The Lauri Monroy Blog

I am so sorry Nokia but you have lost the game. In a typical Finnish engineer fashion the big launch was a big failure. Also if you look the product from usability point of view its not so integrated into the phone as the Apple App Store is. The beauty of Apple's App store is simplicity. With few clicks you can download applications into your phone. Compare this to Nokia's open your browser type of things. Simply too complex to use. And if you try to use it - it does not work. Bye bye Nokia smart phones, Apple iPhone and Google Android will take over the world alongside with Blackberry. I really love my Blackberry it's much easier to use than my old trusty Nokia phone which is now collecting dust.

BTW did you know that Ovi is Finnish and means "Door". What a great name for the service. True Finnish imagination - Nokia still uses Finnish advertising agencies to brand their global products. They just need to get out of Finland big time. Sorry Finland, Sorry Nokia but you do not know what you are doing.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/28/ovi_review/

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Google Wave looks great. What I like about Google is their attitude to open protocols and open networks. However it is at the same time a very clever marketing strategy, everyone adopts the platform and they get the traffic. Very clever. If Nokia thinks how they fight back here is my advice: open it all up and share with the world. Do a revolution and then you get the traffic and can monetise it.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

Over 10 years ago I started one open source project (initially it was not open source but turned to be in the end) called Future Learning Environment. FLE is a university level open source learning platform. It maybe a bit outdated now but has still some unique thinking behind it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fle3

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When I saw the 24 season finale in the US last week I felt dissapointed. I think it left too many loose ends - clearly they seeded for season 8 (which they have started filming) but I demand more!

What happened to the main villain Wilson who they caught in the end? What happes to Jack, did he die or not (clearly not since he is filming season 8). It really did not end, that bugs me a lot. Well everyone is now waiting for season 8 so as a marketing stunt the finale was great but not from viewers satisfaction point of view. I would like to see a different - proper ending where all loose knots are tied. If not they should call it 48 not 24!

I want my money back! Well other than the ending the season was quite good, I did enjoy it. But now I have to wait for another season - it's not fair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_(season_7)

Did you miss some episodes? Grab the entire DVD box-set from here: http://astore.amazon.co.uk/thelaumonblo-21/detail/B000Y7ZBZS

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I bought my first mobile phone during 1990. It was a Siemens mobile phone and it was a massive brick. It used to get really hot during the call and the battery barely lasted anything. Since then the wireless communication industry has exploded into a multibillion dollar business. During that explosion I have been a dedicated Nokia user from 1994 when I got my trusty Nokia 2110. It had a great user experience - I believe the Nokia menu driven UI was one of the key factors for Nokia' global success. It was really easy to use. But funnily enough that UI was not a result of a conscious user centric design approach within Nokia's organisation - it was mere a lucky stroke for them. The UI was developed by an enthusiastic and skilled summer intern instead of a dedicated user centric design team. At least according to the rumors I have heard from people working inside Nokia.

I have used most Nokia flagship models since 1994 and I have worked closely with Nokia to promote their phones for several years. In my previous job I also developed a secure VOIP software for the Nokia platform. I think I do know the Nokia phones quite well and I do still like them but at the same time I do see their weaknessess very clearly. Nokia is loosing the game in two major areas, firstly Nokia failed to understand corporate sector and lost it for RIM and secondly they did not take enough risks to introduce really cool break through smart phones for consumers and lost that sector for Apple who even did not used to make phones.

It will be very hard for Nokia to fight back to be the leader in the smartphone sector due to corporates opting for Blackberries and consumers loving ther iPhones. Now Nokia has to even fight against Google's Android platform. I think Nokia will eventually focus only on producing low cost devices - an industry which it fully understands and masters. Nokia may not be able to convert itself into a digital media brand - I know it really wants to but I do not believe Nokia's senior management team has enough balls or vision to do it. They are risk averse engineers who do not understand user centric design. Sorry Nokia.

After having used Nokia mobile phones every day for over 15 years - I today have switched to a Blackberry Bold. Why? Firstly the company I now work for issues Blackberries as their main choise of phones. I could still have personally bought an iPhone or stayed with my trusty Nokia phone but I decided to give a proper go for the Blackberry. Why not an iPhone? I do not like iPhone as a business phone since it lacks a proper keyboard. Do not get me wrong - I do love the iPhone - but only as a consumer device. In business use I do need a proper keyboard. Sorry iPhone - this is where you fail for me.

So having used the Blackberry Bold now for a day I have to say that I like it a lot. All the key messaging functions are easy to use and the best part was the remote configuration. This is the core weakness in the Nokia platform - no remote management. That's why the corporates are not buying Nokia since you cannot create security policies for the phones or manage them remotely. I did not have to do anything else than key in my email address and password into the phone and it automatically connected to the correct servers and downloaded my settings. 10 minutes later I had all my emails, contacts and notes in the device. The beauty of Blackberry is it's simplicity. You can just use it for email without having to spend hours to manager and test your settings. It just works. In Nokia you have much more control over the phone but it's also much more complex to set-up. This is where Nokia is failing as a business phone. It has too much stuff in it. I like Nokia's platform since I know it in and out. However an average business user would never go and change the settings in a Nokia phone since it's too complex. Blackberry settings are created remotedly - this is truly great user centric design and this is why it wins. User does not have to do anything - the system administrator does it for you.

One thing I do miss - Nokia has incorporated SIP into its platform well which means you can do VOIP calls over WiFi. But ONLY if you know how to set-it up. The set-up is very complex even for experienced users (this is where Nokia fails even it has killer features). Once SIP is up and running you can make low-cost calls using your favourite VOIP carrier instead of your normal telco. RIM has opted to protect telco's revenue and not implemented a SIP stack - very clever choise for RIM but bad for consumers.

Other than that I have to say I love my Blackberry. I may even go and buy a Blackberry T-shirt now.

Get a Blackberry for you now: http://astore.amazon.co.uk/thelaumonblo-21/detail/B001CTEWJ8

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I thought it was all done and you cannot beat Google. Well that maybe very true at least for a while. However one new comer is clearly worth trying out - a new site called WolframAlpha is looking to re-invent the search concept and it certainly feels very interesting. Try this search for example:

http://www99.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2+slices+of+swiss+cheese

They have other examples available, have a look from:

http://www99.wolframalpha.com/examples/

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Screen sharing is something I have done from 1997 when I spent some time in Scotland far away from everything. I did train advertising companies remotely over a dial-up modem link! I used to have a mac and I was using Timbuktu Pro to access remote computers. It was the time when you had to configure your firewall for it to work - the connections were point to point and it did not always work very well. Fast forward +10 years and the internet is full of various remote access solutions and all of them work over firewalls. The connections are client to server rather than point to point. This enables ease of use and you can always connect.

Today I did test drive Adobe's solution and it is one of the best I have seen so far. It's at beta stage and seems to be free at least for now (I am sure they will start charging later on). You can check it out on:

https://www.acrobat.com/#/connectnow/ConnectNowBegin

This is really nice for person to person screen sharing + video. If you are looking for remotely managing your home / work computers or servers (windows / mac based), have a look for LogMeIn. It has a free option which can be really valuable. I have also used the commercial version of LogMeIn in production use with +50 sites and it worked like a dream. I have never had any issues with LogMeIn - seems to work 100%.

https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp?lang=uk

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Quite comprehensive list of online job destinations (mostly US centric list though):

http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2009/21/my-big-fat-job-list

In the UK you can add the following sites into the mix:

http://www.jobsite.co.uk/

http://www.monster.co.uk/

http://www.jobserve.com/

And if you are looking for those +£50K executive or IT jobs in the UK - check out our TheLadders. We are more than just a job board since we manually screen all job listings for you. We have a team of people who go through every listing in our site to validate it is a genuine +£50K position. We do not have any spam or work from home advertising on our site, just pure +£50K job listings. Enjoy.

http://www.theladders.co.uk/

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Many NYC Yellow Taxis nowadays have a touch screen built-in allowing passengers view real time GPS maps, read news and browse local information. The screen is also linked to the credit card payment system allowing you to simply swipe your card at the end of your journey - payment is done in seconds. An excellent product – very usable and well integrated into the entire travelling process (GPS map, local information and payment). I guess most likely the cost of the screen is subsidised and the media company gets the advertising revenue. Very good product design indeed but the real question is that if it is profitable to the media network - who knows?

Also many of the NYC subway stations have now outdoor digital screens broadcasting a mix of local information and advertising to the pedestrians nearby. I think it is very interesting that these screens are outside, not indoors like in London. Those NYC subway station screens are very visible - they cope amazingly well with sunlight which is the main issue with outdoor digital signage in general.

In London CBS is expanding their in-door digital signage to most major tube stations. I am still waiting if anything happens to the London LED buses as I was building the software for them few years ago - let’s see if that network expands or not. I am hearing rumors for and against. Funnily enough several years back I predicted 2008 or 2009 being the year of the digital signage breakthrough - that prediction seems to be relatively accurate. Even though all operations are still quite small scale - but as major media brands are beginning to invest into digital signage it means it is here to stay. Even Sir Alan is investing into this business which I find that very facinating. Looking forward to see what will come out of that.

http://broadcastengineering.com/storage_networking/wabc-tv-verifone-taxi-tv/

http://www.cbsoutdoor-alive.co.uk/

PS. When I was working with digital signage I was testing XuuK eye-ball tracking IR cameras - I have not yet seem them anywhere (well they would be hidden!) but they are really cool. Downside is that you may have to start wearing sun glasses soon when walking nearby any digital advertising screens.

https://www.xuuk.com/

 

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Great usability makes products easy to use - online or real. Easy of use means that you can use a product without any previous knowledge about it. It also means you do not need to read the manual or have gone through any special training - you should be able to use the product based on common knowledge.

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