The Microsoft & Nokia love-in starts here.

I am not surprised at all the snarky comments on the Microsoft and Nokia alliance but I cannot understand why there are only a handful of people that seem to be seeing the massive potential here.

Nokia had close to 40% market share in 2007 when the iPhone was released,  this was still the case in January last year. They were King of the World for several good reasons:

Evolution of Nokia handsets, 1982-2007. Newlaunches.com

Design:
The above chart  shows Nokia designs from the early days of the cellular phone up to 2007.  We saw the handset evolve from black plastic bricks, to shiny, multicoloured fashion accessories.  Whilst I never went for the bling excesses of some of the designs, there was always something to suit different people.

The functions on Nokia phones always outperformed other manufacturers, whether it be the FM radio, rudimentary music playing capability, or the camera,  And they managed to churn these out cheap enough that anyone could have them without a crippling contract.

They also played about with a variety of different physical formats, such as the flipout keyboard of the 6820 or the swivel of the 7370 (my wife had both of these), not always successful but still they led the way.  And look at the comments on the above chart – many models remembered fondly or seen as futuristic at the time.  I recall the excitement (yes, sad I know) in 1996 of seeing someone telnet into a server in the middle of the street using a 9210 Communicator.

Compare that chart, with all it’s colourful, zany designs, to the current offerings.  What do you see?  Pretty much identical plastic smartphones, all black, same size, with a rudimentary camera on the back.

Interface:
I got my first phone (a Nokia 3110) in 1999, and despite higher resolution, screen sizes, and more features, the menu system remained pretty consistent even to my last Nokia, the xPress music 5310 in 2008.  It was simple and it worked well, even on a small screen.  In later models I could also choose a icon based navigation which suited the way I used the phone, but my wife had the same model with traditional menus.

Other manufacturers never seemed to get the interface right, always having some counter-intuitive location for fairly obvious settings, or features that didn’t quite connect.  For example one year I went for a Panasonic clamshell which had one of the best cameras at the time, but unfortunately there wasn’t an easy way to get the photos off.

There are also plenty of people for whom that simple interface is fine: my Gran uses her phone to call and text.  Touchscreens, cameras or ability to run Spotify and Angry Birds are not really important to her, and I bet there are millions out there who feel the same.

So what do Microsoft bring?

Microsoft have 85% of the desktop market.

Forget the snide comments, this is how it is.  For ordinary people, who don’t have the expertise to manage Linux, or the money to throw at Apple, Windows works for them.

With almost ubiquitous 3G/WiFi, there may not be much need to physically connect the phone to the desktop like the old days, when you needed a special cable to back up your photos or install an application.  But reducing the barrier between them may make the smartphone even more useful to a wider market.

Windows Phone 7 has had a generally positive reception and there are potentially a huge number of developers, as Conor points out,  so the workload can’t be massive to get this on Nokia’s existing hardware.  Microsoft also bring lots of cash to speed this process along, and the potential to push Blackberry out if they tie in with Exchange.

In short, the design, interface and production pedigree of Nokia, combined with the desktop share and developer community of Microsoft, has the potential to be massive.  So why is everyone so quick to dismiss it as two old dinosaurs reacting far too late?

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

The Lady wife and I spent a lovely weekend in Bournemouth, last chance for a bit of peace and quiet before child #2, courtesy of my kind in-laws. Not having been there before, and not really knowing much about the town, it was just somewhere different for a quick weekend break.

It’s a strange town, with a confused layout, though the lie of the land is probably like many other seaside towns. As you come in to the town on the A35, there are a couple of tall office buildings, which announce Bournemouth as an Important Place, but just past that there’s a lovely Victorian church which looks uncomfortable next to these giants and the busy A-road.

There seem to be dozens of large hotels, which were probably Grand in the 70′s and 80′s when they were first built, but now look shabby and distract from the smaller B&Bs and splendid Art Deco styling in smaller buildings. Many parts of the town centre are neglected, with features like the canopy in Westover Road that would be cherised in towns like Leamington Spa.

Bournemouth Imax, soon to be demolished

On the seafront is the Imax cinema pictured above, which I remember seeing Kevin McCloud’s Demolition programme about buildings that should be demolished.  I can completely understand why it’s such a white elephant as it’s  just in the wrong place, and a look in the local paper shows that it’s only able to screen short documentary films, in comparison to the South Bank BFI Imax that shows feature films.  Even the Imax in Bradford in the 1980′s showed mainstream movies in 70mm.  It now looks set for demolition, but what will it be replaced by?

The town seems to lack a focus, with traffic in the middle of the town breaking up the flow, and pedestrianised areas not really working either.  It feels like new buildings have been allowed to be placed anywhere, and business use for landmark buildings that doesn’t unify the micro-local area.  Take this view for example, just off the main shopping area, wonderfully styled buildings that in any other town would be the centrepieces of a regeneration area, with sought-after apartments and offices above restaurants, not shabby flats above nightclubs.

It was during our weekend that David Cameron made his comments about Multiculturalism and his government also announced plans to move May Day to October in celebration of Britishness.  To my mind, cultural identity and urban planning are connected.

Incoming cultures are perceived as a threat because British people (more the English really) have a crisis of their own identity.  We aren’t defined by a single religion, or costume, or ethnicity, we’re a mix of different histories, that have are preserved by local traditions.  The experience of Britishness for someone from Bradford is different to someone from Hastings.  They have different histories, trades and customs which make them distinct from other towns, but there will be some shared traits with other towns in their region, or across the country.

Culture takes place in a physical space, and when that is not used appropriately, with unrestrained developments and neglect of important sites, culture is weakened.  Town planners surely have an overview of the flow of people and businesses in a town, and should control that appropriately to make sure the story of the town is retained but kept vital.

Castlepoint Shopping a "unique retail experience". Photo by Lewis Clarke

Slightly disappointed by the town centre, we headed out to Castle Point, which the radio announced as a “unique shopping experience”.  This is just a large car park, with two supermarkets at opposite corners and a string of high street shops between them.  A few paper lanterns were strung up to mark Chinese New Year, as they were in the Pavilion Gardens, but this is a sanitised place, with no sense of history or culture or coming together of communities.   Whereas you could have a small parade and Lion dancers in the gardens, which would serve to bring closer the Chinese and British communities, this would be ridiculous at Castle Point.

So my conclusion is this: British culture is something that isn’t easily defined, but exists in our own experiences and places.   If we continue to allow town centres to lose their relevance, and be damaged by bad planning, we will still have this crisis of national identity and integration of other cultures will remain a struggle.

UPDATE:

I stated above that the Imax cinema only showed crappy documentaries, however because I had been browsing the listings on my mobile whilst in Bournemouth I failed to notice that those showings were in 2005, at which time the cinema closed.  Point still stands that they were showing the wrong kinds of film.

Limping on

I’ve not written anything since September for several reasons, including but not limited to:

• the impending birth of my second child and hospital appointments thereof
• all the decorating that needs to be finished off before said child appears
• academic study and work and trying to base the former around the latter
• helping prepare a talk at Barcamp8 on the origins of social networking.

I’ve barely spent any time on MyFootballClub, though I still pop in for votes and follow their progress.   The battle to get the website working for the members just wore me out, and having got a useful platform in place,  some wonderful people running the social media side of things, and the Society in general looking a bit more positive, I felt I needed a break.

I was saddened to see that Southill Alexander have withdrawn from their league.  This member-owned club was formed 2 years ago along similar lines to MyFC but seems to have struggled and I suspect that in their caution they went too far in the opposite direction.  Will Brooks launched MyFC with huge fanfare and publicity, but no real idea of how to make the club accessible and accountable to members, but remain interesting enough to keep the funds rolling.  SAFC launched with lofty ideals but also a high price for entry.  It wasn’t obvious what was going on and how it would be better for the Club and the Member than the MyFC experience.  So it was an “out” for me, even though I knew the people involved where fantastic, intelligent and well-intentioned.