Nokia to launch it's own app store/portal at MWC 09
Symbian may be the most popular smartphone platform in the world and there may be tons of interesting mobile apps for it out there. — The problem is - there's no way to easily find and get them on to your handset.
Context & Ripple Effects
By early 2009, Symbian is arguably the world's most popular smartphone platform — Symbian handsets still rank second only to the iPhone a year later — yet its app ecosystem is effectively invisible: plenty of software exists, but no storefront makes it discoverable or installable. Nokia's plan to unveil its own app store/portal at MWC 09 is a direct answer to Apple's App Store playbook, which had redefined how smartphone software reaches users. The move also kicks off a broader land grab: within months Samsung follows with its own Application Store, and Nokia's store becomes the distribution backbone it later leans on as it pivots platforms.
First-order effects
- Symbian users gain a single, official discovery-and-install channel for the large but previously scattered pool of Symbian apps, replacing sideloading and fragmented operator portals.
- Nokia's developer community gets a centralized storefront at MWC 09, giving the company a direct billing and merchandising relationship with both developers and handset owners.
Second-order effects
- Rival handset makers are forced to match the move — Samsung announces its own application store months later — turning per-manufacturer app portals into table stakes across the industry.
- The store becomes a strategic asset Nokia can carry across platform transitions; when it later shifts to Windows Phone and even pays developers to build apps for the new OS (Nokia paying developers to build Windows Phone apps), storefront reach is part of what it has left to bargain with.
Third-order effects
- Control of the distribution layer — not handset share alone — emerges as the real battleground of the smartphone era, which is why Nokia's later platform struggles hurt so much: owning the world's biggest smartphone install base mattered less once rivals owned the storefront.
- If every OEM runs its own walled portal, app developers face fragmentation costs that favor whoever aggregates the largest audience, accelerating consolidation around one or two dominant stores and pressuring smaller players' ecosystems.
The trend: This is an early data point in the shift from handsets to app-store ecosystems as the smartphone industry's primary control point — a race Nokia entered late and ultimately lost.