The Push for a Pie in the Smart Phone Segment 
With the recently struck alliance between Nokia and Microsoft and the raging battle between Apple and Samsung over patents, the stage seem set for a re-definition of the competitive landscape. But before going into that, let's cast our mind back to the mobile phone market, seven years ago. Nokia was the leader, with huge equity coming its unsurpassed track-record of innovation and product leadership in the mobile phone market. But all that soon tumbled with the entrance of I-phone and Android and the push for market share in the smart phone segment. That pursuit, soon redefined the competitive landscape, with Nokia losing its number one start up and playing catch up through it adoption of the windows mobile platform away from the comfort of its age-long symbian platform which its erstwhile Managing Director, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, resolutely stuck to even with offers then from Android and Windows mobile for a partnership.
Oilli-Pekka had reasoned at the time, that to preserve Nokia's position, partnership was not an option as it could dilute the Nokia brand essence. His prevarication was soon to cost Nokia the number one status and also saw his eventual exit from the company.

Where did Nokia Go Wrong?
Where did it all go wrong? How on earth can you take global market dominance, a near-faultless track record of innovation and product excellence and a loyal base of customers around the world and simply blow it?

The answer is perspective.
Jobs saw the mobile as a computer. Nokia saw it as a telephone. Nokia was working on making your phone smarter, Jobs was putting a content access device in your hands. Even Nokia's early N series phones tacked a keyboard onto a phone, a bit like a mobile One Per Desk rather than using the powerful combination of smart access device, applications and content wrapped up into a flawless user experience.

Where Did Rim Go Wrong?
RIM in recent years has has failed to craft products or produce ideas that are out of the box or that depart from the work of their previous years. The result of this failure is certainly manifested in a loss of profit, but a more crucial impact is the way in which RIM has become increasingly obsolete to the rest of the tech sector. From an entrepreneurial standpoint, any and all corporations can learn from RIM’s mistake by recognizing that no matter what your field, innovation is always key.

How Samsung Made the Right Bet?
Samsung built a huge hard-ware factory leveraging its cost advantage. It started to sell hard-ware to most of its competitor.
It realized its weakness early in the soft-ware end and so while Nokia stuck resolutely to its Symbian OS refusing to accommodate Andriod and Windows mobile, and RIM rigidly refused to open up its chat servers to competition, choosing to leverage it as a competitive advantage, Samsung opened up to Windows Mobile and Andriod and then leveraged its hardware advantage to raise user experience.
The result: Samsung is today the fastest growing Tech stock coming from a laggard position about five years ago.

The Lesson
While innovation is key, we’ve got to know our weakness and become adaptable to collaborating while honing our strengths because indeed, the competitive game is a marathon and not a dash.