To everyone doubting Nokia's strategy to go exclusive with carriers, how can you voice your opinion without knowing anything about the conditions and commitments involved in those deals?
"Exclusive" means "not readily available except in certain circumstances." If the goal is saturation of the market and maximum sales, it is -- by definition -- the wrong strategy.
Do you seriously thinking Nokia does these kind of decisions without extensive research and thorough consideration?
I'm sure they did, just like they did for the Lumia 900 launch on AT&T in the USA. Not a bad phone (though mine had a lousy failure rate) -- did it set the world on fire? Nope. It was actually a sales flop.
The definition of insanity is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
Nokia has whole teams of people doing strategy research for Lumia line and unlike me or you, they have all the relevant data in the world and their experience in their disposal to make much more informed decision than we ever could.
Expertise is established not only by self-described experts, but also results.
How successful has Nokia been in the smartphone space in the USA using the carrier exclusive model, to date? How successful has Lumia been in the USA using the carrier exclusive model, to date? Can you point out any one of the handful of smartphone vendors who still use the carrier exclusive model in the last 24 months who has been successful with it?
Claiming expertise only works if you've got the goods -- read results -- to back it up. So far, Nokia's strategy in the USA has not been successful, and claiming that repeating the same strategy with a "this time it will be different" belief strikes me as silly. If major US players like HTC and Motorola have failed, why would a teeny tiny player like Nokia (from a US perspective) find success with it?
Trust me, they have calculated and re-calculated the numbers many, many times before making that decision.
Are you suggesting they didn't do so with the Lumia 900 launch? That they've suddenly decided to do things differently?
I do not know about you, but when I find that I clearly don't know enough about the topic, I disregard whatever my intuition tells me and listen what the man who does it for a living has to say.
Then I suggest calling my ex-broker at JPMorgan who suggested I buy eToys, Pets.com and MotherNature.com stock at the IPO price. He recommends stocks for a living, so he must be an expert who knows just what to do.
Seriously, the best measure of whether a strategy will work isn't nebulous "experience" -- especially from a team that has underperformed so badly that its stock is near penny-stock pricing and its bond ratings are well into junk territory. It is perfectly reasonable to be skeptical in such circumstances.
The best measure of whether a strategy will work is seeing how it has been executed so far in terms of results in the market (the USA). For Nokia, few could argue the score is great or even acceptable in the USA (to be charitable).
The other measure -- which is perfectly reasonable -- is to ask "as a smartphone buyer, would I go along with what Nokia is planning and purchase a mid-tier phone from them over a top-tier competing phone on my carrier, or switch to a more-expensive plan from someone else to get their top phone?" Most people would answer "no."
Finally, you can contrast the current failing strategy with the ones of Samsung and Apple -- the two market leaders. They both offer the same top-tier device across most or all major US carriers. The manufacturers who have offered other carrier exclusives -- like Motorola, Sony, and Kyocera -- are shrinking and in financial trouble.
Consider that Samsung is likely to emulate its incredibly successful Galaxy S III strategy with the ATIV S. Consider that HTC may as well. And then look at Nokia's efforts to stick with the same "device exclusive" strategy of Motorola, Sony, and Kyocera.
"Look at the numbers and do the calculations." And tell me what the likely outcome is.
And make no mistake, the outcome is important, especially given the WP community's strange insistence on making Nokia (and only Nokia) a proxy for the success of Windows Phone. If Nokia delivers more of the same disappointing US Lumia sales, the message in the press won't be "Nokia struggles," it will be "Windows Phone continues to struggle."