Cell Phone Overkill?
Thomas Menguy | September 2, 2006found here : bLaugh » Archive » Cell Phone Overkill
Really this is happening…our customer (phone manufacturers) are asking for features that even us, as geeky as we are, don’t know how to use! (found again via the Kathy Sierra: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/ )
This shows also that voice is and continue to be the “killer app”…of a phone (how bizarre how bizarre). The industry is truggling to find a new one (camera is a good idea, I like the concept of “personal data gatherer”).
My guess is that a “one fit all user device” (as in the PC land) is really simply irrelevant : see the latest SonyEricsson offering, see how many segments you have for cell phones, opposed to the PC market:
PC Markets segments:
- Laptop
- Ultra Light Laptop
- Laptop
- Desktop Replacement
- Desktop
- Office desktop: read low cost
- Workstation (high performance)
- Gamesattion
- Guess what: no feature set here, cause today ALL the pc are connected, have a processor and a hard drive, … and no “User Story” here, only Size, CPU MHz and Hard drive size, graphic card power….Now look at cell phones.
- Business Phone
- Party Phone
- Kids Phone
- Teenager Phones
- Fashion Phones
- Music Phones
- Camera Phones
- geek dreams
- …
- Ultra Low Cost
- Low Cost
- Standard Phone
- Feature Phone
- Smartphone
Marketing categories | Industry segments |
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|
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Really 2 opposite views.
- In modern markets as europe there is the one you know, as a consummer, from the adds, the shops. How many people I know who have a blackberry, and a small stylish Samsung/Nokia/Motorolla to not look like a geek when going out. It is based on User Profiles and use cases… And what is more different than two people? Diversity is human nature …
- The old segments … really based on costs only, not so far from the PC segments: and guess what? It is not working anymore (look at the Nokia business/fashion/Camera lines, same for SonyEricsson and more and more for Samsung and Motorolla).
Why diversity is so important for the mobile phone market compared to PC market:
- …Really in EU and Asia (I’m not sure for USA) a phone is like a watch or a suit: a “social” kind of device whose intent is to say “who you are” (see the Michael Mace article about that : What if Palm made a smartphone and nobody cared?)… a PC ALWAYS tells that you are a kind of gadget freak/geek, period.
- Carrying a laptop is ONLY FOR BUSINESS, you don’t have your laptop opened in restaurant/in family/partying/shopping/doing sport … but guess what, I’m sure you have your cell phone!
- As PC (laptop) are for business only, industry tends to simply design its products based on technology/cost elements and IMPOSE it to its customers, it can’t be the case for a device that is part of the business/private life of every kind of human being, you can’t impose anything, you have to ADAPT (look at the relative failure of Smartphones based on high level os in the consummmer market … too much uniformity)…
…It is why this industry is much more funny, there is not one answer, but many, and the more I’m working with the actors of the mobile phone space, the more I’m convinced that to succeed you HAVE TO strengthen, reinforce and push the creativity of your customer: my mantra is, when designing a feature: you CAN’T know what your customer will want to do with that…so let him free! (it is the opposite to the MS windows/pocketPC vision, same for Palm and Symbian in that respect)…and be amazed and impressed by what your customer are doing with your product: you have a winner if at one time you think: ”Wow, I’ve never thought you would have done something like that with my product! bravo!”
Mobile phone (and its industry) will NEVER be unifrom, commoditized, look alike wanabe!…cause you are not like that!