Three Reasons Nokia Isn't Attracting More Mobile Developers

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Poor store usability: Nokia's Ovi store is slowly improving, but the experience isn't up to par with that of Apple's; even Google's Android Market is better. A poor in-store experience doesn't lead to sales, even if the software itself is excellent. Indeed, some developers tell Bloomberg that Nokia's Ovi store is "clunky," so I can't blame such developers for leaning toward a more effective alternative storefront such as that of Apple.

The shame of it all is that Nokia makes some of the best hardware in the world when it comes to smartphones. For example, the N900 is a high-powered handset with full QWERTY keyboard and resistive touchscreen that behaves more like a capacitive display. But the Maemo operating system is geekier than Android, to the point that it initially required users to find and connect to software repositories for programs, just like a traditional Linux computer. And Maemo is going away sooner rather than later—the overall platform is now folded into the MeeGo system that Nokia merged with Intel's Moblin, although the open-source community still adds to it. Like a few other Nokia experiments, the N900 doesn't have much of a future when compared with mainstream smartphones that are standardized on a single operating system.

Given the above three points, it's understandable why longtime Nokia developers are moving on to greener pastures. Alan Masarek, CEO of Quickoffice, enjoys the fact that his company's product ships on all Nokia Symbian phones, but he looked into Android about 18 months ago and is glad he did. Masarek tells Bloomberg: "The numbers on Android are very ascendant right now. We're on all these devices that just started shipping in meaningful volumes the last two quarters."

If Nokia can woo developers by honing its product platform and line, it can still reverse that momentum. And maybe then it can stave off a further rise in the smartphone market share of Apple and Google.

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