Three Reasons Nokia Isn't Attracting More Mobile Developers

Nokia is No. 1 in smartphone market share but software programmers appear to prefer competing platforms. One factor: a loss of momentum

By Kevin Tofel

One would think that laying claim to the largest share of the world's smartphone market would attract the most high-quality mobile software developers, but that doesn't seem to be the case for Nokia (NOK). The Finnish phone giant's market share stands at 44.3 percent, research firm Gartner's (IT) latest data show, yet according to a recent Bloomberg piece, programmers appear intent on building apps for smaller, competing platforms. The challenge Nokia has faced and will continue to face can be boiled down to three things:

Negative momentum: Commenters are always quick to remind me of Nokia's No. 1 position in terms of smartphone market share, and rightly so. But such numbers are a snapshot in time—far more important to developers is momentum. They watch to see how fast or slow a platform is gaining or losing acceptance. In the case of Nokia, there's been momentum over the past three years, just not the good kind. Our infographic on mobile platform share from 2007-2009 highlights the problem—Nokia's share of the market has waned (as did Microsoft's (MSFT) and general Linux phones) as those of Research In Motion (RIMM), Apple (AAPL), and Google (GOOG) have grown. In other words, developers see negative momentum with Nokia and are more likely to dedicate limited resources to its platform.

Too much choice: Nokia offers more makes and models of phones than any other company. But while customer choice is important, perhaps Nokia has honed this feature to a fault. On the site for Nokia Europe—a region that the company is very strong in—there are seven N-series devices, eight E-series handsets, the unique N900, and a few more smartphones coming soon. It reminds of the current Google Android fragmentation issues, but far worse.The various Nokia smartphones all run Symbian S60—except for the N900, which runs on Maemo—in no less than four combinations of various editions and feature packs.And then there's the upcoming Symbian 3 OS for the Nokia N8, which is already drawing early criticism on the software and experience. What platform version should a developer target and for how long should he or she expect compatibility? Nokia's saving grace could be the Qt cross-platform framework, but I haven't heard any chatter about mobile developers moving to Qt in significant numbers just yet.

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