The story of the 770 -- what have we done & learned so far

I wrote a white paper to document some of our experiences and learnings when building consumer products with open source. Some people may find it interesting ... You can also find it here.

Open source works well for new stuff

Disruption
Let me continue about the disruption topic I discussed in my previous post. Let me first say that in my mind, open source development model is primarily not “an evolution” but “a disruption”. As a long time industry insider, I claim that one cannot easily change any existing closed software or business model and move it to the open world. The open source model is very difficult to fit into any established industry without changing some very fundamental rules. Let me take two examples:

Open source and cell phones
There is a dominant design and a ready ecosystem for mobile phones. Phones, weather they are running Symbian, MS, Linux or any other operating system are closed because that’s what works well for everybody in the ecosystem. With closed phones, operators can (feel they can) control their business, device manufacturers can (pretend they can) differentiate, and end users can (close their eyes and) feel secure and safe with their subsidized devices and guaranteed services. You need closed phones to achieve these elements of the existing ecosystem. So phones are not built using open source development model, although they may use some open sourced components here and there.

Open source and PCs
There is also a dominant design in desktop / laptop PC:s. The design includes Microsoft Windows, Intel based PC:s, and people who purchase them with a virus software plans and other such nice services. It is a very good design and fits perfectly into the ecosystem around it.

My prediction
These two things, i.e. mobile phones and desktop/ laptop PCs are developed using a rigid dominant design and marketed within a well functioning established business model. Something needs to radically change before any new model can replace the existing ways of things. Putting Linux into a closed phone and keeping the ecosystem and the development model unchanged is not changing anything. Fell free to disagree with me.

Focus on new things
I believe in open source as the development model for new things. Openness utilizes people, brainpower, and technology better than other models. I thus believe that it’ll be the dominant design for the majority of new interesting things to come. So what are these new interesting things?
Various companies are coming up with such new things. One of our new things at Nokia is Internet Tablets. Internet Tablets were designed from ground up to be internet devices. They are not PCs, players, or cell phones, where internet was added almost as an afterthought. Tablets are built solely for internet usage, giving the highest priority to internet use cases, such as browsing and communication.

The plan
We launched the 770 about a year ago. I then needed to explain over and over again why it is not a phone. And there are reasons. I told people that we will not make a yet another cell phone, but we’ll do the same to the internet that cell phones did for phone calls: Make them mobile. We are not going to replace PCs or cell phones, but we are going to enhancing the current ways of accessing internet; doing your surfing, email, chatting, voice calls, multimedia and so forth. And that is happening with open source software and development model together with some new cool devices, such as Nokia’s Internet Tablets.

I’m simplifying some things here – yes. But my point is: let’s move forward, and not look back!