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The fact that Ballmer is still CEO is baffling to me. By the time he is done he might go down as the worst CEO ever.

Tomi Ahonen makes a very persuasive case that the title for worst CEO of all time should probably go to one of Ballmer's protoges, Stephen Elop.

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/

Enough numbers there to make your eyes bleed. Tomi is a pretty reputable source apparently. I've certainly yet to see any evidence to the contrary.

I worked on the following app on S60 (2nd and 3rd edition) which was based off Symbian - I mostly did porting, build and small feature work, with other clever folk doing the glory work, but anyway :

http://darlamack.blogs.com/darlamack/2007/11/cinema-3d-by-em.html
http://www.mobyware.net/nokia-n97-n97-mini-device-900/system-utilities-tag/dames-anime-girl-download-free-17752.html

I have yet to see anything quite so innovative on other platforms - though, presumably, that is mostly because the platform makers (Apple, Google, Microsoft) don't want lowly developers messing with what happens when the user gets a phone call (though the above works with SMS/MMS and as a screensaver too - *screen* not *battery*).

I'd like to see if there's anything similar for current platforms - I don't get much exposure to them.

Anyway, I like to think that the above app was quite a bit better than garbage, despite its limited scope.

I suggest you read this before making such incredibly inaccurate statements.

Sorry; I meant to link to either this article or this article which would have made it clear what the measure was. It's personal computers in the strict sense of computers which designed for use by one person as opposed to "PCs" as in IBM PC clones.

So I guess we can dismiss apple's "post-pc era" bullshit then?

and a mac is not a pc, a pc is not a pc, but ipads is a pc?

Sorry; I meant to link to either this article or this article which would have made it clear what the measure was. It's personal computers in the strict sense of computers which designed for use by one person as opposed to "PCs" as in IBM PC clones.

Meego was fantasy bullshit. Maemo would have been their winning ticket

They were perfectly capable of doing either or both. There's been a huge amount of propaganda trying to say that Nokia was in a state of panic. In fact they could afford to keep paying for development more or less indefinitely; even whilst developing four platforms at once (Symbian, S40, Meego & Maemo) they had huge revenues and large profits (their "failed" smartphones were actually delivering increasing profits; not just sales) just before they Eloped the company with the famous "let's burn the platforms" speech. Symbian had increasing sales and their low end phone were stable so they had the market access which could allow them to sell the phones. The only things they had to do was select one within half a year, keep with it as a main priority for a year or two and maintain backwards compatibility with Symbian and series 40 accessories and they would have a good chance of developing an "eco-system".

Nokia died the day it hired that hatchet man from MS. I said it then, I say it now.

This analysis has some truth but is too simplistic. Someone in the Nokia board chose him to run the company. A majority of the people on the Nokia board must have backed his strategy. If the comment from Mats at October 16, 2012 at 05:47 PM is to be believed then Elop was allowed to lock himself into a contract which meant that he had to cancel other projects such as Meltimi no matter what level of success they had. Again this must have been approved in detail by the Nokia board.

Nokia has many shareholders and distributed ownership, however the largest ones have very very large Microsoft holdings. It seems that the board is working for their interests against the interests of the rest of the shareholders. In that sense, Nokia was already dead when the members of the board that have supported Elop were chosen. What's disappointing is that there must be current and former Nokia employees who know more of this; who saw the success of Meltimi and that it was cancelled anyway; who know which board members are supporting Elop; who could tell who is responsible for cheating their employers, the Nokia shareholders. There must have been people who advised that the Microsoft contract was very one sided and then were ignored. None of those people seem to be talking. They should be.

hmm. what happened to my link?!

this blog

I think you should spend some time reading Tomi's blog before spouting such nonsense. He does a GREAT job of explaining in detail that Nokia was most definitely NOT "in free fall." Take a look at this graph from the very post that this Slashdot post linked to. Or this one. Or this. (The blue line on top is Nokia, as Tomi explained in a long, rambling post earlier this year.)

That sure doesn't look like a company in free fall to me! Far from it. It looks instead like a company that is comfortably atop its market and still showing excellent growth.

I think you should spend some time reading Tomi's blog before spouting such nonsense. He does a GREAT job of explaining in detail that Nokia was most definitely NOT "in free fall." Take a look at this graph from the very post that this Slashdot post linked to. Or this one. Or this. (The blue line on top is Nokia, as Tomi explained in a long, rambling post earlier this year.)

That sure doesn't look like a company in free fall to me! Far from it. It looks instead like a company that is comfortably atop its market and still showing excellent growth.

I think you should spend some time reading Tomi's blog before spouting such nonsense. He does a GREAT job of explaining in detail that Nokia was most definitely NOT "in free fall." Take a look at this graph from the very post that this Slashdot post linked to. Or this one. Or this. (The blue line on top is Nokia, as Tomi explained in a long, rambling post earlier this year.)

That sure doesn't look like a company in free fall to me! Far from it. It looks instead like a company that is comfortably atop its market and still showing excellent growth.

I think you should spend some time reading Tomi's blog before spouting such nonsense. He does a GREAT job of explaining in detail that Nokia was most definitely NOT "in free fall." Take a look at this graph from the very post that this Slashdot post linked to. Or this one. Or this. (The blue line on top is Nokia, as Tomi explained in a long, rambling post earlier this year.)

That sure doesn't look like a company in free fall to me! Far from it. It looks instead like a company that is comfortably atop its market and still showing excellent growth.

Ahonen gets it wrong. You can see the problem in his chart here: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/.a/6a00e0097e337c8833017ee41902ae970d-pi

Samsung and Apple were already on their respective trajectories when Nokia stumbled. Like Blackberry, Symbian wasn't. The writing was on the wall and Elop read it. If Nokia stayed the course they would promptly slide from #1 to #3. Perhaps not as painfully but every bit as surely.

Unfortunately, Elop then made two inexplicable mistakes. And in this Ahonen and, well, everyone on Slashdot at the time saw it.

1. Planned obsolescence of the core product. Did he learn nothing from the 60's and 70's disaster with the U.S. automobile industry? Customers don't like that!

2. The new product line to challenge the meteoric rise of Samsung and Apple would be... Microsoft Windows? Really!?

Woah, he predicted Windows Phone would not succeed at the level of iPhone and Android? Better tell James Randi to hang it up, because we got a real god damned psychic right here!

Bra-vo, very sarcastic and blasé, but unfortunately it makes you look quite ignorant. Ahonen predicted this in February 2011 right after Elop's announcement. For example:

• February 15, 2011: When Things Get Even Worse Than You Thought - 1st Preview of Potential for Nokia Microsoft Partnership, short term 2011 and 2012
• February 16, 2011: Noki-Soft Windfall - who wins most when Micro-Kia hand away lucrative smartphone empire bigger than Blackberry, bigger than iPhone

Woah, he predicted Windows Phone would not succeed at the level of iPhone and Android? Better tell James Randi to hang it up, because we got a real god damned psychic right here!

Bra-vo, very sarcastic and blasé, but unfortunately it makes you look quite ignorant. Ahonen predicted this in February 2011 right after Elop's announcement. For example:

• February 15, 2011: When Things Get Even Worse Than You Thought - 1st Preview of Potential for Nokia Microsoft Partnership, short term 2011 and 2012
• February 16, 2011: Noki-Soft Windfall - who wins most when Micro-Kia hand away lucrative smartphone empire bigger than Blackberry, bigger than iPhone

... in nerd mythology. Nobody outside Nokia has seen the real sales figures, though.

Right on. Here is the estimate (by Tomi Ahonen, a blogger and ex-employee).

And if you look at research spending at a percentage of GDP over the past half a century or so, you'll see exactly that.

if you have not read this, I highly recommend it.

http://akessler.blogs.com/andy_kessler/2005/04/hwgh.html

Here, read this.

http://akessler.blogs.com/andy_kessler/2005/04/hwgh.html

Here is an editorial that works to explain the carriers' boycott against Skype, (and vis-à-vis Microsoft's ownership, along with Nokia's position).

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/09/why-do-carriers-hate-skype-let-me-count-the-ways.html

Wow, +5 for that? OBVIOUSLY he didn't truly mean "not one single person on Earth." As of December 2011, Windows Phone was at 1% of the market. Double that--hell, quadruple it if you want--and it's still not that much.

Android - 190 M - 31%
Symbian - 190 M - 31%
iOS - 114 M - 17%
Blackberry - 93 M - 14%
Windows Mobile - 17 M - 3%
bada - 8 M - 1%
Windows Phone - 5 M - 1%

I think this guy makes a pretty convincing argument that Microsoft has pretty well screwed themselves over on mobile (see Reason 17), and that any efforts and treasure spent by them propping up Nokia are a complete waste at this point. If it's a Hail Mary pass then the QB didn't notice that all of the receivers have tripped and broken their legs or arms.

It should be the end for both Nokia and MS Steves at this point, but the latter will probably hang on for at least another couple of years until the utter and complete waste is inescapable. I suppose that if MS killed Skype and wrote off its $8.5billion acquisition cost, the telcos might forgive them after a few years. Not so sure about the shareholders.

Wow that's a thoughtful, complex post. Let's deal with these issues one at a time.

Para 1: Bill is gone. Bill Gates remains the chairman of the board at Microsoft, and hand-picked all the other board members - who pick the CEO and evaluate his performance, give him goals and guidance, set his pay, bonuses and options, and set policy. Bill is still very much responsible for what goes on there, and weighs in on every big decision.

Para 2: Steve Ballmer. You neglected to mention the sea of red ink that is Microsoft's Online Services Division. I happen to like the direction Steve Ballmer is taking Microsoft. Clearly this is a man with vision and purpose who is ready and able to take the company where I want it to go. It takes Marvel Comics level superpowers to get rid of this much cash flow, to destroy a 42 percent success in mobile market share from 2007 given their advantages and high hopes, to so capably destroy the morale and productivity of the world's best developers, to put a company with this much income in $55B of debt. So let's lay off of Steve-o, mmkay? I like him where he is, sweaty shirt and all.

Para 3: No more Big, Bad MS. With the OOXML debacle that nearly ruined ISO, their recent rape of Nokia, their current ongoing rape of OEMs, retail vendors of both their products and Windows PCs, their planned rape of software distributor partners, developers and competing independent software vendors and much much more they prove every day that they have not changed. Last week they confirmed they're going to murder the advertisers they bought relationships with in an acquisition by making "Do Not Track" the default in IE. Just yesterday it came out that the new replacement for Hotmail, Outlook.com is incompatible with Android. The "new kinder, gentler Microsoft" is a myth. They have now declared war on absolutely everybody on Earth, including the people who pay for their products and excepting only the Women's Temperance Union and media executives. Naturally this means I expect them to announce an embedded bittorent feature for IE that involves a drinking game next.

Para 4. Ballmer outbound. Steve Ballmer is not retiring for another seven years at least, when his last kid goes off to college.

Para 5. Immortal desktop victory. It's not enough to take ground. Once you take ground, you have to hold it. MS won mobile with 40% share too [link above], once upon a time. And now they'r

Was there any bidding process? I assume not. Just some very shady deal in the interest of Microsoft only (FEDs should check if there are contracts saying Vringo cannot sue Microsoft, that would kind of prove that Elop still only works for Microsoft).

  I think the Nokia shareholders are getting ripped off by CEO Elop and the board, I hope someone sues them soon, before it is too late. Nokia is ripped off like nobody before got ripped off. The following text shows how major decisions by Elop (ex Microsoft) are only in the interest of Microsoft and not at all in the interest of Nokia.

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/07/the-sun-tzu-of-nokisoftian-microkia-mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-whose-the-baddest-of-them-all-waterloo.html

And all those saying Nokia was already dead when Elop came, you are shills or blind, read it too. E.g. start reading the first âoeREASONsâ in the link. They were still twice their competitors when Elop came, alone in China they could have as many customers as Apple has worldwide by a exclusive deal (bound to MeeGo). Distance to Apple was growing at that time. All systematically destroyed in the following months. I don't say they were super fine, but they were still a monster, the elephant in the room. No outside force could move it nearly as fast as Elop has. Now they are an empty shell.

If you have time, read this. It's very long but good (19 reasons why Elop should be fired, you can skip the intro to REASON 1 if you are lazy).

No way the CEO AND the board do not see the logic behind most of these 19 reasons. This is a scam, there must be a huge reward for most of them on some secret channel. Money? Girls? Power?

Anonymous please give us their Email and transform Elops and Balmer's phones into bugs that we can hear what they are talking in private. Jail them all.

"Hey, you may be right: who needs the decades of know-how in building great phone hardware, the global logistical network"

Both Apple and Samsung have better logistics networks and are able to get components cheaper. Nokia's logistic network has been decimated over the past year or two.

"the long-held relationships with operators"

They are reducing the number of operators....

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/07/if-apple-is-running-away-from-this-strategy-and-samsung-growing-by-opposite-strategy-why-is-elop-try.html

"and sales channels."

http://www.zdnet.com/nokia-confirms-layoffs-pulls-back-sales-channels-in-china-7000000781/

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/6/15/how-to-stop-nokia-channel-boycott-and-save-the-company.aspx

Honestly I read his article in Business week where he outlined the logic. The whole thing makes sense. Nokia was desperate and need the cash plus a credible OS to run on their hardware. Balmer wanted the credibility Nokia bought him and had cash. It was a dangerous play but I don't buy it was corrupt. It makes a lot of sense for the board / shareholder's perspective where chewing up the equity and bankruptcy are roughly equivalent.

Nokia didn't need anything. And in all reality their Maemo/MeeGo devices outsell the Windows Phone devices when in the same markets. They had a credible OS and one they didn't need to pay someone else for. And as someone else pointed out, they were profitable and didn't need the cash. Their ability to remain profitable changed only after they started pursuing Windows at all costs.

If you want to get an accurate picture of what Microsoft and Stephen Elop did - try reading this blog from a former Nokia Exec that is highly respected in Mobile Phone Sales. You'll see why Nokia is doing so poorly and having to sell off everything, and why Windows Phone will be a no-go (and who made it such).

He was actually there when Nokia made all the decisions that got them in the mess they were even before

Bullshit. Ahonen left Nokia in 2001 which, coincidentally is about the last time that Nokia was showing excellent iPhone like marketing prototypes. The iPhone came out in 2007. The person you are looking for is the person who was CEO during the time the iPhone was developed and up until the point that Elop was installed.

Apart from that; Ahonen's speciality is the mobile phone market, not technical side, so you can expect him to see what is wrong with that side more than the technical side of the company; his emphasis on "channel, channel, channel" misses the bad effect that insisting on delivering many models with slight variations had, but at the same time it's completely reasonable for an established player. Apple had to work incredibly hard to get around Nokia's channel dominance and the fact that Symbian was still selling many more phones than the iPhone until Elop's brainfart / memo just shows how right that strategy was.

They would Osborne themselves for the third time in three years -- which is admittedly world-class.

Osborning isn't about changing strategy. That's a perfectly reasonable response to realising you have a bad strategy. Osborning is about the boss of a company telling people about the new products which are to come before he has them ready to sell whilst making his old products sound worse than they are.

There are plenty of ways around Osborning. For example, you promise customers who buy now cheap upgrades later or you explain how your current systems will be compatible with your future systems or you explain limits in your future systems which mean that your current systems will need to keep going on. Even just promising to support your current systems for a year or two after your new systems become dominant in the market

To "Osborne" takes a kind of special incompetence that even Osborne himself didn't really show (the common understanding is a bit unfair on Mr Osborne). The "Elop Effect" on the other hand is to go beyond even that and to more or less deliberately set out to destoy your own products.

Nokia needs to get rid of Elop, possibly demoting him but keeping him around for his contract length, and then, quietly, change strategy and "smile at [Microsoft] while we pull the trigger".

Your analysis seems pretty right but you've missed that breaking up Nokia can finance quite a bit of the cost of a bid.

As ever; Tommi Ahonen has about the best analysis about this. Beside the three you have named there are companies like LG or ZTE which could get quite a bit out of the "dumbphone" divisions. With Nokia's current strategy, where it's smart phones are barely selling outside Finland and the US, Nokia can't really get future value out of that division. Almost any company that can deliver Android, however, could use the dumbphone distribution network to get its self into the best position in most of the new upcoming smartphone markets.

One of the key things seems to me that a live buy of Nokia has to happen extremely soon so that Nokia still retains some experties outside the Windows phones and it looks like Steven Elop is trying to make that as difficult as possible.

So agrees a reputable Ex-Nokia Exec - see here The Sun Tzu of Nokisoftian Microkia - Mirror mirror on the wall, who'se the baddest of them all - Waterloo, I was defeated you won the war - a long trek blog in search of the worst CEO ever (spoiler alert: Elop)

According to this incredibly long, but thoroughly entertaining and educational blog post, the carriers are apparently refusing to sell Windows phones ever since Microsoft bought Skype. He references Elop's own statements to that effect multiple times.

Speaking of the 121 errors, he does have a truly funny take on what they mean to a Finnish Nokia fan:

Well what do you know? The notorious 101 faults list in the Lumia (now with more Lumia! get yours now with 121 faults). When you read that list as a regular Nokia user of many Nokia phones, you tear your eyes out. It feels like.. how can I possibly explain what this feels like as a lifelong Nokia fan and user. When you start to read that list, it feels like... Now I know. BMW the ultimate driving machine. We've all sat in one, many have driven one. We know, out of 'regular' sedans and cars, excluding supercar sportscars, the Ferraris and Porsches, the BMW is the best car to drive, every model, year in and year out, what BMW excels as ie being the driver's car. You won't find BMW owners letting chauffeurs drive them around haha, like you will often see in a big Mercedes or Jaguar or Cadillac. BMW yes. Now imagine a BMW owner, a lifetime BMW owner eager driver amateour race driver passionate BMW owners club driver - seeing a new specs list of what the next model will feature.

And you find out the next 5 series will have coil springs instead of modern suspension. It will have a live rear axle. It won't have modern fuel injection, it has a carborator. It won't come with power steering, won't even offer it as an option. And then you find out the next BMW 5 series will actually be a badge-engineered car, manufactured at the Lada plant in Russia. Lada, if you don't know, was the old Fiat design, that was then 'improved' in Egypt, and then built by Russian tractor engineers. So designed by Italians, improved by Egyptians and built by Russians. This is a sure receipe for automotive excellence. And now the next BMW won't come from a BMW factory in Bavaria, it comes from that Lada factory where yes, this 1970s monstrosity is still produced today in 2012 and the 'latest model' using the original design of Italy from the 1960s was recently driven by Putin across a new superhighway. He was so afraid the brand new car might break down, they had not one but two of them on a flatbed truck trailing brave Mr Putin on his celebrate Russian driving PR trip. I don't want to suggest that all Russian equipment is bad - they were the first to put a man in space and by almost every generation of jet fighters they have been far ahead of the West and the Tupolev 144 was in commercial prodcution as the world's first supersonic passenger jet well before the most magnificent civilian engineering masterpiece of the West, the Concorde. But the Lada. Designed by Italians, improved by the Egyptians, built by the Russians. You have to drive one to believe how horrid that little car is (and we have some in Finland, I've driven a few in my earlier years..)

Thought Hollywood had butchered the books aiming at teenage action movies and introducing new characters and subplots. Also a terrible fight over royalties.

I admire the one son who spent decades publishing his father's voluminous papers. This may be the son's only major press interview in his life. The rest of family has gotten a free ride on royalties. Especially through the efforts of Jackson.

On the other hand, maybe Nokia is just that stupid.

The general feeling seems to be that Nokia didn't get such an agreement. Tommi Ahonen's explanation is that Stephen Elop had just come from Microsoft where he drank their coolaid by the litre. He thought (thinks?) that Windows Phone is the whole future of the mobile market and so just getting in at the beginning is a great deal. Remember that Microsoft has always had grandiose plans (think Cairo) that don't pan out (think Vista). As an executive it's difficult to see what will fail and what will succeed and all his MS buddies will be being ver careful to keep him optimistic so he could have a completely unrealistic view of the future.

Everything other than your first statement is fine, however it seems that Nokia's Symbian smartphones sales (not market share) were still increasing even with the iPhone on the market - right up until Elop issued his 'burning platforms' statement. This blog has a ton of interesting facts and opinions on Nokia. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/

For the love of god, can we hear one good thing about WP7 that is not from an AC?

It's unlikely.

Microsoft spent an enormous amount of money (half a billion dollars) with online and MSM reputation managers trying to generate a buzz around the "brilliant but misunderstood" WP7, but the reality for just about everyone who used one was that they're limited, corporate-kindergarten ugly, and shallow. I've tried a couple of their phones, including a recent Lumia and decided they bring nothing new to the table. Certainly nothing to attract people away from Android or iOS.

Now that the deluge of astroturf is subsiding, real reviews are rising to the surface. This was one discussed here recently.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/03/brutal-truth-about-lumia-cannot-sustain-even-1-to-1-replacement-of-symbian-windows-phone-strategy-do.html

I used one for a few minutes and it makes my phone look junky.

This comment was brought to you courtesy Waggener Edstrom, a Microsoft marketing partner.

It's true these astroturf fanboi posts are tedious and pathetic, and it's definitely worth pointing out; if nobody does they seem to keep coming and coming. However, the main weakness of Windows Phone is that it looks great in the shop, but when you actually take it home and use it it turns out to have fundamental basic features missing (beware; Tommi Ahonen articles are long and have detailed analysis sometimes even a bit too much for the casual reader. They may be difficult to read but definitely repay study and reading around his site.). Think about thinks like forward facing cameras and bluetooth file transfers being missing from all the early Lumia models for example. Think about the short battery life and WiFi failures. These are the kind of things you just assume have to work on any modern smartphone and would never test in the shop.

An astroturf which points directly towards this weakness seems a little improbable. Maybe you are right and they are trying to fly below the radar, however?

For the love of god, can we hear one good thing about WP7 that is not from an AC?

It's unlikely.

Microsoft spent an enormous amount of money (half a billion dollars) with online and MSM reputation managers trying to generate a buzz around the "brilliant but misunderstood" WP7, but the reality for just about everyone who used one was that they're limited, corporate-kindergarten ugly, and shallow. I've tried a couple of their phones, including a recent Lumia and decided they bring nothing new to the table. Certainly nothing to attract people away from Android or iOS.

Now that the deluge of astroturf is subsiding, real reviews are rising to the surface. This was one discussed here recently.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/03/brutal-truth-about-lumia-cannot-sustain-even-1-to-1-replacement-of-symbian-windows-phone-strategy-do.html

You do appear disingenuous you know. Read this blog and tell me if you disagree with the numbers. Which make a liar of you, or a dunce at best.

Mod parent up. The blog in question is awesome. For example this:
  "Before the Burning Platforms memo, in 2010 Nokia towered over its rivals like very few companies have ever managed in a Fortune 500 size scale. Nokia's smartphones sold more than 2x those of the iPhone and more than 3x as many as Samsung. Today only 18 months later, Nokia is a third the size of the iPhone and one quarter the size of Samsung's smartphones. Never, ever, in any industry, has a global market leader collapsed this comprehensively. This is a world record in destruction of a market leader. Understand what that means. Elop has set a world record in management failure. He is a world record holder in the most incompetent CEO that has ever been. Not just the worst CEO now, but of all time - that is what 'world record' means - and this collapse of Nokia is BY A WIDE MARGIN the biggest collapse of a global Fortune 500 sized company, who was the market leader in its own industry. I have been asking my readers to come up with any example of such total collapse in 12 months in economic history - never been done. Never. This is the worst management failure of all time! And it was not caused by a tsunami or earthquake or national revolution or exploding factory. It was caused by Stephen Elop. He started the destruction on a February day in Espoo when he released his Burning Platforms memo. "

The worse news is the guidance about Q2 profit warning and Q3 smartphone sales problems, that was hidden in the story about layoffs. So before, in Nokia's profit warning, Nokia said it will have problems with the handset unit profitability (producing a loss) in both Q1 and Q2. The losses for handsets in Q2 were supposed to be similar to Q1 ie -3%. Now we hear that Q2 losses will be bigger than 3%. This is VERY BAD NEWS. It really means that Nokia is falling into the hole and the rate of the fall is only increasing.

The gist of it being that Windows isn't working, and Elop is killing any possible "plan B" for the company.

They're also getting rid of those popular low cost phones that have been selling in Africa and India. Elop is killing all possible ways to save Nokia and is actively ruining the company. Other analysts don't see Nokia returning to profitability devices in the foreseeable future either this year or next. There's nothing left to save. The pre-Microsoft Nokia is already dead and gone. There's nothing to rejoice about, it's just a fact.

They're also getting rid of those popular low cost phones that have been selling in Africa and India. Elop is killing all possible ways to save Nokia and is actively ruining the company. Other analysts don't see Nokia returning to profitability devices in the foreseeable future either this year or next. There's nothing left to save. The pre-Microsoft Nokia is already dead and gone. There's nothing to rejoice about, it's just a fact.

Nokia was working on another Linux based operating system. This is now stopped.

More insight into how the board of Nokia is being stacked with Microsoft cronies.

Thought this already happened. In any case, Tomi Ahonen has a long, detailed, analysis. Too long for me to read, sorry.

Firstly; the claim is for the period from Lumia launch until Christmas and then a second claim for Q1 2012. The thing is; if this isn't true then there are a bunch of people, working for Nokia, who know the exact numbers and could just publish them tomorrow. If this is an "urban myth" then it's something causing Nokia damage and they simply have a duty to publish.

I guess it's not causing Nokia damage as much as the community around certain kooky blogs and Slashdot would like to imagine.

More importantly than that; one of the most important sources for this "rumor" is Tommi Ahonen who is a) a former Nokia executive b) a consultant who makes his money solely from his experties in this area and c) the only analyst to consistently and correctly predict Nokia's market share, sales and profits (he was over-optimistic with profits; but still the lowest estimate going) over each of the recent quarters.

In other words a) he may have an axe to grind; b) he benefits from making loud statements as long as they sound plausible to certain audiences? I'd like to check the predictions, but it's hard to wade through pages and pages of emotionally-laden prose, if you don't share in the emotion, of course. The article you reference has quite a funny few paragraphs on his N9 sales "analysis", starting with outright admission that he does not have the hard data, and continuing with:

But first, we have seen that Elop hates MeeGo and has been going out of his way to discredit that OS and the related phones. Several of his Nokia chiefs for the MeeGo project have resigned in protest. So, we can be pretty sure, that still in Q1, MeeGo has outsold Lumia.

Do you really take this guy seriously? If you do, I have a bridge to sell. No wait, further onwards he mentions "a really complex multidimensional optimization model" as his method. It just keeps getting better.

There were plenty of other sources showing the N9 outseling the Lumias.

Isn't it a pity that you can't cite any of them here to save a good truthy-sounding story?

Given that the Lumia 900 has been given away for free in the US to AT&T customers

Being obliged to pay into a two-year contract or pay an early termination fee does not really qualify as "free".

Still, it's pretty clear that, unless Nokia steps up to refute it, Nokia is hiding sales figures it should have been publishing and those sales figures would have shown the N9 ahead of the Lumia phones.

Really? I don't think Nokia has an obligation to publish sales figures for any particular device. They tend to especially dodge it if the sales have been unremarkable.

And yet the N9 sold more than the Lumias, despite having limited market presence, few apps and no future whatsoever.

If you repeat this urban myth a hundred times, it will become even more truthy.

Firstly; the claim is for the period from Lumia launch until Christmas and then a second claim for Q1 2012. The thing is; if this isn't true then there are a bunch of people, working for Nokia, who know the exact numbers and could just publish them tomorrow. If this is an "urban myth" then it's something causing Nokia damage and they simply have a duty to publish. As long as they do it to the press and with Nokia internal approval there is nothing legal or moral to stop them. The fact that they choose not to do this speaks very clearly about how true this rumour is.

More importantly than that; one of the most important sources for this "rumor" is Tommi Ahonen who is a) a former Nokia executive b) a consultant who makes his money solely from his experties in this area and c) the only analyst to consistently and correctly predict Nokia's market share, sales and profits (he was over-optimistic with profits; but still the lowest estimate going) over each of the recent quarters.

There were plenty of other sources showing the N9 outseling the Lumias. Also, given that the N9 got much better reviews than the Lumia phones in markets where both were available, this was hardly surprising. What was wierdest was, whilst this was happening the Nokia spokesmen, who had access to the official numbers, were continually pointing to unheard of third party figures such as one specific Duch operator.

Given that the Lumia 900 has been given away for free in the US to AT&T customers who were given practically no other option, at the same time that N9 sales were practically banned it's figures must now be higher than the N9's. Still, it's pretty clear that, unless Nokia steps up to refute it, Nokia is hiding sales figures it should have been publishing and those sales figures would have shown the N9 ahead of the Lumia phones.

So you quote yourself as if that proved you were right?

Nobody in that thread was able to post a single legit reference after my request, so I guess I was.

The worst part for you is, the guy who has came up with the figures, Tomi Ahonen

Right, his long-winded writings are the only thing that N9 sales myth believers refer to all the time. His way to, erm, derive the numbers is quite entertaining.

So you quote yourself as if that proved you were right? Come on, you can be more creative than that!

The worst part for you is, the guy who has came up with the figures, Tomi Ahonen, keeps being proven right. And his figures have been right on the spot, sometimes even a bit optimistic in regards to the lumias. So no, you can deny it all you want, but WP7.5 isn't a success, and Nokia is really destroying its business by pursuing this alliance with Microsoft. Sorry, but reality keeps denying your fantasies.

Want numbers?
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/04/who-wants-numbers-lumia-on-t-mobile-lumia-800-vs-lumia-710-how-many-nokia-n9.html

So Tomi admits up front:

Now, what of MeeGo and the N9? I don't have any data point to get a firm grip, not on the unit sales, not on the ASP, and not on the revenues.

And then he power-dives into ridiculous speculation based on supposed emotional states of various people in Nokia.

Yes, I still want numbers.