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Nokia opens 'Great Store' to invite public innovation
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 12 November 2009, 23:01 IST
Helsinki: Nokia, the mobile handset manufacturer, has set great store by 'open innovation' - a model in which problems faced by the company are thrown open to the public at large to come up with suggestions or solutions, reports Business Line.
"I have a problem. My resources are finite," says Henry Tirri, Senior Vice-President and Head of Nokia Research Centre.
To overcome this problem, in the last three years, Nokia worked with over 120 academic institutions around the world. "We are so serious about this that many of our labs are walking distance from the academic institutions. A good example of open innovation is Nokia's work with Cambridge University in the UK in the field of nano science. 'Open innovation' is no longer an experiment, it is proven," said Tirri.
The world is seeing a trend of companies moving towards open innovation. Wikipedia and Linux are obvious examples where anybody can jump in and offer a piece of knowledge or a solution for the good of people at large. But from a corporate perspective, Proctor and Gamble (P&G) is credited with being a pioneer in this field, although Eli Lilly and IBM are also acknowledged to have done some work about the same time as P&G.
Eight years ago, P&G started what it called a 'Connect+Develop' programme, under which it would put a problem it faced on its website. Anybody could come up with a solution and get a suitable reward for it.
Nokia has been at it for the last three years. Nokia's homegrown, Linux-based software Maemo, powers its internet tablets and the to-be-launched N900, a computer-grade handset.
