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Nokia Windows Phone Revealed
DMiax writes "Nokia's controversial CEO Stephen Elop just revealed the prototype of the next WP7 handset. The CEO asked the journalists present to turn off the cameras because the new phone was 'super confidential.' Did he really expect them to comply? After all he must know that this has the potential to hurt the sales of the recently released N9, the last non-Windows Nokia smartphone. He would never want to do that, right?"
"This phone is super secret, don't say a word!" actually means "Please, please, please, please give us some press for this. Even bad press. Just anything you can say that isn't another iPhone or Android story is great."
I find it hard to believe that something being announced to the press is "super confidential." One more subtraction from Nokia's credibility score.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Because it's the only commonly available follow up to the N900. After that it's only devices running WP7 from Nokia, at which point I will cease ever being a customer.
At least now we know the exact terms of the deal.
The stock software on the device is a mix of the old Maemo understructure and a proprietary upper layer (the part that integrates all the social media services) that the community can't do anything with themselves.
Before long I expect MeeGo (as in, MeeGo Community Edition) to be up and running with full functionality on the device, which should be nice and fully functional by the time Nokia decides to give up the ghost completely.
The CEO asked the journalists present to turn off the cameras because the new phone was 'super confidential.'
Seriously - the guy gives a presentation to a bunch of journalists - who I assume weren't just randomly milling around on the street before the Nokia folks brought out a podium and a microphone - and says "Hey!! Here's our super-secret WINDOWS PHONE! Ssh! Don't tell anyone!" Is there anyone in the world with a greater than room temperature IQ that'd actually fall for that? (and yes, that's room temperature in Celsius)
I see the former Microsoftie has brought along those mad Microsoft advertizing skillz for which the company is renowned...
#DeleteChrome
My point is that he's a tool. He isn't supposed to think for himself, or do what 's best for his company. He's doing what's best to drive his company into a weak position so that they are dependent on Microsoft. His reaction here is to undermine the notion that Nokia could actually exist without the Microsoft dependency.
He is a tool, wielded by Microsoft.
I realize people love to dump on Microsoft, so they're going to be dismissive of Windows Phone 7 without even having tried it. It's the total opposite of how people respond to the iPhone. Anytime someone asks for suggestions for a smartphone people default to the iPhone like mindless drones.
I have an Android phone which I'm extremely happy with. However, a friend recently got a WP7 phone which finally gave me an opportunity to give it a try. I was extremely impressed. I felt like Microsoft, moreso than either Google or Apple actually put thought into usability, into how people will interact with the phone. Menus and settings are clear and better organized and the interface seems more consistent. I can navigate more efficiently and there seems to a good amount of customization. And I'll give them credit for not just going and cloning Android and iOS's look. Blackberries might offer some great functionality, but in terms of usability they aren't even in the same galaxy as their competitors.
Of course, not having to actually live with the phone I can't speak to how I'd feel about WP7 over the long run, if I'd find it as satisfying an experience as Android. My point is that Microsoft deserves quite a bit more credit than they're getting for this OS. I've found that friends of mine who've actually used a WP7 phone have been quite impressed.
Like customers for your apps, for example.
Didn't spot the transparent strategy then? Hmm, Windows 8 apps look a lot like Windows Phone apps, and something similar is moving onto the XBox too...
The implication is that they intend Windows Phone apps will be the same apps you use on Windows 8 which will be the same apps you can access on XBox. The famous "three screens". And if you're not coding specifically for Windows, well standard HTML5 and Javascript apps will run just dandy on Windows 8 and the future version of Windows Phone too. I don't see there being a problem with getting apps, or with getting customers for your apps.
It's plain and simple leveraging from the PC market into the phone market. And my goodness there are a lot of Windows PC customers, and neither Google nor Apple have that advantage.
This was a company internal presentation, not for journalists. If you watch the whole video, it becomes clear that this was not a controlled leak, there are other references to ongoing work which I seriously doubt Elop wants to have out in public.
Nokia has been struggling, new ex Microsoft CEO was brought in, makes 100% turn by axing the entire software division and handing it over to Microsoft. The platform Nokia has been working on for three years finally is released (probabyl also due to contractual obligations) and gets raving reviews.
Ceo who killed literally every other road for Microsoft by telling upfront, forget about Symbian forget about Maemo stands upfront a crowd one day after the N9 is released and almost 100% raving reviews come in and he has nothing better to do after day one of the raving reviews to show his Windows 7 version of the same phone "accidentally". Ooops a leak, oh well never mind.
If this guy is not a Microsoft juggernaut than what. He damages his own divisions by using the old dont buy that we have something else in the line tactics, Microsoft used successfully in the 90s to kill off competition. But he is applying the tactics internally probably to kill of the Maemo division which if the N9 would have become successful could cause his pro Microsoft course to be questioned again and in the end his job.
The Microsoft Vaporware tactic used to be following:
Usually if a product had mediocre success, they instantly launched a press release usually showing some images of vaporware with the message dont buy from them we have something in the line. If the other product was killed then often nothing came from Microsoft if the product stayed on the market then Microsoft usually shoved a half working clone out in the wild with that and the back then we buy only from Microsoft crowd this was enough most times to kill the product. The prime example for that tactics was Borland C++ and their excellent Windows UI classlib and also the Star Division C++ UI Classlib, which went down the gutters when Microsoft forced anyone to the absymality MFC.
Another prime example was the famouse Cairo operating system which they instantly announced when Next showed off NextStep. They never could pull it off basically thanks to their broken COM component model which they shoved literally upon poor developers. The same they tried with Corba which they positioned their back then not even working DCom against. When they sold DCom as Corba competitior even their own examples they delivered with it did not work.
So to sum this up, accidentally leaked. Definitely not. This seems like a last stroke against the Maemo division to me so that they cannot gain control by releasing a successful (qualitywise they seem to have gotten their act right) product. If anything else did not show it this, action clearly showed that Nokia is fucked as long as this guy is at the helm, this is a juggernaut Microsoft sellout nothing more nothing less. Every sane CEO simply would have tried to keep multiple platforms, probably putting symbian on the roast releasing a Windows Mobile product and Android and given the state of the N9 also Maemo as successor to Symbian. Just as basically HTC and Samsung do it.
Sorry about the earlier comment eating all the breaks! That'll teach me not to preview before I post :)
Reposting:
OK, the conspiracy theories are getting ridiculous now.
Full disclaimer: I'm an (ex)Nokia employee and was caught up in the great purge of developers following the feb11 announcement. So I'll very soon be out of a job (but as the redundancy package for all the employees at my site is extremely sweet, I'm very happy to bail -- plus this is not the company I joined all those years ago)
Even as an employee, I could see that there is no consumer device they have released in the last 4years (since the N95) that I actually cared about (except the N900; which is not really a consumer device, but it's certainly the best mobile computer on the planet! :)
Anyway, back to the article; that video was available on the Nokia intranet for employees worldwide to watch. The event was not filled with journalists/bloggers but employees (inside a Nokia site). This is not a vast conspiracy to hurt the N9 (as there are tons of similar videos released internally every week whenever an exec speaks "publicly" at a nokia site; that obviously no one bothered to leak) -- the difference this time is that there are a massive number of disgruntled employees worldwide who have been told their role is terminating/moved to Accenture/projects canceled etc. I assume a random employee leaked this.
You could still say that it's stupid to have confidential videos available to employees worldwide, but that's just how Nokia operates. There is a large amount of trust towards the employees (which is regularly broken), and they've resisted from turning into a massively secret organisation in full lockdown mode (& this is one of the things that makes it a wonderful place to work)
The above is not meant to be taken as me standing up for Elop. I disagree vehemently with his strategy; but there are parts of it that are yet to be made public (well, it is public now, but no one has joined the dots yet :). It'll make more sense in the next 12 months. It's extremely high risk and not guaranteed to succeed). But there is one thing most employees agreed with before he took centre stage; and that is Nokia's strategy before Feb11 was fucked.
Of course, it's still possible Elop's an MS stooge trying to run the company to the ground. If so, he's doing an amazingly good job of hiding it (internally; where the strategy is known). The only really stupid (public) mistake he's done so far is to EOL Symbian before the successor was in place. I have no idea why, but I assume MS gave Nokia a billion reasons to force him to make that statement.
Anyway, I think Nokia's finished. I'm glad the N9 is out. Full linux distro, root access with a shell out of the box (OK, you need to enable dev mode which is just a UI toggle) -- I have a phone for the next 3 years and a large payout & couldn't care less about what happens to the company
But do keep the conspiracy theories reasonable, guys :)