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Can Nokia Save Itself?
Nerval's Lobster writes "When ex-Microsoft executive Stephen Elop took the reins of Nokia back in 2011, he memorably compared the Finnish phone-maker to a burning old platform in the North Sea. 'I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform,' he wrote in a widely circulated memo. 'And, we have more than one explosion — we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fueling a blazing fire around us.' Elop suggested competitors such as Apple and Google had 'poured flames on our market share,' with the damage accelerated by Nokia's failure to embrace big trends. His solution: abandon Nokia's homegrown operating systems, including Symbian, in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone. Nokia's Windows Phones managed to attract some significant buzz at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and early sales seemed solid. But now there are signs the situation could be deteriorating."
You can't 'fix' not having a clue how to save yourself. You can't 'fix' looking for other people's money to help you do the same things wrong some more. Nokia is a dead man walking like HP phones, Palm, Symbian and others. And make no mistake, Windows phones will once again be killed off by Microsoft soon with or without Nokia. MS has no stamina, and their credit, they quickly recognize the instances where they themselves have failed to promote something.
Whilst I was still working there, I thought we could save the company, even after the loss of Southwood, Copenhagen, and the Symbian developers.
Now that 9999 colleagues and I have been swept away - no.
Windows isn't working. It isn't beating the old Symbian phones and that will only change when the old Symbian models are ramped down.
Stephen was supposed to fix the software engineering issues. :o(
The more I use Android the more I LOVE my N9 the more I hate Nokia for killing it.
I know there is a lot of politics involved (not last the usual OSS community circle jerking) but the capabilities of that OS over anything else are amazing.
Sorry to break it to you, but Nokia no longer have their build quality, they stopped producing phones in Europe like they used to, and outsourced everything to China like everyone else. Their phones will be the same build quality as pretty much every other phone nowadays. All they seem to have is the brand of "most solidly built", but that is no longer reality.
Also, that $1Billion is per year, not a one time offer.
Which is about equivalent to their annual cash from operations.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Keep in mind, it would likely be a European judge in this case.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Microsoft offered a very sweet deal? Really?
"This means that had Nokia not knifed Symbian and had sold the shortfall units at an average price of $200 they would have received an additional $9 billion in sales. Furthermore, assuming a margin of 33% for those units, Nokia received from Microsoft one third from of what she gave up for exclusivity." Source: http://www.asymco.com/2012/10/22/nokias-price-for-exclusivity/