AdamGiles.com

Stephen talks about how crap most of the mobile companies are. Here here.

Looking back, then, at the first phase in the history of smart communication devices, the real mystery is not how Jobs and Ive and their team made their breakthrough with such conspicuous speed and success, it is how the might of Symbian, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft could have bestridden the market for so many years without so much as making an attempt to satisfy, please, solace and ease the smartphone experience: even a quarter of Apple’s imagination, creativity, innovation and delight in technology would have been something. Weird to remind ourselves yet again of just how unanimous in their scepticism the press and professional techies were about the possibility of Apple being able to make a dent in the market as an untried newcomer while now we’re already thinking of them as the big brutal bullying champion. How could the major players have left a gap in the market so wide that a complete novice in mobile telephony could so instantly shame them? Shame them in the eyes of the world, at least, if not in their own. The excuses made by the CEOs and spokesmen of BigCell for their failures remind me of publishers I have met who have tried to explain why they turned down the manuscript of J. K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel. ‘Ah, yes. You see it was our publishing house’s policy not to consider MSS over 40,000 words for the children’s market… nothing I could do. No point even reading it….’ ‘Ah, yes, well, you see it’s not our fault it was the networks/It was not our fault it was the manufacturers.’ Hmmmmm.

Ever try to connect to a wireless network on a Sony Ericsson P series or WinMob smartphone? The contempt implicit in these foul, fiddly behemoths was breathtaking. The profound ugliness of Nokia’s e range, the horrible underpowered nightmare of Sony’s UIQ devices, the quite staggeringly insulting ghastliness of Windows Mobile… for two years I kept believing that the manufacturers and software developers in this field would eventually get it right and produce something as truly usable as the old Psions, the old Palm Pilots and Treos, while utilising the newer technologies and capabilities of the 21st century. The only major player an enthusiast like myself could genuinely admire was RIM, because the BlackBerry was everything it aspired to be. It deliberately had no camera, (secret business meetings, factory visits and so on often necessitate the leaving of cameras at the door, like guns in a western town being cleaned up by James Stewart) and never embarrassed itself by pretending to be a media player. It did what it was supposed to and refused to pretend to be anything other than what it was.

So there we were. They all left an open door through which Apple charged. And now, with unblushing fanfare they each attempt to bring something similar to market. This is good. Apple have shown that there is a huge demand for exciting, innovative, lovable and imaginative consumer devices. All the rivals have to do is to … is to what? To produce cut price lookalikes or truly to pioneer and innovate? Well, the latter is what they should do, but the former is what most of them will do of course, because these dumb firms never ever learn. They are afraid to be good. They will blame stockholders, consumers, anyone but themselves.

Don’t you sometimes long to be CEO of a company like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia or Microsoft? So that you can say to your coders, your designers, your development teams and your software architects: “Not Fucking Good Enough. I haven’t said ‘Wow’ yet. I haven’t gasped with pleasure, amusement or admiration once. Start again. Not Fucking Good Enough.”

And (forgive this ranting sidebar) how one would lay into the packaging department! “Nowhere near Fucking Good Enough. I’m not enjoying opening this. It’s clumsy, dumb and contemptuous. I’m in product-opening hell. Not Fucking Good Enough.”

Oh, yes Stephen. That’s all very well, but you try being a CEO in the real world of share prices and financial officers. Bullshit. Any CEO who hides behind his shareholders isn’t worthy of their job: I’ve met enough business leaders to know that the good ones lead, they don’t follow. Isn’t that kind of what ‘leader’ means? I seem to be straying. But it’s all relevant really and it all needs saying again and again. Managers, corporates, finance people, executives in tech companies – they all need to understand for the sake of their pride and happiness as much as their success, this simple rule: ‘That’ll do’ won’t do. ‘That’s good enough’ is never good enough.