Jolla – Plain sailing

Apps are now available but are they any good?

• The brave sailors at Jolla are about to start shipping their device and have managed to solve the apps availability problem.
• In this day and age, a smartphone with no apps is not much better than a paperweight.
• The number one reason why Microsoft smartphones are returned to the store is availability of apps.
• Microsoft have been spending vast sums of money to encourage developers to port apps to Windows Phone but Jolla does not have that kind of cash.
• Instead it has chosen to implement an emulator from Myriad that tricks the apps into thinking that they are running on Android devices.
• Therefore within the Myriad environment any application written for Android should run.
• There is no way that Google will let this kind of device have access to Google Play and so instead Jolla have gone with the Yandex Store which has no such qualms.
• This gives Jolla access to 85,000 applications which goes a long way to alleviating the fact that until today it has none.
• There are two potential drawbacks.
  • First: Emulators tend to demand a lot of resources from the device meaning that the performance of the apps can be substantially impeded.
  • It remains to be seen whether or not this is a problem as the Sailfish OS device is reasonably well specified and the emulator from Myriad pretty mature.
  • The signs are good but emulators have a horrible tendency to impede performance to a point where the app is unusable.
  • The proof will be in the pudding.
  • Second: Yandex is a search company, like Google and Baidu, but focused on the Russian market where it has a strong position.
  • Its store currently has about 1/10^th of the number apps of Google Play and the company’s position makes me worry that these will be primarily focused on the Russian users.
  • This could cause some problems for purchasers of the device where I suspect the majority will not be Russian speaking or resident in Russia.
• Whatever the drawbacks, it is better than nothing and I am expecting to see the device start shipping within the next month or so.
• Volumes are going to be tiny in the best instance but Jolla itself is also tiny and with an ASP of €400 it wont have to ship that many to break-even.
• I have estimated that around 250,000 units in the hands of customers (not sitting in inventory) will be required for Jolla to break-even (see here).
• To be honest I still see the Jolla handset as a proof of concept and that the real business will be to licence the software.
• There are plenty of others that wish to create their own ecosystem but are wary of tying themselves into Android and Google.
• These companies could do worse than considering Jolla.
• Hence, I suspect that Jolla is not going to make it as a handset maker but will provide the tools and the talent for others to create their own ecosystems.
• This is a strategy that is far more likely to earn a return for the owners of Jolla.