Slashdot Mirror
Nokia Killing Symbian and S40 In North America
In an interview with AllthingsD, the head of Nokia's US operations declared that Nokia will be focusing exclusively on Windows Phone devices in North America. Reasons cited include the low profit margins of the ubiquitous low-end Series 40 devices and lackluster sales of Symbian based devices. This also means that the N9 won't be making it to North America either.
Nokia is still in business?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Dear Nokia, I love your engineers. But please ditch your marketing department, just soon as you fire your CEO Stephen Elop, the $hill from Micro$oft. I miss you lots.
It's a shame, really. My wife's 4 year old Nokia E65 is still doing its thing, with an OK web browser, wifi etc., and the battery life is roughly 5x what my LG Optimus gets. Nokia used to make some great kit if you weren't the type that had to have "Apps" that were just repackaging of websites or farting noises.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
It is pity, that North America will miss all these great smart phones, which are even running linux (MeeGo), with all the benefits of it.
On a second thought, no, it is actually good. Go Go americans, enjoy your funny iShit, iFart, i am F....... phones.
N9 is not symbian, its not S40 either. S40 is market segment of budget phones, which you can buy $20/device
Those devices are popular in africa and india etc developing markets.
The OS in N9 is Harmattan aka Maemo 6, you know one of the linux based Nokia phones. (No, not Meego)
It has nothing to do with symbian.
Only problem with N9 is, that it's 4 years too late.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
I just bought a Nokia C3-00 unlocked and for what I want to do with a phone (phone calls and texting) it works perfectly, plus I get a good week+ of battery life. It isn't glitzy, the UI isn't the flashiest, but the hardware is solid, the keyboard feels good and it just works.
Far, far too many of the android and Apple products are going for glitz and glamour and eschewing the basics of what a phone should be. That is to say, a phone. In addition, they get crap battery life.
'Microsoft to sell only Windows Phone devices under the acquired Nokia brand'. News at 11.
They've failed from a marketing perspective in the North American market. Partnering with a large US corporation which seems to know a thing or two about marketing could work out for them. Though it would be more reassuring if they partnered with someone who didn't define 'partner' as 'someone you work with until you eat them'.
Loose lips lose spit.
Does this mean they're dropping their smartbooks as well? N900 is worlds better than anything iOS/Android-laden: instead of a limited toy OS with a browser, media player and fart apps, it has a general purpose operating system in a smartphone-sized form -- effectively a very, very small laptop. Nokia failed to polish it so for ordinary users it doesn't have so much appeal, but for hardcore programmers and sysadmins it's godsent.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Nokia have turned Symbian OS into a joke. Every application you install including any freeware must be signed or your phone must be hacked. You also need a developer certificate - specific to the phone's IMEI to hack your phone. Ever since this June when Nokia changed Symbian Signed so that getting a developer certificate software for free is no longer possible, Way to turn a smart phone into a dumb phone. I'm locked into a contract until November. After that I'll never buy anything Nokia or Microsoft again. I am not big on brand loyalty but I have been using Nokia phones exclusively since 1998, and now I can't wait to ditch them. Up until a couple of years ago I was able to get good battery life and install the odd app to customise my phone without too much drama. Sure PC suite was buggy and made teathering difficult when it crashed (requiring phone or PC or both to be rebooted) and instead of fixing it it seemed to get buggier with every generation but I could live with that. For the most part the phones were just the right balance of smart phone at a good price. Now they are overpriced pieces of junk - you'd almost be better off with one of those crappy throwaway GSM only phones for all the capability the latest gen of phone give you. Bye bye Nokia, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out and take Symbian Signed with you.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Nokia said straight out that the N9 isn't coming to the US. The writer wasn't inferring anything. RTFA.
They wrote the article as if Nokia decided to kill the phones... it should be more like, AT LAST, Android and Iphone Completly crushed Nokia, or, Nokia resigned game over.. BTW this "news" have to be cloned, for blackberry in a few months... ( unless they start shipping their stuff with android ) anyhow Bye Bye S40 ! it was good while it lasted !
This is a sad day for me. I was an early adopter and huge fan of SIBO and EPOC, the predecessors to Symbian, when they were developed by Psion UK. Aside from the lack of a phone and wireless networking, the Series 3 family of devices were essentially the smartphones of the 1990s, a bit like like the Sharp Wizard or Casio Boss of their day... only much more useful. They were handheld computers that didn't even crash, which was something handheld OSes had a lot of trouble with in those days.
But Psion's inability to get a marketing beachhead in North America (thanks in part to the barrier tactics which 1990s Microsoft is so well known for), followed by a whole bunch of missteps in their partnering with Nokia and other companies in getting the OS into the phone market.... well, this is the result. It was really good software. I held onto my 1999-vintage Psion Series 3a, nursing it along with battery replacements and epoxy, until the iPod Touch came along, which was the first handheld computer I'd seen that I could switch it. It wasn't the same, but at least it wasn't a huge step backward in one way or another (yes, I'm looking at you, Palm and Microsoft).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I've owned Nokia phones in the past, and have always considered them when it came time to buy a new one. But they just ensured that will never happen again. I can see maybe dabbling with Windows Phone and offering a few sets for variety... but when the news keeps showing that Windows Phone is DoA, I don't get why Nokia would bet everything on a sinking ship. Are they truly that suicidal?
Nokia spurns sanity, Elops with Microsoft. First thing that has to go: all low end phones where Nokia currently dominates. Search continues for shortest path to cliff edge.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
The interesting thing about Nokia today seems to be their patent portfolio.
They own 70% of relevant mobile patents.
You need to license them if you want to manufacture/sell mobile phones.
Their stock is extremely undervalued and even with the 12-month high/average(which is higher) takeover-protection, Nokia might be target for corporate takeover soon.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
I've owned Nokia phones in the past, and have always considered them when it came time to buy a new one. But they just ensured that will never happen again. I can see maybe dabbling with Windows Phone and offering a few sets for variety... but when the news keeps showing that Windows Phone is DoA, I don't get why Nokia would bet everything on a sinking ship. Are they truly that suicidal?
And before making that choice you are not at all interested in seeing what they might come up with? Windows Phone isn't selling today precisely because of lack of serious handset maker support. But the next update that Nokia will use have got nothing but praise from people and reviewers who have actually seen it. And Nokia still knows a thing or two about selling mobile phones.
How much lower will NOK shares sink before MS finally buys out the pieces left? They're now trading at 11 PE ratio, or $5.20 a share. They're valued at about $20B, and they have some $7B net cash. Any financial expert in the room who can advise us when to start buying?
To do list for Windows
I've owned Nokia phones in the past, and have always considered them when it came time to buy a new one. But they just ensured that will never happen again. I can see maybe dabbling with Windows Phone and offering a few sets for variety... but when the news keeps showing that Windows Phone is DoA, I don't get why Nokia would bet everything on a sinking ship. Are they truly that suicidal?
The article you quoted is rubbish. Here's a comment from there:
One should invest in a little research before writing.
1) The 38% drop stems almost entirely from users moving from Windows Mobile to another platform. Windows Mobile is to Windows Phone 7 what the Newton is to the iPhone. Yes, Microsoft is losing to Android but so is Apple. And it is misleading to imply, as you did, that customers are leaving Windows Phone 7. This just isn't the case.
2) Mango was released to manufactures last month. This was reported by this same outlet that allowed you to publish such drivel. On second thought, you were right to ignore it. I wouldn't trust eWeek as a source either.
As to why Nokia switched: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm
Key takeaway is that hiring open source evangelists to design a mobile OS(i.e Meego) failed and they wouldn't have had enough devices running it. After the board realized that, they jettisoned the CEO and brought in Elop to get alternatives. Blackberry, HP and Google told him to take a hike so the only credible option left was WP7. Interesting angles that you don't see when you read Slashdot comments.
This space for rent.
And Nokia still knows a thing or two about selling mobile phones.
Bullshit. Their phones are not selling, even here in Finland. Consumers no longer want anything to do with their products.
It's right there in "the low profit margins of the /ubiquitous/ low-end Series 40".
The 'high' profit margin from S40 is the daily association people make between Nokia and good little phones. Makes people consider Nokia's upper-end when shopping in a way no other PR campaign can match.
Goodbye, Nokia. Dropping that foundation is like MS dropping bundled OEM Windows.
Yeah, I'll get right on stuffing my iPad in my pocket.
I've never seen a sysadmin without a bag or briefcase.
Or the handlebar mount on my bike.
OK
why do you even mention the iPad?
Admins like large screens.
And being a hardcore sysadmin, I'll be glad that whenever the iStuff doesn't do something I want, let's say bluetooth mouse support, I can...
Why would you do all that instead of simply installing BTStack Mouse app?
Sysadmins supposedly being technical and all...
Well then fuck you, clueless person who makes idiotic recommendations with no clue what UNIX is even about.
I've programmed more UNIX (or near UNIX, like MPE) systems than you can even dream of, clueless idiot too stupid to use Google before planting foot firmly in mouth.
Perhaps from now on you'll listen to those who know more than you before proving your level of inexperience. Oh, but that's why you posted AC, I dub you Clueless Coward. Sure no-one else knows it's you who are an idiot, but now YOU know... and that private shame will stay with you for some time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And it is misleading to imply, as you did, that customers are leaving Windows Phone 7. This just isn't the case.
Surely before customers can leave Windows Phone 7 they need to actually have some customers?
Talk about the walking dead... wow.
Nokia dumping Symbian in an age when lo-end CN knockoffs come with Android 2.x, and HP is putting WebOS on printers... actually makes a little sense.
Nokia dumping Harmattan/Maemo6, an in-house controlled solid full-scale OS with a UI that's 4 years too late.. seems lazy or poor judgement.
Nokia jumping on WinPhone7, with zero control of a third-party franchised OS that has a great UI but functionality 4 years behind the curve... seems genuinely self-destructive.
Bye, Nokia. Nice knowing you.
I think not...(*poof*)
I had a Nokia 5230 for while. It was a great low end smartphone: high res screen, battery that lasted forever, GPS with all the map data local. The only two flaws were no wifi, and a underwhelming app store. I never really understood what OS I was using. S40? S60? Symbian^3? Nokia really does a lousy job of marketing their brand.
how do they expect to increase sales in american markets...if they don't allow their product to be sold in american markets?
>After the board realized that, they jettisoned the CEO and brought in Elop to get alternatives. I think you got it reversed, when Elop arrived the path was already chosen.
That is clearly bullshit. They didn't fail, as they have now delivered the N9.
They were late. They weren't late because of open source, they were late because the changed higher ups changed direction one too many times with the dropping of Maemo for MeeGo. But nonetheless they delivered. And they delivered long before Microsoft. They had a working Maemo based phone ready for the market place before Mango was Released To Manufacturing. If they wanted to ship a fleet of new phones ASAP, they should have done it using their home grown Maemo platform.
People from Microsoft understand the meaning of the term late better than most because they are familiar with Vista. It is a setback, not a disaster. What changed it from a setback to a disaster wasn't open source or engineering decisions, it was the board loosing their faith in the own company's engineering culture - something that Microsoft would never do. They hired a CEO that reflected that opinion and promptly declared declared all their products to be shit. Guess what? Their customers believed them.
It will be a great a lesson for business schools: it is indeed possible to destroy one of the worlds largest tech companies in 24 months or so. All it takes is a board consisting entirely of spineless, risk adverse morons who are willing to abandoning everything their company is built on and flee to the first exit offered as soon as the going gets tough.
Stick the fork into Nokia, and then pull it out again. Goes in easily, nothing sticking to the fork on removal. Its done. Summary: stick a fork in Nokia, its done! Windblows Fone 7, isn't that the system thats the *least popular* because it kinda sucks bigtime? And since there is no "office" to tie it to anything, then it has to win on its own merits. And Nokia is *moving toward* this technology? Are the shareholders *hoping* to have a major loss? I know if a major corporation has one division of something that is experiencing *major profits* and they wish to minimize their tax burden, then they will buy a dog of a company, and run it so that it burns up some of the excess profit, and they can custom tune their profits against their losses to minimize their tax burden (maximizing profits). I think Nokia is that dog.
There's been a few of these kinds of stories of Nokia actively sinking N9/Meego in public.
Why come out and say the N9 will be the last? Even if Nokia thought/knew so, why say it to the media just as they release it?
Elop has said other similarly odd things, as if trying to get people to not buy the N9.
It doesn't make sense to me, unless they feel they should be saying these things to appease Microsoft, for some reason.
We still can't know, if Elop is a mole for real. Maybe he's just lying to Microsoft and they plan to milk the MS deal until Meego is doable?
Anyway, for the time being, getting the N9 (even if I had the money) would be out of the question for me, a supporter of world domination by Free software, since they may well be (and not terribly unlikely, either) siphoning whatever scraps the sales will generate into the pockets of the old Beelzebub.
Except that it's highly possible that Nokia might be in the process of being "right-sized" for a sale (probably to microsoft).
I think it's a safe bet that Pepsi-cola was NOT thinking about "right-sizing" a company for takeover when they unleashed John Sculley on Apple...
On the other hand, Stephen Elop has a history of being a CEO (at Macromedia) just before it was purchased (by Adobe). Admittedly not the same situation, but one of Mr. Elop's first actions as CEO was to sign a deal with MSFT (his ex-employer) effectively orphaning SymbianOS... I don't know about you, but this whole thing seems mighty suspicious...
posting as a coward because I value my Karma.
But lets be serious here. Windows Phone 7 is a great phone with obvious potential as long as they keep the updates coming but it doesn't have the early-adopter appeal that Apple does or the massive hardware support that Android does.
Its a tough road ahead for Nokia, but I think they can pull it off. Ironically the thing that is keeping me attached to my iPhone is a free app from Microsoft that isn't on WP7. I hope they fix that soon. I can't wait to ditch this thing.
RIP Nokia!
This is too bad...I was interested in the N8 except that:
1) It is GSM-only, so I really only have 2 choices for carrier (unless I go with Revol or some other small-time carrier). Would it be possible to make it CDMA/GSM so that I could switch from Verizon to AT&T or vice-versa without paying $400 for a new phone? (Maybe that would bring the cost up beyond what most people could swallow.)
2) Everything that I read said that Symbian felt clunky. Also, there is no cyanogenmod-like replacement firmware.
3) I couldn't get a Rockbox app for it so it could replace my 5th gen iPod video.
Oh well.
I don't think that's the key takeaway. The key takeaway is that Nokia had a winner on their hands but their own internal battles kept it from ever getting the focus it needed until now. Harmattan is the end result that finally had them taking what was growing since 2005 and turned it into a smartphone OS. It should have been done years ago, but it was never allowed to happen.
Your point comes across as someone looking for something to point at and blame on FOSS.
Actually, it sounded like they wanted different management who could cut through the stupid bureaucracy, not a wholesale abandonment of everything that made them what they were. But it looks like that bureaucracy was retained and the software outsourced.
Wait, do you have inside information no one else does? Links?
The introduction of MeeGo had no impact. If it did, the N9 would be running MeeGo, instead it runs a descendant of Maemo with Qt APIs which were planned since 2009. It likely would have been delayed further had they switched to MeeGo proper, but the bureaucracy internal to the company is to blame for the N9 and N950's extreme lateness.
The N9 was "running" MeeGo when it was due to be released in September 2010. Running is in quotes because it started swapping before it got to run a line of Qt code.
The MeeGo base it was standing on had to be thrown away. These one step forward two steps back manoeuvres take time to execute.
I skimmed the article looking for something concrete about MeeGo being a non-starter. The only thing I found was "too slow". That's not enough to convince me. There are proprietary software nutcases that are the equal and opposite of the ever faithful Richard Stallman.
Some basic facts or the situation:
+ Nokia did not have to develop either Qt or Linux from scratch. On the other hand, a lot of serious development resources went into Android, iOS and the Cocoa framework.
+ Nokia had already released a very nice MeeGo based smart phone: the N900.
I doubt there were serious technical issues with a MeeGo based mobile platform, and too "slow" could be code for "not my cup of tea".
No, it wasn't. Then as now it was running Harmattan, which had been in planning since 2009. MeeGo was barely out of the gate in early 2010 and ticking with Xorg by September 2010. But I don't get your point regarding swap, and I doubt you can make it either.
I see you stating conjecture as fact. Do you have any evidence for the wild claims you are making?
Nokia has made some fundamental errors in their business strategy the last couple of years. Around 01/02 (correct me if I'm wrong) they were the largest manufacturer of mobile phones, they had the largest market share on the mobile phone market, AND they had the largest global market share on the GSM technology market. The GSM department is still thriving, but their focus on the mobile devices market is somewhat shaky.
They had a good run with Symbian, but they got "too comfortable" in the leading position. The iPhone came in 2007 along with Android in 2008 and the market showed that the following years. Their crisis they face now is economically comparable to the one the whole industry was facing in 1995/6 when there was a shortage of semiconductors.
The failing of their strategy is seen in a few places:
1) The high entry barrier for developing for Symbian: license fees, tools, lack of freely available frameworks
2) The rather rough UI compared to iPhone/Android: the menus are not intuitive, the applications are inconsistent in UI, the whole thing runs rather slow
3) Failure to adopt higher-end technology: They had only resistive screens until 2010 afaik even though their phones cost the same as competitors with capacitive.
4) Failure to address the lacking application support: They should have reacted WAAY faster and more aggressive. They should have brought more innovation to the platform, made the tools freely available including the certificates (or for a nominal fee), implemented an appstore AND made the developing environment attractive.
They lost the developers, therefore they lost the applications. With the applications the content soon followed, and without the ability to consume content your smartphone is not a smartphone; it's a paper-weight that happens to have the ability to call people.
Or worse, has the temerity to consider a non-Apple solution!
I'm just trying to propose what I see at the best solution with the most flexibility and out of the box ability. Certainly he can consider other devices; but I am sure he would be ill-served by the recommendation of them as a truly solid platform that will hold up well for any length of time. Sysamins have enough to maintain on systems they work on already without needing to screw with yet another platform - what they need, even if they will not admit it, is something that Just Works.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Buy the one that presumes you are a hostile to be contained.
If it assumed you were hostile jailbreaking would not be possible. Apple could close down local physical jailbreaks pretty well. Yet they do not; in truth Apple thinks of the jail breakers as a kind of external R&D - to the extent they hired a jail breaker to port the jailbroken notification system as the official one for iOS5.
No, it simply assumes that you need help maintaining the security of a system, which many do ; but leaves hidden doors for those that desire greater capability.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because there wasn't one of those at the time; I believe I was the fourth person to get a mouse working at all
I just thought about this for a bit more - what kind of competent sysadmin would even WANT to use a mouse? You aren't really a sysadmin at all; I doubt you even know one!!
The terminal is where it's at man. Not that it changes what the iPad can do, it simply renders that point moot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nokia had a few little portable computing devices where the user can get full root access with Nokia's blessing and even boot off other media. The other stuff that requires a jailbreak or extra hardware is no more of a customisable computer than a Nintendo DS and the vendors are actively trying to prevent the device users from doing it. One thing Nokia had going for them was that updates did not lock the users out of their devices while users of jailbroken devices had to either give up on updates or give up on full access until the next exploit was found.
Only a shill would interpret this statement...
...to mean
The arrogant attitude of expecting to have a built in advantage as the biggest player in the industry is exactly why Nokia is failing in the market, and that the new CEO holds this attitude is the reason why they will continue failing, whatever OS they choose to put on their phones.
Sad to hear that Nokia won't be bringing the N9 to North America. I had finally decided buy a smart phone and was waiting on the N9 to be released so I could make my first phone purchase since 2003, I'm still happily using my Motorola sr58, but now I think I'll hold off and wait until another alternative to Apple, Google, and Microsoft comes along.
That's not true. It's right there on the first page that Nokia told Google to take a hike, when Google refused to give them a competitive advantage over other phone makers:
So instead they go with Windows Phone 7? What?
Instead of being just another company distributing Android, they're just another company distributing Windows Phone 7. Awesome upgrade! Get-in on the ground-floor of something no-one wants, in exchange for, still, no exclusivity to speak of.
Of course we know what they got... Over a billion in payouts from Microsoft. And people say it's hard to beat "free" (Android).
Nokia was horribly mis-managed. Who were the open source evangelists in management and director-level positions that are singularly to-blame for everything bad that happened to the company over the past half-decade?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
My friend who has been with Nokia for almost 10 years told me the other day that Elop is planning on further downsizing this year. This guy does not seem to care about the company or its employees but is driving it into the ground just to secure his personal commission for closing the Microsoft deal. Should I start thinking about selling my remaining Nokia stocks? Any suggestions?
Yeah, and it's occasionally damn handy to use a mouse to select and paste text in the terminal, fool.
Sorry you don't like that particular article I picked. Here's another:
http://hothardware.com/News/Microsoft-Continues-To-Bleed-Mobile-Market-Share-Despite-WP7/
It seems like Nokia managment is trying to close the company.
First they loose they global market in order to specialize in low end phones. Although symbian is low end, they are quite tough compared to other phones (good battery life, stable system, phones can fall more than a smartphone).
Now they decided to trade these qualitites to make smartphones with Microsoft. If Nokia fails into keeping on though and stable phones (If the stable depends on Microsoft they will fail)... I'd rather use my 5 years old invincible monochrome nokia than buying a buggy windows phone.
Farewell Nokia
Key takeaway is that hiring open source evangelists to design a mobile OS(i.e Meego) failed and they wouldn't have had enough devices running it.
Bullshit. They could have had more devices running MeeGo than WP7.
After the board realized that, they jettisoned the CEO and brought in Elop to get alternatives. Blackberry, HP and Google told him to take a hike so the only credible option left was WP7.
and from the article
Google refused to give the world's biggest phonemaker any advantages over its smaller partners, meaning Nokia's corps of 11,600 engineers would have next to no ability to add their own innovations to Google's software.
Bullshit. Android is open source, Nokia engineers had all the opportunities to add any innovation they wished to the OS. Without having to give away the source code, mind you. If they're really so good and innovate so much, why couldn't they compete by adding that to Android? The reality is that Nokia got taken over by Microsoft.
They had it all except AppStore with Maemo. But they made another grave mistake when they ditched Maemo 5 for MeeGoo (which they never used in the end). And they released N900 with it. "Here is a new expensive smartphone with a platform, which we consider already outdated". No surprise it was mostly ignored by both users and developers.
And Nokia still knows a thing or two about selling mobile phones.
Bullshit. Their phones are not selling, even here in Finland. Consumers no longer want anything to do with their products.
Uhm.. Nokia is still expected to be the top selling mobile phone brand in 2011 by a large margin, with 26% market share, ahead of Samsung in second place with 20% share. Nokia sold 16.7 millon smartphones in Q2 2011. Apple sold 20.3 million. So 16.7 million is hardly selling and 20.3 million is a run-away success? (source).
I own and use a Nokia tablet running Debian every day. I'd like to upgrade, but not if the company is abandoning the OS I prefer. I really was looking forward to Meego. Too bad. I can't afford to purchase products that will always be one-off and not have a migration plan forward.
Android isn't really Linux - try it. Open a shell, try to do anything, you can't. It is locked down to prevent that.
W7M doesn't work for me. In my home, there are 20+ Linux machines and 1 Windows machine. I don't see the point.
Obviously, I'm not the average end-user. I'm a portable device developer. That's what I and my company does for a living. Sometimes my political views get the best of me and we do not develop for devices due to how the company behaves. Sadly, since that former Microsoft lacky took over, Nokia leadership is behaving more and more like Microsoft leadership, which sucks for all users, not just the nerds. If I worked at Nokia, I'd be running away - FAST. The good news is there are lots and lots of Linux jobs around the world begging for smart people.
For Microsoft, this was a cheap solution. Put your guy in charge and tie him being elected to the CEO position to a deal to push W7M onto Nokia devices.
I hope those new devices work well, I really do, but I'm used to rebooting my Microsoft software daily so it doesn't crash. I hear they've gotten better at it. My Android device crashes or needs to be rebooted weekly, which isn't anything great either.
OTOH, I have Linux desktops and servers that never go down unless I take them down for patches. It has been that way for 9+ years.