re #1: there are still many markets out there with little smartphone usage.
re #2: perhaps Nokia can help them out here.
As a small case study consider India. 3G services have just been introduced in the last few months, and most people are just beginning to shift from feature phones to smartphones. Apple has a very poor retail presence here, and the iPhone is priced ridiculously high. On my visit there in December, I saw massive amounts of advertising for the Nokia Lumia (on tv and in malls) and casual conversation with friends revealed plenty of curiosity about Nokia and windows phone, how it might compare to android, and what would be better for future purchases.
* perhaps there are markets with little smartphone usage. but wp7 costs about 3/4 the price of an iphone. if i'm spending that much money i'm going to lessen my risk and get one i know has been somewhat successful. and for the same money i can get a great high end android device. here in ireland i can get 8 android devices for a less than wp7 at a minor mobile provider (the cheapest is 1/6 the price). https://store.meteor.ie/phones/
* nokia shot themselves in both feet in 2009. in 2008 at any meeting of geeks, nerds i would see 99% nokias. in 2010 it was 90% android. there was no single reason why people switched away from symbian. but we all switched. i know only one person who ever carried a windows mobile device. and he only carried it as it was guaranteed to crash eliminating the annoying calls he was bombarded with. i only know 2 people who bought nokia in the past 2 years. one was a maemo device before they were eliminated and the other was a second hand device from ebay. new devices aren't shifting. i'd see them as people ask me to set them up more often than not.
was recently watching an old tv show and heard the nokia ring tone. made me realise i hadn't heard that tone in a public space in around 2 years. nokia is not their saviour. just been run down till microsoft can buy their patents at a bargin price would be my guess.
When it comes to new markets, I agree that Apple is an non-player. Android will be the dominate player here, and I think Microsoft can certainly do well. However, there's little margin in these markets (which is what Apple is all about). So while it might look impressive that Microsoft has 30% of the India market (as an example), it won't change the fact that Apple will still be making well over 50% of worldwide profits.
As for #2, it's still too early to see how Nokia plays out, but I agree that it could change the landscape..or it might not at all. I won't be surprised either way. And if it doesn't, maybe they'll try do do something with RIM. So ya, they'll throw a ton of money at the problem.
But it's still an uphill battle and it isn't like the current leaders have become stale. So I guess until Apple AND Google start doing serious missteps, I'll continue to be skeptical.
re #1: there are still many markets out there with little smartphone usage.
re #2: perhaps Nokia can help them out here.
As a small case study consider India. 3G services have just been introduced in the last few months, and most people are just beginning to shift from feature phones to smartphones. Apple has a very poor retail presence here, and the iPhone is priced ridiculously high. On my visit there in December, I saw massive amounts of advertising for the Nokia Lumia (on tv and in malls) and casual conversation with friends revealed plenty of curiosity about Nokia and windows phone, how it might compare to android, and what would be better for future purchases.