In the next few days, TamsS60 will take a look at a few of the things Anssi Vanjoki would probably be thinking about Nokia World 2011 if he still were with the Finnish cellphone manufacturer.
The first thing which urgently needs to be debunked is their hack-a-thon. Traditionally, a hack-a-thon is an event where third-party developers compete against one another to see who can create the best application in a limited timeframe.
This is not the first hackathon for Nokia; the last one taking place at the Italian WhyMCA conference. There, one felt reminded of the catchy draft dodger’s slogan:
What would be if there were war and nobody would go?
Nokia found itself in the perverse situation that, for two prizes, there were not enough participants in the category! This means that, from approximately 200 developers, not 1% considered our Finnish friends worthy of attention. And this was not lazyness – all other categories including RIM were well-filled and competitive.
This year, Nokia decided that problems disappear if one hides them – and “opened” the hack-a-thon only to a group of consulting companies. This means that, essentially, paid developers (who get paid to advertise their firm and probably have booths at the venue) compete in a mock competition.
Given that traditional hack-a-thons have to fight hard to keep the masses of developers out; seeing Nokia refuse to take the risk of looking for third parties paints a clear – and bleak – picture.
With that, it’s time to check out for today – tomorrow, we will look at what Steven Elop forgot to say in his keynote presentation!
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