In Praise of the Dumbphone

The leaking of Stephen Elop’s memo to his troops at Nokia has certainly focused the attention of business and technical analysts on the company.

However, in all the excitement, Francis Sedgemore has picked up on something that he thinks is in danger of being forgotten, and I think he is right to do so. He has written to Elop reminding him that not everyone is enamoured of Smartphones with touchscreens. Some of us still find that mobile phones, with real buttons, that just make and receive phone calls and SMS messages are sufficient. He has a point. And, as he says, some attention should be paid to the poor quality software that Nokia (like most mobile phone manufacturers) provide to synchronise contacts and content with the user’s PC or Mac.