Nokia Shareholders Fight Back

MohammedSameer writes "A group of nine young Nokia shareholders are fighting back. They posted an open letter for Nokia shareholders and investors asking to be elected in order to bring sanity back. They are also planning to challenge the company's strategy and partnership with Microsoft."

Comments

Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Sell NOK

Buy GOOG

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[cob666]

Microsoft has some nice embedded operating systems that run on a LOT of devices and I don't see why Nokia has to only produce 'Smart' phones with a MS OS running on them. There is still a very large percentage of people that are NOT using a smart phone and have no reason to buy a smart phone when their current phone dies. Nokia would be foolish to stop producing regular cell phones that just make phone calls and there is no reason why these phones can't run an MS embedded OS. Hopefully Nokia will reduce the number of different models and focus on one or two regular phones and one or two smart phones.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[h4rr4r]

Why pay MS for a feature phone OS when they already have one they can use?

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[SausageOfDoom]

The underpants gnomes stare at you in disgust.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Off Topic:

If A equals success, then the formula is _A = _X + _Y + _Z. _X is work. _Y is play. _Z is keep your mouth shut. -- Albert Einstein

Nice characters.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[CptPicard]

This idea fails at the fact that Symbian is actually a far superior embedded OS than anything MS has to offer, and that, uh, they've been making phones that do other things than "just make calls" for the past decade or so.

It's just that they failed to read the customer in the shininess department, that's all.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[h4rm0ny]

If you read these people's manifesto, you'll see that one of their pledges is to make Meego the focus of Nokia's future phone O/S's. That's not bad. They also have the pledge to extend the lifespan of Symbian by five years. *shrug* But they also have one of their main pledges to focus their hiring strategy on young people! And it's hard to find any actual names of these nine shareholders and whether they actually have significant shares or whether they are nine people who bought a few yesterday so that they could make this statement. I can't even see why this is on Slashdot except for the opportunity to troll us commenters in the hopes of a nice post-count boosting MS-bashing fest.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[21mhz]

This idea fails at the fact that Symbian is actually a far superior embedded OS than anything MS has to offer, and that, uh, they've been making phones that do other things than "just make calls" for the past decade or so.

You are probably confusing it with S40, which is alive and well.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[exomondo]

I don't see why Nokia has to only produce 'Smart' phones with a MS OS running on them. There is still a very large percentage of people that are NOT using a smart phone and have no reason to buy a smart phone when their current phone dies.

They aren't going to produce *only* smartphones, it's just that their smartphones will *only* use WP7 - except for that MeeGo device (if it is indeed a phone). Symbian is only being discontinued from smartphones, where quite frankly it's awful anyway.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[chentiangemalc]

Symbian is far superior embedded OS???? have you used it? How about SLOW, UNRELIABLE piece of crap? I have a few phones around the house on symbian and while I could appreciate the simplicity, the simplicity + slow responsiveness = crap user experience. WP7 is a great OS, been using it for months, it is far superior to Symbian in a almost everyway i can think of oops! forgot i was on slashdot . and praising a Microsoft product will result in sending me to flame war hell

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[BasilBrush]

I have a few phones around the house on symbian

Er... how does someone who's whole purpose on slashdot is to post Microsoft positive posts come to own so many Symbian phones? You're full of shit.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[operator_error]

Huh?

Buy low and sell high to make a profit. GOOG is quite pricey, NOK isn't. It is your job as the investor to decide based on fundamentals, including the buy-in price, whether or not the price of the stock is deemed likely to increase. Some folks might view the NOK price as currently undervalued, which makes this a good time to invest.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[hitmark]

Buy HP more like it, as webos is much closer to maemo/meego then android is.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[tbannist]

Of course, the whole point of the article is that a significant number of employees and investors think the NOK price is going to quickly become "overvalued" for all the bad reasons. Frankly, trading in your 4th place operating system for the 5th place one seems like a poor decision. The decision to use Windows Phone 7 reeks of cronyism.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[Anonymous Coward]

The underpants gnomes stare at you in disgust.

That's cool. My point was what you don't buy stocks at their peak, and sell them at their low point. You typically want to do the opposite. Nokia is heading for a low point, and google just might be peaking.

Besides, the original post smacked of 15 year old fanboy bullshit. I imagine the same kid 5 years ago saying "sell Microsoft, buy RIM" in regards to mobile tech stocks. Microsoft was getting their butts kicked then but the stock is fine today. RIM isn't doing so well, and Apple kicked both their asses in profitability.

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[RockDoctor]

It's just that they failed to read the customer in the shininess department, that's all.

Speaking as a Nokia user for around 10 years now, I wasn't aware that I had a "shininess" department. Do I need one?

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[Deefburger]

"I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian." Funny, that's how Fractional Reserve Banking works....

Re:Just trade in the Nokia for an Android

[SausageOfDoom]

For future reference, here is the correct form:

1) Sell cheap stocks and buy very expensive stocks
2) ???
3) Profit

almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nursie]

Just to join int, try to stop the company that made the best, most reliable phones for the longest time from being sold down the river by an MS plant.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to SGI. Or have we forgotten Ricky "I love Gates" Belluzzo?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[nicholas22]

Joining ints is really efficient, as opposed to joining strings. Well done.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[timeOday]

But if they're successful in thwarting the Microsoft takeover, then what? Arrive late at the Android party? Sell dumbphones for $14.99 at Target? Everybody criticises companies like Silicon Graphics for sticking with the old strategy too long, but also for jumping on the bandwagon (such as SGI taking a stab on NT).

Being outmoded is an extremely difficult position to be in.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Yold]

that made the best

Past tense. They no longer do. No matter how much "geek cred" their OS has for using QT or whatever Nokia phones use nowadays (haven't even seen one for years), the company is in crisis. Just because us geeks like something, doesn't mean the general public or shareholders will. Windows mobile in the past was absolute garbage, but it looks like their new OS could at least be a contender.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[jpmorgan]

"MS plant?"

I can guarantee a strategic decision of this magnitude was made with the full knowledge and consent of Nokia's board of directors: http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/corporate-governance/board-of-directors

Certainly none of them come from Microsoft.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Zelgadiss]

Better late than never.

They should catch up after a few phones.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[unity100]

majority of the world is still buying those 'dumphones' you speak of, and have no problem with them.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Lumpy]

They still outsell ALL Android phones and Apple phones COMBINED. Nokia is the giant in Cellphones. Outside the usa they are still the first choice as Symbian offers features that Android does not or has not until recently. Honestly even my 3 year old 5800 Nokia smartphone has features that are just showing up for Android, and may some day hit Apple.

They are hurting, but it's because of management that is worthless and nearly incompetent, and the company not having any direction.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nursie]

Umm, no. They were in the lead for smartphones for quite a while (decade perhaps) and there's no reason not to be on top again.

Outside the US they're still a well respected brand with a good market. RTFA for a good strategy. The last thing nokia need to become is a handset manufacturer for MS.

The 'old' strategy was aimless development of so many different handsets it was nuts. They need to focus in on a real strategy.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Archangel Michael]

The battle is on for the third tier phone OS. iOS and Android are the top two, everything else is an "also ran". This includes Palm's offering, Meego, Symbian, and WP7. You have four legitimate third tier phone OSes, two are offerings of Nokia.

As for the other two, Microsoft would have to pay me to make a phone WP7(radioactive), and Palm's WebOS will only come on HP products (yawn). This leave Nokia with two viable third tier products, one Open source and similar enough to Android, and too far behind it to really matter, and Symbian, the $14.99 walmart phone.

Nokia has lost the Smartphone market. UNLESS they do Android, and make a phone that is unlocked, easily rootable and with a "we support users not telcos" attitude.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Richard_at_work]

The mobile phone market is way larger than the "oooh shiney smart phone" crowd. Nokia are doing fine in the rest of the market.

Ferrari don't compete against Ford in all vehicle markets, and neither do Landrover. Nokia doesnt have to go toe to toe with Android or Apple, as long as there are people wanting just a phone - Nokia sell plenty of those a day.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Desler]

Windows mobile in the past was absolute garbage

Said by someone who most likely never used a WinMo OS. Unlike other phone OS during the formative years of WinMo it was always open for you to install any apps that you like, you could develop apps in C, C++, C#, etc of your choice and you could use frameworks like Qt, you could leverage existing code written against the Win32 API for use in WinMo apps (with some caveats of course) and was very customizable in comparison to almost any other OS for the times. If anything, the OSes running on other smartphones of the time were far more garbage than WinMo was.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[v1]

wow. that strategy letter was quite impressive. Bold, decisive, concrete, committed. Just what good leadership needs. Hope the best for them!

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nursie]

Why is Symbian the 14.99 walmart OS?

Why is meego behind?

Maemo's more capable than any other OS I've seen on a phone.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[thrillseeker]

Yet Android has the serious momentum. An investment now needs to be in something likely to be worth more, not less, in the future. If Nokia's OS is going to continue to lose market share then other options need to be considered.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LWATCDR]

Really? Why?
What does Microsoft bring to the table for a smartphone OS?
The only strengths I see are XBox Live integration and the Zune Pass.
The weaknesses are
1. lagging in features "multitasking, cut and paste, and custom ring tones."
2. Small library of applications. Heck I bet WebOS still has more.
3. Limited carriers in the US. Even the IPhone now beats it on that score.
So why would anybody buy a WP7 device? Mobile Office? Do you really think you will use office on your phone?
For me the lack of good gmail integration is a big loss but then if someone lives and dies by Exchange then WP7 will go head to head with Blackberry and I am not sure that it is better than a Blackberry in that space.
I just do not see it as a contender at all. It looks like at this point in time to be an also ran at best and very feature incomplete.
Thing is people are pretending that this is Microsoft's first OS in the Mobile space. It isn't called WP7 for nothing folks.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[geekoid]

The list a strategy. They have a plan.

Not RTFA has made you look like a complete dumbass.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[wjousts]

Exactly. Just witness how well Yahoo! is doing after refusing a buy out.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Znork]

Meego is easily capable of running a Dalvik vm, and Alien Dalvik demonstrates the capability quite throughly. As that would leverage and extend the Android ecosystem, I can't quite see how it would be behind in any way. Essentially it would be the andoid+unlocked+rootable that you're looking for.

One can see why Microsoft wants Nokia, but for Nokia, going with WP is utter folly; they're dumping their whole current workable and fairly easily fixable lineup for something that nobody wants.

One can wonder what their plan is if WP gets canned with Ballmer in a not so far away future.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Symbian's the Walmart OS because the UI is godawful and it lacks quality applications. Meego's behind because it's not yet done. Maemo's quite capable and if Nokia hadn't made the stupid decision to ditch the n900 and start over from scratch with QT, they would've gotten into the smartphone market as it was starting up, and likely found a fairly profitable niche.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[dnaumov]

They still outsell ALL Android phones and Apple phones COMBINED. Nokia is the giant in Cellphones

Er, no. Android devices alone outsell all of Nokia even without Apple. You could at least look up Q4 2010 numbers before starting to spew bullshit.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Archangel Michael]

If Meego is superior then where is it? Is it a Marketing Deficiency? I went to buy a smartphone a few months ago, never once ran into a Meego phone, at least not that I know of. Behind means not in front. If I can't find one, without LOOKING for it, and I can't even recall seeing one having gone looking at all the Smartphones that were out there, then it is behind. Quality doesn't matter if it isn't available.

Symbian is the 14.99 phone because if I wanted a better than 14.99 phone I would get a Smartphone (like I did). Granted, these other phones are priced with 2 year contracts, but since I'm paying for subsidized phone whether or not I buy one (no discounts for owning my own phone), I'm going to buy one that way. My phone, Droid X, was only $99 on Cyber Monday, with a 2 year deal. I had my last phone 2 years. In two years, I'll look at 4G phones and wash rinse repeat.

Maemo, the Linux of phones. Nuff said. (except Android is too, shhhh). It may be capable, but who (besides a few geeks) care about the things it can do over Android (rooted)? Do you really think those things are worth it to most people?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Desler]

And to add further, on any WinMo phone I ever owned you could do all this without ever needing to "root" the device. So basically even in comparison to the new golden boy "Android" WinMo was in many ways still superior. I'm not sure why a platform that requires any sort of "rooting" and has less application language choices is considered great but one that offers far more freedom of use and development is called "garbage".

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[b0bby]

The list a strategy. They have a plan.

But their plan includes stuff like this:

"MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products."

Really? How? Because this is what it comes down to. Maybe by bringing everything in-house they could do this, but I'd say it's a long shot. But then again, so is going with Windows Phone...

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[metamatic]

As for the other two, Microsoft would have to pay me to make a phone WP7(radioactive)

That's exactly why Nokia picked WP7.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nexus7]

Indeed. I was impressed with the lack of silly metaphors, such as "burning oil platforms."

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[commodore6502]

>>>company that made the best, most reliable phones for the longest time

Really? (checks) Hey look at that! I have a Nokia in my coat pocket (the "shorty"). It is a rather nice phone and even though it's nearing five years old, still works like a charm. No apparent degradation in battery life.

It would be a shame if Nokia got corrupted by Microsoft, as seems to have happened with many many companies that collaborated with them.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Shadow Wrought]

Having used both a iPhone and also a friend's W7 phone, I can say that the Windows phone was far superior. Just because Apple has better marketing and a built in fanbase doesn't mean Microsoft's product is bad.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Archangel Michael]

My version of "unlocked rootable" means more or less "I don't cater to the carriers, I cater to the person buying the phone". Meaning 'We'll let you update the OS even if the carriers don't want you to". So people getting Android 1.5 phones aren't stuck with Android 1.5 because the carrier locked the phone and isn't going to upgrade it to 2.1. or 2.2, even when it is fully capable.

That is what I mean. It isn't the geek side of me that says "I want to tether my laptop but the carrier won't let me" type of rooting the phone. Both have the same solution, I realize it. Most people don't want or know about such thing as tethering.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[idontgno]

If Meego is superior then where is it? Is it a Marketing Deficiency?

Eerie coincidence:

Amiga: at the time of its market debut, vastly superior in technology to its market competitors. Marketed like crap. Fell behind competitors as their technologies advanced past Commodore's anemic R&D.

Meego: at the time of its market debut, vastly superior in technology to its market competitors. Marketed like crap. Fell behind competitors as their technologies advanced past Nokia's (soon-to-be) anemic R&D.

Also, the names are disturbingly similar. As I said, eerie coincidence. Maybe.

Why, yes, I was an Amiga warrior in the platform flamewars of the mid-80s. Why do you ask?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[dmbasso]

Honestly even my 3 year old 5800 Nokia smartphone has features that are just showing up for Android

Please, excuse my laziness for not searching, but could you tell me what features are that? If I had more bucks at that time I would probably buy one of those... but now I am happy with my rooted Android. And no fucking way I would ever buy a windows phone.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Archangel Michael]

They didn't get enough from Microsoft. I can almost guarantee you that. Microsoft is trying to buy the market, I realized before this post. The problem is, Microsoft isn't buying the phones, Nokia is still going to have to sell them (or try to), and will most likely end up with excess inventory sitting around and whatever Microsoft is paying them won't pay for the production of unsold units. Nokia will be force to dump them on the market or grind them up, neither of which is good for Nokia, and only makes Microsoft look like it shipped/sold more WP7 phones than it really has, like the current state of WP7 phones in the marketplace really is.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[black_lbi]

You are comparing apples to oranges.
Apple does not make a sub 200$ phone. Not yet at list. I also don't know of any sub-200$ Android phone.
Maybe you're one of those guys that insists to use his phone only for making calls and that's fine. But you can't ignore the fact that the smartphone market (and its "offspring", the tablet market) is still growing. Nokia is really hurting in that segment. Its offerings are poor, too expensive, or (in the case of tablets) non-existent.
I've used Nokia phones with Symbian before. As a (dumb) phone it's been a great experience, but I fail to identify those great unique features you talk about. They don't have anything that could stand up to something like the Iphone or the Galaxy S in terms of features, ease of use and most importantly: available software.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[oh_my_080980980]

Missing features: support for VoIP, tethering, HDMI, Bluetooth serial connections, hot-swappable USB cards...

There's no support for sockets.

There's no C++ support for WP7, everything's interpreted byte code.

No multitasking

Yeah WP7 is awesome....moron.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

If anything, the OSes running on other smartphones of the time were far more garbage than WinMo was.

Just because an OS is flexible doesn't preclude it from being a piece of crap OS for a phone. (Said by someone who HAS owned a WinMo OS device.)

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[DrgnDancer]

I read the strategy, I see several potentially large holes in it. Off the top of my head:

Restructure alliance with Microsoft as a tactical exercise focused primarily at the North American market.

It's easy to say that, but how is the agreement written? *Can* they even do that without opening themselves to a breach of contract? IANAL, but I don't think these guys are either. Microsoft has lots of them though.

Revamp hiring strategy to target the top young software talent from around the world.

You and everybody else in the world. Why are the "Top Talents" going to go to Nokia instead of Google or Apple? It's easy to hand wave this in a bullet point, but it need *a lot* more concrete planning to even be a reasonable idea, let alone successful.

End of R&D outsourcing. Bring all core software and hardware development in-house. Immediate end to outsourcing structures where there are multiple layers of Nokia project managers and subcontractor project managers between product managers and the software developers (in some cases up to 90% of the team is management overhead).

Again, what are the contractual obligations here? The very word "subcontractor" implies a "contract" and few subcontractors are dumb enough to allow a "Nokia can end this relationship at any time, becasue they feel like it, with no penalty" clause.

That's just off the top of my head and I'm not even a business or law type guy. It's easy to make a list of bullet points and call it a plan. The Underpants Gnomes had a plan too, there was just one hole in it. Frankly it seems like most of what they want to do will cost a lot of money in the short term, which Nokia may or may not have to invest, and the ROI seems suspect at best.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[metamatic]

They didn't get enough from Microsoft.

Of course not. Nobody ever does. One thing you can say about every business deal Microsoft has ever done, is that Microsoft came out best from every deal. Pretty much every company that gets into bed with Microsoft gets screwed.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[TheRaven64]

Really? The Symbian kernel is a great design (much better than Linux for platforms where power consumption matters), and all of the reviews I've read of the N8 have been positive, so I assume that the UI has improved (yes, it sucked in earlier phones, although it was better than some of the abominations other companies were shipping circa 2004/5).

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Archangel Michael]

Ahhh, Amiga, Mac, Microsoft Flamwars of old. Good times good times.

Meego sounds like a two year old wanting something .... "meego potty", "meego home", "meego outside" .... "meego phone".

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Midnight Thunder]

I would vote for taking Android and forking it. That might sound like a crazy move, but at least they can differentiate themselves. Then again if they did that they would probably want to add some sort of compatibility to take advantage of the Android applications.

The other solution would be like to be to do like HTC: provide both Android and WP7 phones and see what the market wants.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[commodore6502]

>>>The 'old' strategy was aimless development of so many different handsets it was nuts.

Apple circa 1995, when they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Commodore circa 1993 and they did go bankrupt. Too many models can confuse customers - better to focus on just a few.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[jellomizer]

There is sticking with the old strategy too long. Then there is choosing the wrong strategy to jump on to.
As for SGI their real pain point wasn't IRIX or the threat of Microsoft. It was the cheap 3d (Matrox, VooDoo, ATI...) accelerated hardware coming out making SGI's improvements more irrelevant as the cheap stuff is "Good enough" Switching to NT really didn't help to defeat that threat. It actually exasperated it as it forced people to upgrade all their products giving them pause to compare the alternatives. Sure SGI was better but for half the price I can get a good enough PC that can run the same software.
If they stuck with IRIX SGI would have still failed but it would have been much longer like Sun Microsystems.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Archangel Michael]

Yup, I've been around long enough to have seen it many times over.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[CreamyG31337]

MEEGO for christ's sake. This has got to be the worst "news for nerds" website when we can't even remember what open source OS they are supposed to be making.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

We got and are getting screwed by our management. Tablets: 2002 -long before the N770, management said no. N800+phone stack no,Maemo, no, Semantic Web no, touchscreens no etc etc

our management spends all its time ignoring the experts (engineers, architects, PhDs etc) and instead fight personal turf wars. Do you know how many engineer jobs we lost because McDowel wanted a site in New York because she lived there. And just look at the mess made of our research division - once up there with IBM and now a rag tag mess of less than a hundred.

And that's nothing compared to how marketing screwed up ... what you see and get excitied over in Android and iOS, Nokia had years ago...

Symbian, probably the best operating system (forget the UI, you can change that). Maemo/Meego, the future of open source (you like that don't you?)...

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[TheRaven64]

1) He said 'outside the USA'. 2) He said 'phones' not 'smartphones'. Symbian featurephones outsell ALL smartphones, (including Symbian, Android, and iOS). The featurephone / smartphone distinction is pretty arbitrary from a user perspective - both can run third-party apps, but smartphones must expose a larger set of APIs.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[gotpoetry]

Because I had to reboot my WinMo phones at least once a day. Every one of them. I started many years ago with the original XDA and quit WinMo after my Tytn II. Over the years I had 5 different WinMo phones and each one was a slow buggy piece of junk.

Today I go weeks without ever shutting my Android phone off. That is why WinMo was garbage.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[painandgreed]

Having used both a iPhone and also a friend's W7 phone, I can say that the Windows phone was far superior.

How? I'd like to hear some specifics. What impressed you about it? Was it more fluid and lagged less in operation? Did it have a screen that was larger with better touch sensitivity? Better built in apps? Let's see some bullet points.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

If you only count the smartphone market, you're right, otherwise you're wrong.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Desler]

We were talking about Windows Mobile not the new Windows Phone 7. Hell you could have bothered to just read this:

Windows mobile in the past was absolute garbage, but it looks like their new OS could at least be a contender.

And how I said:

Said by someone who most likely never used a WinMo OS.

So basically all your complaints about how Windows Phone 7 doesn't do x, y, z are meaningless since that WASN'T what was being talked about.

Reading comprehension ftw!

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[davester666]

Yeah, except there's zero profit in those dumbphones. The low-end phone market is a commodity market, where you really only compete on price. Not conducive to making shareholders happy.

Particularly when they see you abandon the one area of the market where the competition is making money [profits, not just revenue] hand over fist [namely, Apple].

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[NuShrike]

How is HP surviving that partnership? Their printer and server divisions?

There's plenty of histories about the rest, but HP seems the odd man out, so far.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Desler]

Today I go weeks without ever shutting my Android phone off. That is why WinMo was garbage.

Samsung epic reboots daily
G1 freezes daily
HTC EVO reboots continuously after update

I could go on and on about anecdotes about Android phones crashing, freezing and rebooting endlessly after updates. Guess it's garbage as well, no?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RogerWilco]

The thing is that there are two problems for Nokia with that:
1) The low end is slowly being eroded by cheaper offerings from China and India. Their top end is being squeezed out by iOS and Android. In the long run there will be no space between those for Nokia to exist.
2) Margins. The cheaper less capable phones have very thin margins. Not enough to support any sizeable R&D effort. So that's another reason it's a dead end for Nokia.

Nokia needs to be in the high end phone market and doing well there to survive in the long run as a mobile device maker.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[NuShrike]

Hey morAn, they're talking about Windows Mobile, as in pre-7, not Wimpy7s. Try again.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[node_chomsky]

I hate joining string variables! That's why I love my TI-82* more than my TI-89, but loving something and needing something are different things, unfortunately.

*no string variables to begin with

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia is still doing well on a world-wide scale. You make it sound like they are doomed.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[JoeMerchant]

Try, just once, reading the linked article, reposted here because the site has had trouble keeping up with load this morning:

If you elect us to a majority in the Nokia Board of Directors we will pursue the following agenda:

* Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience.

* Maintain ownership and control of the software layer of the Nokia products. Software is where innovation, differentiation and shareholder value can most easily be created.

* Revamp hiring strategy to target the top young software talent from around the world. Only if Nokia is able to attract and keep the best talent in the industry it will be able to generate the level of innovation that is needed to achieve sustained growth and consistently high profit margins.

* Dramatically increase efficiency by eliminating outdated and bureaucratic R&D practices like geographically distributed software development and outsourcing.

* Avoid at all cost becoming a poorly differentiated OEM with only low margin, commodity products that is unable to attract top software talent and cannot create shareholder value though innovation.

If you elect us to a majority in the Nokia Board of Directors we will take the following concrete actions:

* Immediate discharge of Stephen Elop from his duties as President and CEO of the company. Appointment of a new CEO with an international mobile industry background. The new CEO will be committed to carry on the rest of the actions listed below.

* Restructure alliance with Microsoft as a tactical exercise focused primarily at the North American market. Release one or two Windows Phone devices under a Nokia sub-brand. Only if carrier acceptance, sales volumes and profit margins are satisfactory, consider releasing more WP devices and make them available in Europe. Windows Phone will not be the primary development platform for Nokia. The Nokia phones with Windows Phone operating system will simply take advantage of the existing developer tools and application ecosystem already put in place by Microsoft.

* MeeGo will be Nokia’s primary smartphone platform. This is where the bulk of the innovation will happen. If MeeGo does not bring great devices to market on an accelerated pace, this strategy will not work. MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products. To reduce time to market, all MeeGo R&D will be done in-house and in a single geographical location. If necessary, suspend cooperation with Intel and concentrate resources on innovation and releasing new Nokia MeeGo devices to market faster.

* Increase the lifespan of Symbian to a minimum of 5 years. Reap the profits of the existing market share and consumer preference that Symbian already enjoys in Europe and Asia. Increasingly use Symbian to target mid-tier and feature phone segments. Up-sell existing Symbian users to MeeGo. Focus Symbian efforts in specific countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America where Nokia and Symbian enjoy a high level of consumer goodwill and can be sold at healthy margins.

* Developer strategy based on QT with primary focus on MeeGo, but providing a credible developer story for Symbian. Enable developers to make money by targeting the huge Symbian installed based while simultaneously offering their best user experience on the MeeGo platform. All this with a common developer ecosystem that allows writing and releasing software for both Meego and Symbian with minimal interoperability work.

* End of distributed R&D. Transition to an R&D setup where 90% of all Nokia R&D takes place in only two geographical locations. One of them will be in Finland and the other will be defined later. There will be no more R&D projects with resources in multiple cities and different time zones. Only small tactical software projects will be allowed to tak

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[JoeMerchant]

few subcontractors are dumb enough to allow a "Nokia can end this relationship at any time, becasue they feel like it, with no penalty" clause.

Umm... so what did they do to MeeGo?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LurkerXXX]

Yep. The best headline seen since this all happened was:

"Microsoft buys Nokia for $0 Billion."

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Yvanhoe]

Arrive late with a name like Nokia and their reputation for reliability ? We have seen worse situations.
Late means that they can learn from the mistakes of their competitors and have a mature product from the beginning.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[s73v3r]

Nokia has lost the Smartphone market. UNLESS they do Android, and make a phone that is unlocked, easily rootable and with a "we support users not telcos" attitude.

That sort of attitude is kinda what lost them the US smartphone market. While I agree that there is more to the world than America (there's also a decent sized chunk of the world that is Not America), the US smartphone market is quite large.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LurkerXXX]

um, NO. Android outsells it in SMARTphones. Include dumbphones and Nokia is way, way ahead.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1372013

I won't call your post bullshit, merely uninformed. You might try that with someone else next time so you don't appear to be such an ass.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[TheRaven64]

Not sure about the 5800, but the one feature I actually care about in my current phone (four-and-a-bit-year-old N90) is that it has a built-in SIP client that integrates with the normal calling stuff, so when I'm near WiFi I can make cheaper calls. And the address book and calendar sync via bluetooth (seriously Apple, a cable for sync? What is this, 1995?). Oh, and tethering as a standard feature (you know, like it has been on every cheap phone I've bought since about 2002).

None of these are really 'smartphone' features, they're just basic functionality that I've expected in every phone that I've bought (except SIP, which was only standard in my most recent purchase, in 2006), but which seem to be badly integrated optional extras on a lot of newer ones.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

HP is now, in some ways, a completely different company than what it used to be. It has been on a long quest to become more like IBM Global Services than anything else. The old HP Way is gone. Massive layoffs, Corporate scandals. The old DEC shell it inherited reduced to nothing.

Even if you take this into account, HP keep itself some degree of independence on the high end market. It can offer HP UX, Tru64 for a while, OpenVMS. If if had embraced Microsoft more closely, like SGI did, it would have followed the same path: extinction.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[CaptKeen]

but since I'm paying for subsidized phone whether or not I buy one (no discounts for owning my own phone), I'm going to buy one that way.

That's not fully true. T-Mobile will let you go contract-free and subsidy-free if you bring your own phone. For a Smartphone, with data plan, etc, it works out to be about $20 less a month. I think they call it 'Everything More Plus', although you can't buy it online any more, you can from a store or by calling in.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/22/nokia-profits-slump

Yes. Ahead and losing profits.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[vbraga]

You should also take in account that SGI itself could have become what NVIDIA is today. Belluzo licensed to NVIDIA Sillicon Graphis IP related to 3D technologies, preferring to focus the company on the high end workstation market. A great number of talented engineers also migrated from SGI to NVIDIA, at this time.

"For the past 15 years, SGI has been the most important 3D graphics company in the world and has created many fundamental technologies for 3D computer graphics," said Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO and president of NVIDIA. "Our collaboration is bringing together the most talented 3D technologists in the world to develop products that will usher in a new era of breathtaking 3D experiences. This is a defining moment for the 3D graphics industry."

"NVIDIA has an impressive team of 3D technologists, an intense focus on delivering industry-leading technology, and the strongest product roadmap for the high-volume 3D graphics industry," said Rick Belluzzo, chairman and CEO of SGI. "This alliance with NVIDIA is a major step forward in our strategy to partner with industry leaders to develop groundbreaking visualization solutions and deliver them to our customers faster than ever before."

(Original Press Release)

SGI made all the wrong choices. What Belluzo did is corporate suicide.

He ditched the 3D tech business. He ditched IRIX. I don't really know what he expected to sell after this. Lemonades, maybe.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[afabbro]

Apple does not make a sub 200$ phone.

They make several.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Goaway]

Why are the "Top Talents" going to go to Nokia instead of Google or Apple?

Because they are in Finland, where neither Google nor Apple has much of a hiring presence.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Reality check.

2010 Nokia sold over 100 million Symbian smartphones, an increase of 48% compared to 2009. That's more than the next two competitors combined. On Q4/2010 Nokia continued to be the leader on smart phones with 28% market share, followed by Apple with 16%. First Android maker Samsung was fourth with 9.6% share, and that includes other devices produced by Samsung, not just Android. And this was practically without any sales in the US.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[jandrese]

WinMo had an absolutely atrocious interface that was as likely to stab you in the face as let you make a phone call. Granted, most all smartphones back then were as bad or worse (Symbian, shudder) but that's not exactly helping the case. That's why the iPhone made such a big splash, it was like the first time a company decided to actually test their devices with humans before sending them out into the real world. It didn't require five menu traversals to check your email, it came with a browser that could render most webpages at least somewhat legibly, the address book had a search feature that didn't require more information than filling out a 1040, it wasn't slow as balls with absolutely everything. Smartphones have come a long way in these past few years, and it doesn't help us to look back too fondly on the terrible devices of the past.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[afabbro]

I used it. WinMo 5 and 6. They were garbage. Painful garbage.

See, I'm an end-user, not someone who "leverages existing code written against the Win32API". Like 99.9% of phone owners...

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RogerWilco]

That might be true from a developer perspective, but as a user the WinCE/PocketPC/WindowsMobile offerings were very poor. I had several from 1999-2006. They never ever got a properly working interface for left-handed users like me. When using a stylus that is very annoying. And it took them forever to get ActiveSync to anywere near reliable. Or backing up your data, appointments and contacts, unless you of course had Outlook&Exchange as well, which we didn't where I worked.

I used Visual Studio 6 with the WinCE extensions (eMbedded?) to write applications for it. It was a pain compared to the Borland stuff we used in the rest of the company. Only when VS.Net came around and started to support it did things start to improve. I left around that time and got a Symbian 60 phone.

Maybe things have improved since then. But what I've seen is that MS only tries to make a good product if they have a real competitor. Maybe Apple woke them up like Netscape, Borland, Mozilla and others have done in the past. MS doesn't really innovate and improve things if left to their own devices.

Even 10 years ago there was very capable hardware out there. My Casio Cassiopeia had a 206 MHz ARM cpu, 32MB RAM up to 4 GB of CF, 240x320 pixels 64k colour display. In 2000.

Those are almost the same specs as the first iPhone had over 7 years later. But it didn't have a good user experience. The 16MHz Palm Tungsten V was much better. The hardware was there, but MS lacked the vision.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[didroe84]

They'd be much later into the Windows phone game than Android, they will still have to compete with other Windows phone manufacturers and nobody wants Windows phones anyway.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RogerWilco]

The just appointed Elop as the new CEO last year. As he came from MS, I think this is a deal that's been in de making for a while, and has been engineered by the board of directors.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[DrgnDancer]

Not necessarily anything. Maybe they switched those contractors to developing WP7 stuff, maybe they timed the switch for when they knew contracts were coming up (Which is easy to do when you're on the inside with inside information, rather harder when you're on the outside and don't know what those dates are, etc), or maybe they ate penalties, which just means that canceling more contracts means eating another set of penalties. I'm not on the inside at Nokia, so I don't have a lot of the information I'd need to make a strategic plan for them (Assuming I had either the inclination or the ability to do so in the first place), but that's kind of my point. From the looks of things these guys are in the same boat I am. They don't appear to have the kind of inside information they need to make a realistic plan (again, assuming they have ability, which seems questionable also).

These guys appear to be the rough equivalent of me and some buddies sitting around drinking some beers and figuring out how we'd run the Saints so they win a championship every year. Despite our obvious genius and very reasonable rates, Tom Benson has yet to extend us a job offer. I think he's trying to sabotage the team, personally; it's the only reason for choosing that slack Sean Payton over me.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Miamicanes]

> That sort of attitude is kinda what lost them the US smartphone market

No, what lost them the US smartphone market was a decision to quit making high-end CDMA phones, and an apparent inability (possibly patent-related) to make GSM phones capable of EDGE. Circa 2006, that basically meant Nokia's best phones were useless GPRS paperweights in the United States. And despite the availability of chipsets capable of both 850/1900 and 1700/2100 UMTS, Nokia took its sweet time supporting *anything* besides 1900/2100 UMTS on its high-end phones.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[DrgnDancer]

They're talking internationally, not "top Finnish talents". Indeed the very line I quoted says "Top talents from around the world". Since one assumes that the majority of those talents are not coming from Finland (or they would have "top talents from around the country"), I don't see how that's much of a advantage. Finland is a nice enough place I'm sure (I've never been there), but it's hardly a location that will make or break a job choice for most top talent.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[igb]

But at 5% margin on a wholesale price of a few tens of dollars, you'd need everyone in the world to buy a new one every year to fund an $8bn/yr R&D habit.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[JoeMerchant]

My point being, Elop appears to have pulled out of MeeGo big time (according to his "not to scale, not a projection" captioned R&D funding illustration slide), and they can do the same to any other relationship they wish to neglect or terminate.

The "Nokia 9" are clearly idealistic, I just hope they manage to get some commitment going back toward the MeeGo platform, I agree with them that it has the potential to create much more shareholder value than a "stay afloat on Redmond's boat" plan.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

both HP and IBM survived their deals with microsoft thanks to their huge sizes.

IBM had the services, servers and mainframes to back them up after the relationship with MS went sour (the whole OS/2 vs windows thing). HP had their servers and imaging division when MS partnered with intel and screwed everyone with windows vista (costed HP 1 billion to upgrade the whole line of desktops/notebooks, only for MS to cater to intel's pressured and make vista run on underpowered chipsets).

both companies at the time of their respective screw ups had revenues bigger than microsoft's. compare today's values as a reference point:

MSFT: 66.69B
IBM: 99.87B
HPQ: 126.03B

3COM managed to survive a deal with MS too, but that was in the early 80's, MS was much smaller than today and small business networking was a booming business, so 3COM had enough room to recover. but i can't remember anyone else.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[the_hellspawn]

Who?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[igb]

They may out-sell their competition, but they aren't making the margins. This is almost the ancient /. gag about business strategies:

1. Invest heavily to have the best product at launch, which is over schedule and over budget
2. Sell at the marginal cost of production or slightly below to build volume, so that you never repay the cost of development or your overheads
3. ???
4. Profit!

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sell dumbphones for $14.99 at Target"

Why not? Much like the atom processor lowered the cost of laptops, and dramatically increased their battery life - why can't i have a modern dumbphone - something that isn't made of glass, that can run on a single charge for a week, all it needs for me is bluetooth, and an SD card slot for some music. I miss having a phone that comfortably fits in my front pocket. I miss real buttons that I can use without looking.

After using an HTC Hero, and Iphone 3g for a few years, I have realized that I do not value being connected to my email and facebook 24/7 anymore. It was exciting at first, but I think I can manage without.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[gotpoetry]

To those people experiencing those issues, Android could be garbage. My previous T-Mobile MyTouch, my wife's G2 and my current Nexus One are certainly not garbage

1. to me.

Is it at a six sigma level for issues? No. But to me there is no comparison between the old WinMo and today's Android devices.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let's all go back to symbian! Brillant! Nokia's gonna make trillions once they just get their act together! I mean it's only about adding a little layer of lipstick on it and then it'll sell like glue, right?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LurkerXXX]

Sure, there's a lot more competition these days, so they make a lot of profit rather than lots and lots of profit. That doesn't make them a smaller market than Android and/or iOS today though.

They are still selling more phones every year. Their business is growing. They just aren't they only real player anymore.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[GreatBunzinni]

You strangely omitted the fact that Nokia is developing two smartphone platforms that are competing with Android: Meego and Symbian. As they predate Android then I really doubt that anyone can accuse Nokia of" arriving late at the Android party".

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

How can they be successful in catering to a niche market? That is what you are proposing. Unless they are not going after the US market. It might be the best strategy for them though. In Europe and elsewhere telcos don't control what phone you buy. If they can be successful at selling phones directly to consumers through non-telco stores it may not matter if telcos like them. Taking a "we support the people approach" and providing a really good product would put them ahead. Obviously iPhones suck, and Android isn't that great either. Android is successful without having many good apps. I think most Android users don't really buy or install much software. All this means is that the phone's built-in features matter more. If Nokia could do what Palm did they'd have a more successful phone then Apple or any of the Android producers. I think MeeGo could probably be that system which kills Android off if the battery life is "good enough". I'm am betting that a stable MeeGo phone with the right physical dimensions and design would kill the iPhone and all other Android phones. We need slimmer phones that don't do everything. Cut out the camera add seamless VoIP and design around it being a secure personal information device. What should result is something closer to the BlackBerry with better applications for end users as well that is easy to take with you (pocketable). What should be the selling point is not the features. It is the design. Apple knows this. Apple did a shitty design really. However they did one thing right. They made it look modern and cool and it has sold foundation. Where Apple is going to have a problem is keeping the masses. All in all Apple has done very well considering it only has one phone. Nokia needs to think more like Apple and focus on just a handful of solid designs for specific market segments. If they did that they could own the market again. I don't think it is too late. Being the App leader is not that important. Phones don't do multiple things well. The smart phone should be good at communication not Apps. That isn't to say you shouldn't focus on a few solid Apps. You should. The device should be designed around those critical Apps. Not around having a ton of Apps.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[dunkelfalke]

I used Windows Mobile 2002 to 6.5. Only WM5 was bad (before AKU3.5 that is). I actually enjoyed both WM2003 and WM6.1.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

Check your market share statistics, Chet.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what are the margins on a good dumbphone compared to a modern fashionable smartphone? And how much you think symbian development costs versus doing the same over their previous OS (which they still intend to sell until armageddon)?

Hint: there's a reason Nokia had 7th largest R&D budget. No, not of phone or IT companies but ALL of them.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[DrgnDancer]

Let's assume you're right. Let's assume that Elop pulled out of a bunch of contracts related to MeeGo when he signed up with MS (there is no guarantee he did, like I said, there are ways to avoid that). So he spent, I dunno, $500 million breaking all those contracts and then signed new ones with a bunch of WP7 dev shops. We'll also assume that Nokia ate all of that, and didn't get MS to pay for part of it as part of their new contract. Now when these guys take over you'll have to eat *another* $500 million breaking all the *new* contracts. Just becasue the last guy did something stupid that cost the company a fortune, doesn't mean you want your first action to be doing the same thing and costing the company another fortune. Especially if you're also paying contract termination fees to Microsoft, and eating the costs of the huge number of offshore layoffs these guys are talking about, and offering big cushy new salaries to all this talent you want to recruit, and paying out the golden parachutes on the executives they want to get rid of, and... Well you get the idea. I don't know how much money Nokia has in the bank, but this plan looks like it could stress Microsoft or Apple's cash reserves.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[KingMotley]

There are quite a few companies that did business with Microsoft that did and do very well. Like Intel. Like NVidia. Both were small players before Microsoft, and now are extremely huge.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Elop isn't completely wrong. Their platform is burning.

In 2008, they reported a 30% drop in profits.
In 2009, they reported a 90% drop in profits.
And then they reported another 40% drop in profits in 2010.

Elop is wrong for embracing WP7, but completely right when he threw his predecessor under the bus. Nokia is dying.

Nokia doesn't need to sell a shitload of phones to the 3rd world and developing markets. they need to start making money.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[peppepz]

If Meego is superior then where is it? Is it a Marketing Deficiency? I went to buy a smartphone a few months ago, never once ran into a Meego phone, at least not that I know of.

Meego is not in shops because it's not finished yet. You couldn't buy a Meego phone a few months ago for the same reason you couldn't buy an Android phone in Q2 2008, even though Android's development started not later than 2005. For comparison, the development of Meego started in February 2010.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

They had also approached RIMM:

No easily found URL in smart bar. Sorry :D

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have the "real" strategy, and no one knows what it is. But anything is better than M$ because, you know Bill Gates, and stuff.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

Indeed. I was impressed with the lack of silly metaphors, such as "burning oil platforms."

Burning Windows flags and throwing darts at Steve Ballmer photos? :D

2) Way to keep /. crowd happy!
3) ???
4) Profit!

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

Nokia has lost the Smartphone market. UNLESS they do Android, and make a phone that is unlocked, easily rootable and with a "we support users not telcos" attitude.

That won't happen. Nokia want to be unique and sell at higher margins and not offer stock. And think too much of themselves. So no, just no.

Get the Nexus or N900 if this is what you want.

Don't really know why you diss MeeGo so much but whatever. They where probably too slow there.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Nobody ever does.

Oblig. Apple fanboy here.

Apple.

1997, MacWorld? The scary, haunting visage of Bill Gates on the projector will always haunt my memories.

(I remember laughing at it at the time because I was pretty anti-Mac in those days).

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[peppepz]

The battle is on for the third tier phone OS. iOS and Android are the top two, everything else is an "also ran". This includes Palm's offering, Meego, Symbian, and WP7

Actually, in the world Symbian is the first smartphone OS by market share (37.6%), Android the second (22.7%), Blackberry the third (16.0%) and iOS the fourth (15.7%). Microsoft is currently a distant fifth with a 4,2% market share, and that includes both Windows Mobile and WP7.
(source).

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Americium]

So the alternative is what? Nokia and MS both fell behind, and the future of both companies does not look good. This partnership is the only thing I see that can bring WP7 to a large enough market share.

Unlockable, rootable, dual boot, are features that are irrelevant to the majority of phone users.

What is relevant is great hardware, and 3d acceleration, which my N900 has already. Combined with an easy to use SDK, which can port to/from windows/xbox/wp7 this may be able to compete with android. Don't forget the playstation phone runs android, so the barrier to entry for new mobile OSes keeps increasing.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

No review I've seen of the N8 has been positive.

However lots of people who actually purchased the phone has been.

Engadget camera fail and what not .. Also "omg it switch screen after 0.5 seconds! What to do?"

http://mynokiablog.com/2010/10/03/the-truth-about-engadgets-nokia-n8-versus-iphone-4/

* Awesome camera.
* HDMI.
* USB OTG (mouse, keyboard, ..)
* USB MS (HDD, memory sticks)
* Good navigation software.
* 720p video playback, also on external screen.
* WebTV.
* People complain on the browser but I assume you can switch to for instance Opera. So why does it matters?
* Flash Lite.
* Xenon flash.
* Something more I forgot to mention.
* QT

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

But.. but.. Microsoft would surely give Nokia *billions* worth of Kin 2^H^H WP7 licenses! Imagine how much that is worth!

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[JamesP]

Simple

Ship NOW (or better, ASAP) a Maemo/Meego phone. Simpler than the N900

Take what works and ship. Yes, Android sucked big time at the beginning as well. Guarantee updates (not too difficult) and ship

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[peppepz]

Can you point me to an Android phone which is not "locked"? I always buy phones from manufacturers, not carriers, and all the Android phones I've owned were locked at the bootloader.

Moreover, the big problem isn't the protection - root exploits are usually found soon, but then the new kernels you can install often miss some driver for 3D, bluetooth, 3G, GPS, ...

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

... the forgotten one was:

* Five (?) band 3G.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[JamesP]

The problem is Nokia never took Maemo seriously.

The Symbian feud dominated Nokia, and Maemo developers were treated like "the kids playing with linux"

Add to that the inability to fire people in a socialist country like Finland.

(note, not a Nokia employer, heard this through the gravepine)

What Nokia should have done is tear the Symbian division apart 2 years ago, and start shipping only Maemo, again, 2 years ago.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

Hint: there's a reason Nokia had 7th largest R&D budget. No, not of phone or IT companies but ALL of them.

This is why:
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/nokia-experiments-with-bubbles-interface-on-symbian-cell-phones-2011024/

Just what their developers should be doing! Amazing! ..

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LurkerXXX]

They are making money. About a billion a quarter in net profit.

I do agree they need changes and the MS one was the wrong one. They should have invested heavily and faster in Meego/Maemo.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

The other solution would be like to be to do like HTC: provide both Android and WP7 phones and see what the market wants.

My vote:
* Keep on short-term improving Symbian if they want to. Or keep it and just release it on more and cheaper phones.
* Go Android and WP with stock configurations. Ignore trying to steal the service market, develop their own shit. And so on. Just sell the phones. They already have been selling at low margin in the emerging market. That has worked? They are still number one? What say people would prefer anything else?
* Let MeeGo continue, release if they want to when done.

Three horse race? Nah... Rather seven horse.

Symbian, Android, WP, iOS, MeeGo, RIMM/QNX, WebOS.

Eventually join MeeGo effort with RIMM/QNX effort.

So on horse died? Two? They would still have horses running =P

And since they are the biggest seller of mobile phones why can't they sell for multiple OSes? HTC can.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

... sell what work. Scrap the ones which fail ;)

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[downhole]

You're saying there's no reason they can't be on top again? I can think of plenty of reasons. To have a successful modern smartphone OS, you need an application ecosystem. Apple has one. Android has one. Microsoft has a decent shot at building one. Nokia has had phone OSes for many years and has shown no ability to build an app ecosystem on the level that Apple and Android have. I think it's virtually certain that by the time they get anything new out the door, the overall ecosystem will be crowded enough that they won't have a chance, no matter how good the software is. Thus their future is to either get squeezed to death between better smartphones on top from Apple, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc and cheaper Chinese phones on bottom, or to adopt either Android or WinPhone 7. I can easily see WinPhone7 being a better deal right now.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[peppepz]

Why are the "Top Talents" going to go to Nokia instead of Google or Apple? It's easy to hand wave this in a bullet point, but it need *a lot* more concrete planning to even be a reasonable idea, let alone successful.

To target with their apps the oceanic market share of Nokia high and low end smartphones around the world.
Or, for being paid by Nokia - I read that many applications currently present in the WP7 app store were directly sponsored by Microsoft.

Symbian didn't get the developers' attention because its development tools (and deploying methods) were a pain. On the contrary, Qt was much appreciated by anyone who used it, and the Qt SDK was miles ahead of Carbide (the eclipse-based IDE for Symbian).

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

Q1 forecast where crap, but still profit. Q2 and Q3, who knows? Q4 if they have WP-phones ready?

2012?

I have no idea what was better long-term.

Too bad if they had focused on MeeGo and then it didn't worked vs Android. Then what? Symbian? No. Switch to Android and/or WP? Too late?

At least now WP got a much bigger chance of success, Nokia gets something with a market share and which doesn't compete head on with Android on similar merits.

MeeGo? Who knows? If it gets done and work there's nothing saying it will never ever end up in a Nokia phone.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

They'd be much later into the Windows phone game than Android, they will still have to compete with other Windows phone manufacturers and nobody wants Windows phones anyway.

If I put my own ideas on everyone else then no-one would want Apple products or vendor fucked up Android phones either.

But it seems I'm wrong.

So the phone run WP8. The interface is new. The label read Nokia. Interaction is smooth.

Microsoft and Nokia throw billions in marketing.

Consumer leave?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is more than I can say than everyone that get into bed with my ex

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LWATCDR]

How was it better?
I am an android user myself and the lack of multitasking alone is enough to kill it for me.
Really what is better about it?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

He probably meant if they would switch to Android? Then they would indeed be late.

http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2011/02/the-android-monopoly-and-how-to-harness-it/

But the winners on Android is ZTE, Huawei, HTC, Acer and all the other new players. And then there's the huge giants like Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony-Ericsson which also fight for their share. But it's a quite level playing field and do they really want to try to compete against the others in price and margins? Who got the most to gain? If Nokia jumped in, late, what would they gain? Would people buy their phones? Probably. Would it be a huge win? Maybe not?

WP is small. Samsung, HTC and LG are probably not that dedicated. At least for the moment. Nokia jumps in? And then what? Who own the market?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[aliquis]

Windows Phone 7 isn't Windows Mobile 6.5 though.

And the next major revision/version of Windows Phone won't be Windows Phone 7.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[peppepz]

The things I missed when I switched from Symbian to Android 1.6 were 3G video call / front facing camera, MIDP applets, programmable Bluetooth and BT file transfer, ad-hoc WLAN, Nokia maps, a decent camera, a detailed phone book, vCard support, a built-in file manager, zip compression, the PDF reader, the alarm clock not working when the phone is off, MTP support, a PC suite to sync stuff with the PC automatically when my phone was near the PC.

Most of these features were added by 3rd parties or with Android 2.0.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[TopherC]

I liked parts of the letter too, but I can't easily judge how much wisdom (or lack thereof) is being expressed. There seemed to be a lot of exaggerations but to some extent that's the norm for corporate management-speak. A couple easy examples:

Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience.

This strikes me as a particularly desperate statement that struggles against reality.

Dramatically increase efficiency by eliminating outdated and bureaucratic R&D practices like geographically distributed software development and outsourcing.

How dramatic? Isn't outsourcing done (like it or not) to reduce costs? Distributed software development can be made to work fairly well. Multiple R&D sites allow you to attract talent from a wider pool of applicants.

Big corporate shakeups like this are a sign of a struggling company. There are enormous costs involved in doing this. In some cases it works well, but it may also be posturing by some few investors that are hoping to dump the company later on for personal profit. If I were a shareholder I'd need a lot more convincing, more details, real data, and some independent confirmation of the data before I went along with it.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[MachineShedFred]

Microsoft came out pretty good on that one too: they developed another market for Office products (one of their few remaining non-Windows software revenue streams where they make a profit btw), they had something to point to during their DoJ troubles, got every penny plus a whole bunch back out of the stock they purchased, and made a $1B+ legal liability go away (the coming lawsuit over stolen QuickTime / Windows Media code that Apple would have won).

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Archwyrm]

> Can you point me to an Android phone which is not "locked"?
Nexus One?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Get real. Symbian is a smartphone platform(*) the same way windows is posix-compliant.

Meego is better but are there any other phone manufacturers interested in it? No? Ok, then it won't fly. Apple is an exception rather than the rule in the new marketscape. Live with it.

*) 2009+ definition

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RoccamOccam]

It's what my family and I use. I have a N900 and I have been very pleased with the T-Mobile plan.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[downhole]

Yeah, they could in theory run Android apps like that, but seriously, there's zero chance that they're going to take back a leadership position in the smartphone market with a hack that lets them maybe sorta run some Android apps sometimes. They need lots of real apps, written for them, or they will never be anything more than an also-ran.

WinPhone7 is essentially the only chance now, since I doubt they could actually be anything other than a commodity hardware provider under Android. With WinPhone7, they at least have a shot.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[T.E.D.]

Why, yes, I was an Amiga warrior

Same here, and it is about the most appropriate example that a person could come up with.

The Amiga problem really wasn't marketing. The problem was that they had a closed platform, while the PC was an open platform. No matter how much better they started than everyone else (and their lead was huge), they were doomed in the long run because it was just one tiny company trying to out-innovate an entire industry of other companies improving the PC platform. If someone wants to drag out the old videocassete analogies, it is also worth noting that VHS was a much more open format that Betamax too. When competing in the same market space, open platforms win every time.

Nobody is going to beat the Android platform, unless they find a way to be more open than Andriod.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[martin-boundary]

Icecream. If all ou sell is vanilla and chocolate, while your competitors sell 30 different kinds, guess where the customers are going to shop?

There's no substitute for knowing one's market. Apple has always been a niche company for artsy types who like to be different all in the same way. That's why a small number of quality models is a good strategy for them.

But that won't work for a different market. Nokia's customers aren't a niche, they're a wide cross section of the population. That's why they do so many different models, because people in that market are not all the same.

What Nokia needs to figure out is how to keep the processing backend standard and, while making the user interface front-ends as varied as possible.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[mvdwege]

All you say does not invalidate the point: WinMO was a garbage OS.

Setting aside stability issues, how about simply working as a phone? Taking multiple seconds to switch modes when you slide in the keyboard to take a call, so that the call runs to voice mail? That's a clear sign of garbage (Seen on a HTC TyTN, might have been a TyTN II, WinMO 6).

And leveraging the Win32 API is a pipe dream. The average Win32 developer is not an embedded developer, and has thus no experience in writing software for a phone platform, and it shows. This, by the way, is the same reason why touting 100% Linux capability is a pipe dream as well: phones are not workstations nor servers; they require software designed for phones, not desktop ports.

Mart

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... Blackberry?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, I'm in New Zealand, and it was once a Nokia stronghold. Now, they produce such a bewlidering array of phones that nobody really cares any more. Certainly nobody thinks "Nokia" as a smartphone - they're going to think of the Android at 400 NZD / 300 USD instead.

They've basically wasted the huge momentum they picked up in the early days of good, solid phones like the Nokia 5110 workhorse.

Nokia hasn't been a leader in innovation for ages - they're in the high churn, lots of models, get people to 'upgrade' as often as possible market, by making phones that don't really last all that well. Nobody that wants email or apps uses a Nokia - it's only those that want to talk or text.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[1729]

Are you referring to the iPhone 3GS? That looks more like a $500 phone to me: "For those who are not eligible for an early upgrade or who wish to buy iPhone as a gift, the price is $499 (8GB). In CA, MA, and RI, sales tax is collected on the unbundled price of iPhone." (From http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC555)

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[mvdwege]

When my colleagues were still on the old corporate standard (HTC TyTN with WinMO 6), I had a Nokia Communicator 9500. The differences:

1. When a call came in, I could pick it up with the phone open, or close the phone and take the call without delay. The TyTNs took multiple seconds to change into phone mode after sliding in the keyboard.
2. My addressbook was type-as-you-go. Type the first three letters of any of the details of a contact, and hit call the call button.
3. Despite the markedly lesser hardware specs, the interface had hardly any latency.

Symbian blew the pants of WinMO 6. WinMO was utter garbage.

Mart

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[zombiechan]

I find Mobile Office quite useful, a few weeks my last job contract ended and I had my Resume on my phone. I was able to make quick edits when needed and sent it out to interviewers.


The OneNote is also nice to make quick notes that you can access from your phone or your windows live account.

As for the lack of carriers, they're coming to Verizon later this year.

" lagging in features "multitasking, cut and paste, and custom ring tones." most of this stuff will be there by march. Plus I can multitask with the phone right now, just not with 3-rd party apps. I can still listen to music, while texting, or writing email or surfing the web. I can't imagine what other multitasking i need. As for copy paste, I've only seen a use for it very few times. Custom Ringtones is also not a big deal, but would be nice.

". Small library of applications." Well yeah.. it just came out. It's growing fast for the time it's been out.

"Thing is people are pretending that this is Microsoft's first OS in the Mobile space. It isn't called WP7 for nothing folks." This may not be their first phone, but they rewrote the OS.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[EXrider]

if someone lives and dies by Exchange then WP7 will go head to head with Blackberry and I am not sure that it is better than a Blackberry in that space.

Last I heard, WP7 didn't support on-device encryption yet, or even have any enterprise management tools available to manage it. Ironic, considering that it's a Microsoft's own product and every other modern ActiveSync (or BES) capable device can do on-device encryption. Obviously, consumer oriented features are a higher priority on WP7 than enterprise features.

Regardless, I still believe competition is a good thing and that the iOS and Android devs still have some things to learn from WebOS and maybe even WP7 in the future.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[ChunderDownunder]

you forgot QNX. Rim saw the writing on the wall and are fighting back

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

you mean a quarter of a billion.

MeeGo isn't a solution, it's a symptom of the problem.

The problem isn't the backend OS technology(Well, it is, but...), it's the lack of product vision. Nokia sells a crapload of phones many of which overlap each other.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia Plan B? What about Plan 9? www.nokiaplan9.com

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Meego is easily capable of running a Dalvik vm, and Alien Dalvik demonstrates the capability quite throughly. As that would leverage and extend the Android ecosystem, I can't quite see how it would be behind in any way. Essentially it would be the andoid+unlocked+rootable that you're looking for.

One can see why Microsoft wants Nokia, but for Nokia, going with WP is utter folly; they're dumping their whole current workable and fairly easily fixable lineup for something that nobody wants.

Shipping Dalvik/Android compatibility on top of Meego would still mean dumping a fair bit of their existing projects. They could still reuse much of the expertise they gained with Meego with a partial move to Android, since they do have the same OS kernel at their cores. Meanwhile, moving to WP7 means they pretty well throw 90% of the company away. At least with Android they could still customize to their heart's content. Meanwhile, I would love to have a company selling a cellphone and catering to me, rather than catering to the carriers.

One can wonder what their plan is if WP gets canned with Ballmer in a not so far away future.

I'm somewhat doubtful it would go that direction very soon, but I still fully expect them to have a fresh knife handy for insertion between the shoulder blades.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[caywen]

Reminds me of Access Japan's strategy of buying PalmSource so they can VM Palm apps on their Access Linux Platform. Look how well that turned out.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Znork]

Running Dalvik vm's in parallel with other applications is hardly a 'hack'. And the advantage of being able to run most linux applications means there already is a significant number of applications that otherwise require a netbook or other larger device to run.

Running a warmed over version of Windows Mobile on the other hand hardly solves their app problem... unless they're planning to run Dalvik on that. It doesn't improve their position, it puts them in a worse one as they have even fewer available options and even less third party support. It's not so much a shot as a shot through the head.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[exomondo]

They still outsell ALL Android phones and Apple phones COMBINED.

But this deal affects *smartphones* which is where Nokia lags behind.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[PylonHead]

Right, because a consumable dessert is your go to metaphor for the mobile phone market.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[exomondo]

They are making money. About a billion a quarter in net profit.

I think he meant in terms of their profit decline. Cheap chinese dumbphones are a dime a dozen these days so selling to the lowend is getting less and less profitable.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[dakameleon]

The problem with that all-too-cute headline is that it may be way off the mark.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[indeterminator]

The small text at the bottom of the page:

* Qualified customers only. Requires new two-year rate plan from a wireless iPhone carrier, sold separately.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[exomondo]

1. lagging in features "multitasking, cut and paste, and custom ring tones."

those have been announced at MWC yesterday.

2. Small library of applications. Heck I bet WebOS still has more.

Well it's an infant platform, an extensive library of applications doesn't come overnight. WebOS has been out for more than 18months and the app catalog is less than 7000, WP7 has been out for less than a 3rd of that time and already surpassed 8000.

Mobile Office? Do you really think you will use office on your phone?

It's not so much about producing content from scratch but being able to view, edit and sync everything so easily.

For me the lack of good gmail integration is a big loss

What's the problem you have with it?

Thing is people are pretending that this is Microsoft's first OS in the Mobile space. It isn't called WP7 for nothing folks.

Well it's their first attempt at this market, i mean WinMo is nearly a decade old, it was never meant to compete in the current market which is vastly different.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LurkerXXX]

Elop told Engadget today that that wasn't true.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/15/debunk-elop-never-said-microsoft-is-paying-nokia-billions-of-do/

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[dakameleon]

Eh? My E51 from 2007 came with 3G on UTMS 850 - see Wikipedia for full specs. Australia's largest network, Telstra, uses the 850 band, and they were giving these away free on basic plans.

Maybe these weren't sold in the US because every man and his dog was getting a RAZR, but I can see why Nokia stopped producing CDMA. Outside two carriers in the US, China is probably the only market that uses CDMA, and even Nokia openly acknowledges they can't compete with the low-margin Chinese brands.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LurkerXXX]

No, I mean about a billion.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[noc007]

On the topic of outsourcing, IMO it can be cheaper if done right. On paper it always seems like a great idea, but in practice it's not always the best idea financially and/or getting the same or better result in comparison to keeping it in-house. I've worked for companies where they have outsourced a particular department/function to companies where I am the one the job is outsourced to. My observation has been the success of getting projects done (e.g.: programing) or facilitating a role (e.g.: sys admin) rely on a few factors regardless of outsourcing or not.

The first is a golden rule of sorts on doing anything:
- Cheap
- Quality
- Fast
You can only pick two; NO exceptions. I've encountered so many upper management types that foolishly think they can get away with having all three. In my experience 9/10 of the time it turns out a lack of quality bites them in the butt sometime down the road when they assumed they somehow managed to achieve all three.

The second is communication. Mostly everyone in at least the US has experienced the pain of being subjected to some company's outsourced customer service and/or tech support that can't effectively communicate with both parties on the same page of understanding one another. I really shouldn't need to explain why communication, understanding one another is so important. Sadly this is something I have to constantly explain to my current boss with events like today where my non-outsourced colleague rebooted a number of production critical servers when he was asked to reboot just one secondary server.

Third is the employee's skill in doing the job. Again, another obvious one, but I've observed that it isn't always on the hiring menu. Additionally I've seen some people that interview well, but couldn't create a "Hello World" HTML page for a web developer position as an example. There's no point in hiring or keeping a hired individual to do a job that they lack the skill to do; even if it's an entry-level position with training, that person should be willing to put for the effort to learn and take notes. I accept that everyone has their own unique skills that can aide or hinder their ability to learn and be proficient with a particular task. However, I firmly believe anyone can learn to do anything as long as they put their mind to it. I barely have any artistic ability and my drawing skills are stick figures at best (XKCD is miles ahead of me); if I were to put forth the effort to learn how to draw and paint, I could become a good artist. I taught an A+ technician certification class at a tech school a while back and I had a retired Marine that served in the Vietnam War as one of my students. One could argue his best skill was killing and blowing stuff up. He worked hard and learned to be a technician and passed CompTIA's certification test without a problem. That leads me to the next point.

Lastly is attitude of the end employee doing the actual work. It boggles my mind how so many managers loose the plot when it comes to employee morale and motivation. Productivity generally is improved when those two are improved and it usually doesn't have to involve spending a bunch of money. The employee's attitude should be getting the work done correctly in a reasonable amount of time. Demanding it is a poor approach. Poisoning an employee will result in poisoning the company in a small manner all the way up to the failure of the company. Employees should be encouraged through actual morale improvements, positive motivation, and incentives for doing more work at the same and/or better quality level.

Outsourcing or keeping things in house can be successful and possibly economical if approached correctly with the appropriate support of upper management.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[martin-boundary]

You know, most phones are disposable and cost about as much as a good meal...

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[jeff4747]

Dumb phones won't be running WP7. They'll still be running S40.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Max Littlemore]

How dramatic? Isn't outsourcing done (like it or not) to reduce costs?

Outsourcing is done to reduce the projected costs that PHBs see. In reality, outsourcing can lead to increased costs and delays due to time zone differences and language/cultural barriers.

I have seen it work reasonably well, but only when the extra effort and delays caused by the increased need for rework that comes from complex software projects. If you are working with others on software, it is so much quicker to produce quality software if the person who knows the business requirements is sitting right next to the person doing design and the person cutting code and the person doing the testing, etc, etc.

If these people or groups are scattered around the world with different cultures and native languages, communication can suffer, increasing misunderstanding and reducing the quality. I have personally seen this lead to massive increase in code defects in a project that went from in house development to outsourced.

Also, time zone differences cause problems. I have noticed that the further west people live, the less likely they are to take into account how far behind they are. Working with people who fail to realise that their Monday morning is the next day for someone else, or that by the time they are halfway through Friday, others are already on their weekend is not only frustrating, it leads to slow turn around of bug fixes, etc.

Yeah, I'm told outsourcing keeps costs down, but I am yet to see conclusive evidence of that in the real world. At least in complex development. YMMV for support/call centre stuff.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

200$

Dollar signs go on the left hand side of the value.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[chentiangemalc]

most users will not care if it is unlocked or easily rootable. they will care that it's cheap / works. as much as i love android, android success is more about lower price then openness.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Max Littlemore]

My n900 was one of my favourite phones. I think if they concentrated on meego and produced similar devices, they they could compete very well with Android, particulary if you can run Android apps on meego.

I just recently switched from n900 to an android phone (got the droid free on a better rate plan and gave my n900 to my ex wife because she likes resistive touch screens better.) and I miss how well all of the various accounts are integrated.

On the shiny Samsung, skype is a separate app that isn't integrated with the dialler, it's own ring tone and doesn't unlock the screen when a call comes in, so I fumble around with the stupid thing and invariably miss calls. All chat, apart from google, is via third part apps that exhibit their own quirky behaviours and don't feel integrated with messaging.

Contrast that with the Nokia where skype calls and regular calls behaved exactly the same way. Outgoing, you just pick how you want to call the contact, incoming, the screen turns on and you answer. Messaging is integrated too, so you can be online on any number of chat services, and they behave like sms when the phone is asleep, giving a little LED signal that you got a message. And all accessible through the same widget as SMS. Also, nokia includes IR on their smartphones/internet tablets allowing me to use my phone as a remote for my DSLR.

Sure Android has more games and better fart apps, but n900 had pretty much everything I now use on the android and more. The only area where I prefer the Samsung is the navigation app that came with it.

Just given how nicely integrated the n900 is, and imagining that meego would inherit a lot of maemo software, I was really looking forward to meego. If these guys manage to shake up the board, I will most certainly move to meego once this contract is up.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[iserlohn]

For me, the WP7 UI is the problem. It's ripped straight out of a graphic design ad. There is a reason why books aren't printed in bright colored paper with funny font and no margins.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[exomondo]

Each to their own, i guess it's a matter of preference.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Miamicanes]

2007 is around the time Nokia *finally* started to support EDGE and frequencies besides 1900/2100 on their high end phones. Circa 2004/2005, *none* of Nokia's high-end flagship phones could do EDGE. It was almost like it was against their religion or something. They were 1900/2100 UMTS and GPRS *only*.

By the way, unless something has radically changed over the past 2 or 3 years, Australia is a major CDMA market, too, as is New Zealand, India, China, Singapore, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Mexico, and a few other places as well.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Max Littlemore]

You seem to have a very US perspective there. Don't forget that the strategy in TFA specifically singles out the US market as being separate to the strategy for the rest of the world, including the developing world.

I have used Maemo and Android, and Android (at least the 1, 1.5 1.6 and 2.2 I have tried) is a god awful crock of shit compared to Maemo. I think Meego could potentially continue the excellence.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[squallstrifeau]

By the way, unless something has radically changed over the past 2 or 3 years, Australia is a major CDMA market

CDMA got switched off in 2008.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Swampash]

No, they're not doing well. Revenues and profits are plummeting. They have a big marketshare but they make no money out of it.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[HiThere]

FWIW, Meego is said to be a Linux variant that can run almost all the Android applications. And some others. (I.e., it's easier to run things that aren't Java.)

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Miamicanes]

(*blush*) Whoops. I didn't know that.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Symbian isn't the $14.99 Walmart phone, that's S40. Completely different.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

your SGI example is not where there problems began. They decided in the early 90's to get into the same commercial unix server sector (i.e finance, wallstreet enterprise servers) as Sun, HP, IBM. Even though they made outstanding servers in their niche market, making the transition to an enterprise server is much more than technical advances. Its about serving that market, and that is a huge transition for a company to go thru. Any of the folks as individuals can make the transition pretty quickly, its another thing to get 3,000 people moving in the same direction.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[fatphil]

Am a nokia employee. You misheard, or have an unreliable grapevine. And your view of the political spectrum is way off too, Finland's not socialist, and it's easier (i.e. cheaper) to get rid of Finns than it is to get rid of Germans, for example (see the NSN mess).

OK, maemo only had a very large headcount rather than a huge one, but still, it was a high enough headcount to get several good phones out of the door in the last few years if it hadn't for certain matters that I am probably not even at liberty to mention the existence of. Scrapping Symbian and moving more bodies onto maemo wouldn't have sped things up, a slow transition always made more sense.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[bigfatdeal]

Singapore is GSM only. India is mostly GSM. I don't know about the other countries, not having lived there myself.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nursie]

"If Meego is superior then where is it? Is it a Marketing Deficiency?"

Management clusterfuck.

It's the only explanation. Massive infighting, department (and hence phone model) proliferaton, and no focused strategy on getting good, new stuff to market.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[trawg]

Nokia's best decision I think was Meego/Maemo, and it's what got me interested in the N900. I am amazed by how many different applications I can install on the N900 that appear to just be simple ports/modifications of the native, regular Linux codebase.

Meego/Maemo offered up the riches of the Linux ecosystem along with a reasonably comprehensive development environment. I got my N900 shortly before Meego was announced, and I was /pissed/ because I knew it meant Maemo development would basically grind to a halt, which is basically what happened - but it gave me hope that they'd identified their strategy and that their partnership with Intel on it meant they'd be in it for keeps.

If I was a shareholder, I'd be pissed. So much wasted investment. What about the billions they spent on Ovi Maps? Presumably that investment is now worthless because they'll have to use Bing maps or whatever the MS thing is.

As a customer though, I'll just vote with my feet. I'm not interested in the locked-in ecosystem of Apple, which is why I have an Android and why I'm not interested in MS.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nursie]

Who gives a crap if other handset manufacturers are interested when you can have the biggest slice of the market to yourself if you just pull your thumb out of your butthole and go to work like you used to?

Outside the US they still have massive market share. They should stop making 90 billion different handset models (go back to four or five cheap phones, a couple of smarts like they had a long time ago).

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nursie]

Yep, it's crazy to see it go from innovative leader in the market to "we have 500 models, each with a slightly different feature set" and none of them that cutting edge.

Total management failure.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[jrumney]

CDMA networks are quite widespread. Notably Japan and Korea, home countries of a number of phone manufacturers, have CDMA networks, though in Korea, where CDMA was the main 2G technology, its successor CDMA2000 has lived on in only one network, and in Japan the CDMA2000 network is in third place after two big WCDMA networks.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[jrumney]

2007 is around the time EDGE got deployed on European networks, due to the release of the original iPhone, which was unusual in that it encouraged the use of high-speed data, while not supporting 3G networks.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[UnknowingFool]

Oh I had lots of capability on my WinMo phone. If I didn't go for more than a day without charging it. If I didn't mind the random reboots. If I remembered to go to the task manager and kill any rogue programs still running for some reason. If I didn't mind searching through the damn manual trying to figure out those complicated things like "how to conference call" two people. WinMo was less than ideal. Partly because those who suffered through it like me had to because it was a work phone. If I had to choose a smart phone that I was going to buy, it would not have been WinMo. WP7 seems like it sucks less but has less capability at the moment.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think the massive bonuses for 'securing' the cash injection might have anything to do with it?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[DinDaddy]

Don't disagree. But there is a new dynamic here. A closed system (ios) that is taking a huge share of the profits, and therefore may actually be able to match the entire industry in innovation.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[DinDaddy]

Is that "ahead" of what Apple got (arguably their survival)? Not sure myself. I lean towards yes.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Zemran]

Nokia make good quality dumbphones that people want, people that buy Samsung may just be looking at price but many people want a good reliable phone that is for making calls. This category is the biggest market although it is not fairly represented on /. There is also the market that lies between the dumbphone and the smartphone and Nokia has that sown up. If they focus on what they are good at instead of being just another player in the mini tablet market I think they will quietly do better than all the others. Apple have had their moment and will do their best to capitalise on it and the others will swamp the market with droids. Most people that are not here on /., do not really want to carry a housebrick that can do things that they have no need for. Most people want a phone that will fit comfortably in their pocket and is only used to make calls. I am in the middle market and once the fad has worn off, I think that the middle market will grow. I may be wrong but it will always be a good market that will be left empty if Nokia leaves. Many of us do not want to pay for computer power on a phone that we do not use. I would rather spend that money on a better laptop.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Zemran]

Well put. Regarding communication, I have seen so many projects get into serious trouble because an Indian team claim to fully understand the specs and produce something that does not relate to those specs but when it is delivered and the problems are brought to light, there is not enough time left ... Most of the companies that I have been involved with have ended up having to send a large team of workers to relocate to India (or other) to control the projects and the costs end up higher than if the work had not been outsourced. I have trouble talking about this without sounding racist, but it seems that the Indian idea of English is a completely different language to the English that I learnt.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[br0k_sams0n]

Capable has nothing to do with carrier appetite. Carriers want to control and build their own silos complete with lock-in, nothing about "he we can run android apps too, but with 10x the number of OS versions and 20x the number of device devices to support" makes good business sense for a carrier.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[arose]

There's a more efficient way to spend your R&D budget: rehashing antenna designs known to suck.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[mallan]

Too true - although I'm of the opinion that if SGI had ported their IRIX tools to Linux earlier and remained a *NIX company, they may have had a gentler fall to obsolescence and perhaps even survived as a relevant company. The abrupt switch to a commodity software platform and relying on hardware as a differentiator was horribly misguided. No one was going to pay $5,000 for an SGI machine when they could buy a $2500 Dell that ran the exact same software. By the time SGI tried to embrace Linux, it was far too late...

I think Nokia abandoning Qt is the real issue here. If they were going to maintain their own mobile development platform that ran on Windows Mobile, Symbian and MeeGo - that /could/ have been a winning strategy.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nursie]

Maybe a cultural thing?

I've had the same experience and I think it's that they don't want to disappoint you or make trouble, so they agree that they know how to do everything and they understand everything. Trouble is that often enough it's a complete lie.

Where a westerner would (or should) be expected to say "No, I don't understand that, can you give me some pointers/docs/assisstance?" it seems that that is not the done thing in Indian culture.

Either that or we were working with incompetent liars, you know?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

I as a customer give a crap if the smartphone I'm going to buy has applications for it.
I as an application developer give crap about whether the platform is big enough to write applications for.

Apple and Android are _huge_ in this respect. To enter this league Nokia has to solve a chicken and egg problem.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[im_thatoneguy]

Yeah I bought a 'dumb' phone when I got my latest plan so that I would always have 'a phone' in case my smart phone died or I wanted a global phone.

Picked up a global phone for $49. I can't imagine that they are getting more than $5 profit off of that thing. And you would as you say have to sell one to every third person to make a profit.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Rexdude]

Nokia's Ovi Store was upto 4 million downloads a day and growing, by the end of January. Remember that when Ovi Store was launched, it already had a huge base of Symbian smartphones to run on in several countries around the world.Given time (don't know if they had it), it would have grown into a decent ecosystem on its own.
Nokia has tied up with 103 operators across 32 countries to support direct operator billing - so the apps you buy are charged to your monthly mobile bill instead of the risk of having to enter your credit card number on your phone, or pass it to an app.

A decent ecosystem was in place, and already growing - they killed everything just to gain a foothold in the US market.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Rexdude]

'World' = US, according to Arse Technica, Engadget, TechCrunch GizmoDodo and other blowhard American tech blogs.

This from a country where people have to pay for incoming mobile calls and are at the mercy of the operators.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[mwvdlee]

Oh great, a UI that changes while you're trying to use it.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia should take the billions of dollars from Microsoft, sell all other assets, share out the cash generously between all the employees, with a bit left over for shareholders, and then shut down / sell off what's left of the company. That's the only way they will come out of this without being fucked over.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[JamesP]

Great to hear that.

Am a nokia employee. You misheard, or have an unreliable grapevine. And your view of the political spectrum is way off too, Finland's not socialist, and it's easier (i.e. cheaper) to get rid of Finns than it is to get rid of Germans, for example (see the NSN mess).

I understand, I didn't mean Finland was socialist, (but rather Finland has a socialist bias - like all nordic countries, and don't get me wrong, I would move to Finland given the chance). What I've heard was, if you fire someone in Finland (after a lot of red tape) they get back in a queue to be re-hired (in the same company).

OK, maemo only had a very large headcount rather than a huge one, but still, it was a high enough headcount to get several good phones out of the door in the last few years if it hadn't for certain matters that I am probably not even at liberty to mention the existence of.

Well, there you have it. My bet is politics.

Scrapping Symbian and moving more bodies onto maemo wouldn't have sped things up, a slow transition always made more sense.

The problem with a slow transition like Nokia was doing is that it was not assertive enough. You can go slow, but firmly, something that Nokia wasn't doing. No one in their right mind should have accepted the direction change of Meego and delaying it 2 years.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Goaway]

Of course they say "around the world" to sound fancy. But in practice it's going to be a lot easier to get people locally, so most hiring will still be from there, with a few people coming from elsewhere.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Nyder]

>>>The 'old' strategy was aimless development of so many different handsets it was nuts.

Apple circa 1995, when they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Commodore circa 1993 and they did go bankrupt. Too many models can confuse customers - better to focus on just a few.

Commodore didn't have too many models. It went bankrupt because it was too slow to upgrade it's computers. And it, and other companies didn't understand what the computer market was turning into.

Now, the video game crash in 1984 was because of too many models (games) most of which sucked flooding the market.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[am 2k]

Most people know the difference between chocolate and cherry ice cream. That can't be said about the different mobile phones from the same manufacturer.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously know nothing at all and your bullshit spews pretty hard.

Worldwide Nokia decimates Android phone sales HARD. Maybe if you had a clue and did not act like a 14 year old Fanboi you would understand that.

Oh wait, you cant read as you missed where he said, "outside the USA"

or are you one of those retards that thinks the usa is the only place on earth.

Moron.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Lumpy]

Let's ignore a global economic collapse there.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[tbannist]

I'm pretty sure you mean fourth tier phone OS, you forgot RIM and Blackberries.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[T.E.D.]

I have to say that Apple has been one company that has always been able to survive against more open competitors. Mostly I think it is a combination of keeping a laser focus on good design, coupled with very aggressive marketing. They cannot beat the combined efforts of every other manufacturer in the world that way, but they can keep a >10% share of the market, which is all they have ever needed.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[Tran]

I'll add my anecdote. I wanted so to believe in Android and Google, that I ended up getting a MyTouch from T-Mobile as an upgrade to an existing T-Mobile Phone. Its an improvement over dumb phones, barely, but other than that it barely accomplishes what it is supposed to do, so I certainly still would classify it as garbage.
The one thing I am uncertain of if it is Android or the hardware specs that are the issue. Certainly the combo is to blame, because I have seen Android systems that are better in response, but usually those people don't do anything but the basics with the system.
But on the mytouch even trying to do the basics is painful.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LWATCDR]

"1. lagging in features "multitasking, cut and paste, and custom ring tones."

those have been announced at MWC yesterday."
With multitasking not coming until October.
If it hasn't shipped it isn't real

For office intergeneration it may be nice but I just can not see using my phone to deal with a word document. For syncing notes and such I find Evernote to be extremely useful. You may or may not find the Office integration useful but frankly that is what a notebook is for.

No this is NOT Microsoft's first attempt at this market. The market is the Mobile market. the iPhone was Apples first attempt at the mobile phone market they did have the Newton PDA but that was a while ago. Microsoft produced WinCE/Windows Mobile as you put it a decade ago. They kept producing new versions of it and then Apple out of the blue came out and beat them. There reaction was first Windows Mobile 6 and them Windows Mobile 6.5. So not is a new versions of their attempt to do something in the mobile space. They have more experience than in the mobile space than Apple and Android. Only Palm has more than Microsoft. They where in the market for years when Apple just came out with a much better product and blew them away. They have had as long to adapt as Android and Palm and yet their response is still at best lack luster.
Microsoft might still do well because they will just keep throwing money at the market but they may also decide that this isn't a "Core" market and drop it or just let it limp along. As it is WP7 is really behind because the next thing in mobile is already here. Tablets look like they are going to be huge. Apple, Google, Blackberry and HP/Palm have all shown, or shipping, or are shipping tablets. Well in the case of Google there OS is shipping on tablets. And again Microsoft was playing with and pushing tablets for at least a decade with no real uptake. It is really just your classic case of Microsoft playing follow the leader again! They came out with the Zune which was at best an also ran to the iPod then when Apple came out with the iPod Touch and iPhone Microsoft shipped the ZuneHD which was a good competitor to the iPod but the market had moved on.
Now Microsoft ships a Phone OS would have been a good competitor to IOS V1 and maybe V2 but now is lagging them all.
Microsoft needs to produce a mobile OS that isn't as good as what it's competitors used to ship. At this point it can not even be given credit for a product as good as IOS, Android, and WebOS. As the largest software company in the world and after being in the Mobile market for more than 10 years anything less than the best is shameful. And as it stands they should be ashamed.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LWATCDR]

Wow so Windows Phone 7 doesn't iwork as well with their own email and calendaring system as RIM's?
And Microsoft isn't ashamed of this and firing people left right and sideways because?

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[exomondo]

If multitasking and cut-and-paste are the only things you've got an issue with that hardly makes it so vastly inferior. You still haven't stated what your issue is with the gmail integration.

And in the end what MS have done is something different to what else is out there. For example Apple have their 'appliance' paradigm where the OS is almost completely abstracted away, I say *almost* because that was initially the concept but push notifications and multitasking have changed that. Android took that concept and added interactive widgets so your homescreen becomes more than a simple launcher. MS have gone with an approach that meshes the two of them so you don't have a desktop-like homescreen, but it isn't purely a launcher either, they've also integrated additional services into common components like the contact manager.

I wouldn't say any is overall superior to another because they are all different and have subjective strengths and weaknesses.

Re:almost tempted to buy some shares

[LWATCDR]

Well I do consider multitasking to be a huge feature. It was one of the things that I really didn't like about IOS and that they have now only kind of fixed.
I do not have a Microsoft phone so I can only go by the reviews that say the Gmail integration is not as good as Android's. It is just IMAP level from the reviews. The interface is not bad but again no multitasking, no custom ring tones, no cut and paste, no enterprise level integration with exchange, and no CDMA support. I will say that interface was fast and snappy when I played with on at the store and Zune Pass I feel is a great feature. The thing is that for Microsoft to come out with this half finished OS is just flat out a disgrace. They know it is lacking features because they are adding most of what I listed in future updates. Thing is that my list of lacking features will not be addressed until at least October! By then we will the IPhone 5 and probably IPhone 6 rumors. Will have released the Android 3.1 or 3.2. and there will be many dual and maybe even a quad core or two Android phone on the market. Both Android and IOS will have NFC and probably gyros for gaming "IOS already does". Blackberry will QNX tablets and phones on the market and even WebOS phones may have exciting new features. And WP7 will be getting multitasking...... Really? Microsoft you should really be ashamed of this performance. I mean really if any other company had brought out WP7 they would have been laughed at. Now Nokia says they will release their first WP7 phone after October? Wow they are so in deep trouble. The have basically told everybody that if you buy one of our current phones you are buying a dead end. If you develop for your current phones you are spending time on a dead platform. They have shot themselves in the freaking head by saying that QT will not be supported on WP7! If they had supported QT they could at least told their developers "If you use QT your software will port to WP7."
I guess they have enough cash to coast for about a year while their developers and customers all flock to Android, IOS, RIM, and WebOS.
And until I see activation numbers of WP7 I will have to go with this data point. http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/lg-exec-admits-wp7-sales-weak
That combined with the fact that AT&T has slashed several of the high end WP7 phones to $99 points to WP7 being a sales fizzle if not a complete flop.
Or as the CNET writer Molly Wood said on Buzz Out Loud yesterday, "Nokia needs to fire that Microsoft fanboy and release some Android phones today!"
Or get MeeGo off the ground. Or maybe even make a deal with HP for WebOS which would rock!

If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[Anonymous Coward]

http://nokiaplanc.com/

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[MikeDirnt69]

OMG! http://nokiapland.com/

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[MikeDirnt69]

ROFLCOPTER oh wait: http://nokiaplane.com/

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[ByOhTek]

Maybe I should just install Plan9 on my Nokia phone instead, skipping all of these options?

wait, 0x9 0xC

Why wasn't I informed that Nokia had already made Plan9 phones???

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[doti]

all the way down......
http://nokiaplanz.com/

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[tagno25]

http://nokiaplans.com/

Nokia Plans
Nokia Plan A
  Nokia Plan B
  Nokia Plan C
  Nokia Plan D
  Nokia Plan E
  Nokia Plan F (SFW)
  Nokia Plan F (NSFW)
  Nokia Plan G
  Nokia Plan H
  Nokia Plan K
  Nokia Plan M
  Nokia Plan O
  Nokia Plan P
  Nokia Plan Q
  Nokia Plan S
  Nokia Plan T
  Nokia Plan X
  Nokia Plan Y
  Nokia Plan Z
  Nokia Plan 0
  Nokia Plan 5
  Nokia Plan 9

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[TeXMaster]

Maybe I should just install Plan9 on my Nokia phone instead, skipping all of these options?

wait, 0x9 0xC

Why wasn't I informed that Nokia had already made Plan9 phones???

There's also http://nokiaplan9.com/ in fact

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[GameboyRMH]

I don't see what's so NSFW about plan F, I meant it's ju-OOOOOOOHHHHHHH now I see...

Re:If it fails, then they can fall back on plan c

[X.25]

ROFLCOPTER oh wait: http://nokiaplane.com/

Ok, thanks for making laugh like a lunatic, at 1AM :)

Good luck with that

[LucidBeast]

I think the big guys have enough chips to keep this plan going. No matter what the plans merits are.

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

The CEO of Nokia, who spearheaded this move to MS, is an ex-MS exec. Given the immediate share drop after the announcement, and the previous share growth, likely based on the possibilities of a partnership with Google, is grounds for an investigation.

Re:Good luck with that

[Eponymous Coward]

This deal includes Microsoft paying Nokia billions of dollars.

In a shareholder lawsuit, I think it would be pretty hard to convince a judge that Nokia would be better off competing openly with the likes of HTC in the Android world than accepting billions of dollars from Microsoft and getting to be the premier WP7 platform.

Re:Good luck with that

[exomondo]

The CEO of Nokia, who spearheaded this move to MS, is an ex-MS exec. Given the immediate share drop after the announcement, and the previous share growth, likely based on the possibilities of a partnership with Google, is grounds for an investigation.

He already addressed that potential issue.

Re:Good luck with that

[LucidBeast]

Mr. Elop was talking about value being in billions. He never said Microsoft is paying Nokia. engadget interview

Eventually

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually somebody putting their money where their mouth is...

They might be on to something

[toopok4k3]

I guess that a huge drop in the share value might mean that this plan B might get some actual backing from the majority of shareholders. The share has dropped around 20% since the Microsoft announcement.

Re:They might be on to something

[Anonymous Coward]

Well not really. By the time of the AGM the only shareholders left will be pro-Stephen Elop and his direction.
There won't be any left who will vote for these 9 guys...

Re:They might be on to something

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that a huge drop in the share value might mean that this plan B might get some actual backing from the majority of shareholders. The share has dropped around 20% since the Microsoft announcement.

more simply the drop in price can be seen as the market recognizing the stupidity of the agreement with MS.

Re:They might be on to something

[aliquis]

Worth noticing is that it they had also gained around:
75.5 / 63 = 1.1984127
(if I remember correctly.)

19.84% from the bottom at the Q4 report with Q1 forecast until two days before the strategy day on NASDAQ (ended at 74+ SEK here.)

Since the value raised up from the dip before NASDAQ opened this wasn't much noticed on NASDAQ charts.

NASDAQ:
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=NOK

OMX Stockholm Xterna listan:
http://tinyurl.com/5rvlt43

At the strategy day price fell straight to 63 sek again, recovered somewhat but then broken through it.

Open around 69.5, dip 63, peak 71.1, close 68.2 or where about on report day.

Peak 74.8 or so two days before.

Open around 66.8, dip 60.5, close 61.3 or where about on strategy day.

So most likely lots of speculation and hope for the strategy day. If the stock had traded for what? 64-65 sek and then had fallen to 62-63 before the strategy day the fall would probably not had been as big.. or hard.

~ 18% speculation, ~ 21.5% fall. No free lunch.

Or well. Unless you reacted and in the right direction that is :)

Rates just increased today in Stockholm so the USD will most likely keep on falling against the SEK now. Which obviously will make things look even worse here, again.

USD was 8.1 SEK early summer or so, it's most likely below 6.5 SEK now.

Re:They might be on to something

[Taxman415a]

More useful to know is what Nokia did when compared to similar technology stocks. That makes it clear that the 20% drop was real, not just falling with similar market sentiments for other companies. See the yahoo finance 3mo chart, it makes it very obvious that the 20% drop was real and other companies did not have similar results. That's against the NASDAQ, it's similar for other indices.

Bad start

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, I hope they're better in running a company then in choosing a webhost for an expected high traffic website...

wow 9 people!?

[Megor1]

Why is this even being posted, it's 9 people who let me guess own 0.0000000% of the company? Next up 9 apple share holders want Steve Jobs to stop wearing turtlenecks.

Re:wow 9 people!?

[MSTCrow5429]

It is strange they haven't posted their aggregate ownership of Nokia. It's also odd they are asking for jobs.

Re:wow 9 people!?

[BurfCurse]

It's not odd. Its brilliant. How else would someone who owned a small share of a company (that's an assumption) get elected to the board?

Re:wow 9 people!?

[KhabaLox]

And they don't even identify themselves. Why would anyone consider electing them to the BoD without knowing who they are?

Re:wow 9 people!?

[QuincyDurant]

Even one share is enough to make some noise about it at the shareholder's meeting. They may not own much, but they speak for quite a crowd, methinks.

Re:wow 9 people!?

[magarity]

Why is this even being posted, it's 9 people who let me guess own 0.0000000% of the company?

Most big companies set the lower limit around 1,000 shares for anyone who wants to bring up any issue for a vote at the company shareholders' meeting. This can be anything from 'I nominate me to the board of directors' to 'presenters should not wear turtlenecks' to 'the company assets should be liquidated and the proceeds given to the homeless'. It then goes to a vote and since institutional investors who own a million shares at a time are there, anything frivolous or absurd gets immediately voted down.

Re:wow 9 people!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't It obvious? It's an anti Microsoft story that fits with the slashdot narrative. Stick a Borg icon on it and it's front page gold!

Re:wow 9 people!?

[ottothecow]

This is actually pretty standard practice.

Shareholders don't have a ton of tools available to them and waging a proxy fight is pretty much the way to do what these guys want. Usually you try go get your director nominees elected (over the current guys) so that you can make your changes as this is far more effective than trying to get all of your changes passed as a ballot measure.

They will have to disclose ownership if they meet a threshold..and since they have not, we can assume they don't own a ton of shares. Also, I am not sure how they plan to pay for this...proxy fights are really expensive (you have to keep mailing letters and ballots to every single shareholder...you have to pay lawyers to write these things...you have to buy shares to vote with).

The key thing to note however...is that proxy fights are rarely successful. The current executives and directors probably own a lot of shares...they aren't going to vote for these guys. A lot of the shares are owned by large institutional investors who may not vote their shares or may vote them based on recommendations from somebody like ISS (who will probably recommend the status quo over "9 young shareholders")

Re:wow 9 people!?

[CreamyG31337]

Yes, your guess is soooooooooooo insightful.... I'm going to guess that the smaller shareholders might actually want to bet on an OS that doesn't require a $30 license fee.

Re:wow 9 people!?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is apparent that their ownership is insignificant. Asking for jobs?

Re:wow 9 people!?

[JoeMerchant]

1000 shares isn't that hard to pull off - they have 2000+ "Facebook Likes," so if those people all own an average of $5 worth of Nokia stock each...

Re:wow 9 people!?

[didroe84]

Except the summary says it's only nine people.

Re:wow 9 people!?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Finnish government and/or pension funds probably own oodles of shares as well; they might prefer these young whippersnappers' point 6:

 

End of distributed R&D. Transition to an R&D setup where 90% of all Nokia R&D takes place in only two geographical locations. One of them will be in Finland and the other will be defined later. There will be no more R&D projects with resources in multiple cities and different time zones. Only small tactical software projects will be allowed to take place outside two main R&D locations.

(emphasis mine) over Stephen Elop's plan:

Abandoning the development of its own software -- known as Symbian -- means thousands of job cuts around the world, with a dramatic reduction in research spending. In protest, hundreds of Nokia employees walked out on Friday from Nokia's offices in Tampere, central Finland.

(from Reuters).

I mean, from the perspective of the Finnish government and pension funds, it's better that Nokia keeps paying those people for their (effective or not) R&D, rather that they all go on the dole at the same time.

Re:wow 9 people!?

[marcosdumay]

With a standard lot that is probably of 100 shares, all it takes for 9 people to gather 1000 shares is that one of them has 2 lots.

Good Luck With that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, does this even have a chance of materializing? With Nokia's board of directors fully supporting the CEO, the only people who can affect the deal are Nokia's employees and unless they pull a major revolt, the deal will be on.

Re:Good Luck With that!

[s73v3r]

The shareholders can also vote the Board of Directors out, which is what this plan is asking them to do.

Re:Good Luck With that!

[Desler]

Sure, but that's only if they can get a group that accounts for 51% of voting stoke to agree with them. It's highly doubtful they have that much otherwise they would have already pulled this off rather than blustering.

Re:Good Luck With that!

[exomondo]

It's highly doubtful they have that much otherwise they would have already pulled this off rather than blustering.

Particularly since they don't seem to have a plan for doing this, i mean that 'Plan B' calls for an end to outsourcing in favour of in-house development, obviously this is preferrable but that is going to be HUGELY expensive.
Also they want to install a new CEO with specific qualities...they don't say who this could be and fire many members of the management team. So of course they are going to have to pay out Elop and the other members of the management team.
They want to offer higher salaries to attract more 'talent', again not a bad thing but very expensive.
They want to invest more heavily in MeeGo which is a long way off being finished, so thats yet another expensive proposition.

In short they are appealing to the shareholders - those who care about the financials - with a plan that will have a MASSIVE effect on the financial situation, yet they don't give any actual numbers. My bet is Elop and the BoD have some pretty convincing numbers supporting their plan.

Apache 1.3.33?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apache 1.3.33? Really? And you guys want to be taken seriously as "moving forward."

HAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody should write an article about me fighting off the world's corruption. And make sure you write it in a tone that makes me sound like i'm likely to succeed.

Slashdoted ?

[Picardo85]

Service Temporarily Unavailable The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. Apache/1.3.33 Server at nokiaplanb.com Port 80

Re:Slashdoted ?

[nmalinoski]

Service Temporarily Unavailable The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. Apache/1.3.33 Server at nokiaplanb.com Port 80

Don't worry too much; it just redirects to Facebook. It's kinda sad the guys are too lazy to set up their own site for this.

Re:Slashdoted ?

[Picardo85]

You think they could at least have made a WP blog or something :)

Re:Slashdoted ?

[colordev]

Facebook info page
Facebook wall page

Re:Slashdoted ?

[toopok4k3]

They had a site but they apparently reverted back to facebook after their own server died. I managed to catch a glimpse of it before the slashdot reported this story.

Re:Slashdoted ?

[NuShrike]

Saw the site through Twitter before "died":

https://twitter.com/NokiaPlanB

Somebody had fun

[gQuigs]

http://nokiaplana.com/
http://nokiaplanx.com/
http://nokiaplane.com/
http://nokiapland.com/

For all other nokia investors, take a look at how Novell is doing since http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell#Agreement_with_Microsoft on Nov 2, 2006.
  http://www.google.com/finance?q=Novell

Re:Somebody had fun

[MikeDirnt69]

Index: http://nokiaplans.com/

And what of Intel?

[Roxoff]

So are Intel going to be pleased when MeeGo goes in-house -only- in Nokia? And will the Open Source project that is MeeGo enjoy being cut off from the development process? And what of the Linux Foundation, who host and support the MeeGo project? If they went ahead with this, many of Nokia's current friends would have nothing more to do with them.

Other plans

[mortenmh]

http://nokiaplans.com/

Overwhelmingly superior? Errm...

[Guspaz]

"MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products."

Clearly they have a firm grip on reality. I'm not saying that MeeGo won't be a decent platform, but claiming that it will ovfer an "overwhelmingly superior experience" to the other market leaders who have multi-year head starts is silly.

Re:Overwhelmingly superior? Errm...

[dr.newton]

I'm not saying that MeeGo won't be a decent platform, but claiming that it will ovfer an "overwhelmingly superior experience" to the other market leaders who have multi-year head starts is silly.

Agreed. The entire strategy hinges on this, and if I were a shareholder (which I'm not) I'd be skeptical of the likelihood of this occurring.

I've used MeeGo on a netbook, and it's great; it would be interesting to see it come to phones, and more options are always better. But the odds of it becoming even slightly profitable for Nokia, let alone a major success, seem pretty slim.

The Nothin' But WP7 option looks like utter crap, the MeeGo option looks incredibly risky, but going for Android would allow them to start with a solid OS, and customize exactly as much as they wanted. You're allowed to differentiate in software much more on Android than on WP7 (even though so far people seem to prefer a stock Android experience). They could also keep a foot in the Symbian, WP7, or MeeGo camps this way, if they wanted to.

But maybe my sig should be "Just another arm-chair CEO."

Re:Overwhelmingly superior? Errm...

[Anonymous Coward]

> multi-year head starts

MeeGo is based on Nokia's Maemo. The first Maemo device was the N770 in 2006.

Nice idea but.

[LWATCDR]

Really how much stock do they control? Why do they think they can "fix" Nokia?
Nokia is in trouble and is loosing market share. They are just about absent in the US and while the US isn't the whole world it is a very big and very rich market.
Add in that Nokia just can not seem to come up with a plan. Symbian? It was/is a good OS but the UI has really lagged. MeeGo? Well where is it? Maybe it will really rock but they have not shipped a phone with it yet have they?
Nokia needs a really good phone with a really good OS and they need to ship it to the world including the US even if that means going CDMA. They need to have a hero device and it needs to be available from a US carrier and it needs to cost between $200 and $300 in the US to get traction here.
They also need good lower cost devices that can be down at the $100 to free range in the US. I am in the US so that is the market I know the best.
WP7 is so not on the radar in the US right now. It is really lagging in uptake and I do not see that changing. Then you have the fact that with WP7 Nokia will have the same OS and look and feel as phones from HTC, LG, and Samsung. Also the Nokia developer community will be forced to become part of the Microsoft Developers community. Nokia will become nothing but a shadow of it's self.
Yea I think this is a disaster but I am not sure Nokia can be saved from it's self. They really seemed to have just flat out abandoned the US market and then lost any sense of direction.
And yes you can say all that you want about how the US isn't the world but take a hard look. All of Nokia's competitors in the smartphone space come from North America and most of them from the US. Android, WebOS, IOS, and WP7 are all from the US. RIM is from Canada.
It is a mess but I doubt that going back to the same old same old will fix anything. Plus we do not know what deals have already been made. It may be impossible to undo.

Re:Nice idea but.

[geekoid]

If only that had some planb document that discussed there plans and addressed those issues~

Re:Nice idea but.

[CreamyG31337]

"how much stock do they control"
hopefully a lot more, very soon.

Re:Nice idea but.

[Anonymous Coward]

All of Nokia's competitors in the smartphone space come from North America

Let's see here....

• HTC - based in Taiwan
• Samsung - based in Korea
• LG - based in Korea

Yes. All of Nokia's competitors are based in North America...

Re:Nice idea but.

[exomondo]

If only that had some planb document that discussed there plans and addressed those issues~

If only they said why this plan is financially better. They talk of actions that have HUGE expenditure but don't say anything about costs or profit and obviously don't compare in those terms to the MS deal. This will fail because they are appealing to shareholders - people who care about financials - with no financial details.

good luck

[leaen]

I wish it you success

Re:good luck

[what about]

I wish too...
(There should be a voting mechanism for ideas, at least we would know where the majority stands)

Anything else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear /.,

We get it, you hate us. What else is new?

- MSFT

Re:Anything else?

[Strudelkugel]

I will pose this question to people who have used XCode/IB/Objective-C and Visual Studio/Expression Blend/C#:

Which would you prefer to use every day?

Re:Anything else?

[Anonymous Coward]

gedit

Re:Anything else?

[igomaniac]

Honestly, I would pick Visual Studio / C# ... I have a MacBookPro as my home computer and I program C++ (in a variety of environments) for a living. Visual Studio is by far the best IDE I've used (the others are XCode, Eclipse and QT Creator), actually the only IDE which has good integration of the debugger and working go-to-definition for non-trivial C++ code.

I've done a bit of C# programming recently and I expected to hate it, since I'm not a big fan of Java and everyone were telling me it is a similar language. However it's proven to be a wonderful experience, the .NET libraries are well thought out and work well with the language features, the delgate system works fantastic for GUI applications, the WinForms editors are a joy to use and the edit-and-continue debugging is amazing.

XCode is getting better now that they are moving over to the clang/LLVM toolchain instead of gcc. It will eventually let Apple provide a good IDE experience which has never been the goal of gcc/gdb. Unfortunately Objective-C is not a modern programming language and Apple really needs a strategy for a next generation programming language. Here's to hoping they adopt C# and make a C#/Cocoa alternative to C#/.NET (probably right about the time hell freezes over).

Re:Anything else?

[vawwyakr]

Haven't used XCode/Objective-C/etc but I have programmed a fair bit in Java using Eclipse and Oracle JDeveloper mostly. In that comparison I would say VS wins hands down. I wish there was an open or even just cross platform IDE that is even half as good as VS. I hate having such narrow dev experience but everytime I've developed for non-MS projects it has left me wanting VS back even more.

Re:Anything else?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm - let's see - maybe the one that will allow me to sell more software on smartphones...

Re:Anything else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's see...uh, how about that latest Drupal book?

Re:Anything else?

[Anonymous Coward]

The news is that at least 9 shareholders of Nokia read slashdot.

Re:Anything else?

[am 2k]

Actually it looks like they're going the ruby direction (via MacRuby). Perhaps, maybe.

Re:Anything else?

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

I feel Visual Studio is more mature of an IDE, but I'd rather use the Objective-C language.
Oh, and Eclipse pisses me off with its workspace model and poor/no-polish UI.

The nine are wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how much hate MS gets just for being Microsoft. Here are some good reasons for going with it.

- Current Nokia plan isn't working.
- Going android means just another android phone.
- I can see MS Corporation shops going with WP7 over other offerings - integration, development tools, encryption.
- IPhone is trendy and Apple is Steve Jobs. Trends come and go and Jobs will not be there forever to guide Apple.
- In the end if it sucks Nokia will just switch back to the old plan. It's all about profits and from what I heard Microsoft is going to be paying Nokia to do this.

So why not.

Re:The nine are wrong.

[Zelgadiss]

amazing how much hate MS gets just for being Microsoft

It's a reputation they have earned over the decades.

You reap what you sow.

Re:The nine are wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

amazing how much hate MS gets just for being Microsoft

It's a reputation they have earned over the decades.

You reap what you sow.

At least they sowed something. Now Bill Gates is helping cure the worlds diseases, hunger and war and otherwise generally nurturing 3rd world countries into the modern age - even discarding the fact that he burnt people who have since made money and not even attempted doing any such things (who's smear campaigns and propaganda you are an utter tool of, mind you) - what the hell have you done to knock them?

Re:The nine are wrong.

[Eponymous Coward]

You forgot about MS writing checks with 9 or 10 zeros on them.

Re:The nine are wrong.

[v1]

It's amazing how much hate MS gets just for being Microsoft.

Leaving your trail through the years littered with business collaborators with knives in their backs tends to have that effect.

Re:The nine are wrong.

[h4rr4r]

Cheap way to buy Nokia. Take a look at novell, that will be nokia soon enough.

Re:The nine are wrong.

[Zelgadiss]

Just because what you do now is good, doesn't mean the wrong you did in your past is suddenly OK.

Bill Gates giving to charity is a good thing.

MS however is still the same old company it always was, until they show they have turned over a new leaf (unlikely without new leaders), they are a company to be warily off.

Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Stregano]

From TFA:

Aggressively recruit young software talent from top universities. Nokia Recruiting to actively visit top universities worldwide to screen and and invite top students for interviews in Nokia R&D locations. Establish a credible and rewarding technical career progression path in Nokia (to avoid the best talent leaving the company or becoming management overhead). Offer internationally competitive salaries to new talent (if necessary, significantly above local market salaries). Establish Nokia as a company where the best and the brightest want to work.

Yeah, keep dreaming kid. I tried to get a job at Google, Microsoft, and other big companies right out of the gate and that did not happen. Do you honestly think it will happen, ever? I wish the world worked that way, but it doesn't. As a big company, do you think they would rather hire some kid right out of the gate that has no experience in cell phone programming/Symbian, or a person that has been doing it for 5 years? Be realistic with some of this.

This sounds like some college kids making a letter to say that they would want to do a takeover of the company (TFA

If you elect us to a majority in the Nokia Board of Directors we will take the following concrete actions:

).

I came to the college kids conclusion from the fact that anybody in the industry would not say that they would pull in college kids right out of the gate without experience. That is a huge risk.

Seriously, what they want to do is take-over, fire everybody, stop all out sourcing, and bring in college kids. That sentence summarizes the article quite nicely. Unless they had some weight as share-holders, this is just something posted on /. that will either get laughed at or never see the light of day at anybody who has weight in Nokia.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Well at least they're trying to do something, rather than just shaking their head in disbelief and complaining on the internet. ;)

Honestly, I agree with your assessment. They are idealistic, full of piss and vinegar, and their arguments/positions hold about as much weight as a Down feather. But I have to hand it to them, at least they are trying to rock the boat, rather than just accepting a sinking ship as lost.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[geminidomino]

As a big company, do you think they would rather hire some kid right out of the gate that has no experience in cell phone programming/Symbian, or a person that has been doing it for 5 years? Be realistic with some of this.

From what I've seen, I'd put my bet on them going with the kid fresh out of school. Then they can work him 70-80 hrs/wk for $25-30k until his brain dribbles out of his eyeballs and then replace him with the next one.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Nursie]

Not so much in Finland, no. In europe people have rights.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Stregano]

That is assuming alot. For entry level, yes. For higher positions, it is too much of a risk to bring a college kid in. These kids are trying to push their way into being the Board of Directors. Do you know how much money a director at a major company makes? Once they get a taste of that cash, not much will change. Also, what managerial skills do these kids have, let alone upper management skills? Instead of pulling in a college kid, you can outsource for even cheaper. It is business. This will not shake much. The CEO will not step down. The Board of Directors will not walk away. Any big time investor will see this as kids complaining on the internet. The only cover R&D in their business plan. If they are now the majority of the Board of Directors, they will need to all handle their departments as well. None of that is covered here. That will be a huge thing that will make investors laugh at this.

That would be like me making a blog post saying that I want to be the CEO of Microsoft, and that the current one should step down, and then only talk about the X-Box 360 platform. There is much more to Microsoft than that.

When they update their business plan to cover more than R&D and them all becoming the majority of the Board of Directors, more people will listen. Until then, they should really take a few business courses to find out how a huge business makes money. Bringing in kids with no experience as directors and the only business plan they thought out was for R&D. R&D is a very small piece of most companies. If this worked, I would seriously put money down that the company would last 2 to 3 years max before it files for bankruptcy and went under. Those kids need to learn that there is more to a company than the 1 small piece they pay attention to

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Compaqt]

Well, plan A (Win7) has lost the shareholders 20% of value.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[JoeMerchant]

We are a group of nine young Nokia shareholders. All of us have worked with Nokia in different capacities in the past.

So, you're saying they were all summer interns?

Yes, some of their plans are on the idealistic side, but if they have any negotiating skills at all, better to start from a position where compromise reaches a reasonable end position, instead of starting at a realistic point and ending up half way to hell.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

> Also, what managerial skills do these kids have, let alone upper management skills?

Directors don't need managerial skills. They force their underlings to develop business plans through threats of dismissal. They they pick a plan and order other underlings to implement it. If it fails, sack the underlings and return to first step.

Net risk to Directors? Zero.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, keep dreaming kid. I tried to get a job at Google, Microsoft, and other big companies right out of the gate and that did not happen. Do you honestly think it will happen, ever? I wish the world worked that way, but it doesn't. As a big company, do you think they would rather hire some kid right out of the gate that has no experience in cell phone programming/Symbian, or a person that has been doing it for 5 years? Be realistic with some of this.

I don't know about Google or Microsoft, but some big companies like Intel seem to prefer to hire straight out of college. Unless you've got very specific and highly sought after expertise, its pretty hard to get in once you've been working at other companies for a few years. The most common theory I've heard about this is that they want their employees to work insane hours, and people with experience elsewhere are unlikely to put up with that. I think its got more to do with salary, and with the career interests of hiring managers who benefit from having more junior guys under them but not so much from working with people who have more experience in some areas. A recent college graduate might become highly qualified, but is likely to remain junior to the person who hired them.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

But I have to hand it to them, at least they are trying to rock the boat, rather than just accepting a sinking ship as lost.

What an apt turn of phrase.

First Mate: We have multiple leaks and are taking on water. We've lost power to the engines, and the rudder is fouled. We are listing ten degrees to starboard.

Captain: This is serious. Keep the engines dry, and concentrate on...

Man-of-action, aka Soon-to-be-chum: Look at me! I'm doing something! I'm rocking the boat!

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Stregano]

Based on the fact that their demands seem to deal solely with the R&D department, yes. Summer interns, taking phone calls, something small time. Their demands simply do not encompass enough to run a company as big as Nokia. Their plans only include the R&D department.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since neither I nor Stregano got a job at Nokia when we applied during our undergrad period, it stands to reason that obviously no big company ever hires anyone right out of college

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

believe it or not, big companies ARE hiring freshmans. if this was not you case, then it might be a problem on the other end, if you get what i mean.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yeah, keep dreaming kid. I tried to get a job at Google, Microsoft, and other big companies right out of the gate and that did not happen."

Just because you failed, doesn't others will - companies like Microsoft and Google take in massive numbers of recent graduates each year. Sure their interview process is much more through than others, but they can afford to be picky, and even so, it isn't really that hard -- you just have to know your stuff.

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yeah, keep dreaming kid. I tried to get a job at Google, Microsoft, and other big companies right out of the gate and that did not happen. Do you honestly think it will happen, ever? I wish the world worked that way, but it doesn't. As a big company, do you think they would rather hire some kid right out of the gate that has no experience in cell phone programming/Symbian, or a person that has been doing it for 5 years? Be realistic with some of this.

> I came to the college kids conclusion from the fact that anybody in the industry would not say that they would pull in college kids right out of the gate without experience. That is a huge risk.

What? Perhaps you went to a bad university and did poorly. Or perhaps you're just mediocre.
Large companies are salivating at the thought of hiring people that graduated at the same time I did (I'm a PhD student so I don't get to play that game, but when I briefly did just to try it out I got job offers too), and quite a few people ended up at companies like that. I can't imagine going through an interview with one of those companies and not getting the job. Actually, I'd say everyone competent either ended up in some large company everyone has heard of, at some cool startup, or on wall street. My Linkedin/Facebook friends list agrees with this. Not only that, they ended up with multiple offers.

Maybe.. maybe.. It's time to get competent instead of insulting good programmers. The quality of your college degree depends on what you did. We worked on math and wrote code. What most of us had been doing for a decade already anyway. Perhaps.. you did something different?

Re:Just another /. post that won't hold weight

[Anonymous Coward]

Your failure != subjective reality. It's not that hard, you're just bad.

You mean m$ has been rumbled?

[phonewebcam]

And they would have got away with it if it weren't for those 9 pesky kids.

Multi-year headstart

[SmallFurryCreature]

Exactly how old do you think the iPad is? Or for that matter iOS and for that matter Linux is including Linux on mobile devices?

Simple proof? Which has the most mature and capable media player for FREE? Meego (VLC Mplayer), iOS or Android?

Thanks for playing: "The world existed before I was born", you loose.

By your logic, Apple is silly to go with iOS against market leader symbian with multi-year head start. Or android for that matter. Hell ANYONE whoever dared to enter a market. Bit silly of you don't you think?

Re:Multi-year headstart

[dr.newton]

By your logic, Apple is silly to go with iOS against market leader symbian with multi-year head start. Or android for that matter.

Your analogy is only apt if you think MeeGo represents as much of an improvement over iOS and Android as they offered over Symbian when they were first released.

Do you believe this? If so, why?

Re:Multi-year headstart

[metamatic]

Exactly how old do you think the iPad is? Or for that matter iOS and for that matter Linux is including Linux on mobile devices?

Simple proof? Which has the most mature and capable media player for FREE? Meego (VLC Mplayer), iOS or Android?

Well, since Android has mplayer and VLC and just needs the bugs shaken out of them...

Re:Multi-year headstart

[Anonymous Coward]

He is on the loose? Or has he some loose screws? What are you talking about? The word is lose, and you just lost it.

Re:Multi-year headstart

[Vegeta99]

And I've got a jailbroken iPhone 4 running XBMC that happily streams HD video and mythtv streams over wireless. Not sure what the backend is (ffmpeg as usual or something from apple), and it needs a bug-shaking too. And, in a quick googling to see about VLC, it's actually available on UNjailbroken devices, in the app store.

So, grandparent, tie?

Re:Multi-year headstart

[Znork]

You got me a bit interested, but from the threads linked to it looks like the mplayer port is a bit half-baked and dubious in its GPL compliance.

Re:Multi-year headstart

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

VLC for Android? Just need bugs shaken out? Are you freakin' kidding me?

You obviously have no idea that all that project has right now is a baseline engine port that compiles, spews distorted garbage on the screen, and has only a single button (load hardcoded mp4 file path) as its interface.

(Yes, I built it and ran it. Saying it "just needs the bugs shaken out" is kinda like saying Hurd just needs its bugs shaken out.)

They for got one step: port Dalvik

[Ecuador]

As I was saying in another topic earlier today, port Dalvik to MeeGo and you have access to all the Android apps at once!

Re:They for got one step: port Dalvik

[CreamyG31337]

these guys have done it already:
http://www.myriadgroup.com/Media-Centre/News/Myriad-Announces-Alien%20Dalvik-Enables-Android-Apps-to-Run-on-Non-Android-Phones.aspx
the picture shows an n900, the press release used to say something about maemo or meego but they changed it now that Nokia is trying to run away from their own platform.
Only problem is this company will want a lot of money for their product, people that tried emailing them to purchase it were told it's up to the operators and manufacturers to come to an arrangement, they won't sell directly to end users :(

Re:They for got one step: port Dalvik

[Ecuador]

I know it can be done, the whole point is to have it included when you purchase the device.

Someone please tell me...

[hellfire]

... how posting a Facebook page is "fighting back?"

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Ardaen]

It wasn't a facebook page earlier. I think their server overloaded due to slashdotting and so they forwarded it to a facebook page. Seems like a reasonable way to keep the message up even if the server can't handle the sudden load.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

It worked for the Egyptians.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

See wiki for Egypt.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

You insensitive clod! Don't you know Facebook posting is what brought down the dictator in Egypt!!?!??

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

... how a revolution in Egypt was started?

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

... how posting a Facebook page is "fighting back?"

Egypt says hi.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[idontgno]

Meh. It worked for Egypt fighting back against Hosni Mubarak.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[JoeMerchant]

The kids didn't do so well in Tiananmen Square, and I doubt organization via FaceBook would have helped them.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

'how posting a Facebook page is "fighting back?"'

See: Egypt.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

See how everyone else who posted the Egypt meme so far has done it as an AC? That's because they know that trying to equate the situation in Egypt with the corporate nonsense of a company that died 5 years ago but just didn't know it was dead is nonsense and they don't want their names associated with it.

Thanks for riding the failboat.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[idontgno]

You should probably have your prescription adjusted. I'm sure your mental health provider will be very helpful.

The point stands, failboy. I'm no facebook fanboi, but it's hard to rationally argue against this premise: Communication is key to organization. A well-connected and well-organized protest movement can still fail if the bad guys are willing to kill, but a poorly organized protest movement will probably fail without the slightest opposition.

Protest can be corporate, as well as political. And in this case, I find it unlikely that the Nokia board has access to armed troops. So who knows? Yeah, maybe this is a doomed and futile gesture. But then again, "stockholder revolt" exists in the boardroom vocabulary specifically because sometimes, it's not doomed or futile.

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked for Egypt.

Excellent strategy.

[Brett Buck]

That's exactly what I would do. Microsoft would pay me off to go away, I would have the money, and get out of my Nokia stock before it tanks. Well played!

Re:Excellent strategy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Microsoft pay you to go away? This is likely a small group of investors, who have little voting power and even less influence over the big players. Moreover, the view they present seems rather myopic and not tuned in to the nature of a globalized economy. That isn't to say that the CEO and Board Members aren't abusing their positions for personal gain, but there proposal makes no concrete statements to support this idea and it more seems like a group of individuals going, "You idiots, we know what's best!". Maybe they do, but Wall Street will still ignore them and Microsoft won't be paying anyone to go away.

Re:Excellent strategy.

[Fnord666]

I would have the money, and get out of my Nokia stock before it tanks.

It's already too late for that.

Arrogant Finns

[Arkham]

Their plan is idiotic. You may not like what Elop has proposed, but suggesting that Nokia just go stick their heads in the stand and work only out of Finland is idiotic. The Finnish culture at Nokia is largely what caused their downfall in the first place. The arrogance is unbelievable.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[Anonymous Coward]

The Finnish culture at Nokia is largely what caused their downfall in the first place.

I guess you're saying that they're finnished then?

Re:Arrogant Finns

[Anonymous Coward]

NIH is what caused the downfall. Software not hardware. The fact that have an ex-MS as a head honcho is why they're doomed. They can trivially move to Android, they already have extensive Linux experience on smartphones and they know how to do it properly. With an ex-MS in charge, this has been blocked. They obviously can't use iOS, so what's left? Crap that no one wants. Nokia will be the Zune of smartphones. The product may be ok, but no one really wants it.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[duranaki]

I don't agree at all. I worked for Nokia for 10 years and worked with many Finns. I think the groups point is not "Finland is so great" but rather Nokia's distributed R&D efforts are horribly inefficient. Having experienced it from the inside, I can see their point. And they do have a very large talented asset base in Finland, so it makes sense to keep that as a focal point. That said, they have absolutely no hope of getting "top talent" to go work in Finland.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[diegocg]

What article are you reading? The one I'm reading says "Dramatically increase efficiency by eliminating outdated and bureaucratic R&D practices like geographically distributed software development and outsourcing [...] Transition to an R&D setup where 90% of all Nokia R&D takes place in only two geographical locations. One of them will be in Finland and the other will be defined later. There will be no more R&D projects with resources in multiple cities and different time zones. Only small tactical software projects will be allowed to take place outside two main R&D locations"

I don't think they are proposing what you think.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[tsm_sf]

Two of their points address this:

- End of distributed R&D
- End of R&D outsourcing

I wouldn't call that "idiotic", I'd call that looking out for the long-term interests of the company. It's easy to point to the short-term monetary gains to be had from outsourcing or eliminating internal R&D, but for some reason the crashing failures of this approach (Carly Fiorina at HP, Boeing and the 787, etc etc) never seem to register with people.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[Anonymous Coward]

It is amusing that this situation is making Nokia look like an underdog whose happy little Finnish existence was interrupted by Microsoft. Nokia is an arrogant behemoth. Microsoft isn't much different but they show signs of trying to change.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it is an interesting plan and better than tying their future to MS.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[Anonymous Coward]

Their plan is in deed retarded. But so is Elop's. WP7 might prove to be a great choice. From the little I've seen, it certainly looks better than Symbian, Android or iOS. A sea of static icons (looking at you iOS and Android) is in the end a rather shitty UI for a mobile device. WM7 solution with the active tiles seems rather intuitive. However, why the hell is Elop marginalizing MeeGo? Why can't Nokia have say 500 people working on MeeGo in say MeeGo unit? Why can't Nokia have a MeeGo line of phones? One release every year, support 2-3 generations at a time. See where the platform goes. It has been in the making since Nokia 770. FFS give it a chance in main stream. Keep the open source community that you've collected happy!

Re:Arrogant Finns

[Anonymous Coward]

Einstein's famous remark is appropriate here:
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Re:Arrogant Finns

[21mhz]

Why can't Nokia have say 500 people working on MeeGo in say MeeGo unit?

It can, and it does.

Why can't Nokia have a MeeGo line of phones? One release every year, support 2-3 generations at a time. See where the platform goes. It has been in the making since Nokia 770. FFS give it a chance in main stream. Keep the open source community that you've collected happy!

That's pretty much the plan as far as I can tell (which is, the end of this year :-)).

The Real Cause of Nokia's Crisis

[thinktank2]

Nokia ignored America

Re:The Real Cause of Nokia's Crisis

[Compaqt]

The problem with Nokia's WP7 plan is that it still ignores the reason for its decline in the US: failing to hook up with carriers. If they sell $500 phones with WP7, US consumers will continue to spurn it preferring to get "free" phones, and pay monthly.

Yeah, it's stupid, but the carriers have forced that situation in the US. But Nokia could have tied up with carriers with any OS.

Eh what?

[SmallFurryCreature]

"All of Nokia's competitors in the smartphone space come from North America"

Indeed, so that makes HTC, LG and Samsung you mention yourself North American companies?

I think their owners will be very suprised. So that is how Taiwan (HTC) is going for independence from China, they are going to be the 51st state, oh wait that is canada. So that is how WW3 is going to start. Good to know.

The rest of your post isn't much better.

The iPhone cost way more then 200-300 AND didn't come with CDMA at the start. Nokia also got plenty of cheap phones and that is in fact an area they do very well in being the top seller in poorer areas.

The N900 shipped with Maemo which is half the origin of Meego. So yes they shipped a phone and it sold very well indeed spending a lot of time being sold out.

The real problem Nokia faces is the "we need to drop everything for the next quarter". So they missed the boat on the current generation. So what? Does that mean you drop all your long term plans for an escape plan of dubious value? No, you though it out and focus on being the leader of the next generation. Mobile phones still have a long way to go and can be greatly improved.

One obvious example where Meego might be far superior then iPhone and Android? No market/App store. My god those things are hideous. Just trying to find a tool is bad enough, then most cost money as well. Now imagine something like Linux Mint installed on your mobile phone. EVERYTHING just works from the start with everything included. No need to hunt down media player for 3 bucks a piece that will play your content, VLC and Mplayer included and ready to go with years of experience.

Same with all the other tools. Freely available, long out of beta, tried and tested.

Nokia Meego, the phone for people who don't want to mess about with shady app sellers. Try the N900. Anyone who has KNOWS why it was such a good idea. It blows everything else out of the water.

Re:Eh what?

[slinches]

Nokia Meego, the phone for people who don't want to mess about with shady app sellers. Try the N900. Anyone who has KNOWS why it was such a good idea. It blows everything else out of the water.

I have a N900 and I can definitely see the potential of MeeGo. Maemo is great, but it lacks that last bit of polish that takes something from being good to being the best. If Meego can improve the interface and allow even easier development across a wider set of devices, then I could see it becoming a dominant platform very quickly. iOS is limited by only being supplied by one vendor and Android can't take advantage of the existing Linux code base as easily or scale to a full desktop like MeeGo can.

Actually, if Intel et. al. can get MeeGo to be a serious competitor on netbooks and tablets, smart phone handsets will follow whether Nokia produces them or not. If Nokia did stay on board, there's a good chance that MeeGo could become not just a leading competitor, but the dominant platform on mobile computing devices. What they would need to do is collaborate with Intel and another hardware manufacturer on a simultaneous release of netbook, tablet and handset hardware accompanied by a marketing program that highlights MeeGo as a unified platform with seamless integration to the desktop and between these mobile devices.

It may not push Android out of the market immediately, but why buy an Android phone or tablet when MeeGo can run all Android apps and integrates better with your other devices? The only stumbling block I can see is that, in the US at least, the mobile service providers may not accept such an open platform since they seem to like having control over their customer's devices.

Re:Eh what?

[LWATCDR]

"Indeed, so that makes HTC, LG and Samsung you mention yourself North American companies?

I think their owners will be very suprised. So that is how Taiwan (HTC) is going for independence from China, they are going to be the 51st state, oh wait that is canada. So that is how WW3 is going to start. Good to know."
Those are just hardware makers. If you bothered to read I mentioned the products I was referencing. IOS, Android, WebOS, and RIM's OS. The actual hardware is pretty interchangeable at this point. Snapdragon at around 1 Ghz, big screen, and so on.
Nokia makes very good hardware but hardware without software is useless.

Re:Eh what?

[LWATCDR]

"The iPhone cost way more then 200-300 AND didn't come with CDMA at the start. Nokia also got plenty of cheap phones and that is in fact an area they do very well in being the top seller in poorer areas."
Not in the US.

"The N900 shipped with Maemo which is half the origin of Meego. So yes they shipped a phone and it sold very well indeed spending a lot of time being sold out."
It wasn't MeeGo was it? and how many did they sell? Really you are one of the most OCD fanboi's I have ever seen.
Nokia blew it because they didn't keep focus on Maemo or MeeGo or Symbian. They had not plan or focus that anybody could see.
They also have next to no presence in the US market. That is just dumb because it is a super profitable market to be in.
The US has almost as many people as the EU. It has a very large GNP. It has one language. It has four major carriers.
And yes since I was just talking about software all of Nokia's competitors are from North America and Android, IOS, and Blackberry have all done very well in the rest of the world as well.
Really I really want a good MeeGo phone on my carrier and at the same price as my HTC Evo. I love Linux but Nokia has been running around like a blind drunken sailor.

Re:Eh what?

[downhole]

The phone manufacturers aren't North American, but the money is in the software, and all of the software IS North American right now. That software money is what Nokia needs a piece of to stay on their feet, and before the announcement, they had essentially no chance of getting it anytime soon.

Maybe you think app stores are dumb, but the rest of the world wants well-populated app stores, and they're the ones with the money. There's no money in being able to SSH out of your phone without buying an app or whatever it is you love so much, and there never will be. I don't know about the rest of the world, but as far as the US goes, the N900 bombed, just like every other smartphone Nokia has put out here in the last few years. Who cares how long they were sold out for if virtually no phones actually made it into customer's hands? Everyone I know has iPhones, various Droids, or Blackberries; nobody I know is even aware that the N900 exists. In this age of rapid enhancement, that makes the N900 and the Meego OS toast. No users = no developers making apps = even less reason for users to want it. At this point, iOS and Android are established, and Meego has no chance of getting the apps that actually sell phones. Microsoft's WinPhone7 is big enough to have a chance, which is why they went with it.

Sanity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same sanity that had them spending more on R&D than any other smartphone company in the world to make the worst smartphone OS in the world, that sanity? Maybe the sanity where they were developing yet another open source, linux based OS themselves instead of going for the one that doesn't cost them anything. Or... you know I'm having a hard to time finding what part of their previous business strategy was "sane"

Some notes to Stevie and Stevie

[McNihil]

Ever since I had the immense displeasure of getting to know your tactics in the mid 80ies it is clear to me that you are doing the same thing over and over again. Bad behavior: Pissing off engineers. This is not a good thing... never ever. 9 shareholders may not seem like much but if the majority of the engineers that are heavily invested would follow suite there will actually be a change for the better.

Balmer et.al... I personally do not want your Windows or any other Microsoft offering on any of my phones... any mobile platform... PERIOD.

Re:Some notes to Stevie and Stevie

[RogerWilco]

any mobile platform... PERIOD.

Any platform you mean? Why restrict it to mobile ones?

Re:Some notes to Stevie and Stevie

[zombiechan]

". I personally do not want your Windows or any other Microsoft offering on any of my phones... any mobile platform... PERIOD."

But of course is you. There are people who like Windows Phones.

What's their alternative?

[91degrees]

Seriously, sad as it may be, nobody's interested in Symbian. Look at the job market. Plenty of people want iPhone and Android developers, but few want Symbian. And while it is a hugely successful OS, it's losing market share rapidly.

So what's the solution? Nokia decided to team up with Microsoft. This at least means that they have an OS that could be relevant. There's the strong brand name that will at least interest some developers to port their apps to WP7. And Microsoft are pretty friendly to developers. It will be possible to develop using visual studio and Microsoft will make sure there's as much overlap as possible with their desktop targeted SDK.

Re:What's their alternative?

[JoeMerchant]

I'm not too concerned about whether Symbian dies in 2 years or 5, what bothers me is the apparent abandonment of MeeGo/Qt - that's where I expected Nokia to create major value in the next 12 months, and apparently they're neglecting it with a vengeance instead.

The ravings of a Slashdot business no nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since I had the immense displeasure of getting to know your tactics in the mid 80ies it is clear to me that you are doing the same thing over and over again.

Sour grapes? The most vocal critics of MS were other companies that couldn't compete. Get beaten in the business World? Cry "MONOPOLY" or "DUMPING" and get the Government involved. Revisionist? Please. No one was ever really hurt by MS. No one. The companies who cried foul couldn't compete - they wanted to protect their ultra high margins and backwards technology. You Slashdotters just jumped on board because ... I don't know why. Get a life!

Bad behavior: Pissing off engineers. This is not a good thing... never ever

Or what? What exactly? Quit? Pffft. There are millions more to replace them. They need to get over themselves.

9 shareholders may not seem like much but if the majority of the engineers that are heavily invested would follow suite there will actually be a change for the better.

Now you're babbling.

Balmer et.al... I personally do not want your Windows or any other Microsoft offering on any of my phones... any mobile platform... PERIOD

Grow up.

Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

that they have a bad hand, and that they're playing a desperate game for the life of the company. Yes, they could do a bunch of other things...and none of them would be great for them. At this point, they do not have a winning hand. There is no winning move for them. The choice he made is a pragmatic one, to stay in the game. It doesn't mean it has to be their 50 year strategy, but it keeps them in the game for the next 3-5 years at least and that's crucial. They screwed up, and it's not the recent decision that was the big mistake. They missed the boat...arguing about why doesn't really change the basic fact that they missed the boat...and they are left in a precarious position. No, the MS way isn't going to get them to #1, or #2. But they can be #3. They can't run iOS...so they're cut off from apps on that platform. They can't be RIM...so they're cut off from that. They could do Android, and probably do it well...but he's right, that they would be subject to severe price pressure and that it would be brutally competitive, low margin. It would gut the company. Any of the other options, save MS, would consign them to the Nokia ghetto, with few apps, no significant community. Going with MS at this point is the only option which helps them to keep profit margins more than razor thin and also gets them access to a larger community, as well as a built in market, that they otherwise wouldn't have. IN THE MEANTIME...if they don't bust their butts on R&D and get out ahead of the next game changer, they will eventually fade away, but at least this buys them time to do that.

Sometimes, the best move is just staying in the game, and they've done that. Yeah, I know, there's lots of risk, and lots of people would want anything but to be wedded to Microsoft, but...sorry guys, too little too late.

Re:Their CEO is right

[caywen]

I think you're on the money. Nokia might have a decent hand, but the flop came out and when they looked around the table at the bets their competitors were making, they realized they need to make a play for the pot. Doesn't matter if they had aces, the flop sucked for them, so either they fold the hand or go all in. Now we see if the turn or river hits them.

Re:Their CEO is right

[Anonymous Coward]

There best option would be to run with BOTH android and WP7. Second best option run with Android, at least they can control the software direction a little more than WP7. WP7 closed solution with a closed future leaving you at the mercy of a OS developer who controls 100% of the development strategy. Very little maneuvering possibilities. The arguments for Android apply to WP7.

What they should have done was open up to Android and WP7 while continuing to develop MeeGo. The money involved in development is peanuts compared to their revenue.

just my .02$

Re:Their CEO is right

[Znork]

As a 3-5 years strategy it's the worst possible; there's no guarantee that WP will be more than barely usable within that timeframe, and certainly no guarantee of any significant developer interest. After that... considering Microsofts performance, Ballmer could be gone within that timeframe at which point the dedication of the company to work on any such product is utterly unknown.

The most pragmatic play available is, as many others have said, to simply enable running Android apps on MeeGo, technology that is available today, which gives them both diffrentiation and a vibrant ecosystem beyond the Linux one already available in MeeGo.

But WP? That's blowing the companies head off with a shotgun, after which they'll certainly be fighting for the life of the company. Well, at least some might, the rest will most likely be trying to put the remains out of their misery. It's not a risky strategy, it's suicide.

Re:Their CEO is right

[syousef]

that they have a bad hand, and that they're playing a desperate game for the life of the company. Yes, they could do a bunch of other things...and none of them would be great for them. At this point, they do not have a winning hand. There is no winning move for them. The choice he made is a pragmatic one, to stay in the game.

It's a pragmatic one alright. A pragmatic move to bolster his Microsoft shares.

Re:Their CEO is right

[randallman]

... would be brutally competitive, low margin. ... Any of the other options, save MS, would consign them to the Nokia ghetto, with few apps, no significant community.

• low margin - So how is WP7 going to give them better margins than Android when they can't customize it or otherwise differentiate themselves from other WP7 phones?
• Nokia ghetto, with few apps - Um, since when did WP7 have a nice app ecosystem? I think you mixed up Androids app ecosystem with WP7's.
• no significant community - Again, like the apps. What are you smoking? WP7 - community. Ha! Maemo has a better community than WP7 maemo.org

If you switched Android and WP7 in your argument, it would make sense. How did so many people mark this insightful?

Re:Their CEO is right

[Alex Belits]

Actually the best strategy for Microsoft marketing is to do more astroturfing on Slashdot.

It's not like there is anything other than fear, that promotes Microsoft products anywhere now, and you don't need "marketing" for that.

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

Well, unfortunately, there's something of a dearth of details. The official announcement said that WP7 would be Nokia's "principal smartphone strategy" (emphasis mine). I believe that it makes sense...but the devil is in the details. If Nokia has the necessary flexibility to continue to experiment with and keep a toe in Android or whatever else is truly worth pursing long term, then it's a good deal. If it's more exclusive and they're prohibited from keeping their options open, then it's a bad deal. And I didn't find it in a quick search...in fact, the official announcement indicates that details still have to be worked out (although I'm sure the broad outlines are already agreed to or else we wouldn't know about it).

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

I don't think the MeeGo strategy is a wise one for them. The problem is they're already in a hole. And if they went with MeeGo, they'd largely have to dig themselves out of it. In the meantime, other than Apple, nearly all their competitors are getting a lot of work paid for by Google at no cost to them. So they'd be setting themselves up in a very dangerous position. However, by going this path, they get another well-heeled company to cover a lot of costs that they'd otherwise have to absorb, and they can focus on revamping themselves. I think if they get their hardware house in order, they will be very able to jump more into Android if they see a good opportunity. It's a huge point of transition...on a very short timescale, brand loyalty has shifted largely away from the hardware manufacturer to the OS. So I don't think that by doing this now that they'll make it much more difficult for themselves to release Android handsets in a few years. If the hardware is good, they'll get buyers, people are largely not going to get hung up on, "but I'm a Motorola user!!".

And as far as developer interest goes...you'll get developers but it will definitely be more focused on the corporate market. The Microsoft brand is still Very Strong for Corporate IT, and if the integration is good with the suite of apps they're already using (Office, Exchange, Sharepoint), it will get uptake. Of course, MS still has work to do to really make that work as good as it should, but it *can* happen. And if/when it does, you will get enough developers to make the device useful.

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

My first reaction was that it was rather unseemly...but I really think there is more to it, that it's a well-reasoned decision.

Re:Their CEO is right

[lordDallan]

How is he right about price pressure? Should I just take your word for it? You sound like Michael Dell talking about Apple before Apple's meteoric rise past Dell and many others who "knew" how things worked.

Re:Their CEO is right

[Anonymous Coward]

So Elop decided, for Nokia, to let him and his associates set on crash course for 3-5 as a solid plan?

Are you out of your mind? Do you not understand the recognition Nokia has globally. Do not underestimate its already existing capabilities and massive resources. It is absurd to merge with Microsoft. Microsoft's, especially Windows' brand is horrible in comparison. Nokia has all the potential, the already existing following, great image, existing markets.. What does Nokia have to gain from this move in the long run?

I just don't understand. Something smells fishy.

Re:Their CEO is right

[zombiechan]

"Um, since when did WP7 have a nice app ecosystem? "
It has a lot of apps for the amount of time it's been out. It has over 8000, which isn't bad for the few months its been out.

"What are you smoking? WP7 - community. "
It has the .Net Community as well as the Windows Mobile community. MSDN is huge.

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

- margin - can be higher b/c the market is less crowded. And b/c the market will skew business rather than consumer.
- wp7 will have more of a developer community than a more proprietary solution. what they really need is breadth of support. of COURSE android would have even more of a community, but...i think it's a tradeoff for getting to be the dominant player on the lower tier os. maybe i'm smoking something to believe that there will be some people who will choose to develop for microsoft's os, but i never would have expected .NET to be much of a player, and i learned a few things from watching that play out.

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

Even if you're right, FOX News is the most popular news station in the US. Don't underestimate the market value of fear.

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

Except that I'm not arguing that their competitors have some losing position. Dell argued that Apple was, essentially, a sideshow. I'm arguing that Nokia has painted themselves into sideshow box, and that they need to regroup and then come out of it. And that this is a reasonable stopgap between now and then. In essence, I'm arguing this is much more akin to Steve Jobs inking a deal with Microsoft to help save the company. Or did you forget that part of the story?

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

No, (giving the benefit of the doubt) Elop decided, along with the board, to use MS as a bridge to their future. You may recall that Steve Jobs did something very similar once upon a time....

Re:Their CEO is right

[Anonymous Coward]

No, (giving the benefit of the doubt) Elop decided, along with the board, to use MS as a bridge to their future. You may recall that Steve Jobs did something very similar once upon a time....

Jobs cut a deal for MS to buy a couple hundred million dollars of nonvoting Apple stock and also commit to providing Office and IE on Mac for a few years. In return, Apple settled a patent lawsuit with Microsoft where observers generally thought they had Microsoft nailed.

That is in no way similar to Elop gutting Nokia's in-house software development and effectively outsourcing it to Microsoft.

Re:Their CEO is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would going with Android consign them to commodity hardware?

They could try to compete with HTC, sure...

Or they could make high-end expensive Android models just like Sharp and Sony are doing now...

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

and HTC and Motorola and Samsung...I think the other players are either playing for the whole market, or a niche, but it's not like there's a non-crowded segment that I see. And you can't exactly bet your entire firm on just making high-end Android handsets. They're not a Japanese conglomerate with 18 other product divisions to fall back on if they make a bad bet and need a year or two to regroup and go in a different direction....

Re:Their CEO is right

[eyrieowl]

We don't really know who all will be culled. But, lets suppose they bet the farm on Android. Is their current stable of Symbian with some Meego developers going to all make that transition? Probably not. They'd be gutting their software division and replacing it with new people. And they'd keep ones they identified as valuable that were able and ready to make a transition. Any major OS change is going to result in gutting their current staff of developers. In this case, they need fewer hires to move forward b/c they're not having to fully replace the organization up front. They *could* hire what they need, and reorganize and prepare a new organization for the future. And from what I've read, their current organization needed that anyway, it sounds like it was very badly organized...even if they were going to make no changes at all in OS strategy, they still sound like they needed to drastically reorganize the software house. So...yes, it sucks for the developers. And I wouldn't want to have to make that decision. But the similarity is there, the similarity being that Apple used that money and commitment from MS as a lifeline to get through a difficult stretch after the company had been badly managed and then they got back to a stronger position where they didn't need MS. I don't know what's in Elop's head, but I wouldn't be surprised if he, or at least members of the board, view this as a similar lifeline to get through a difficult stretch and get back to a healthier, stronger position.

Re:Their CEO is right

[lordDallan]

I don't understand your first sentence at all, so I'll just ignore it. I also don't understand your usage of the term sideshow box, so I'll ignore that too for now.

To answer your snarky question, no I didn't forget that Apple made a deal and got a cash infusion from Microsoft. Are you really arguing that this is the same as Nokia's deal?? Did Apple scrap the Mac OS for Windows? Nope, which is why it's not the same thing at all. As I recall, MS was in a position where it behooved them to be magnanimous due to the whole anti-trust brouhaha that was going on at the time and Apple was truly desperate for cash.

In contrast, I don't think (though I could be wrong) that Nokia is metaphorically inches away from bankruptcy as Apple was, I don't think Nokia's getting any big investment from MS, and I don't think Microsoft is doing this out of magnanimity, but instead they're acting out of desperation which means Nokia should be wary.

My point was and is that you infer by the nature of your comment that you know a lot about Nokia's internal situation right now, and I don't see any reason to believe that inference.

Make that ten shareholders

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought one share of Nokia.

They don't even say who they are and how much shares they own. This doesn't seem like it is goingt to end in a proxy fight.

Microsoft is not ready for the phone-top.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used WinMo OS'es. Last one was on my Qtek S100 (HTC Wizard?), and it SUCKED BALLS.

Even the apps that Microsoft themselves offered for download on their website crashed and/or did not RUN AT ALL. And yes, those apps were ment for the very version of WinMo they got installed on. No dice, however.

The phone before that one was even worse. That one crashed daily and it was easy to replicate: call nine people in a day. Then try to dial another one: CRASH.

As long as I live, I'll never, EVER, use another WinMo phone. Not even when I get it for free. Not even with ponies and rainbows.

Further Nokia plans

[jks]

See also: http://www.nokiaplanc.com/ , http://www.nokiapland.com/ , etc (listed at http://www.nokiaplans.com/ ).

Re:Further Nokia plans

[leaen]

They miss plan i nokia shares bought by intel for dime and produces atom smartphones with android

Re:Further Nokia plans

[jovius]

Judging by the huge reaction maybe they should've asked from users and developers first, and then catalyze the responses as part of the new strategy.

Re:Further Nokia plans

[jeffrey.endres]

http://nokiaplans.com/ - Plans A through Z

Sub 200$ Android phone

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a ZTE Blade (Orange San Francisco). Cost me CHF 100, which is around 100 $.

See here:

http://www.ok-mobile.ch/de/mobile/index.php?id=smartphone

aren't ceo's required to act in the interests

[Anonymous Coward]

of the shareholders ? Cos the current strategy sounds like raving lunacy to me and lots of shareholders seem to agree .

Arriving Late Didn't Bother Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is usually 5 yrs or more late to most of their popular solutions.
iPad - SONY eReader (2004)
iPhone - RIM 950 (1998-ish)
App-Store - RPM packages (1995-ish)
OS-X - BSD UNIX (1980-ish)

iTunes appears to be an Apple invention, but it is still the 2nd largest virus ever written IMHO, behind MS-Outlook.

I say that Nokia should join Android and make it better, most stable and available on cheap phones. BTW, I own and use an Nokia N800 almost every day.

Dear shareholders/employees: It's all business

[recharged95]

Shareholders revolt? Either the share price drops, ripe for a MS hostile take over, or elop gets kicked out, chaos ensues for 1-2 years and they eventually team up with MS, HP or Android down the road (look at Disney--except the media industry moves slow on their product compared to tech where 1 yr is life or death.

Employee revolt? Good luck. It's Nokia, not a gov't.

9-young shareholders? Sounds like too much time in the coffee shop over there (those shops), especially if a 2-3 of billionaire shareholders tells the rest of investors that the MS deal was good.

This is how Witches Cry !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, how much does one understand of OS and Ecosystems.. 1% of what Nokia does.. stop make a big deal and go grab your coffee.. seriously cry witches

Do we not know we are all geeks here?

[HerculesMO]

Let's face the facts -- Nokia is in a race to the bottom of the smartphone market. You can say what you will, but Nokia's reign came from building sturdy handsets that took a beating in any part of the world. Go to the Asian markets and you'll find a genuine love for Nokia, the brand.

In recent years however, it became more cost effective to buy chinese dumbphones that you can buy 20 of for the price of one Nokia. Nokia's reign starts to erode in name only. Symbian was the first real smartphone OS, but with a lack of apps almost throughout its life, and a lack of big developer ecosystem, it's been stagnant. Meego seems to be a suitable replacement, but how are you going to convince people to produce MORE apps for yet ANOTHER ecosystem?

We're geeks folks -- we care about the Androids of the world, and we care about open source. Consumers however, don't give a flying fuck. They want a phone that works, is reliable (Nokia's speciality), and if it's a smartphone, has a good selection of apps. Despite what people want to say, Microsoft's WP7 ecosystem is growing *fast*. Faster than Android did in its infancy, and they aren't tied to the same problems that Android has with fragmentation. It's a one-size-fits-all UI, and that surprisingly, fits with Nokia's brand as it is. Symbian is largely the same from phone to phone.

This is not "fighting back". This is geeks getting mad about Symbian and Meego getting the boot. Nine shareholders -- I'm sure that the Nokia CEO is shaking in his boots. It's ridiculous that things like this even get traction on Slashdot. Nokia's CEO is making a business decision, and given that a LOT of his compensation comes from the company actually doing WELL, it's a move that he feels is going to give Nokia an edge. Will it work? I don't know, but the variables are in place and are good -- growing developer ecosystem, LEGAL PROTECTION (that Android does *not* afford you -- think about how that weighs in on the cost/benefit analysis), and a lot of weight from MS to push the phone. People forget that since Nokia can now write off advertising, UI/OS development, legal costs... they can cut a lot of fat out of their budget and just return to what the people in the Asian markets loved about them -- making badass, durable, ergonomical phones.

And if they fail that, they will still wind up in the same place they were headed BEFORE the MS agreement -- bankruptcy.

Re:Do we not know we are all geeks here?

[squallstrifeau]

I'd also wager that a good % of Nokia's shares are owned by investment funds. They don't care what OS the phone runs.

Re:Do we not know we are all geeks here?

[Alex Belits]

They do care what will be Nokia's position on the market -- and "Windows delivery vehicle" is unlikely to please them.

Re:Do we not know we are all geeks here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss the bit where he said they wouldn't care what OS the phones run? You can't grow your portfolio on geeky idealism. Meego is an unknown quantity with high R&D costs (this is Nokia after all). WP7 is already out there, growing steadily, with the R&D costs being borne by Microsoft. As a businessman, I know which road I'd take, and I acknowledge that it's a different road to what my inner geek might have taken in a different life.

Re:Do we not know we are all geeks here?

[Alex Belits]

I didn't miss anything, I have debunked his claim.

Nokia is basically being paid one-time sum (something it does not need now) to become an expendable Microsoft-controlled entity (something that it doesn't need in the future). One does not have to be a geek to recognize that this is setting the company for a fall, to please a foreign master -- rich but in no way useful for Nokia investors, managers, employees, developers, or users. You may believe that Microsoft "deserves" such slaves, and that its success will "rub" onto people who faithfully serve it, but this is American ideology, and Nokia is, for now, not an American company, like SGI was under Belluzzo.

Re:Do we not know we are all geeks here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pity, I thought you may have had more to bring to the table than stereotypical /.er anti-Microsoft diatribe. So explain, in your own words, why partnering with Microsoft is intrinsically "setting the company for a fall (sic)". Explain how a "rich" partner is "in no way useful" for Nokia's investors. I tend to think that $6bn R&D a year, and still no operating system is in no way useful.

Um...???

[cartman]

um, NO. Android outsells it in SMARTphones. Include dumbphones and Nokia is way, way ahead. [gartner.com]

Did you read the message you're responding to? It said: "You could at least look up Q4 2010 numbers before starting to spew bullshit." In response, you provided a link to data from Q1, which by now is obviously extremely outdated since Android grew by something like 700% last year.

On top of that, the link you provided doesn't even support your claim that "Nokia is way, way ahead", not even for Q1. The article says that Nokia sold 35% of all units, but the chart is broken down by vendor (like Samsung, etc), not by OS, so it doesn't say if Nokia outsells all Android phones or not.

You might try that with someone else next time so you don't appear to be such an ass.

Ahem...

Re:Um...???

[LurkerXXX]

ok,

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/12533_Q4_2010_overall_phone_sales_wo.php

Nokia is still 10x iOS and you are trying to tell me it's below Android with those numbers. Here's a clue, not every phone not from Nokia is running Android.

they don't have access to the applications

[judeancodersfront]

they would still have to create their own store and encourage developers to port.

What is WP? You mean WP7?

[judeancodersfront]

Read some reviews outside Slashdot, users really like it.

Linux Geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had nothing but Nokia smartphones (6260, 6630, 6680, N70, N82, N810, N97) until recently when I got an HTC Glacier/MyTouch 4G. Nokia just isn't getting it done anymore and this is coming from a guy who, against all reason kept buying Nokia even when it was obvious they'd fallen behind.

Here's the situation as I see it: on one hand Symbian is dead and MeeGo/Maemo aren't far enough along to compete with Android and iOS. On the other hand, Microsoft needs an established phone manufacturer to push WP7 onto the market. This move is best for both companies at the moment. Their only realistic choice was which large corporation to throw their lot in with and Microsoft probably offered a better deal.

Oh and when I read about the "young shareholders" who are anti-Microsoft I automatically thought "Linux geek college students with little to no experience." I mean who else hates Microsoft and has no clue what it takes to get things done in the real world.

Re:Linux Geeks

[Alex Belits]

Oh wow.

"coffe shops"

[krischik]

"Those" shops are in the Netherlands not Finland.

micro soft

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who has gone into bed with Microsoft, has come across with - well, a micro soft.

Just wantet to ask

[zzg]

do you use the sip functionality exclusively for outgoing calls?

I have a E52 which I bought primarily for the sip client, but I've found that it's worthless for incoming calls, since it will get disconnected at irregular intervals and thus not available for incoming calls. I have been unable to find workarounds, even a scheduled reboot would help but seems require a signing certificate on my part.

Can it be that the earlier sip implementations worked better? (keeping an eye open for a cheap E71)

Re:Just wantet to ask

[TheRaven64]

Pretty much, yes. It stays connected to the SIP server until the NAT timeout expires, then loses the connection - there's no keep-alive. It would probably work better without NAT, or with static port forwarding. I don't use SIP for incoming calls though, because the mobile number works anywhere, while the SIP one only works when I am in range of the WiFi (and, since I'm not in the USA, I don't have that crazy thing of paying for incoming calls). The main benefit of SIP is that it costs a tenth o the amount for calls to landlines.

Re:Just wanted to ask

[zzg]

Then our experiences match, we just wanted different things. I wanted to use the incoming sip for being available where I have WiFi but no cell coverage (my flat). For outgoing calls I have europe wide free minutes. Oh well, I ended up using a X-link bttn to solve the problem at home. Other places I need to remember checking the sip status.

btw. The N900 sip implementation seems more reliable.