Nokia Mobile Enterprise Still Losing MoneyNokia Mobile Enterprise Still Losing Money

Nokia's enterprise group, Nokia Enterprise Solutions, is still in the red. Why can Nokia make so much money off its core business of cell phones, but not from business mobility? Is it that mobile enterprise is still the little engine that could? Or is the company's focus off?

To be fair, Nokia said that it expects its mobile enterprise business to break even by the first half of 2007, so maybe they're close to turning the ship around. We'll see.I think a lot of this has to do with Nokia's strategy for capturing enterprise customers. Most of Nokia's enterprise devices have either failed to connect with a larger enterprise audience or have been me-too plays that tried too hard to copy other industry trends, like push email.

Nokia needs to be bolder when it comes to the enterprise. We need a new vision for what an enterprise handset and service can be, not another copy-cat play.

Right now, Nokia's mobile enterprise strategy seems to be centered around killing the BlackBerry. That's all well and good -- I like Nokia's Intellisync solution, but it's just another mobile email service. Where's the leadership role in that play? Where is the new compelling service that will take enterprise mobility to the next level?

I see this playing out not just with Nokia but with its rivals too, including Motorola and Samsung. We all know RIM makes money and it's fair game to go after mobile email. But this isn't going to grow the overall business mobility market. In order to do that, Nokia and it's rivals are going to need to trailblaze new apps, new devices, and new services.