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The Three Pillars of Nokia Strategy Have All Failed
An anonymous reader writes "'When all 3 legs of your 3-legged strategy fail, what do you do? You rush — run run run — to change your total strategy. But what would a madman do?' Ex-Nokia exec Tommi Ahonen's new article has a few suggestions. Is the Nokia board either asleep at the wheel, or incompetent, or in collusion with the incompetent CEO? Ahonen provides an insider's view not just of how Nokia's Windows phone strategy has failed, but how this has spread to other parts of the company's technology. He says the 'Elop Effect' has 'single-handedly destroyed [...] Europe's biggest tech giant.' He raises the question: Why is Nokia's board failing to act? We've discussed Tommi's articles before, where he was correctly predicting Windows Phone's market failure at a point where others were claiming that 'the Lumia line is, in fact, selling quite nicely.'"
You call Apple, and say "Hey, I hear you have a maps problem. Guess what? We have lots of map data and experience."
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." It's the Occam's Razor of the corporate world. Yes, people get greedy or manipulative, it's true... but that's the exception, not the rule. For the most part, people are just really, really, fucking stupid. Senior management in particular tends to develop problems like target fixation, confirmation bias, and even when everything is in the spiral of death and the alarms are going off, engines on fire, they somehow think they'll be able to pull out of the dive and fix the problem... right up until the part where they crater. They teach this in every management course studies... Have an exit strategy. Know what your breakpoints are and when to bail. And company after company, even big ones, really really big ones, still fail at this, not because of greed, but because of stupidity.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's far too early to be predicting the death of Nokia or Windows phone. It hasn't gained popularity, but that could easily change.
Paid by Microsoft to take a dive, and open a "Microsoft-sized hole" in the market.
But that's not working put as planned, either...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Woah, he predicted Windows Phone would not succeed at the level of iPhone and Android? Better tell James Randi to hang it up, because we got a real god damned psychic right here!
No sir, we are really sorry for Nokia.
If any hate is spewing, is targeted against the ex M$ bigwig Elop which brew this destructive strategy.
Far-well Nokia, once pride of Finland.
You are dead and we are really sorry.
Windows Phone 7 is dead. Microsoft declared it dead the exact moment Nokia needed it the most, but nevermind. Nobody in his right mind would buy one right now, even if they liked the platform, with Windows Phone 8 on the horizon. If 8 takes off, *and* Nokia can survive until 8 takes off, they could do fine, albeit as a somewhat smaller company. But when you read TFA, and look at the graphs, and look at the general user community reaction to 8 in general, neither of these things (8 takes off, and Nokia can survive until Windows 8 phones become profitable) seem particularly likely.
Why (from TFA) haven't the board fired Elop? Corruption, perhaps? Payoffs?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
the iphone stole 14% of mobile PROFITS a year after it was first released. and that was only 1 million units sold.
almost all of those cheapo phones sold around the world make no money. all the profits are made on a few devices.
apple is now at something like 60% of PROFITS of all cell phones sold around the world. Samsung is 30% or more. everyone else is fighting for scraps
It's hard. Apple won't let them use IOS. Android is generic, so they have no edge over Chinese manufacturers. Blackberry has tanked. Microsoft looked like a good option.
Nokia makes excellent hardware at a good price. Their gear tends to be much more rugged than Apple's fragile mobile devices. Their problems are more on the marketing side.
Hatred towards Nokia on Slashdot... Why not failing HTC, patent troll Motorola Mobility (nobody in Europe buys that Chinese crap btw)...
I think mentioning HTC is very relevant, ignoring the shear scale on which Nokia has been destroyed by Elop in Months, for the third ecosystem [in reality sixth], to produce Windows Phones. Ironically one of HTC's strategy is to produce Windows phones too next year, and they cheaper than Nokia's offerings for equivalent models.
Oh, a link to blog post by Ahonen, with nothing really new.
I agree that execution by Elop has been sub-par. But calling that "SYMBIAN WAS WINNING" is even by wearing Symbian-goggles a very red-rosed opinion of what was going on. Nokia was in huge trouble, it's UI teams competing with each other and handset teams not building on the same platform as noted in in an article from yesterday. Symbian as it was was dead. Developers hated it, users disliked it compared to competition and why it did so good up until the end was good quality Nokia hardware.
Ahonen is right on some points, but he seems to totally disagree on that Nokia had to do something, by going on with Symbian without major rework was just not feasible, the whole MeeGo thing was really screwed up with competing package managers, UIs and teamwork with Intel so as a CEO what what would have he done - he doesn't tell. Maybe MeeGo strategy would have proved to be success.
I don't want to resort to ad-hominems but in case of Ahonen I would take his comments with a grain of salt - he clearly has an axe to grind with Nokia and the postings he has made and appearances on interviews smell like bitterness. And they always boil to one point: Profits before elop and profits after Elop.
Apple sold 5 million iPhone 5s on opening weekend. As of 1 month ago, Nokia has sold 7 million Lumias. Total.
The Lumia was introduced in November 2011, so that's 10 months of sales. Apple sold over 100 million iPhones last year.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Nokia had an alternative, MeeGo. The trouble was at the time it was already outpaced by iOS and Android, so Nokia thought they probably could not catch up without a lot of rework.
And that's why they chose Windows Phone 7. But, as one of the comments in the article notes, the real problem is that Windows Phone 7 was not really a way to catch up either. It was a temporary solution, to be abandoned by Microsoft to the degree that even fairly powerful Nokia phones running Windows Phone 7 could not be upgraded to WP8.
If that were known (as the comment alleges) then Nokia probably would have been better off putting in an All-Hands effort to make MeeGo compete with other modern smartphone OS's. I'm not sure they would have been in a worse place than where they are now, and then they would be in full control of their own destiny.
But as things stand the fate of Nokia and Microsoft are intertwined (with more risk to Nokia than Microsoft).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nokia had their own OS in development, which came out before Windows (and now we learn it was one year early since apparently WP7 was just warming up and only WP8 is the real deal). Different from Windows, Meego already had an SDK out and a migration path from Symbian, so that developers could have their apps ported on day one.
We cannot say it would have been a hit for sure, but it had more than a small edge on Windows anyway. Why not give it a shot, along with Windows and then decide what was the best for the company? Nokia was full of cash at the time and could think long term.
Why not do that? Because Elop did what was best for Microsoft, not Nokia and wilfully sacrificed all the assets of his own company to benefit his previous one. Why he is not being investigated for breach of fiduciary duty is beyond me.
The board probably had decided on a MS strategy before hiring Elop so they're as complicit in the current strategy as he is. That means they have face invested in the strategy which makes it unlikely that they'll fire Elop and change directions before it's too late. Once the board gets replaced the company may stand a chance, but that'll take some time.
What phones aren't made in China?
Ironically Nokias before Elop sacked Nokias workforce
For that to be true MSFT would have had to plan that 1.- Nobody would buy WinPhone...okay I see that one, 2.- Nokia would leave them with a product to sell in that gap...which if they wouldn't buy WinPhone on Nokia a change of brand name sure as hell isn't gonna help move units, and 3.- The gap wouldn't just be absorbed by Google, with the CCC Android 2.x phones taking the low end while the more expensive Android and Apple units take the high.
So you see this is the problem I have when people describe Bill Gates kind of evil moves at MSFT....Ballmer just ain't that smart. I mean who was on stage bragging about his squirting Zune and not getting why he was being laughed at? Who spent a fuckton of money on products like Zune, Kin, Sidekick, etc, with no real plan on how to monetize the purchases? Who fucked over what few loyal WinPhone customers they had by not giving them Win 8 on their Win 7 phones and thus burnt the brand with many a customer? Who was fucking retarded enough to let IE get horribly fragmented in the vain hope that they could pretend its 2003 and they can actually get people to upgrade the OS just for a new version of IE?
Hell I could write a post the length of a Harry Potter book just pointing out the fucking DUMB moves that has gone on under Ballmer, his mobile "strategy" is a trainwreck, he is taking a shit on one of the few remaining cash cows MSFT has in order to push Windows onto...ARM? WTF? Are you shitting me? WTH would ANYBODY want Windows on a chip that...won't actually run Windows programs? Why, because they think the Win 3.x color scheme of Metro is just too damned sexy?
Actually I think one could argue that Nokia and MSFT are the same company, its just that MSFT has...for the moment at least..a couple of cash cows to keep its head above the water ATM but the simple fact is both companies seem directionless, completely devoid of any real innovation inside, waited until the market was already in the middle of a huge shift before simply reacting with half assed products, and both are acting like they have no real competition when in reality they have to bring their AAA game or get curbstomped which even Ray Charles could see the latter is exactly what is happening.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
the iphone stole 14% of mobile PROFITS a year after it was first released. and that was only 1 million units sold.
almost all of those cheapo phones sold around the world make no money. all the profits are made on a few devices.
apple is now at something like 60% of PROFITS of all cell phones sold around the world. Samsung is 30% or more. everyone else is fighting for scraps
iPhone never stole anything! Apple make massive mark-ups to their products and have people prepared to pay for it. Most people aren't which is why Androids market share is 4 times that of Apples...and Apples is dropping. Apple does well with early adopters, but now the market is maturing not so much!
Apple sold 5 million iPhone 5s on opening weekend. As of 1 month ago, Nokia has sold 7 million Lumias. Total.
The Lumia was introduced in November 2011, so that's 10 months of sales. Apple sold over 100 million iPhones last year.
That is not the half of it Android activates 1.3 Million phones every day, and has a market share 4 times that of Apple, and Nokia could have had an Android product...and still had a Windows one if it really wanted.
I think it's clear now that Microsoft, as always, used a stopgap solution to make their followup successful. Winphone 7 was never going anywhere and the plan was always for Win8. Nokia fell into the EEE trap and was used to crack into the market to pave the way for Win8. Their carcass may still prove useful to MS down the road with their patents and such and also as an inroad to European and other world markets. This is yet another brilliant move by MS. I still find it hard to believe that companies partner with them knowing how it usually turns out. I guess the short term benefits are just too tempting. I expect to see Win8 phones from Microsoft. Wonder how that will play with Nokia? I'd say they are helpless.
"Ex-Nokia exec Tommi Ahonen's new article has a few suggestions. Is the Nokia board either asleep at the wheel, or incompetent, or in collusion with the incompetent CEO?"
..
No, they are just another in the long line of suicide-by-Microsoft victims
AccountKiller
Because Elop did what was best for Microsoft, not Nokia and wilfully sacrificed all the assets of his own company to benefit his previous one. Why he is not being investigated for breach of fiduciary duty is beyond me.
I don't buy this argument, because I don't think Elop was a Microsoft mole. I think he is a Windows True Believer.
People talk about Steve Jobs and his Reality Distortion Field; but I've known Microsofties that believe just as strongly in All Things Windows. They truly believe Windows is the solution to everything, and everything else is an also-ran. They truly think that the world is just waiting for a Microsoft solution to any problem, and as soon as it's released by golly the world is going to flock to it in droves.
I remember sitting through a talk just before Internet Explorer 7 was released. This was at the point (pre-Chrome even, IIRC) where Firefox was starting to seriously eat into IE's market share. The speaker waxed eloquently on just how great Internet Explorer 7 was going to be, and how Mozilla should consider just folding up shop once the final version was released because no one was going to use Firefox after that point. It wasn't hyperbole - he really believe that.
#DeleteChrome
Woah, he predicted Windows Phone would not succeed at the level of iPhone and Android? Better tell James Randi to hang it up, because we got a real god damned psychic right here!
Bra-vo, very sarcastic and blasé, but unfortunately it makes you look quite ignorant. Ahonen predicted this in February 2011 right after Elop's announcement. For example:
The optimism for Windows Phone in the press really does surprise me. Windows Phone 7 was really feature incomplete at launch but people made the excuse that it was their first Version. Ahhh No it was not, Microsoft had been making mobile OSs for a long time and Windows Phone 7 was Major version 7 and used the same kernel as Windows Mobile.
Microsoft has chopped Nokia off at the knees when it announced Windows Phone 8. Not only will it not run on the Nokia Lumia 900 it would not run on any existing Windows Mobile device. At that moment Microsoft was telling everyone to not buy a Windows Phone but wait for the next version and new hardware. Sales probably dropped to as close to zero.
Microsoft and Nokia need to understand that Windows Phone can not be almost as good as IOS and Android, it can not be as good as IOS and Android, it can be a little better than IOS and Android. It has to be much better than IOS and Android. Any new mobile OS that launches will have few apps than IOS and Android so you must be a much better platform than IOS and Android. RIM might get by with good enough because they have a large customer base that trusts them. Microsoft could have gotten by four years ago with Windows Phone 7 when IOS was limited to a few carriers and Android was just getting going. MeeGo could have leveraged the Nokia user base. Palm could have made it because it was at the right place and the right time but had a crippled SDK and not great hardware.
Also Nokia gave up the potential profit center of running the app store and selling media to the devices.
Nokia smelled smoke and jump off the platform and into a cold heartless sea and had to hope for Microsoft to save them. They should have put out the fire.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I think it's clear now that Microsoft, as always, used a stopgap solution to make their followup successful. Winphone 7 was never going anywhere and the plan was always for Win8. Nokia fell into the EEE trap and was used to crack into the market to pave the way for Win8. Their carcass may still prove useful to MS down the road with their patents and such and also as an inroad to European and other world markets. This is yet another brilliant move by MS. I still find it hard to believe that companies partner with them knowing how it usually turns out. I guess the short term benefits are just too tempting. I expect to see Win8 phones from Microsoft. Wonder how that will play with Nokia? I'd say they are helpless.
Wow dude. You almost make it look as if Nokia is already bankrupt and is NOT the one finishing the sexiest Windows Phone 8 device (if not the sexiest smartphone overall) to come out in 2012. And Microsoft is already pushing its own Windows Phone 8 devices to compete with Nokia, so it's not just a rumor. But then I go out of the Slashdot bubble and the vision disappears.
Windows Phone 7 was, indeed, a stopgap solution. For Nokia as much as for Microsoft. And it actually made engineering sense to overhaul the hardware platform requirements for Windows Phone 8, because of the depth of the software changes. Legacy hardware, in principle, could have been supported with some extra effort, but my armchair CEO skills are insufficient to give a verdict on how easy would it have been for both companies. The existing Windows Phone users do not have it much worse than the users of Android phones stuck on Gingerbread. Who was the latest refusenik OEM again, Motorola Mobility? Their new owner company, what was it? Must be evil.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
OK, you didn't read it yet, here you go: The story of MeeGo.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
Microsoft invoked the Osborbe Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect) on their own fledgling product. Even Mighty APPLE had to admit all the waiting for iPhone 5 (that they didn't even officially announce themselves!) caused an Osborne Effect last quarter.
It's been almost SIX MONTHS since Microsoft started touting WP8 as the next big thing... And your WP7 apps don't get to come along.... So there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to buy a WP7 device, or develop WP7 apps, because it won't gain you anything. Apple gets flack for changing a CONNECTOR after NINE years...
How are companies supposed to survive with no product to sell for SIX MONTHS? Poor Nokia is just doomed...DOOMED!
Suck on that you FOSS faggots
iOS is mostly free software.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I got way down the page and found that I was in reality not even a quarter through and still hadn't seen any explanation of the title of the article (three pillars). Just a bunch of rambling. I tried reading some more then hit the tl;dr; wall.
Can someone list succinctly (like the article should have) what the three pillars are?
From the Article "three pillars, one on the dumbphones unit (as before); one on Symbian but one that would be run down (changing from before) and one new leg, that built on Windows Phone, which would fully replace the Symbian leg over time - and more - would even take some of the business from the dumbphones unit."
Basically
The First part is saying how Nokia was doing great before Elop...In fact great up until the Burning Platform Memo. Where basically Elop said what Nokia was producing was garbage, and they should go for the three pillar stratergy.
The Second part is about the three pillars, Dumbphones(Keep em), Symbian Smartphones gracefully being replaced by Windows Phones, and about Nokias graph of the plan in graphical form with detailed explanation.
The Third part is showing how well this plan went sown (Spoiler now well) Explaining each portion of the graph from plan to execution.
The Fourth part is basically justifying getting rid of the Stratergy and Elop. The Twist at the end is that even though The strategy is not only failing Nokia's current stratergy is to keep following it!?
The short version is you should really read the article before posting here, the longer version is its an invaluable blog if you have the vaguest interest in Mobile Phones.
> Apple gets flack for changing a CONNECTOR after NINE years...
By some, I guess. By many (including me) it gets flack for changing the connector to yet another proprietary connector, when the rest of the world has standardized on micro-USB.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If any hate is spewing, is targeted against the ex M$ bigwig Elop which brew this destructive strategy.
As pointed out above, it was the board that was already decided at ditching the previous CEO and hiring Elop/MS instead.
Now, as Dilbert has pointed out, this was a strategic move of sheer genius, with which MS has realised three very strategic goals:
1. Windows phone introduced in the market,
2. Nokia, the biggest competitor for their own phone hardware sales ambitions has been crushed,
3. Linux as OS for the mobile phone has been disabled.
Luckily, there is still the Jolla (currently connection time out) initiative with Tizen.
The grand question: How did the Nokia board get played up so much by Microsoft?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Elop did the exact same thing when he effectively announced that Symbian was dead nine months before they had a Windows Phone on the market. So that's nine months without a product to sell during the transition to Windows Phone 7 and another six months with no product during the transition to Windows Phone 8.
At this point I'm expecting a Windows Phone 9 announcement the week after Windows Phone 8 launches.
wp7 apps run on wp8 - wp8 apps won't run on wp7.
that makes the incentive to make wp8 apps very, very small for the time being. which is just as well since the wp8 sdk has been soo fucking late it's not even funny.
MS spent a shitload of money to get apps on wp7 - and to metro store, this shitload of cash includes directly giving cash to hundreds of companies worldwide, cold hard cash as long as you had an app to develop for either platform that supposedly had an unique angle(this means that you didn't make an exact port to another platform of the features of your winpho or metro app right away).
too bad they didn't do the things that would have taken no money and made more kinds of apps possible(because that would have been actual os sw development work and that's hard! wp7 is a shortcut design as far as an os goes, you'd think that it's made for a console, not for a mobile computer).
Elops problem is that he's more interested in what WSJ writes than what happens on the company bottom line. it's likely that the stupid, stupid board made Elop's bonus matrix depend on two things: cutting workforce(expenses) and increasing USA marketshare - while increasing USA marketshare isn't that bad, nearly all companies that have focused on it have been totally fucked - that's how Nokia fucked over Samsung, Motorola, Ericcson and others in the olden days: by not giving a shit about one country where operators choose how to fuck up your phone and which has extremely diverse network situation. Even back then people were bitching that Nokia is dead because it wasn't dumping money to be on a market where every player was getting fucked up the arse so badly they all went down the toilet(Apple and Samsung are current day exceptions to this rule, but if Samsung didn't have a lot of cash from other businesses their phone biz would have been dead before they managed to get a hit with Galaxy line).
they should have made Elops pay depend purely on yearly repeatable profitability(oh and the board was stupid, stupid, stupid or just didn't give a shit long before hiring Elop), in other words sales of profitably produced and sold phones. besides than that, Elop is a pussy ass - relying on bodyguards when laying off people in a nerd firm in a country where executives can shut down an entire regular industry plant and go drink their sorrows away in the same bar with the former employees while both parties kids go to soccer practice.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I don't see as hatred, but rather as pity for a once great company crumbling down right before our eyes because of wrong decisions. If there is any hatred, it's for Elop.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
Google is either lying when they 1.3 million phones are activated per day, or Android is such a piece of shit operating system that you have to activate it continuos over and over again to get it to work.
In 2011 there were a total of 491.4 million smart phones sold. 491.4/365 is ~1.3 million. As we all know not every one of those phones is an android phone.
Fun chart plotting Androids activation a day.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-android-activations-per-day-2012-9
Wellll..and i'm sure I'll get hate for pointing this out...I really think Elop honestly didn't have a choice to make. i man look at the company he took over, they had no less than THREE noncompeting OSes, maemo, Java based Symbian, and the other one I always forget, but they had 3 different OSes, all trying to backstab and steal each other's thunder while losing share slowly but surely, they didn't have the money to pay the crazy price HP paid for WebOS and Maemo just was nowhere near ready and certainly wouldn't compete in the shape it was in, the only place they had real share was in dumbphones and the Indian and Chinese markets were already coming out with dirt cheap Android phones. So Elop made a call, frankly the only call i think he could have made, and it just...well it didn't work, that shit happens in business.
Now I ALREADY know what the fanbois are gonna scream, "Why they could have went with Android!" but they are wrong, they could NOT have went with Android and here is why: Not only were they not up to speed on Android which would have taken time they didn't have but more importantly they already saw that Samsung and HTC do Android better than anyone so their higher end hardware would have meant nothing as again, Samsung and HTC already do that better than anybody with Android. it would be like coming out with a HyPhone and wondering why you can't gain share against the iPhone. Duh! Apple has the buzz, they do that style better and people are already familiar with the brand. Go to any Android website with the wayback machine to that time period where Elop was first hired and you'll see it was Samsung this and HTC that, so by the time they got their half ass Android on the market it would look like an expensive also ran, just pointless.
Do I wish Elop could have made another call? Absolutely, I thought WebOS and Nokia would have been a perfect fit, great OS meets great hardware for great products, but they couldn't afford to just toss money like HP did so that just wasn't on the table, Android as I said done better by rivals, and Apple sure as fuck wouldn't license them iOS, so that pretty much left him only TWO choice: Either put everything on Maemo and hope to God they could get the bugs fixed and the OS ready to compete while bleeding share, or take an already finished product and actually get paid for taking it...I'm sure it seemed like a no brainer at the time, but what Elop didn't realize is tying the Windows brand onto a non X86 device is just retarded and doomed. So he made a bad call but honestly I just don't see what other call he could have made that would have turned out ANY differently for Nokia. They were backed into a corner and he had to make the call, the only call he really had.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Selling more phones worldwide than all others put together in every segment is not doing well? The only thing that sucked was their US smartphone sales, but globally they were selling more smartphones than all other suppliers put together. The iPhone wouldn't even work on a Chinese network at that time but Nokia were in there selling millions.
C'mon, you know the answer to this. You don't declare a previous platform dead until you're ready to ship the replacement. And if you're wise, you provide some manner of backwards or forwards compatibility. New versions of iOS will often install on older devices, as will newer versions of Android. iOS and Android apps tend (not always, but often) to work on a wide range of OS versions.
WP8 will not install on WP7 machines, making them orphans by definition. WP8 apps won't work on WP7 phones, giving developers little incentive to create WP8 apps until it's clear whether the platform will be a success, leading to a chicken-and-egg problem.
Every platform becomes obsolete eventually, but Microsoft should know better than to declare a platform dead months before the replacement becomes available. That's a newbie mistake. It's almost like they're trying to sink Nokia. Maybe they're thinking of buying the wreckage and fleshing out their hardware portfolio?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Then you offer a cheap upgrade path to your loyal customers not give them a trollface and let a big nasty fart in their general direction.
I mean a company the fucking size of MSFT shouldn't need me, a little PC retailer in the middle of BFA, to explain economics 101 to them but I guess i have to...Hey MSFT? yeah com 'ere. you see its is like this Sparky, you make people happy? they tell 3 to 5 friends and that is how you build what is called "word of mouth" but when you give them a trollface and fuck 'em over? then they not only tell over a dozen that you suck and your products are shit but they make blogs, they jump into forums, you'd be surprised how badly people that feel like they were fucked over will want to hurt you back.
Again I should NOT have to explain this shit, its business 101. This is why I'll ALWAYS offer some kind of trade in on a new unit, even if I'm just gonna take that trade in and throw it in the garbage because it makes people feel like they are being treated fairly, which REALLY fucking matters MSFT. Hell you could have refurbed those Win 7 units, put them on Woot! and made some of your money back while more importantly giving people who were loyal to you a reason to stay loyal instead of filling the net with "You fucking suck!" rants.
I man for the love of God you couldn't even do this ONE thing right? Hell you like ripping off Apple and even Apple, the kings of hardware churn, support at least ONE upgrade per unit! So if you needed the hardware to be upgraded for Win 8 fine, no problem, at least give a reason those units that are for sale now with Win 7 should be bought and give those that already bought a reason to stay with you.
Because I hate to break the news to ya but you ain't got billions of dollars in third party software to keep them loyal like you do Windows, so this was a seriously fucking retarded move, but what can we expect under Ballmer was seriously fucking retarded moves? I swear he thinks its 1999 and Windows can just walk in and take over a market without trying...wrong.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If you're plugging in a cable while you're driving, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!
That's kind of like talking about "the sexiest transvestite hooker" around.
Being acquired by Google seems like a good thing. Google looked at Nokia and passed on it...
Who modded this garbage "Interesting"?
[citation needed]
[citation needed] - (see: Samsung's recent profit reports)
[citation needed] See the ratio to which the N9 completely outsold the Lose-mobiles. Without marketing, and being excluded from the major markets by Nokia.