Farewell Nokia

Wow, now that's a nasty surprise that Nokia sprang on me. Just last week I decided that I'd replace my 3 year old Blackberry with a Nokia phone. I badly wanted a functional phone based on good quality hardware. My Blackberry (I had it on a rip-off contract with Bell Canada, but that's another story) has been a complete and utter disaster as far as the hardware is concerned. It effectively stopped working reliably about 8 weeks after I received it. Courtesy of Bell's 'warranty' mechanism ('Bell Canada warranty' is a contradiction in terms) I ended up receiving recycled and likely older phones than my new phone back from their 'repair' people. Goes without saying that my Blackberry essentially never worked properly. You try explaining that to Bell call centre person who barely speaks or understands English... - Anyway, I digress, so while I love the Blackberry keyboard, I would never again get another Blackberry, simply because I know now that these phones are manufactured so badly. IPhone is a no-brainer, their reception sucks and that's all that I need to know.

Well, once upon a time I was young, and in those long bygone times Nokia phones were pretty much the best. Turns out that the latest reviews suggest the same of their latest smartphone. Problem is that there's not gazillions of 'apps'. Truth be told, I don't need apps permitting me to switch my TV on from my mobile phone or to flush me toilet while I'm in the car, using said mobile phone. I need my mobile essentially for three purposes: phone calls, email and internet browsing. Nokia's phone does all that well, and it has better hardware than any other available smartphone (eg it boasts a 12MP camera). So, there I was bent on buying this phone - much to the amusement of blackberry/iphone using folks around me.

Too bad that's all history. Nokia's CEO has decided to tie Nokia's superb hardware to truly crappy software, namely Microsoft's. No wonder, given that said CEO is a former Microsoft executive. A German newsmagazine rightly suggested that these two turkeys won't make an eagle.

Any suggestions re a good smartphone that ain't Blackberry, Nokia or Apple and that does the three things that I'm keen on, do let me know!

Small details - accumulating impacts

This post doesn't pretend to be deeply insightful... - honestly. I went to a middle-of-the-road fish restaurant in Ottawa the other day. It's called 'The Fish Market'. The food, by the way, in case you do seafood, isn't bad at all. The service is ok for a place that depends probably mostly on tourists visiting Byward Market and that knows that many of its paying customers are once-off events that won't return. I was quite fascinated, when I was about to order a dessert, to discover that they're seriously charging 5C$ (add13% tax, 15% tip and you're closer to 6C$) for - take this - a single shot of espresso. If there ever was a rip-off here it is. You will be hard-pressed to find similar prices even in much more expensive outfits.

The thing with these small details is that their effects accumulate. Bell Canada is charging me for a phone that never worked properly, but, so the company points out to me, in its multi-pages of illegible small-print contract they warned me that they might not offer reception where I actually need it, and also that I have no reason to assume they'd be able to guarantee reception in the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area. Makes sense, doesn't it? Mobile phone reception in Toronto, what a stupid idea! Anyhow, so there I'm paying a monthly fee for a non-functioning phone.

At Queen's, where I work, the outside company that sells food in our cafeterias takes staff and students for a ride in truly breathtaking ways (try York University's cafeterias as a comparison if you don't believe me).  Recently they charged for an absolutely mediocre sandwich (white cheapest ever toast bread, tuna) 3,99 C$ + tax. Seriously, producing this sandwich probably cost 40 cents or thereabouts. My complaint remained unanswered, of course. Talking about a captive audience!

And the list goes on and on and on. The big thread is that businesses get away with the proverbial murder in so many different ways. In the restaurant the proprietor knows full-well that many guests like a coffee after their meal, so they'll gulp when they discover the price tag, and cough up the cash. Given that most are tourists anyway, who cares how they feel about having been ripped off. As to Bell, the company knows that it is one of the most widely reviled companies in Canada (right up there with Air Canada and similarly customer hating outfits), so it doesn't care either what people think of it. It's all about milking customers in the short-term, at nearly all cost. Well, and our cafeteria, I'm trying to reduce y exposure to it as good as I can as they don't deserve my business.

I wonder whether this business conduct makes medium- to long-term business sense. I am not even talking business ethics here, just business sense. These organizations surely hurt themselves over time more than their individual disgruntled customers. I have since withdrawn all my business from Air Canada, and come the end of my contract, in my life-time Bell won't get me back as a customer. As to Ottawa's Fish Market. You got to be kidding...