PARTICULARY agree with the final point!
Just add to that a complete support to QT instead of UIKON (I just saw a f2f demo on an N95 and I’m speechless!), and developers will come happly
Totally agree. I think the time is right for Symbian to become a consumer-facing brand.
I think it’s also worth considering that users don’t necessarily need to understand what exactly Symbian OS is in order to want it. For example, Symbian could establish itself as a kind of “app compatibility” and possible “seal of quality” amongst punters. As long as they realise that whatever funky apps/themes/etc they downloaded on their current phone bearing a yellow heart will work on any other phone in the shop that has a yellow heart (regardless of the manufacturer or network) then that’s all you need.
You don’t need to have heard of “operating systems” or “open source” or anything like that to understand that (and I would imagine that the majority of people have no interest in learning about those techy terms). As far as they’re concerned this is just another feature of the phone: “Phone A can run Symbian apps, Phone B cannot”.
One thing that, IMHO, might be a stumbling block here is the lack of a single Symbian app store. Even with a foundation-hosted backend to an Ovi store, an operator store and whatever else – the message gets diluted. I worry that users might think of the apps they buy as a “Nokia-compatible app” or a “Vodafone-compatible app” rather than a “Symbian-compatible app”. And perhaps not realise that the same apps will work on phones by other manufacturers or on other networks.
Is it possible to create a brand for an embedded OS? answer is yes. This is not the difficult part. After all, Microsoft is a strong brand; and Microsoft was initially an OS before establishing itself as the reference for desktop applications. Now, we can like Microsoft or not; but this is a different story. Intel is also a strong brand; and managed to switch end consumer focus from the PC itself to values around the processor which previously was an enigmatic set of electronic cores and components: speed, power, etc..
On the other hand, there’s a number of powerful technologies which are far from being strong brands: Java is not really known by end consumers; even Linux which is widely known by technical people who appreciate the openness and collaboration values, is far from being recognized as as end consumer brand (best example: Linux was the cause of several Netbooks after-sale returns, just because end consumers did not recognize Ubuntu’s user interface and were expecting the familiar Windows look & feel).
I think the real difficult question to ask about Symbian is: what makes Symbian really DIFFERENT from other OSs? and which VALUES Symbian can invoke to end consumers? i have my own idea on the topic; but would want to get first the view from Symbian foundation team. Lee’s previous blog contains some initial hints about power management, security, robustness, multi-tasking, etc.. But are these really unique values in Symbian? not so sure; but let’s get the view of the foundation team first.
My view of what the Symbian brand and mark represents starts with an understanding that we are no longer a software development company. In fact, we are a start-up that bought a trademark from a large multinational company that acquired the former business that owned it.
Now, what we endeavor the brand to represent is a movement in the mobile marketplace. Our movement, and community of members is in the best position to help accelerate the potential of the future of mobility. Features and functionality that is on a path to come in to a consumers pocket in 5 years is now poised to come in to play even sooner, or in half that time.
Symbian represents a new marketplace and and ecosystem of options and a model of development that impacts the entire value chain as we have known it. Some concrete product values and experiences include :
- Broadest range of and most advanced technology in mobile
- Powerful and broadest support for internet technologies including open and defacto standards
- Global reach and support for the world’s locales and networks
- High quality and the most reliable products
- Superior solutions for : Imaging, Media, Messaging
- Extensibility without compromising the power of specialty
I can go on, as we are still working on our marketing plans in this area. One thing is clear, the ability and relevance of the Symbian mark and brand to represent a particular and powerful experience for a consumer is long over do.
I also used to think that mobile OS shouldn’t really matter for the average end user, but after seeing the huge growth in consumer interest towards smart mobile devices (including netbooks) I tend to agree with this. I’m all for the idea of having devices labeled “Running Symbian”.
However, what James said about app stores is right. Where do people with Symbian labeled decives in their hands go for the software? A movement needs fantastic applications for epic devices. And they need to be easy to get.
What I think Symbian now needs to become a consumer brand is
- An insanely cool device (with Symbian brand on top), which everyone wants and every gadget blog raves about. Today even the most successful ones are considered quite boring…
- A lot more active developers, productive APIs for them and a place to publish/distribute their applications. This is not the case today, especially with the APIs, native development for Symbian is, well, not easy…
“we are no longer a software development company. In fact, we are a start-up that bought a trademark”.
The old Symbian was nothing but a sw development company, who stayed at the background on purpose. If the new Symbian has a start-up mindset, the change is huge. Great things can happen!
Looking forward to!
My simplistic take on this is, the majority of S60 users in the past hardly ever installed new applications on their phone. These users typically didn’t care what OS their phone had inside. They simply went for the high level brand – ask mainstream users about the Nokia N95, for example.
A lot of users didn’t even know the difference between smartphone and feature phone. The simplistic definition that “a feature phone doesn’t allow you to install and run new applications” was lost on them, as many were confused that they could install new (i.e. Java) applications on feature phones. I frequently had to educate non-techie users about Symbian and S60 if they wanted to find and install more powerful applications.
The ones that did install new, more powerful native OS based applications, DID have an idea of the OS inside, and usually knew about S60 and UIQ applications.
Given that add on services and applications are hoping to be improved, and a more singular start point for UIs adopted, surely more consumers should be educated about Symbian OS?
How else do people find and purchase applications or platform specific services? They have to know that their platform is based on, i.e. MS Windows, OSX, Microsoft Mobile, or iPhone (the latter not really relevant as it’s packaged as a complete product – but you get my drift)…
chris_nsx: one of the main reasons the majority of S60 users in th past hardly installed new apps was because most users don’t know where to get them from. The apps are scattered all over the place in hundreds of different websites and this is too much effort for most users. The exclusion of an on-device app catalog was the biggest things missing in the past. There is a ‘Download!’ but thats hardly usable! The iPhone is pretty crap in my opinion out of the box, but once users install their apps, it makes the thing half-usable, and the great thing for iPhone users is that they only have to go to one place thats on the device – the App Store.
Hit the nail on the head. But the App Store is again for one device – the end-user doesn’t need to know about platforms… all he/she needs to know is that any downloaded app works on their iPhone… if the Foundation is going to create a competing multi-device, cross-manufacturer app store, visibility and education about the OS (hopefully the smallest common denominator of compatibility, rather than the UI or the device) is going to have to be created for end users.
I think having Symbian as a Consumer brand will work wonders. It worked very well for Intel with the “Intel Inside” logo, when they had very strong competition from rival processor companies
forget symbian inside, symbian assimilate!
good to see the symbian folks acknowledge the fact that ‘time they are a-changing’
here’s hoping I walk into a store sometime soon and see the symbian brand in action…
[...] Wood recently posted an interesting thought on the Symbian Foundation blog, positioning Symbian as a consumer brand. This is different than [...]
[...] I wonder how consumer-facing the Symbian Foundation intends to be. Will Symbian Foundation also try to be a consumer brand? There’s no content there at the moment for consumers. Will there be a different or updated [...]
All those things may be true, but things have changed because Apple made them change. Symbian could have made itself a consumer-friendly brand years ago. Now it will have to follow in Apple’s wake, and this all seems reactive to Apple rather than a truly inspired move in its own right.
Case in point. When David is describing what the Symbian brand will mean he says:
>Ready support for a huge variety of interesting, capable, enchanting, >intuitive add-on applications (which can run in background as well as in >foreground);
That parenthetical at the end is a direct shot at Apple. But it totally confuses the message.
Symbian needs to decide what its brand means before it spends a penny on consumer branding.
You’ve jumped the shark. The only reason for your change of heart is your physical separation from the hardware side of things to the Foundation.
Do you really believe any hardware company, let alone Operator, is going to support another brand which is effectively middleware?
YES people want applications. Yes they want dependable handsets. Yes they want dependable networks. But, NO they won’t perceive or care about the OS as having anything to do with the above.
@SW Marketing Guru,
>Do you really believe any hardware company, let alone Operator, is going to support another brand which is effectively middleware?
If potential customers are interested in whether a particular named technology is included in a device, then hardware companies will be motivated to mention this technology in their description of the device. This holds true for screen technology, network technology, application technology, and coiuld also hold true for the underlying enabling software platform.
>people won’t perceive or care about the OS
That could well change. OS platforms are mentioned much more often in general press discussion than used to be the case. Powerful online discussion of the Symbian platform could impact the thinking of more and more people. Let’s see.
// David W.