Well there I was for another product launch, this time for the Samsung Galaxy Pocket launch, for those who do not know, its one of the youngsters of the Galaxy line of phones and tablets, and hyped it has been through my social media channel, Twitter, where I got the invite. The best thing for me was that I was to meet 3 different potential partners for a work focused market assessment study I was doing, talk about mixing business and pleasure.
As is my tradition, I was there ahead of time, why so early in the morning, I have to drop off my kids to school before the traffic picks up at 6:40am, so by 7:00am I am either at my desk slaving away (I love what I do), or waiting for any morning appointments to show up. So back to the launch, the background was a relentless video advert reminding us that the phone provides access to over 400,000 Android apps from Google Appstore, plus a faster internet connection, and great look. With all the hustle and bustle I am hearing rumors that we may actually get a chance to play with the phones and test them out.
The lounge was well done up, in Samsung blue, thankfully I was decked out in the same so we blended. I took a few photos, using the webcam of the 17″ HP Envy 3D laptop I was lugging around (now that is a review for another day) since I had no camera. While the photos were not award winning, they pretty much captured the mood for the morning.
As we waited I had a chance to catch up with Joyce Tonda, Managing Editor of Enterprise Technology magazine, whom I had not seen for quite some time. Then came another media opportunity, in walked Ernest Bazanye, one of the few Ugandan writers I admire, very witty satirical and a social critic. I asked him what he was doing at the launch, and what his expectations were, well the video is http://youtu.be/BnY1dmLDlMI
Once that interview was done the official ceremonies began with MC, Crystal Newman (https://twitter.com/CrystalANewman) intended to keep the event young, hip and energetic. The welcome note was by the head of Marketing based out of Nairobi, then a quick word by the Uganda Country Manager. This is where it became interesting, some users had got the phone a few days before and were to share their experiences:
- Richard Zulu (http://twitter.com/richardzulu) – enterprenur, business person – he was happy with the battery life, available disk space, and response time
- Duke Danny (https://twitter.com/dukedanny4) – chef, geek, mobile application developer – said it was snappy, did not have to charge it all the time, and could test his apps
- Karungi Terry (https://twitter.com/Kashweeti) – student – downloaded many learning apps, used it for entertainment, accessing social media and down right loved it
- Navio (https://twitter.com/naviomusic) – musician and entertainer – runs all his email, schedules contacts in one place
There were a few challenges, and winners of phones for best photo, most tweets, best rendition of a song with Navio. All in all it was an interesting launch
Obviously you did not expect me to stop there, now what is my take!! This is an interesting battle for supremacy for the smartphone bragging rights, and also for growth especially in Africa and the rest of the developing world. While only few can afford the high end smartphones, Iphone, Samsung Galaxy SII and SIII (okay I want that one), HTC One X, Motorola Droids (hmm have not heard of one in a while), the real mover and shaker for the adoption is in the $100 range which was dominated by Nokia Symbian feature phones, but is not being relentlessly barraged by the Huwaeii, ZTE and other Chinese/Asian manufacturers. The Samsung Pocket, is a baby in the family but in my opinion is a great starting point for users to upgrade to the higher end smartphones. As with all smartphones, battery life, touch issues (we have lots of dust, and dirt with little access to cleaning agents), are key.
However growing the ecosystem to add value will increase uptake, with Android the operating system and platform may be available, but useful applications in the local context are key to pushing adoption and usage. That is the one area, Samsung and Google need to cooperate with local developers, government, NGOs to develop a value proposition for acquiring and using the phones not forgetting pushing the local telecom network operators to push down data costs to make the application usage feasible.
What are your thoughts?
