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Why Nokia Is Toast
CWmike writes "It's hard to remember now, but there was a time when Finland was at the center of the cell phone universe. No more. Nokia is being killed by complexity. Along comes Microsoft with Windows Phone 7, delivering more complexity. My view is that Microsoft doesn't matter, writes Mike Elgan. Although Windows Phone 7 is a way better operating system than Symbian, Nokia's problem isn't Symbian, and the solution isn't Windows Phone 7. Nokia's problem is that it follows the losing strategies of the other losers in the market, and rejects the only two known winning strategies. There are way too many Nokia phones. This causes either choice paralysis, sending buyers screaming to Apple for relief, or buyer's remorse. Nokia should take the advice Steve Jobs gave to Nike CEO Mark Parker: 'Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.'" And maybe Nokia isn't toast at all:
reader high_rolla points out an interesting bit of speculation that the Nokia-Microsoft pact is part of a grand plan "to become the exclusive manufacturer of hardware for MS phones and tablets."
Long death to Qt...
At one stage I was a Nokia user, then went over to Sony-E and am wondering about Blackberry, not liking the idea of a phone in my iPod, Windows in a mobile or the stuff that Sony-E is now coming out with.
John_Chalisque
toast!
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
All around the country and coast to coast, people ask me what I like most!
If MS not even essentially buying a company in a coup where, conveniently for MS, an ex-Microsoftie replaces their former boss will assist MS in competing with Google and Apple, and instead ends up killing the company, MS has failed in the mobile industry like few others. If that won't cause Ballmer to have to leave, I don't know if anything will.
Despite all the evil MS may represent, I'm sure MS don't want to kill Nokia. They clearly want to use them as a leverage for WP7 market penetration. However, the Nokia shareholders seem to be less than impressed to go from an independent company - to be designing and packaging hardware. What has Nokia stock dropped by by now? Last I heard was -14% with many leaving the company. I'm not surprised - I'd feel the same if I went from being a software developer to someone writing marketing material and trying to think up designs for someone elses product, and even have to tell everyone that it's the best software ever, after having dropped my own.
It's humiliation, that's all it is. Pure humiliation for Nokia...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I love it. Especially with butter and baked beans on top.
It is the universe that makes fun of us all.
Preemptive conclusions?
"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
I'm glad they'll be using WP7, as opposed to Symbian, which is a slow and bloated half-assed unpolished amateurish piece of shit software written by a fuckton of sweaty Indians with no degree. Just like truly open source software (except they're written by fat virgin neckbeards).
He loves it when a plan comes together
if Nokia is toast, then what is Ericcson? I used to have one of their phones long time ago (yes i kept a Swedish implement in my pocket) but donno what happened to them
I'd be shocked if Nokia were "toast". They're still one of the biggest handset makers in the world, and their name recognition alone is worth billions in the market. And while guys like Steve Jobs are going "simplify!", there are millions of customers going "Really? This is all you've got? Where are all the choices?". Just because Apple's strategy is good for Apple doesn't mean it'll be good for Nokia, just like Mercedes isn't going to pursue the same strategy as Ford. They're both still going to make a lot of money.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Nokia does need to do something about its image, but it is building up a loyal customer base in Asia, Africa and South America where pricey smart-phone are still a tiny percentage of the market. If they can get a pubic perception of having some vaguely cool smartphones to help drive the brand, they have no problems really. And whilst Microsoft may be a busted flush in North America and Europe when it comes to phone OS, it is still a premium brand in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Don't write Nokia off yet.
It pains me to say this is the a correct business move for both companies. Combined they have a much better chance of standing out in the crowd (other android-phone makers). Many will hate it, many will love it. A new Apple has been born.
"I'm taking this loop off." - Jack O'Neill
On behalf of everyone who is developing software for Android smartphones or iPhone/iPad, I would like to thank Microsoft and Nokia for their support.
I first heard about Microsoft and Nokia joining forces when someone told me the vaguest details, and I assumed Microsoft would be adopting Nokia's Symbian operating system for their phones. That would have made sense. You see, despite the appalling sales figures for Windows phones, the truth of the matter is that the devices themselves have been superb, and the current version of Windows Mobile is actually very good -- it's just that nobody outside the business world buys Windows phones anymore because Microsoft isn't cool. People want cool. It doesn't matter that Windows Mobile is good if it isn't cool. No cool = no sale.
Of course my assumption was wrong. It's Symbian that is being ditched, and now Nokia phones will use a Microsoft operating system. Which isn't going to make much difference to Microsoft, but it's going to neuter Nokia's attempts to become any kind of relevant player in the smartphone market.
So it's just Android and iOS now. Hurrah! Well done Nokia -- you just achieved one of the most epic fails in computing history. You had a cool brand, and you've thrown it away.
Nokia better come up with some exotic hardware that no one else can produce and tie WP7 tightly to it (so it's reliance on their hardware) if they want to do this exclusive thing.
Else they are completely at the mercy of MS, where MS can dump them for another hardware manufacturer and they can't drop WP7 without losing their customer base who has invested heavy in WP7 applications.
Both the "Nokia is dead" and "Nokia will thrive" articles say the same thing. They only differ in whether or not the authors think Nokia will follow the strategy.
The first article says that Nokia should ditch everything and release 1 really nice WP7 phone. This article says its their only chance, but they won't do it because it is against everything Nokia has ever stood for.
The second article says they will become the exclusive WP7 shop. Maybe they'll have more than 1 phone, but they'll be the only WP7 game in town, and they'll make really nice integrated phones that provide a slick experience (ala Apple). This is exactly what the first article says they should do, article #2 just says he thinks they will be smart enough to take this route.
I always thought that the best possible winning strategy would be an Android Phone with a completely redone UI using their QT Resource. Allowing them to both get the Android market love, and differentiate themselves with QT Slickness. Ah well...
I disagree. Even though Nokia has different models they all have been consistent in the user interface. If I had been a user of a relatively cheaper model, I will feel completely at home when I upgrade to a better model. With their different models, buyers are given some choices. Pick your own combination of features and the price. How can that be a bad thing?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-11/former-microsoft-exec-to-head-nokia-s-us-business.html
Any questions?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Im not sure if of models might be an issue but Nokia also has marketing problems as well, Nokia needs to create a single premium phone model and give it some sort of name, rather than a model number, and then only sell a single premium phone with that brand. A strategy is to sell the lesser, lower end phones under a different brand/company name from the premium high end model.
Part of what Nokia misses is creating the hype of creating the cutting edge visionary device. The idea of running a company selling low end, plain, boring cell phone products and creating an image of that does not work. Nokia has come to represent stale, bland, aging technology. There is a market for simpler older technology but the brand definitely should not be defined by this cheaper, older technology. That Nokia seems to have the idea it can sell cheaper older technology and neglect creating a premium cutting end brand, and this will result in more people buying the phones is a massive error.
In many ways, Nokia has similar problems as GM, which produced for years poor quality or low quality vehicles and damaged many of its brands as a result, assuming that people would always buy their stuff, and losing a differentiated high end. Again creating seperate brand names for the lower end stuff and having using a brand for only the high end top of the line visionary cutting edge phone may be a good plan.
Nokias problems are due to management arrogance, that is the company thinks it can sell phones as some cheap run of the mill commodity and that the cheaper phones could make the company, that stale technology would go over well with people, and that the cutting edge visionary work of apple or google is not important. It is obvious that is a major error.
It is clear that Apple and Google etc are providing a better product and if Nokia can even keep up it is survival of the fittest,.
Nokia is already pasting their brand on any chinese slave-labor garbage that will have them... Why should Microsoft pay Nokia (and dilute their brand) when they can pay the Chinese directly?
That list is interesting in that apart from the top handful there's not a lot of money there. What happened to all the "Microsoft Millionaires"? Did they all cash out?
I find that Symbian does all I need and I am happy with it. I do not want a pocket computer, just a phone that has a few extras. If I want more I open my laptop. I am not sure which direction I will go in next as for me, the N97 is the most suitable phone but if it has Windows stuck on it, it will not even come close to meeting my needs. I do use GPS and am often out of cell range, therefore I do not want to need Google maps etc. I can use Nokia Maps in the mountains, far from the nearest cell and it has got me out of trouble a couple of times (I am a 4x4 nut). I like good music on my phone and a backup camera, that is all. After this merger, I will probably buy a real GPS for the truck and a dumbphone. I cannot see any reason to buy a load of stuff I do not want. I think Sony sound OK for me now; good music and a decent dumbphone.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
SSSShhh! That's the plan once the rape is over. Ask anyone from Sendo
Microsoft today most reminds me of a coral reef in the Caribbean.
Still standing there, huge, menacing, misshapen and barnacle-encrusted.
But dead. The environment has changed around it and it can't adapt.
Nokia is a huge ship battered by the storm coming in toward the reef
for shelter.
What do you think is going to happen?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Funny timing, I'm uninstalling Qt and Symbian as I write...
I think Nokia has fumbled too long between Symbian and Meego and now Qt; one can't get a clear sense of where they are going and thus, as a developer I must move to greener pastures.
Goodbye Nokia! Hello Android!
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
I don't care about Nokia or Microsoft, it sounds like the perfect partnership to me.
Nokia isn't leading, Apple and Android are doing very well, RIM still has solid market share and MS is going to fight like hell for WP7. There isn't room for 5 players and even 4 is a stretch. It doesn't matter what happened in the past, Nokia was in a weak position and needed to do something. Bottom line is that the stage is set for the phone OS players and Nokia is not one of them, so they have to change where they fit into the eco-system.
In the low end Nokia is going to get eaten alive by cheap Chinese phones. They won't be great phones, but they will be dirt cheap and will sell by the truckload in the developing world.
In the high end, Nokia has to compete with companies like Apple and HTC. On one hand, Apple is super focused and dumps all their resources into a very small number of products and owns the ecosystem. On the other hand, HTC is small and nimble and willing to take chances. Compare this with Nokia -- which is a slow, conservative, giant and doesn't stand a chance against these smaller companies when it comes to innovation.
What's left for them?
I think Nokia brought in a former Microsoftie to run their company because they knew they were going to be licensing WP7. I'm sure they are getting a crazy good deal and plenty of promises from Microsoft. It's probably the biggest gamble that Nokia was willing to make and I think it's only going to prolong their descent into irrelevance.
While I agree that in general, the minimalist strategy works well for Apple, I'm not sure that Nokia could pull it off. Let's look at what Apple used to build the iPhone brand before there even was an iPhone.
1.) OSX. Apple's penultimate desktop operating system, gain billions of fans for it's tight design and nearly flawless execution. When Apple merged it into the x86 platform it removed much of the pricing barrier that was keeping people off of Apple and wooed many more customers.
2.) iTunes - At the height of the digital music revolution, Apple introduces the ultimate music software to go with it's ultimate desktop OS.
3.) iPod - Right along with iTunes, completes the musical vertical integration pyramid, design is revised several times, paving the way for the iPhone's form-factor.
All of the above led directly into the iPhone. Looking back at it it's almost obvious that this is where they were going, although none of us could see it at the time.
Now, what to Microsoft and Nokia have? Well, Microsoft has a desktop OS, but has said little to nothing about integration. No solid music apps beyond Windows Media Player, and that's just a mess. Nokia? Well, they have plenty of phones, but no design ethos or personality. Basically, both MS and Nokia have the same "scattershot" approach to business. They try to take a little from every area, resulting in generally mediocre products with a few bright spots. Not a winning strategy.
right now, of the non-Apple and Google players, I think that HP is positioned best with RIM a close second. If HP can seriously deliver both on the consumer and business ends, they will knock RIM out (particularly if they can deliver the kind of centrally-controlled enterprise handset encryption that RIM specializes in). Regardless, the Nokia-MS merger isn't likely to make much of a difference, even IF they take the advice offered in TFA. They just don't have the right pieces in place or the right corporate attitude.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Choice. Users generally like choice (especially when it comes to hardware). Why are there so many different kinds of cereal in the supermarket? Not to mention they are all owned by the same company. If Nokia didn't make all these different cellphones, someone else would
Girls like to have different cellphones.
My prediction is that this partnership will eventually turn Nokia into MS’s hardware division.
I agree.
I think that there is an emerging niche for "dumbphones" that would be roughly equivalent to the "compact cars" of the 1960's that eventually became Toyota and Nissan of the present.
If, on top of being a cheap, voice-centric device, by virtue of running Win7 those could do/buy "cloud" capabilities on the go as aftermarket, that might be a real iphone-killer (or at least induce worry-lines in future iphones).
Nokia failed because their premise was that price drives the cell phone market.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/09/nokia-microsoft/
or is Nokia the only company whose employees actually care enough about the product to express dismay........I don't often hear of Chinese apple workers using their flex pay in protest.
"Cheap, voice-centric dumbphones" running "Windows7" and "cloud-based" applications? That's an oxymoron.
Microsoft said once computers didn't need network. Ironically that's what's happening now. Nokia, Disconnecting People
Cite? Nokia's low-end phones are still produced in the company's own factories and in places like Romania and South Korea. Indeed, the company has called "Chinese slave-labor garbage" their major competitor in the low-end market.
Most people have heard by now that he's ex-Microsoft. What most people don't seem to realise is, he's Microsoft's seventh largest shareholder. I don't know in what ways that could be considered insider trading, but Nokia shareholders better look into it, because Nokia shares have taken a massive hit (-15% in two days) from this deal.
As for being exclusive manufacturers of Microsoft phones and tablets, the question is what phones and tablets? Microsoft is a tiny player in those markets, even compared to Nokia itself -- Nokia can't expect to gain much from that exclusivity unless Microsoft magically increases its market share. But they've been struggling for many years now, and they still haven't made much headway in those areas, and I don't see how that will change any time soon.
Well, a bunch of them have been killed in incidents involving chairs.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Nokia is the largest cell phone manufacturer, and also has the most used framework Qt across all platforms. Qt is not going anywhere. It is an amazing toolkit that has no equal. Obviously, it is in Microsoft's best interest to partner with Nokia, and Nokia is obviously getting some kind of major benefit from the deal. The speculation that it is going to be exclusive manufacturing for WP7 on phones and tablets is wrong. The idea that Microsoft would kill their relationship with Toshiba is nonsense. Toshiba defaulting to a Linux based OS for their laptops, or some crappy proprietary OS they have in the works, scares Microsoft way too much. Every Toshiba system OS is already so bloated and customized software that it does not even resemble the original OS. Apparently, their Android Honeycomb wont have the Android Marketplace, and instead their proprietary crappy app store, but I have to credit them for their solid hardware, which is why I always buy Toshiba, though I doubt I will purchase a Folio tablet without the android marketplace. The speculation that Qt is going to become more focused towards Microsoft is also nonsense. The reason the Qt framework is so extremely popular is its beautiful appearance on every platform. Its a developers dream. To change it in any way would be ludicrous. Microsoft is clearly the winner is this deal, but Nokia is absolutely getting something in the deal. We will have to wait to see what is announced, and for now we only speculate.
I've never seen a single event get so many articles in Slashdot in so many consecutive days. And that considering Nokia supposedly isn't very popular in the USA, why do americans care so much what do they do? Or are there only europeans posting here :)
Here in Europe we prefer european Nokia to chinese junk (e.g. ifone) or korean junk (samsung). On my Nokias everything just works, I can't say the same thing about asian appliances.
Anyone writing that has obviously never used a recent symbian based Nokia.
Except Sendo ended up raped, lonely, discarded, and didn't even get a reach around.
do I see the (an)droid as the topic of this article?
It's true that Microsoft is not a good brand. The company is successful because people need their main product.
That said, the XBox has done pretty well at market penetration. Part of this being that Microsoft made a very good product. Techy types are willing to forgive Microsoft for being Microsoft as long as the company comes up with a sufficiently good product. Whether they will manage this is the important point, and it will take something to be significantly better than both Android and iPhone.
RIM seems to be doing just fine as well. So then I guess they'd be in the Apple-strategy camp? Closed, and 100% control of the "experience".
Why should Nokia care ? The guy seems to think he's still working for MS ! Having proven they can't pout together an mobile OS, Nokia should try and leveraage their installed base into an ecosystem. They should go the HTC way and have their fingers in as many OS pies as possible, as long as all those pies are gateways to the OVI store.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
and therefore cannot comment on what it will become.
Nokia is the biggest phone company in the world, with something like 50% of the entire global market for mobile phones. They are active in more countries and in more languages than most people know even exist.
This is their greatest strength and their greatest weakness - if you want to talk about complexity, that's the issue. They are in so many markets - and they cannot just give up. If you made many billions a year in these markets, with this sort of complex, difficult to manage yet ultimately profitable situation, would you still suggest throwing it all away to concentrate on something which is not your main strength and where you ARENT making money?
No, you'd suggest a shift to START making MORE money in those new areas without dropping the ball in the rest - and believe it or not things could be a lot simpler with winphone 7 in that arena. A clean break, a new start, but picking up, immediately, a global, vibrant growing group...the truth is it looks like they got a better deal than most people would have bet on. WP7 is late to the party, perhaps, but m$ do software pretty well (you may laugh, but wp7 shares more with that xbox doohickey than with your laptop, and they're close to ruling the heap with that puppy) and Nokia do great hardware.
It's going to bite them in the ass if they don't have a fallback plan (come on, seriously, win7 always and forever? welcome to being foxconn in that case!) but that's three to five years down the road to think about, three of those five at the very least with a working, mature and well-established modern mobile OS.
How can a big multi-billion company web site fail in such an obvious way? This is simply unbelievable.
On a similar tone, how can a geek site (slashdot.org) have such an obvious html bugs. The comment text spills out the right side of the window when you increase the font size.
Who controls those things. Morons?
In memoriam : Microsoft's previous strategic mobile partners. lol
Nokia has been amazing at undercutting all other phone manufactures's prices on the low end, yielding amazing sales in poor countries. Yet, now we're seeing Chinese companies who'll basically just copy all Nokia's products, and produce phone even more cheaply using almost slave labor, which'll obliterate into Nokia razor thin margins.
We're entering a time when Nokia's western low-end phones will run Symbian while other low-end phone remain simply feature phones because Symbian requires less resources than Android, iOS, Blackberry, WP7, etc. I donno how long that bright period will last of course, well maybe it'll depend most upon the marketing for Android, iPhone, Blackberry, etc.
In smart phones, Nokia could've easily run with MeeGo plus Andoird apps, giving themselves the largest app selection plus differentiation. It's dubious however that WP7 will deliver either the developers given that Apple and Android own the market currently, or the users, given that Android delivers all the choices you mentioned.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
To become the one and only maker of MS hardware? That is a position NOBODY wants, EVEN Foxconn is NOT that stupid. Because that is exactly what Nokia would become, a mere factory stamping out goods at FINNISH prices. Look at how nice it is to become the sole supplier for a certain Redmond based company when it comes to graphic chips... Nvidia, oh oops ATI. Loyaltie? MS knows none.
Have people really forgotten WHY Symbian came into existence? Do they not know WHY no other phone makers WANTS to be a MS only shop? Because the phone makers like most in IT KNOW what it means to be a MS lapdog and sought to escape it.
What kind of deranged mind thinks that ANY company would of its own choice consider becoming the next Dell to be desirable? Oh and that is NOT the Dell of the desktops where MS software is the near absolute ruler but the Dell of Windows ME, Bob, Vista! Dell by the way that is outsold by Apple which does NOT sell MS Windows.
It would be as if HP be loosing out in desktop sales and go all for the massive Linux desktop market to save its fortunes... might work... but not bloody likely.
Windows Mobile 7 is not some price that is hard to get either. Everyone phone maker out there can make a WM7 phone. MS is going to chance this when it has so much trouble getting any of its phones to markets already? It is a bottom feeder. The consumers have said countless times they simple do not want MS software on their phone. This is after all their Xth attempt at it, people have made their choice.
To be clear, Nokia used to have a higher market share then MS ever had. So it is trading what made it unique for a smaller market share?
Oh but maybe with WM7 it will create some great phones? Unlikely because it has failed to do so before. Nothing stopped Nokia from making the next or indeed the first iPhone itself. What both Apple and Google have shown is just how silly easy it is to create a new phone + OS and make it in the market. For that matter, so has Rim. Nokia didn't fail because it didn't have access to MS software, its competitors didn't and did very well despite OR because of it?
And here is the real irony: PC makers believe that unless their hardware comes with MS software it just don't sell. Apple doesn't count in this bit of logic. See the swift end of linux on the netbooks.
But on the mobile phone, this just ain't true. The OS makes VERY little difference in peoples choice. Even if it did, the sales figures clearly show that putting Windows on it will just chase people away.
Nokia had to either re-invent itself, possible with Linux as a base OR become one of the many hardware makers using an existing OS... and it did the latter with the least selling OS.
A brilliant move? Maybe for some MS stock owning CEO, but I think Nokia's slide to the bottom will only be hastened by this move. We shall see within the year.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They typically have options, not actual stock. And I suspect most are cashing out as their options vest since the stock price is flat (no point holding on to it).
reader high_rolla points out an interesting bit of speculation that the Nokia-Microsoft pact is part of a grand plan "to become the exclusive manufacturer of hardware for MS phones and tablets."
Why would that be such an attractive position to be in? Do people really crave Windows on their phones? Do people even know what operating system their phones are running?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
The #1 reason Nokia is toast is that Elop is still CEO, after what did last friday. The rest is secondary.
WTF? Second, this article looks like it was written by a 5th grader.
my best guess is a repeat of
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/06/microsofts_masterplan_to_screw_phone/
i've used symbian from 2004-2009
3650, n70, e61, e61i and the e71
iphone from 2008-
iphone 3g.
and am now on android since 2009.
htc hero.
symbian is still better than any other os at certain things. battery life, bt support and the ability to write python apps on the device itself.
but i don't trust nokia anymore. wasn't going to buy hardware after the disaster that was the nokia e71. fridays announcement jist reinforces that decision.
which is bad news for nokia here in europe. at the start of 2009 most nerds and regular folk i knew were using nokia and all the geeks were looking forward to the n97. by the start of 2010 90%of the geeks were on android. i only know 2 people who bought nokia in the last 12 months. an n900 which is now dead as meego is flushed by nokia and a pre symbian device from ebay by my dentist who hated symbian.
Companies aren't perfect. Why people insist on declaring one company "toast" over another is just some odd form of self-gratification about their choice in a company's products that has been going on for years with Microsoft, and more recently with Yahoo. These companies have made mistakes in the past, and some pretty boneheaded decisions, but they still make over a BILLION (with a B) dollars in revenue per year, depending on the market.
Nokia is the same. Probably wasn't a good idea to have so many options, but Nokia isn't going to win in NA, EU, Africa, SE Asia, India, and South America with an iPhone clone because, guess what? Not everyone lives in a metropolitan area and can afford $200 + ~$80 a month for a cell phone plan (in many parts of the world, people barely make that in a month). So Nokia is going after a larger market strategy, and they're losing in the smartphone market. But are they just going to take their ball and go home because the big bad Apple has a higher market cap? Good god, the world is a bigger place than SF, LA, and NY. You do know that the rest of the world still uses portable CD players and not everyone can afford Macbooks and iPods, right?
Right?
If this quote is accurate...
Elop doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He needs to steer the company back towards growth and away from the rocky shoals of loss.
Taking on Android is like trying to stop a train by standing on the tracks and putting your hands out and asking nicely to stop. Android's going places because the OS is usable and free.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Microsoft pays dividends.
Combined they have a much better chance of standing out in the crowd (other android-phone makers). Many will hate it, many will love it. A new Apple has been born.
That would have been true if they combined. Combination would have been Nokia smartphones and R&D dedicated to making WM7 great.
But instead, they collided. They were both drifting on an irreversable course, and could not avoid each other. Neither of them seems to have changed course from the collision, there will perhaps be a few WM7 Nokia phones but Nokia is still proceeding with Symbian AND MeeGo development, having no focus whatsoever and sending mixed messages to whatever developers remain.
Together, course unchanged, they drift together down into the whirlpool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He *is* still working for MS.
And even that is actually Sony Ericsson.. Which does not exist. There are only Wise Apple and Stupid-stupid-stupid Nokia. Didn't you read the summary?
If you are "paralyzed by the overabundance of models or saddened by the stupid inadequacies of Nokia" you will, and I quote, run "screaming to Apple for relief".
There is a word for an article like this. It has three letters, starts with an 'F' and ends with a 'D'. And I think that the middle letter is an 'U'.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
How does this citation work for you?
http://www.google.com/images?q=nokia+made+in+china&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1680&bih=901
Yeah, after all, Nokia once made rubber boots! OK, not exactly sports shoes, but not exactly phones either. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I had REALLY high hopes for Meego. I run KDE on my laptop, and would like to see an OS which was scalable. I was hoping the Motorola Atrix idea caught on and in a year or so I could have a phone running QT which would dock. I could then ditch a lot of my computer stuffs and have one computer instead of four. It was a hope.
This is about the enterprise mobility market, not the consumer market, RIM is in trouble.
--------------------------------------------- "In the end, we're all just water and old stars."
"eyeballs" aren't revenue unless you're in the cornea business.
And they don't have "control" of the living room, they just have alot of video game consoles which seem to be made at a loss. What exactly is the X360 doing for Microsoft?
It's not like everybody is using the Microsoft Video Store, and getting all their TV from the Ballmer Network, and Microsoft isn't getting money for every TV program they watch. (And neither is Google or Apple, despite their desire---the most successful is NetFlix, because they offer a simpler product and are good at it).
What phone "tie" to X360 is there and would make sense? The hardware & software is completely different.
Why do you want to access your video game remotely from your phone?
The best upside is that by working with Nokia they'll make Windows Phone 7 better as it will have better software design for real hardware.
Instead of grandiose "control of eyeballs", let's have Microsoft make a phone which doesn't really suck. That's plenty hard for them already.
If Nokia is Toast, Apple must be scrapple.
You had a cool brand, and you've thrown it away.
Sorry, no, Symbian was never "cool".
And at least Windows Phone 7 has brand name recognition. And hate on MS all you like, but people actually really LIKE Windows 7, so their is a bit of a halo effect there.
Android, and Blackberry, and Apple iOS are in the lead, and WP7's launch was less than steller, but I wouldn't write it off yet.
"good stuff" being expensive, 200-500 dollar, contract tied, locked-in, customer-screwing 'phones'. which do WAY too many things to be called a 'phone'.
i use a very simple nokia phone. i use it to - you guessed it right - actually phone and talk to people. and, i bought it for $80 or so. there were even cheaper ones. my phone is not contract tied, it is not locked in, anything. i can get it fitted with 2 sim cards if i want, in a local shop somewhere. noone is going to sue me for it.
americans are focusing way too much on their own culture. that is why i think some ceo is able to make a recommendation to a european company to sell the hugely expensive shit they are perpetrating to mesmerized fans. its as if they think the entire world consists of, can be exampled from a 300 million country.
apples cant get any market share for example, in japan. in japan, you cannot sell a phone that cannot show tv channels on the go, from airwaves. in a lot of developing countries, cheap phones are preferred to - you guessed it right - call and talk to people.
i have my laptop or netbook or tablet or pc for anything else. i dont need my phone to be smart and, do things that are not meant to be done on a tiny phone screen. (largest phone is still tiny compared to even a small tablet).
i dont think any company should take advice from apple, a company which thrives more with fandom, expensive prices, and locking-in its customers to the point of schizophrenically controlling them. the world market is measured with billions, and it has a lot of different needs and segments. you cant peddle $400+ overpriced shiny toys to all of it.
Read radical news here
Um... you called Windows mobile devices "superb." If that were the case, then Nokia has made a brilliant move. Reality is that Windows Mobile has sucked for some time, and continues to suck. IT managers who buy Microsoft end up getting canned when the CEO is on the golf course and his friends start showing how cool their friends Android and iPhones are. "Well our phones have Outlook..." just doesn't really make up for the lack of general utility.
Nokia would have been better off to have jumped on Android or finished bringing Meego to market.
-- $G
Could it be that with Nokia dependent on MS for phone software, the biggest holder of smartphone related patents is no longer a threat to Microsoft? Apple and Microsoft have some kind of patent sharing deal, which is good for Microsoft, but does Apple no good against Nokia's phone patents.
And Google's pretty much on their own. Maybe Motorola's got some protection to offer Android, but I personally don't like the idea of an emboldened Microsoft waving bullshit UI patents as a threat to Android with nobody left to countersue.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
http://getsatisfaction.com/nokia/topics/petition_to_nokia_reconsider_meego_as_strategic_platform
Funnily, from all other things they produced at one time including "paper products, car and bicycle tires, footwear (including rubber boots), communications cables, televisions and other consumer electronics, personal computers, electricity generation machinery, robotics, capacitors, military communications and equipment (such as the SANLA M/90 device and the M61 gas mask for the Finnish Army), plastics, aluminium and chemicals" - they decided not to go into the business of making "exclusive $400 rubber boots". Like Gucci did.
Which I guess is exactly what Holy Steve would have advised them to do back then. "Don't diversify - exclusify!"
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
MS has "needed" a hardware arm for some time now, so they can sell a whole package and capture the profits from all the components that go into the products that consumers actually buy. Oracle's purchase of Sun made them the 2,000-pound gorilla of commercial software, expect the same results if MS gains control of a hardware manufacturer.
Mind you, I don't necessarily think this is a good thing!
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
I think the MS/Nokia merger is appropriate.
Mod me down by a single point? HAH! We all know you did that cause you have no counter arguments worth diddly.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Money and in-kind contributions will flow both ways in the deal, Elop reiterated. Nokia will be contributing its Ovi mapping service and will be paying Microsoft royalties for the use of its software, as other manufacturers do. It will save money by not continuing development of its own software. The net benefit is still in the billions, he said.
So they're getting a payment from Microsoft up front but paying them royalties, giving them access to Nokia's mapping service, and killing off their own software department (or at least parts of it).
He said the decision to go with Windows Phone was unanimous in Nokia's senior management team. Nokia's board approved the deal Thursday night, a day ahead of the announcement in London.
So no hope of getting rid of this guy if all of the senior management was on board.
Nokia has 32% of the cellphone market (down from 36% the year before), which is not bad. Unless you consider that at the same rate of decline, they'll be at less than 25% of the market in two years. Which would not be so bad, if their share of the market were highly profitable. But Apple -- which currently owns only 4% of the overall cellphone market -- currently earns over 50% of the profits, and Nokia earns less than 30%, so Nokia doesn't really have a profitable niche into which it can retreat. Android and Apple look like they'll continue to siphon up most of the high-end profits, and the Chinese will make the low-end untenable, so exactly where will Nokia survive?
Already a hit!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41563442/ns/business-world_business/
Toast it is then.
Have gnu, will travel.
I did laugh. But, I do think its true. Symbian may be getting long in the tooth, but it was one of the Nokia selling points, flexible, plugin-architecture, and couldnt get viruses (easily).
Now I have no choice. Android. Having worked with Apple products for about 5 years at all levels - portable, desktop and server - I have no wish to use them for anything pretty much. M$ and its utter failings is a known quantity. OpenMoko took too long, though it might not Hurd...er, fail, it may actually come to fruition as a useful mobile OS yet. And what a shame about Meego!
I don't want to throw my lot in with the The Gloorius Peoople's Infoormatioon Empire, but there is no choice currently.
But yeah thats it for Nokia. CEeya.
Wonder who'll buy them$ ?
That's a list of shareholders who have an ongoing involvement with Microsoft (and thus have to declare with the SEC). There are heaps of shareholders with more than $3m who don't need to file with the SEC (eg. Paul Allen with $100m+)
This is about refactoring the company. Stuck with different platforms, one of which is outdated and the other just not yet mature, and too much investment in budget phones, what are they to do? If they adopted Android, it becomes an all out slugfest between them, LG, HTC, and Samsung, and those competitors are giving Android their all. Nokia, short term, needs a differentiating factor, and that's why WP7's lack of sales and poor marketing actually facilitated the deal rather than slowed it down. They don't want their best designs to become commoditized, and they don't want a huge software development staff trying to write the same stuff for multiple OS's. Nokia needs development velocity, and that just won't come with Symbian or MeeGo.
What Elop did was pretty brave, actually. I think his memo indicates that he has a daring strategy for a huge problem. It actually isn't very different from what HTC did with Windows Mobile back when WM was being ignored by most others, and the giants were Blackberry and, um, Nokia. They focused on the hardware and WM actually carried their business a fair way (until it became clear that WM just sucked in the face of iPhone and the WM team didn't give a rats ass).
Will it work? Who knows, but it is refreshing now and then to see a new CEO execute on an actual strategy rather than trying to push out a few good quarters just to collect bonuses and retire. Remember when John Sculley took over Apple - no new strategy, just pushed out more crappy hardware with a dated OS that developers eschew. Jobs came in, took his OS from his former company with him, and focused deeply on hardware design. That puts Elop a lot closer to Jobs than Sculley in my book.
Not cool?
Heh.
I deal with MS products every day on my PC. I *do not want* this garbage on my phone too.
I assumed that most other people are thinking the same thing.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
...in their own manufacturing facilities. Most out of ~dozen of them not in China, half in the EU, one even quite close to Cupertino.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I was rather amazed to find out, thanks to some casual Googling, that Nokia still manufactures (some of) its own devices. Nokia still has factories! However, following the general trend of US information technology companies, Microsoft would likely acquire that manufacturing capability only to sell it off to the highest bidder.
Under a loose definition of manufacturer, Microsoft is already a manufacturer of devices like the Xbox and the iPod-wannabee known as the Zune.
I think the word "designer" would be more appropriate when refering to products marketed by companies like Apple, which outsource the actual production to other companies. I'd reserve the word "manufacturer" for companies with significant manufacturing capability like Intel. Many Japanese electronics companies can still be considered manufacturers under this stricter definition, even if their factories are located in another country, since they operate those factories under sole management or joint venture agreements.
As for Oracle, it's more like an elephant than a gorilla. When it moves stay away.
What exactly is the X360 doing for Microsoft?
2nd Quarter, Entertainment and Devices
Revenues: $3.7 Billion Dollars. Up $1 Billion Y/Y.
Operating Profit: $637 Million Dollars.
8 million Kinect sensors sold in sixty days.
Console sales up 21%
XBox Live membership up 30%.
Microsoft's second quarter Kinects
Kinect has the potential to take the UI of "Minority Report" and the re-incarnated "Hawaii 5-0" mainstream among home users.
It can plausibly described as a breakthrough tech in robotics. Nothing this capable has ever been so cheap and its developed is being fueled and funded by the XBox 360.
The "next generation" console may not be a console - but something more like a peripheral for your OnLive gaming "app" that plugs into your Internt- enabled HDTV.
This is not the end of nokia, they also make...successfully dumb phones. Heck, most people still have dumb phones, and there is still a significance market for people who want a phone that is just a phone, functions as just a phone thats not confusing, small and fits in your pocket easier, cheap, with a long battery life, who's most complex features are a camera or mabey a phone book. At the end of the day, nokia will continue to successfully make phones for these people, who get these phones, free after subsidies for signing up for a cell phone plan with major US providers.
Their smart phone line is done. I am shocked, offended and disgusted. "Nokia fanboys" is now a term which is past tense. As a n900 owner, I was expecting the N9, with meego, with great enthusiasim. Or even a much speculated n910, with USB host mode, and updated specs to match the latest ARM proccessors in phones (1 ghz snapdragon, more ram, etc...). Or wait, that could have been the N9.
my next phone I am going back to Motorola and not looking back. Nokia...go fuck your self.
Yes, there was a $1B mistake with the early XBOX 360. That was written off and paid for a couple of years ago. But, despite that, its proving to be a successful profitable platform - being profitable since 2008.
Im not sure where you get your WII numbers - could you cite your source?
XBOX 360 currently enjoys about 30% market share compared to WII at 36% and PS3 at about 32% (cite). Thats not "two to one" - its 6 percentage points. If you look at the numbers, the WII is loosing market share rapidly. 2010 was a decent year for the Entertainment and Devices Business but revenues were down a bit. You can read the gory (and boring) details in our annual report. Dont forget that the XBOX business is a systems business - we make money many ways with the XBOX system. For example, in July 2010, this article explains that XBOX Live is a $1.2 Billion dollar business. Steam is close to that (cite).
Big companies can make costly mistakes and still thrive. Look at Intels recent $1B problem with SandyBridge. Nobody seems to be freaking out about that (will not too much anyway). There stock price hasnt even really taken a hit.
-foredecker.
Jibe!
Then we would have to buy a phone?
And the interface looks totally ridiculous - lots of stupid square boxes. It doesn't even have cut and paste!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Microsoft had a lot to do with Toshiba's endless push in the HD format war against everybody else in an attempt to have everything from wall clocks to vending machines run Windows. See how much Toshiba spent and how far it got. Nokia is next. Sleep with kids, wake up wet.
Comments I couldn't resist reposting:
- To Elop: Say again, captain Ahab, what is your goal?
- Two turkeys don't make an eagle..
Regardless I still can't understand with the option to buy and iphone or android based phone why anyone would go with MS. At least with PCs (versus Apple computers) you can pay much less (and get much less along with crappy windows bloat) but why pay the same for a windows mobile phone when you can get a clearly superior android or iOS.
That I've seen so far here in south-east Asia.
I've finally had to change my ring-tone. No one in the States had a Nokia so the default ring was OK. Not here...
Sorry, Nokia was toasted before you were. Therefore, surprisingly, they are even greater losers.
... the "Ultimate Music Software"??
Fail.
Microsoft bashing again? Is it any wonder this site's readership is a tiny fraction of what it used to be. Someone should buy Slashdot's parent company and shut this piece of crap down already. And for the record I don't personally own anything Microsoft.
"Buy" largest handset maker on the planet and have them exclusively ship your platform.
No sig for you!!
Microsoft pays dividends.
On options?
Think about it more globally for a second. If they focus on the Chinese market while developing a robust competitor to Android and iPhone, they might survive the disaster in the Western markets.
It's easy to forget that Apple and Google can't make much money in China (or any emerging market) because they price themselves out of it. It's why you see "Apple" computers running Windows XP. At the moment, Nokia's "expensive" enough to be seen as a luxury brand here AND they have enough leverage and guanxi to prevent being totally fucked over by the Chinese government startups.
That'll change in a few years, though. Elop has to REALLY take advantage of this market while it lasts.
What Nokia does well is simple and reliable phones. My last phone before my iPhone was a nokia and I used to call it the "tank phone". I would drop it, fall on it, and generally treat it in ways you should never treat electronics. I even dropped it in the ocean one time. The phone still worked after it dried out and, surprisingly enough, it even sounded the same. IMO, Nokia should capitalize on these strengths. Simple mobile technology that is cheap and just works can be very competitive, albeit in a different way than smart phones.
Elop has stated that the decision was taken by the whole board but he is misleading.
He was brought in for the very reason that the Nokia board held no technical knowledge. All it took was Elop and Dame Marjorie Scardino to swing the vote their way. The others did what all ignorant board members always do; they looked at each other for leadership, found none, and so went with Elop and Marj. They maybe be rich, they may be smart in so many ways, but when it comes down to it, they are also sheeple. Baaaaagh.
Not everybody needs a smartphone. This Steve's piece of wisdom is not applicable to every market. Nokia was never very popular in US, so for many readers this may seem natural, but there is much more to Nokai than what can be seen from the other side of the Atlantic. For starters - they've got brand, huge number of units in the field, IPR and standardization activities and ties with infrastructure vendor NSN - none of which Apple has.
Here is your citation...
http://www.google.com/images?q=nokia+made+in+china&biw=1680&bih=901
Probably because Elop owns Microsoft stock. (that's my guess)
More and more phones are fashion accesoires or cool gadgetry. I was a typical loyal Nokia user. I just wanted a 'dumb' phone which I just could call with. I liked also from Nokia they had a relatively "simple" consistent user interface so it was easy to sends sms, add contacts and reminders. I was always interested in the "smarter" phones, but their criple functionality and user interface didn't promised a complete solution and browsing (remember WAP or CHTML?) was also an expensive and utterly cumbersome experience. I was already looking for other devices when Nokia decided to leave the consitent user interface idea and was horribly faling with their graphical clumsy interfaces. So why did I buy my first non Nokia device?
;)
I wanted a smartphone HTC Desire HD(Android) because it very easy to make a call and also did browsing well (flash), it has a easy user interface and is much less a non-walled garden then say Apple. My wife bought one as a fashion accessoire. And now even in Africa people have more and more an appetite for smartphones, even the ones from Apple.
So Nokia has been dead since the Apple IPhone, and probably earlier when they didn't innovate enough or at least not into the direction the market is heading now. Smartphones. Nokia still makes very robust and reliable phones, but the majority doesn't think of Nokia anymore when it comes to phones. Both their marketing and their lacking product vision has been a contribution to that. It's not just the war about ecosystems, where Elop speaks about, because before that even happened they already lost it. It is simply too late for Nokia to enter the current market, their just a zombie Dinosaur.
So now they partner with Microsoft. They too have a similar faulty product vision (much centred around cheap devices) and is also not on the retina of the market. Also they have thrown away all their earlier investments in their own developed operating systems. They in fact give the signal, we don't know how to do software. This lacking view about software will not help them to get an ecosystem but certainly explaines why they partnered with Microsoft. It's these dinosaurs that lack any creativity and innovation when it comes to phones. Both Microsoft and Nokia have large marketing budgets which somehow still doesn't help to make their products more tasty. And I think also it was the most stupid idea of Nokia to get Elop there, since Microsoft has been dead in the phones market for a long time. At least get someone from Google or Apple (Steve ?
So it's a double whammy to Nokia for not being able to innovate in the proper direction and see how user needs change. The partnership with Microsoft will not payout. This is not only my view, investors did ditch the Nokia stock when the news came out about the partnership, it lost 9%.
You know, I can't help but thinking that if Nokia had ditched Symbian and gone to Android like many were predicting they may do around 2-3 years ago (when the iPhone was eating up the (smart)phone market alive), they'd probably be No.1 (or a very close No.2) by now across the entire mobile market space.
This reminds me the end of Soviet Union.
1. A large organization has problems -- not serious enough to destroy it immediately but requiring some significant changes to avoid, that also happen to be the changes plenty of people demanded.
2. Someone starts improving things, occasionally making mistakes, and taking more time than initially expected. Initially enthusiastic support goes back to average popularity of the leaders.
3. Some outsider "smart guys" (USSR: Reagan and his "Libertarian" friends, Nokia: Microsoft) proclaim that current direction is no better than the original problem but THEY know how to fix things by following some massively successful example (USSR: USA, Nokia: Microsoft Windows CE).
4. Outsider "smart guys" start massive propaganda campaign to scare the shit out of management.
5. Management gives in, and appoints followers of "smart guys" ideology as their saviors (USSR: 1992, Nokia: now).
6. The above mentioned followers run the organization into the ground, all the while claiming that things are going to get better once their plan is completed.
7. Organization is destroyed the "plan" is revealed to be "destroy the organization, pillage everything valuable and deliver it to the foreign masters".
8. "Smart guys" leave, ruins of the organization are being run by a bunch of local clowns who still spout the ideology of "smart guys" with various distortions (ex-USSR: 1998, MSNokia: in about five years).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Apparently Palm's WebOS has disappeared from the scene.
From Apple Outsider, I'm told:.
"Microsoft buys Nokia for Zero Billion Dollars"
This causes either choice paralysis, sending buyers screaming to Apple for relief, or buyer's remorse.
Going to Apple thinking that someone Apple is there to 'provide relief' is a mistake.
Apple exists to benefit Apple Shareholders. Back in 1995 the Apple CEO said "we are committed to maximizing shareholder value" - and the way to do that is to take as much as you can from the consumer.
That's the MS business model now. Why innovate, when you can litigate?
From groklaw.net:
NOKIA: Here's Why We Jumped Off The "Burning Platform" Into The Frigid North Sea
Nokia’s history of innovation in the hardware space, global hardware scale, strong history of intellectual property creation and navigation assets are second to none....
There are other mobile ecosystems. We will disrupt them.
[PJ: Hmm. I wonder if there's a connection between those two sentences. This isn't about patents, by any chance...?]
Seriously, Why doesn't nokia develop and release the N-GAGE 2?
I'm sure it would sell well, be well developed, and easily compete with the 3DS!
Or they at least should do it as a joke, like before they declare bankruptcy. I would love them for that.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is also the world's expert at Right Around the Corner. Isn't the effect of that to chill customers into not buying the Last of the Old Generation? Except Right Around the Corner ... turns out to be several corners...
Could this pulverize Nokia's sales to hasten the end? What would MS do with a yard sale of the scraps of an imploded Nokia?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Microsoft in general has proven that it got lucky with DOS and was unscrupulous enough with partnered companies to end up with Windows (not to mention they had no competition) to be the operating system "OS" of the world. Now things have changed, big and bloated it not what we want, we want portable and secure. Things that Microsoft has yet been able to attain either by lucky or skill and understanding of the market place to take a large portion of the market. So you put the two together and you will have a real mess!
Thats just my opinion, time will tell!
"Once made" is even slightly inaccurate... apparently they have a tendency to split out some activities while transforming the most visible Nokia - Nokian footwear seems very much still around. Or tires.
Who knows, we might eventually see "wireless / backbone / cellular R&D" becoming separate from consumer handsets. Or even "feature phone" and "smartphone" divisions going their own way.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Noika isn't signing up as just a WP7 user. They're becoming a significant part of the future of WP7 in this.
And that's the interesting thing... is this more a desperation move by MS or by Nokia? Clearly, Nokia needed something other than SymbianOS. While MeeGo looks nice enough, they don't know how to market it any better than they marketed SymbianOS, and Intel's being Intel -- lots of help on the tech, but not much on selling it.
Nokia's own CEO admitted they couldn't compete (well, he said "differentiate", but I ran it through my buzzword translator, and what we really said was "compete") against the rest of the world doing Android, or Apple's iOS.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's WP7 does less to compete directly with iOS and Android, and seems to perhaps be the smartphone OS for people who don't really want smartphones. Unfortunately for them, that's also how it's sold ... 2 million in the first quarter, which isn't horrible (sure beats 1,000 or so Kins), but Apple sold 16 million iPhones that same quarter. They have a few companies, like Samsung, interested, but no one committing to it... until Nokia. For a price.
And I think that price is that they're setting up another seemingly open but really proprietary platform. That seems to be all the MS understands these days. They didn't this with Toshiba on HD-DVD. Sure, it was "open", anyone could sign up and make an HD-DVD player. No one actually did, unless you count Samsung adding partial HD-DVD support to an otherwise Blu-ray player. The reason was simple: Toshiba and MS controlled the platform, and the royalties from that platform. So Toshiba could see HD-DVD players at a loss, since they got it back on disc royalties. No one else would make such a devices as a second-class hardware developer in that market.
It might be a little easier in the smartphone business... after all, Android vs. WP7 only needs to be a difference in firmware on identical hardware. But where's the incentive for anyone else to back WP7 now, knowing Nokia will always have better terms, and more control over the platform's direction than anyone but MS. This may finally get Microsoft their wish. They have been copying Apple, sometimes well (Zune HD was nice hardware), sometimes poorly (pretty much everything else) in the MP3, PMP, Smartphone progression, even the model of the Zune store, the proprietary software, etc. With Nokia as a partner, they may actually do this better than in the past, but does the world already need another proprietary platform. Oh, wait, we already have a better one, with HP and WebOS. Does the world actually need two more?
The other thing... Nokia rightly acknowledged that this isn't just smartphones, but whole hardware/software gene pools. Every other platform covers smart phones and tablets. Android and iOS extend down into PMPs like the Archos and iPod devices. HP claims they'll put WebOS on the desktop, even. Sure, remains to be seen if that'll work out well, but here's the thing: Nokia definitely needs this to extend beyond the smartphone. Microsoft has so far said that Windows is for tablets. Either these merge somehow, or MS is doing to have rival divisions selling the same thing, possible more against each other than the outside competition. The alternative is that Nokia doesn't get the same scope of system every competitor has, and WP7 fails as a result.
-Dave Haynie
It's particularly ironic for such a Quixotic quote to come from the company that has abandoned Maemo and MeeGo, the only platforms that even possibly could beat Android (not that it'd be easy). If that's their goal, they just took a huge misstep.
A lot of the super serious business press has been writing that this decision will finally relieve Nokia of its outdated symbian OS. Please tell me nobody in charge of real money is reading these papers?
First kernel release date:
2004 - EKA2 (Symbian)
2003 - Linux 2.6.0 (Android, Meego)
2000 - Mac OS X (Apple iOS)
1997 - EPOC32 inspiration of the written from scratch EKA2 symbian kernel
1996 - Windows CE (Windows phone)
1995 - Linux runs on ARM
1991 - Linux 1.0.0 (Android, Meego)
1986 - Mach (OS X, Apple iOS)
UI API release date:
~2005 - SGI(android) turned into android in 2008
1992 - QT (symbian) ported to symbian in 2008
1989 - NeXT turned into OS X in 2000, iOS in 2007
1993 - WinNT turned into WinCE in 1996
Symbian was designed for mobile use, giving some core advantages that are near impossible to bolt onto an OS later on. It was designed for ARM instead of X86 and it was designed for lower power use. For example it tries to limit the amount of context switching needed during idle time. WinCE and Symbian EKA2 have the only kernels which can claim being designed for real-time tasks which matters for devices that have the main processor doing signals processing.
I only see one obstacle to Nokia having the nr1 spot in WW smartphone sales. Everywhere in the world people buy Nokia phones except in the US. Odds are an OS isn`t gonna change that. Buying RIM might do the trick.
The obvious choice would be to forget QT and port over enough of the android platform to run a lot of android java apps on Symbian. (Java and opengl are already done, SGI is not) It means a headstart over all those people who are working on porting linux to whatever their hardware people brewed up this time. It should be possible reuse a bit of Nokia specific stuff since its possible to wrap abstract java interfaces and a java based gui over existing code.
It would mean that a large chunk of the android apps out there will suddenly work on symbian.
This windows move is a suicidally stupid, poisonous and as desperate as McCain putting Sarah Palin on the ticket.
Tinky Winky, is that you?
Considering that the fasted growing phone OS in the world, bar none, is Android, which follows a similar "throw 200+ phones out there, let the market find the 'good' ones" strategy, this guys whole point pretty much fails completely.