Nokia Fears Carriers May Try To Undermine N900

An anonymous reader writes "Nokia is worried that networks may reject selling the N900 because it won't allow them to mess with the operating system. Nokia has previously showed the N900 running a root shell and it appears to use the same interface for IM and phone functions. Meanwhile, Verizon is claiming that 'exclusivity arrangements promote competition and innovation.' Is it too late to explain to people why $99+$60/month is not better than $600+$20/month?"

Comments

Another one for Nokia

[Jurily]

I know where my next phone is coming from.

My next phone

[A beautiful mind]

I really hope European carriers will carry the N900, because I'm planning on getting one. It looks really sweet for basic phone + capable mobile computing device with apt-get usage that I'd like to use it for.

Re:My next phone

[bhtooefr]

But, in the US, you won't get your plan any cheaper, at least from what I've seen, by bringing your own phone.

Great pitch

[Shin-LaC]

He also said the phone might not sell well because it's only the fourth iteration in their five-step plan, and people might wait for the fifth, which is going to be the real deal. Hasn't this genius heard of the Osborne effect?

Re:Great pitch

[TheRaven64]

I won't buy one because, as soon as the N800 and N810 were released, Nokia immediately stopped bothering to support the 770, which was only about a year old. Even Apple doesn't drop support for products that quickly. If I'd paid anything like the full price for the 770, I'd be quite upset, but as it is I just know not to buy Nokia's Maemo products in future.

If true, this is now the phone to beat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally a company gets it! We want a phone we can hack LEGALLY, that doesn't have Steve Jobs giant head staring at us 24x7 telling us what we can and cannot do with it. If they can really keep the carriers from imposing idiotic restrictions of their own, this will be the phone to beat.

Perhaps it is.

[John Hasler]

> Is it too late to explain to people why $99+$60/month is not better than
> $600+$20/month?"

For some it may be. Why do you think you know what is best for everyone?

Not a 12 month contract

[confused one]

except some carriers require a TWO year contract; so, that becomes:

60*24 + 100 = 1540
20*24 + 600 = 1080

Definitely better off buying the phone outright

Verizon Says:

[Nautical Insanity]

"exclusivity arrangements promote competition and innovation."

The foul stench creeping through your nose right now is the smell of total bare-faced bullshit.

Re:We are talking of the same Nokia, yes indeed

[TheRaven64]

Their business model is based on locked down symbian

No, their business is on hardware. None of the Nokia devices I've owned have been locked down at all; they've all come with SDKs and allowed me to run software. Many of their customers add restrictions, but if you buy your phone from a carrier then you get what you deserve. Symbian and Windows Mobile? A bit disingenuous, given how few Nokia devices run Wince; they've shipped a lot more Linux devices than Wince so far.

I got a 770 (the first tablet in this series) under Nokia's Open Source Developers' Program, for a fraction of the retail price, simply based on existing open source contributions. I probably won't be buying an N900 - the hardware's nice but after trying to develop for Maemo I decided it was more effort than it was worth - but that doesn't mean they don't regard open source as important to their business model (oh, and I forgot to mention their WebKit contributions in my original post).

The fact that open source Symbian is hard to hack on doesn't surprise me in the least. Closed Symbian was also not at all fun for developers, and neither is Maemo. Based on what I've heard from a friend to used to work for Nokia, I'm much more inclined to blame this on the general level of competence of their developers than on any hostility towards Free Software.

Re:Only patented formats

[Eunuchswear]

Here it says that it won't support OGG,

What is this "support" shit? It's running Linux, If you want OGG just apt-get install it.

Ofcourse it an be customized

[Greger47]

From the article:

Nokia executive vice president Kari Tuutti told Mobile News the N900 user interface cannot be customised to include network applications, which will be a bone of contention with the networks.

Tuutti said: "We have a good, long lasting relationship with the networks, but we understand that they may not be happy with the user interface because it cannot be customised."

Which is total BS since Nokia has full control of the software on the device. The only reason for not customizing or locking down the N900 must be that they don't want to. A ballsy move, I really hope Nokia (and other manufacturers as well) will manage to wrestle control away from the networks and their nickel-and-dime walled gardens.

/greger