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After MS-Nokia Pact, Many Nokia Workers Walk Out In Protest
Mr. McGibby writes "After the announcement of the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft this morning workers voiced their concern with the deal by walking out of Nokia facilities. It is believed that as many as a thousand workers marched out today (or took the day off using flex time) so that the company would know that they don't believe the partnership is in their best interest, even after CEO' Stephen Elop's startlingly frank 'burning platform' memo earlier this week."
Looks like many investors felt the same way.
Looks like many investors felt the same way.
If I worked at Nokia I would be looking for a job, like yesterday.
Who owns your data?
Stephen Elop
Steve Ballmer
Steve Jobs
Scuba Steve
Should I name my next kid STEVE??? \(`)/
The summary is a tad misleading. It states that most who protested this work on the Symbian OS. So they are protesting because lots will probably lose their jobs. Not because they hold in their belief that the partnership is bad.
Already covered well in these slashdot stories from '06.
http://slashdot.org/story/03/01/06/1159207/Sendo-vs-Microsoft-The-Truth-Comes-Out
http://slashdot.org/story/02/12/26/1423247/Sendo-Accuses-MS-of-Stealing-Smartphone-IP
I suspect the same happens to Nokia.
MS has a history of hosing it's "partners". Sybase, threats to cutoff Intel's air supply, and the "Stinger" phone OS are some examples. As the saying goes, "If the lamb lies down with the lion, it better not fall asleep."
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
They should zune ahead of Apple and Google in no time.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Not really, they used their flextime. More like "nokia employees got benefits"
Of course it's a stupid idea. But what did they expect? They hired a former MS exec to be their CEO. Of course he would make them dependent on MS - that's the only thing the fool can be expected to know.
It's like SGI hiring a former HP exec to be their CEO and then killing off MIPS to move to Itanium - totally and utterly predictable because these guys only know the bubble they've been in for most of their corporate career. They can't "think outside of the box" because they are the box.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
A Nokia executive once said that switching to Android would be like peeing your pants for warmth. It might help temporarily, but would turn your phones into commodities. Nokia would be forced to sell based on price alone!
I submit that going with WP7 is worse. It has all the disadvantages of Android in that your competitors can use it also, so it turns your phones into commodities. But it has none of the advantages - the extensive Android market, UI customization, and no OS licensing fee.
Using WP7 is like peeing your pants while Redmond gives you a golden shower.
I have not considered a Nokia phone in years. Who needs a phone that is three or more years out of date?
Now musing a little, I wonder isn't a partnership with MS one of the last things a company does either before being acquired by MS or filing for bankruptcy?
New Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop's career, as documented on Wikipedia
Before starting at Nokia, Elop worked for Microsoft from January 2008 to September 2010 as the head of the Business Division, responsible for the Microsoft Office line of products, and as a member of the company's senior leadership team. Before this, he was the COO of Juniper Networks, the president of worldwide field operations at Adobe Systems, and the CEO of Macromedia until acquisition by Adobe.
----
Lots of CEOs,CIOs, etc. bring in old workmates in their new workplace. While the existing relationship simplifies trust and reporting, things don't always go to plan, as folks don't really know workmates that well. I wonder is this is similar. He knew Ballmer and decided to forge an alliance based on a past work relationship. Or perhaps, one of the big reasons for his hire was his relationship with the Microsoft leadership team.
Alternatively, consider HTC - you know, the company that basically got started selling WinMo devices, and is now one of *the* big names in smartphone manufacture world-wide?
I'm not saying this couldn't go sour for Nokia, because it obviously could. But it certainly isn't guaranteed to, and could in fact pay off very handsomely indeed.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Just out of curiosity, what else were they going to do? Their current strategy of trying to rely on Symbian while transitioning to MeeGo is what got them into this trouble. Who knows when MeeGo will actually be ready or comparably polished to iOS and Android. Symbian isn't going to magically get much better than it is now, and where's it's at now has taken a lot of development.
The only other move was to use Android, but that caries its own set of risks. They mentioned the possibility of commoditization, which doesn't ring true to me, but is a possibility. Worse is the ongoing legal dispute over Android with Oracle. Google doesn't indemnify anyone, so if things go in Oracle's favor it may be the manufacturers having to foot the bill. Another "big if", but it's not something a company can outright dismiss.
It seems like almost everyone around here is heralding this is a horrible move. Does anyone actually have a suggestion for what Nokia should have done instead? A suggestion that doesn't include making different decision several years ago, magically making Symbian as good as Android or iOS, or somehow ignoring the mythical man month and getting MeeGo out the door in a reasonable time frame. It's easy to say a particular decision is crap when you're not expected to come up with a workable one yourself.
The Nokia execs and some tech writers make the case that Nokia thrives by selling very low end, but very robust phones in the hundreds of millions to the 3rd world where a modern smart phone wouldn't survive a day. They make the case that the Internet will be brought to developing nations via cell phones...low end cell phones, not high end smart phones.
It's a failed vision.
It is the vision of yesterday and today, but not of tomorrow. The "low end" of today won't exist tomorrow. Smart phones are advancing at such a pace that in the very near future none of the drawbacks they have today for developing nations (not rugged, very low battery life, high cost, etc) will still hold true. The market for low end voice/text-only cell phones will get taken over by low end smart phones....and chances are they'll be running Android, not Windows 7.
Nokia will be dead in ten years, quite possibly five.
My
That does it for me. Glad I've already switched to Pantech phones. (Pantech Impact. OS: Other) I specifically wanted a smartphone which did not use WindowsPhone, Android (you trust Google with YOUR personal data?), or Apple. That left Pantech and Blackberry, and the Pantech has a nicer keyboard.
MS want to go after Android. With an ex-MS man at the helm of Nokia, I'm not surprised they have pushed this deal through (especially since MS have managed to piss of their other handset manufacturers, and they have in turn jumped to Android). It may hurt Android market share very briefly, but I'll wager it won't be for very long before Nokia dumps WinPhone7 if this deal even goes through.
MS is trying to play catch-up with Apple and Android, and is losing badly. Wasn't Elop complaining the other day that Nokia was stuck playing catch-up? How can throwing their lot in with MS help them? Unless Elop is playing this deal with MS, so he has a magic bullet against Apple, I can't see their market position getting any better.
I do have to wonder if this deal is more about solving Nokia's legal battles with Apple. Surely MS will happily hand over patent licenses if Nokia is going to make WInPhone7 devices. Not only would this potentially void some of Apple's patent claims against Nokia, but even if Apple won in the ITC, the devices it is seeking an injunction against will not be around much longer. On top of that, MS would see a handy market boost if the ITC found in favour of Nokia and placed an injunction against the GSM iPhone. There is a reason Apple is trying to kill GSM and pick up CDMA: they probably see they aren't going to win the GSM patent lawsuits that Nokia have filed against them. In terms of the Apple vs Nokia battle, Nokia aligning themselves with Microsoft is an almost perfect match. I'd say that there is a whole lot more going on behind the scenes of this deal, in terms of patent cross-licensing, but Nokia won't reveal that until they get in a courtroom.
Given the sharholder and employee revolt against this decision, Elop may not be around much longer to see it through.
Well see, that's the thing - trying to change company policy by walking out like this works best when there's a social safety net for you to fall back on.
In the USA, if you walk out on your job like this (and you'd have to walk out, because chances are you don't have flex time) you'd be, essentially, screwed.
Almost makes you wonder why this capitalist paradise has such gaping holes in the social safety net, doesn't it?
Not really. It's just that firing someone in the US is easier than anywhere else in the world. It's just one more way we're behind the rest of the world.
Somehow, countries like Germany manage to be extremely worker-friendly and still lead the US in exports, and they don't need 20% underemployment to get there. By the way, that 20% underemployment we have in the US is by all expectations a permanent condition.
Any first year econ student can tell you that labor always proceeds capital. It was only after that condition was reversed in the US that we began our 30 year decline.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Didn't sidekick get them on the map?
I think it was them that built that.
Even their winmo phones were appealing.
Htc is on the map for making good hardware, and finding decent software to augment. Android was not the start of that. I like sense enough to use it on my american g2
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
In the US, if you work for a living, you're screwed.
You are welcome on my lawn.
1. Because manufacturers don't bother documenting hardware of providing drivers for more than one OS. (Ex: how Linux did run on iPAQ).
2. Because (1) will remain true for proprietary phone control stack even if it won't for the rest of hardware.
Nokia's implementation of Meego was supposed to have the first completely open cellular interface. Good luck getting that with Microsoft lackey at the helm.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
...the day Nokia committed suicide, abandoning their own top selling smartphone OS for one of the worst selling smartphone OS on the market.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
What savings?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It's just one more way we're behind the rest of the world
How is that "behind"? If I have slackers working for me, I don't want red tape standing in the way of my getting rid of them. This is especially true in small business, where margins are tight and you can't afford to pay people who don't produce.
Unfortunately, good phones only go so far when nobody's buying them. People don't want good phones, they want flashy apps.
You obviously have never used Qt. If you had then you would understand the potential that it has. Check out Qt and QtQuick. You can do amazing things in a few lines of code in QtQuick. There are lots of youtube examples, check it out. One example was a complete graphically rich game, samegame, which is one of the QtQuick examples. Length of source code: 300 lines. Runs on mobiles, windows, linux, not sure about mac. This was an early example, recent stuff is more jaw dropping.
Big difference there - Nokia is well-established as-is (especially in Europe), and becoming "just another WinPhone vendor" is a major demotion.
Here. My favorite one:
And finally,
Nokia. No, not this OS deal, but in August 2009 ”The worldwide leader in software and the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer have entered into an alliance that is set to deliver a groundbreaking, enterprise-grade solution for mobile productivity. Today, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Öistämö announced the agreement, outlining a shared vision for the future of mobile productivity. This is the first time that either company has embarked on an alliance of this scope and nature.”
The plan was to bring “Microsoft Office Mobile and Microsoft business communications, collaboration and device management software to Nokia’s Symbian devices.”
What happened? One and a half years later the same Stephen Elop announced that Symbian will be deprecated.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Unfortunately, good phones only go so far when nobody's buying them. People don't want good phones, they want flashy apps.
This recent story would seem to indicate otherwise. Dumbphones are cheap, tiny and durable. There will always be a market for that.
I carry around two phones, one personal and one for business. My personal dumbphone has survived through 3 different business smartphones and it is still going strong. The batteries still last a week, while I can hardly get my iPhone to last more than a day. Maybe that is why the manufactures prefer smartphones - they don't last nearly as long and so you have to keep buying new ones.
Germany manage to be extremely worker-friendly and still lead the US in exports
Germany leads US in exports (barely) because of geography. That same Germany trails US badly in per capita purchasing power adjusted GDP (US: 47K, Germany: 35K): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
It also trails USA badly in the UN's leading living standard indicator, the HDI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HDI#Very_high_human_development_.28developed_countries.29
That is Germany. Other major EU countries are further behind. Portugal and Greece, the most heavily regulated "old" EU countries according to the Economic Freedom Index are also the poorest and if they weren't regularly bailed out by the rest of EU would have dropped out of the ranks of developing countries by now. Portugal is very close to dropping from a developed to a developing nation in the HDI rankings. Their workers must be really happy with all that regulation that protects their jobs and pensions against that pesky reality, right?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I am wondering if there will be shareholder suits. Elop's action is clearly not in the interest of Nokia shareholders as graphically demonstrated by the trading results today.
Even more interesting would be if evidence of breach of fiduciary duty was uncovered on Elop's part. Were bribes paid?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
In 5 years we'll have batteries that cost 10% of the price with components that draw 5% of the power and work off environmental factors (super efficient solar panels).
It's bad enough to look at a graph and just extend the last bit forward in time, but you're not even basing that next-five-years prediction on the last five years.
Battery tech takes more than five years to develop, and there's nothing on the map now that'd cause 90% of the price to go away. Capacity is going up, but not THAT fast.
Components that draw power in a smartphone are primarily, in no particular order: the transmitter, the screen, and the CPU. There's nothing on the map now that'd cause any of those to drop 95% of their power needs in the next five years. The cell tower network certainly isn't going to change that fast, so the transmitter power is pretty much constant. The CPU is generally already a very efficient ARM piece drawing maybe a whole watt at full load, and ARM's policies (historically and for the near future) are to keep doing what they can at just under a watt, so that's not going to change either. I could see passive color screens eventually happening (like some bookreaders, no backlight), if they can get the resolution and refresh rates acceptably good, but for a screen as small as a smartphone's, the power savings won't be as dramatic as you'd think.
Partnering with Microsoft is a good way to not survive the five years anyway.
I've been waiting for a post-N900 MeeGo device for a while now. The N900 is a good pilot device for MeeGo, but it isn't quite ready for prime time. I'm still considering an N900 as a geek toy / personal smartphone, but I was hoping for an updated platform with an updated MeeGo.
I really hope they do come out with at least one more MeeGo device, when I read about this MS partnership, I expected it was the death knell for MeeGo. I hope it's not.
Just out of curiosity, what else were they going to do?
About what they did now, and just a bit more... Two alternatives to choose from:
1. Get the partner (Google or MS) accept adding Qt to the platform. That would have gained them a lot of developer love. Now they need to start a developer community completely from scratch, with old Nokia developers really pissed off, after the earlier Qt hype.
2. Get support for current partner platform (had it been Android or WP7) on Symbian and/or Meego. Like, Silverlight support for Symbian. This may not have gained them any Free Software love, but it would have given meaning to current Symbian line, and made a lot of commercial developers happy.
But now, they created a situation where they have no continuity between platforms, and bunch of angry developers who don't know what to do with Nokia now. I mean, isn't it practically like "if you want to develop for future Nokia, buy HTC now"? WTF.
I hope next week they'll take some corrective action. I actually hope it's been planned from the start, giving extra bad news first, then "clarifying" so bad news don't sound so horrible.
But if it is what it looks like now, who in their right mind is going to buy a Symbian phone? Nokia will run out of money before they get their first WP7 phone out of the door. But it's also quite believable that this was the plan, and MS will buy them out when the stock price is low enough.
Throwing acronyms around doesn't make you informed.
The UAW didn't wreak the US economy or the auto market. Americans wreaked themselves collectively believing a bunch of corporate bullshit being promoted heavily by corporate created think tanks which started hitting full force in the 70s. They even got one of their spokespeople to run the nation into the ground for them (I'll let you guess who.) Bigger trends played bigger roles than a union stuck in a bygone era with forward thinking contracts and benefit packages which actually did more to heighten the decline of the USA than it showed their greed (which is how it was portrayed and continues to be.)
Everybody can't be the boss and form their own business even if we were all equally capable of it. Somebody has to be an employee. Fairly paid workers are not a handout; union workers are not handouts they are just not pushed around like pawns so easily-- like the permanent 20% underemployed people we have today who have zero bargaining power.
Unless you can live like the Chinese, we can't compete with the former communist's ability to out capitalize us.
If I had a smart phone provided by business, I too would have a dumb phone for personal.
Specifically for the charge issue.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Correlation does not imply causation. I'm quite happy with the service from my government, and though people might grumble occasionally to make conversation, polls indicate a high level of satisfaction among my compatriots.
It only gets worse when you put Unions into the mix.
A miniscule percentage of American workers have belonged to unions, and yet you are so ready to blame unions for your ills. Meanwhile there are countries where the vast majority of workers belong to a union, and the economy does fine and unemployment is not much higher than in the US at good times.
Now that Microsoft is going to assimilate Nokia, I am sure QT is in great danger. I pray that someone would get it and continue making it great as it is.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Have you learned NOTHING from the past twenty years of history?
Have you?
Here you have a giant company with major pipes into company accounts. They then pair with the largest builder of mobile devices in the world, that has agreements in place with every carrier on earth.
That sounds like a recipe for domination to me.
What you are overlooking is that in fact WP7 is a pretty good mobile OS, but it was gaining traction very slowly - it's just out the starting gate after all. But even so Microsoft is uisng deep pockets to by apps, and with Nokia's help can get a lot of really well built hardware running WP7 well, with Nokia's input on what customers want.
Within three years I think the dynamic duo will have surpassed Android in marketshare.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... serves them right (posting as AC to not get into trouble).
The 1000 people who staged a walkout in Tampere, Finland were mostly Symbian developers who are protesting/scared for their jobs. As someone who lives in Finland and works with mobile devices for a living, this makes me plain angry. Nokia has 1500+ Symbian developers in Tampere and 500+ in Salo, that's over 2000 developers working on Symbian. What the fuck have you people been doing for all these years? Where are the results? And now that finally the new CEO decided to shake things up before Nokia goes completely tits up, you are protesting? Gee, the bubble you've been living in bursting must've hurt - think of it, Symbian wasn't a good, user- and developer-friendly environment you've brainwashed yourself into thinking it was.
It really was/is cringe-worthy, how out of touch you people were. Not 3 months ago, I was talking to some Nokia developers and they were keeping a straight face while touting the N8 as some kind of an amazing device and downplaying the Apple and Android ecosystem and talking how "Symbian added value to the user-expience". I kid you not!
In the past, when we see company X do business with Microsoft, the only moaning we hear it limited to slashdotoid circles. This has got to be the first time I have ever seen where a body of employees and the stock market also agreed that doing business with Microsoft was a bad idea.
I haven't read through all of the comments yet, but I'm guessing someone has already started asking questions about "acting in the best interests of the share holders" matter. Of course, as Nokia is not a US company I'm guessing that's virtually a non-issue.
I hope the whole world is now paying attention to Microsoft's touch of death. Microsoft "partners" are usually just lambs lining up for the slaughter.
HTC was a nothing company that got lucky making a deal with a big partner. They had nowhere to go but up, and nothing Microsoft could take from them.
Nokia is a huge company that is selling its soul to the devil. I'm not talking about Microsoft: they've chosen the route of dying tech giants. They've refused Android because of their patent portfolio. It is one thing for a company to use patents while they continue to innovate, but when they give up innovation to focus on extortion, that's a death deal.
They could have chosen differently: they could have decided to make both Android and WP7 phones, and even continue with Symbian (although Symbian is dying). Samsung makes beautiful Android and WP7 phones. If anything, this deal most resembles SGI, giving up on their own excellent OS to run (what was then pathetic) WindowsNT on their machines. Not long after SGI became a shell of a company, with nothing but a large patent portfolio. RIP SGI. RIP Nokia.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What is a smart phone. For many its a mini laptop.
But for 99% of users in the developing market its a phone
1. Which can surf the internet
2. Watch videos
3. GPS
4. Facebook/docs/gmail
In India we already have rebranded chinese phones for 6000 INR. These are unlocked, as concept of locked phones has not caught on in India.
A bare bones phone(sms + phone + alarm) costs 1500 INR.
If you want a decent phone which can take a few bumps and yet run apps and surf the net, you have 8000-9000 INR "sportsphones".
2 years back this was unthinkable.
2 years from now, a 5000 INR phone will run apps and will run pdf and surf the net.
OF course to play that new game, you will need the 15000 phone.
3 years back a mid range laptop was 1000$. IT can still run docs and surf the net.
But today a 1000-1100$ laptop can run high end games.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Nokia releasing WM7 Nokia phones isn't a terrible idea by itself.
Nokia dumping their other OSes for WM7 on the other hand is just pure fucking insanity.
By all means, bring out some WM7 phones.
But for sweet little baby Jesus's sake, why not bring out some Android phones and some Meego phones and some decent Symbian phones.
Why not bring out some phones that allow the customer to choose which OS they want at the time of purchase?
That would be innovative.
Is this guy a Microsoft plant? Is Microsoft now the majority Nokia stock holder? How does this shit happen??
They better go big or go home.
If that was true, they would have chosen Android. Microsoft isn't exactly a powerhouse when it comes to mobile devices. The top phone OSes are Android, RIM, Symbian, iOS, and Windows (Not necessarily in that order.) What I do know, is that Windows is on the very bottom of that list. RIM and iOS wouldn't be interested in Nokia, so it's either Android or WP7.
Android has a lot of potential, a hundred thousand times more than what Windows Phone 7 has. They better go big or go home.
FTFY
Xbox was nothing too when it got started. Sony had their playstation 2, Sega had their new Dreamcast that had a year jump on Xbox and Nintendo had the Gamecube. Xbox was ugly and clunky and offered no familiar Mario or Sonic or Final Fantasy games, yet it held in there and now it's a dominate player. You can't write Microsoft off so easily, they have a nasty habit of jumping in the middle of a fight and kicking ass.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I can't recall another time I've posted anonymously.
I worked with Stephen Elop back in the Macromedia days, starting with him being my boss^2, in the late 90's. I've always found him a fascinating exec to watch. In the four years or so I saw him at Macromedia, I watched him: ... Whirlwind, I think?) for about three months which was long enough to fuck it up; so they promoted him ...
1. Come into IT, get the existing CIO kicked out, become the CIO, and fuck IT up[0]; so they promoted him and
2. He came into the Andromedia purchase, ran that business group for about a week which was long enough to fuck it up; so they promoted him and
3. He started a brand new business group (Internal name
The pattern reached its logical conclusion when he became CEO of the company and then ... sold it to Adobe.
Stephen is the most perfect example I've ever seen of the sometimes-mythic "failing upward" tendency. He turns everything he touches to shit, and ... then gets rewarded for it. It's like magic. I look forward to Nokia failing miserably, being sold to Microsoft, Stephen making billions out of the deal, and getting elected President of the United States, which he will drive into the ground, formally make into a Chinese colony like Hong Kong, and finally get promoted to God.
[0] Favorite story from that time: At the beginning of my time at Macromedia, our website was running on four servers, and I remember one time for a stupid reason three were not taking traffic. The first reason we found out about this was because someone mentioned the website was "a little slow." And we were taking tons of traffic. So Stephen came in and forced us to have a dynamic website. Hey, that's a GOOD idea. And then he decided we should use Broadvision for this. Which was a steaming pile of shit which BV recommended we reboot "as often as you can" because it was unstable. Which required horrific investments of money (we were buying Sun E4500s like there was no tomorrow and putting in 14GB of RAM in each -- back when Sun RAM was at around $7000 per GB). Which Stephen brought in KPMG to "help us" implement, which had the predictably hilarious results that anyone here who's worked with a big consulting shop has likely seen for themselves.
SE has always been shite, they've just been popular in Japan.
Nokia still does make good hardware but their software is nowhere near competitive with more advanced platforms. The E7x series performed its job brilliantly and had good battery life but they were really designed for a very specific function. When people complain about Nokia's, they complain about high end Nokia's like N8's which really are shite, because the OS is shite whilst the HW is fine.
Nokia's mid and low end phones are fantastic. My 6500 Classic runs perfectly after 3 years. 3xxx's only need to be replaced when they switch off the older 1 and 2 G networks. Battery life is phenomenal. Hardware is almost indestructible.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Apparently never used C++ either. Especially if games are the first that comes to your mind when you think of low level access. What do you think the said sandboxed, garbage collected environments are written in?
I have become excited about the Nokia N900, which is like an ordinary computer in that it runs a Debian-based Linux distribution (Maemo) with a software repository and everything. Now, I was eagerly waiting for the successor to the N900, running MeeGo (the successor to Maemo) and then they go and cancel it! Unless I settle for the ageing N900, there is no reason left for me to consider Nokia products anymore. I'll just go on with my current eight or nine years old phone, which can do all the things I actually need - GSM, SMS and alarm. Killing their most flexible Linux operating system and initiating a collaboration with Microsoft - pfft, how unimpressive.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
The HDI is an average measure of basic human development achievements in a country. Like all averages, the HDI masks inequality in the distribution of human development across the population at the country level. This year’s report introduces the ‘inequality adjusted HDI (IHDI)’, a new measure for a large number of countries which takes into account inequality in all three dimensions of the HDI by ‘discounting’ each dimension’s average value according to its level of inequality. The IHDI is thus a measure of the average level of human development that a country has achieved in the three HDI dimensions, given the existing inequality in distribution of achievements and the level of aversion to inequality which is set this year to a low level of 1. When there is no inequality in the HDI dimensions or no aversion to inequality, the average level of human development is reflected in the HDI. In this sense, the HDI can be viewed as an index of 'potential' human development and IHDI as an index of actual human development. (from http://hdr.undp.org/en/)
So in the actual HDI USA trails Germany much more badly. Basically the small rich minority makes your country look good on such indices. (2010 HDI and IHDI)
I'm actually wondering what the other development team involved thinks about this: the guys who created WM7.
Now Nokia is supposed add input with regard to further development? They might perhaps veto some design decisions, add other goals? Surely Nokia would love to outmaneuver the other hardware manufactures. This cooperation seems to grant Nokia enough leverage to do so.
As a WM7 developer with a vision for my product I'd feel pretty pissed. Strategic thinking of a hardware manufacturer will steer the future of my software baby? Of a manufacturer with distinctly different mindset? Who just realised that his software strategy tanked.
To my knowledge I don't know anybody on the WM7 team. But I feel already sorry for you guys.
That is Germany. Other major EU countries are further behind. Portugal and Greece, the most heavily regulated "old" EU countries according to the Economic Freedom Index are also the poorest and if they weren't regularly bailed out by the rest of EU would have dropped out of the ranks of developing countries by now. Portugal is very close to dropping from a developed to a developing nation in the HDI rankings. Their workers must be really happy with all that regulation that protects their jobs and pensions against that pesky reality, right?
Ooops, you just cited something from the Heritage foundation, a well known conservative, and totally slanted source of information. Just like Fox News. You should seek truth from sources that are reliable, accurate, fair, and unbiased.
HTC was never particularly successful in the mass market before Android. In the WinMo days, HTC phone targeted the poweruser that could live with WinMo's faults while it perfected the in-house hardware design and software customization skills. Basically, MS gave it a launching pad, but you have to give credit to HTC for their initiative, most Taiwanese WinMo partners wasn't able to see pass the fact that WinMo was a dead end. HTC saw this and tactically positioned itself in the Android camp, while paying lip service to Microsoft. The HD2 was the ultimate exercise in the futile attempt of polishing a turd.
In GSM markets, since the release of the Desire, things have been up and up for HTC. The Desire is the first real iPhone alternative for the casual smartphone user. It's easy to use, looks good, and can load apps from the Market fuss-free. Push email works well and you get to sync all of your important PIM details such as contacts and calendars for free. Navigation via Google Maps is not only free but ever improving.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
In memoriam : Microsoft's previous strategic mobile partners lol
All immediately after the N900 gets Android apps too, sad & stupid Nokia. If Intel's buddies continue pursuing MeeGo tablets, we'll maybe come back around to a MeeGo phone again, eventually.
Ideally, Finland might provide startup funds for some ex-Nokia employees wishing to bring another MeeGo phone to market. A small tech company with less overhead could do so far more inexpensively.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Agreed. Symbian as an OS isn't that bad. The symbian UI and menu structure is terrible, they simply failed to keep up.
5 years ago Nokia was by far the largest in the smartphone business. That made them lazy and slow to react. Along comes a company that decided to do touchscreens properly with a clean uncluttered UI and Nokia failed to respond.
It's really a shame. Instead of putting all their efforts into either Symbian (a proper touchscreen interface / refactoring) or Meego (actually releasing more than 1 product) they decide to haul in _another_ OS, one that is barely more mature than Meego. It doesn't matter which OS it is, splitting their resources so late in the game is suicide.
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No progress appeared to be lost because Nokia just canceled their projects.
The damage from that decision was reflected in an immediate 14% stock drop, and it's going to get worse for Nokia. I doubt they're going to survive this.
Get support for current partner platform (had it been Android or WP7) on Symbian and/or Meego. Like, Silverlight support for Symbian.
You mean, like this?
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Interestingly, that is only available for Symbian 5th edition devices (5xxx line started with 5800XM, N97 communicators), not for new Symbian^3 devices. Also, that seems to be... let's say politiley, limited version, compared to "desktop Silverlight". Wether that will change quickly, or not, will be quite revealing.
I can only see this deal as downhill. There seems to be little upside for Nokia here. They get to ride a downhill track alongside Microsoft which has yet to succeed in any other market under Ballmer, using a platform which has barely left alpha ( the point at which MS seems to start selling platforms these days if the problems are anything to go by) and with no innovation other than different coloured "me-too" ripoffs.
On the other side is Nokia who could have been smart by opening up their hardware a la HTC and simply go back to core business, making hardware. That is what they ARE good at.
But hey, this is what you get if you put an ex MS droid at the top.
If I was a shareholder I'd drop the shares as fast as I could flog them. Better a slightly depressed price than no money whatsoever. I bet the price will bump shortly because a lot of smarter people start shortening the stock, the only possible reason MS stock is still hanging on..
Nope, I don't buy this as anything good. Nor will I buy anything of that club - not a chance.
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I think the real issue here is that Nokia is trouble. Big as they are, their market share is sloughed off at an alarming rate. They are dying. Symbian is doomed. They are way behind in terms of technology and certainly had to make some change. They really had only two viable options. They could either jump into the Android market and join the blood bath, or go to Microsoft.
Going into the Android market would have meant going back to what they were doing half a decade ago, which is to say that they compete on hardware and price. Plowing into the Android market means that you are one competitor among many and that you are in a commodity market. This isn't some place Nokia has never been. They did their best when they were slugging it out on in the cheap cell phone market. It is scary for Nokia in that every time a customer goes to buy a phone there is nothing to differentiate Nokia other than price, hardware, and reputation, but this is a market Nokia knows and did well in. Nokia is afraid that all things being equal, when a consumer is presented with a list of options, Nokia is not going to be offering the best hardware at the best price with the best reputation. Getting in bed with Android is basically a declaration that you think you can make the cheapest, best, highest quality piece of hardware and that you can win on the merit of what you have done with the hardware.
The other option was to jump in bed with Microsoft. Getting into bed with Microsoft means that you try and win by promoting a platform. You are trying to get people to buy a Nokia phone not because it is cheap, the hardware is good, or because Nokia has a good reputation for quality, but because the person in question wants a Microsoft phone. Nokia is essential terrified of competing in the hardware market, and so is going to link their desirability to software which they don't control control.
Personally, I think their plan is insane. Microsoft is lagging well behind Apple and is light years behind Android. Stuff Android has been doing for years, and things Apple has been doing for a year are still not implemented on WiMo7. Maybe Microsoft is going to come blazing ahead of the technology pack, but I really doubt it. It would take a pretty extreme overhaul of the OS to get within technological striking distance of Apple or Android. Microsoft just doesn't show a capacity for rapid development that Android thrives on. Apple isn't so extreme in their rapid development as Android, but they have shown a capacity to develop at a pretty moderate pace and maintain a very stable OS. Microsoft has shown no capacity to develop at stability and moderate pace as Apple does, nor at the rapid and frantic pace that Google pushes. MS is behind and shows no signs of catching up. None of their non-phone products show that they the management potential to develop like Google or Apple does.
I think Nokia has hooked their wagon to a dead horse. They are going to try and win in a market based upon an OS, and the OS they have picked shows no signs that it can even begin to close the gap, much less maintain pace.
Funny, the data seems to disagree with you. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/PSAVERT.txt
The savings rate fell off a cliff around 1982, which is just about the time that the bull market leading up to the 2000 meltdown, then slid back downwards, then jumped back up again at the end of 2008. That nearly 20 year bull market was a time of general prosperity, when people COULD have been saving up money for the inevitable downturn that cyclical markets will bring. They didn't. The data clearly shows that people SAVE MORE when times are hard.
The problem is our culture puts more emphasis on buying a new Toyota, or a new flatscreen tv, rather than making sure that you save for the inevitable downturns, and the inevitable point where you're going to want to retire. Part of this is consumerism, and part of this is simply peoples' attitude that the government will somehow make it all better, and they don't need to worry - see the ridiculously low amount of retirement savings most people have, compared to the cost of the car they're driving. They think nothing of spending $300-500 a month on a car loan for 5-6 years, but ask them to put aside the same amount in their 401(k) and they'll scream bloody murder about how they don't have the money to afford that.