S60 Open to new features

This may be a bit off the regular topics of this blog, but I just had to pass on this story from Julie Ask of Jupiter Research about a new fan of the Nokia N91 and its multimedia features. Julie recently spent time in the Masai Mara region of Kenya, and sent a Nokia N91 to the manager of the safari camp where she stayed. As Julie reports in her blog, Timothy is a huge fan of the multimedia features of the phone: FM Radio, music, camera and video. (Julie hints that his data services seem to be free, so he might also enjoy the Internet Radio for S60 player as well!)

There's a key insight here for Nokia (and other) product marketing folks: in places like Kenya, a high-end mobile phone may represent the same level of investment and status as, say, a luxury car or big house in richer countries. it is also a practical investment, as it gives you instant access to the Internet and a range of other services. As Julie notes, her friend "is using his cell phone in ways that most Americans don't - and wouldn't bother because we have PC's, radios, ipods, etc."

This story reminded me of another piece of Nairobi-related S60 news from Stephanie Rieger. She pointed me to an MIT program at the University of Nairobi that teaches software development using Python for S60.

Lots of food for thought here - please let me know what you think.

-Oren