Middleman is the king

If the customer is king, then what would you call somebody who claims to own
the customer by giving the power to compute and communicate in his or her hand,
anytime, anywhere. Emperor?

Nokia, the world's number one mobile phone maker is now beginning to leverage
the formidable reach that it has. A base of over 1.2 bn Nokia phone users
globally, including 240 mn plus users in India, the company has aspirations much
beyond what any phone maker will have.

Just because it will be advantage mobility in the days ahead, thanks to newer
technologies like 3G and smarter and cheaper handsets, it will be advantage
Nokia because of its leadership position. According to industry estimates, by
the year 2014 more people will access the Internet through mobile phones than
computers. Nokia could be at the center of this person-to-person, businessto-
consumer, and government-to-citizen interaction.

So far Nokia has been focusing on applications and services for consumers
like maps, education, agriculture, and entertainment, in local languages. But
now the portfolio is growing and widening.

The company is testing waters in the B2B area. For instance, Nokia has
embarked on a very critical pilot project for the SMB community, where it gives
them business solutions for connecting with its sales force and partners in four
verticals and seven cities. And it is a pay-peruse and pay-as-you-grow model, at
Rs 550 per month per user, based on cloud technology. If successful, this
service could be very quickly replicated across the country and across the
world. If Nokia becomes a solution of choice for the SMB, the big companies
could be forced to adopt it too. Services for business users have the potential
to become a big revenue earner for Nokia, and this could be a threat for the
traditional hardware and software companies.

Of course Nokia is not the only one in the race. There are Google, Microsoft,
and Apple (iPhone), who bring their big and increasing customer bases to the
negotiating table. Clearly, any strategy that ICT vendors and enterprise users
make without taking the likes of Nokia and Google into account, will be doing so
at their own risk.

One last point that I would like to add is very critical.
Unfortunately, the established, organized and suave industry that ICT is, it has
been badmouthing the traditional middlemen who were unorganized and
unprofessional. The ICT players call themselves as ethical and professional
service and solution providers. The fact is that technology control gives them
tremendous power and control, so there is every possibility that these solution
and service providers start behaving like the railway reservation
touts--demanding a pound of your fl esh. That will be a sad day in the journey
of technology and it benefi ts to masses.

Middleman sounds derogatory, but one hopes that these guys, whatever you call
them, will add value to their customers and the ecosystem.

Ibrahim Ahamad

ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in