Can Nokia Save Itself?

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Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 23, 2012 @05:21AM from the with-enough-phones-you-can-put-out-any-fire dept.

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."

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Go back to making fishing boots by stevegee58 · 2012-10-23 05:23 · Score: 4, Funny

After all, that was their core competency.
yes it can by hjf · 2012-10-23 05:24 · Score: 4, Funny

yes, it can. ditch winphone/maemo/meego/symbian release a good android phone, and a series of ME TOO cheap android phones. profit.
1. Re:yes it can by Missing.Matter · 2012-10-23 05:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  How well exactly is HTC doing releasing a series of "ME TOO" android phones? All the sales and profit in Android seems to be accumulating with Samsung, which is almost synonymous with the OS.
2. Re:yes it can by Tough+Love · 2012-10-23 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You forgot "fire Elop and sue his ass off".
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
3. Re:yes it can by Vlad_the_Inhaler · 2012-10-23 06:04 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I started using Nokia phones some time around '95-97 and was happy enough to stay pretty much locked in. Early last year I wanted a new one and was trying to decide which Symbian-based device to buy. Then came 'The Announcement'. If they had decided to add a range of Windows Phones to their Symbian range (maybe even offering a choice of OS on a phone?) I'd still be a Nokia customer now.
  I held off for a year and now have a Samsung. I tried one HTC device but gave up after minutes because the touchscreen keyboard was simply too small for my fingers.
  
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  Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
4. Re:yes it can by Missing.Matter · 2012-10-23 06:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  As if Elop made this decision unilaterally? The board of directors went along with him on this. Further, what exactly would you sue him for? Potential profits that maybe the company possibly could have made by going with Android?
  
  Microsoft offered them a very sweet deal: $1 billion, engineering support from Microsoft to help with the transition, and technology sharing agreements which lead to Nokia mapping technology being used in Bing, Windows 7/8, and Windows 8/RT. Not to mention the patent protection provided by Microsoft in all Windows Phone licenses, something that Samsung knows all too well Google does not provide.
  
  And Google was offering.... absolutely nothing. It would be pretty hard to show that Elop was being somehow "negligent" by taking the company in this direction, as it's not even certain that had they gone with Android, they wouldn't already be dead.
5. Re:yes it can by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-23 06:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  So the solution is to jump into a super-saturated, undifferentiated market with reckless abandon.. With a worse product that's doesn't play in the established ecosystem?
  Nokia died the day it hired that hatchet man from MS. I said it then, I say it now.
  MS is there to rape and pillage Nokia's IP. They're using the company as a testbed for development, and will throw it's corpse in the ditch when they're done.
6. Re:yes it can by mcwop · 2012-10-23 06:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Too late IMO. In fact, this is also what RIMM should have done, and they still cling to their OS fantasy. People are tied into the mobile iOS and Android ecosystems. Windows Mobile may have a chance, but it will be tough - especially with the iPad mini in the mix.
  
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  "I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
7. Re:yes it can by Xest · 2012-10-23 06:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I still actually to this day like a lot of Nokia hardware.
  If they released an Android phone with no extra shit, just plain old vanilla Android on their hardware I'd buy it, and I suspect many other old Nokia fans would.
  They could easily eat a healthy chunk of both Samsung and Apple's marketshare if they did this. It's so obvious, I just don't get why they fail to carry it out. Even if they didn't manage to regain the top spot, one thing is for sure, and that's that they'd certainly be in a much healthier position than they are now. They have the hardware to distinguish themselves in the Android market, so talk of fears just being another Android player is idiotic, especially when even just being another Android player is still a thousand times more profitable than being a Windows Phone non-entity.
8. Re:yes it can by NatasRevol · 2012-10-23 07:35 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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
9. Re:yes it can by Tough+Love · 2012-10-23 08:08 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
10. Re:yes it can by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-23 10:16 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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/
11. Re:yes it can by metamatic · 2012-10-23 10:37 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It's their stock-ticker symbol. People often refer to companies by their stock-ticker symbols.
  
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  GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
No of course not, Nokia is dead by gelfling · 2012-10-23 05:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
Can Nokia Save Itself? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-23 05:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Short Answer:
No.
Long Answer:
Nooooooooooooooo.
Not with those decision making skills by grasshoppa · 2012-10-23 05:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm sorry, but you have two major players in the smart phone market, along with a third minor player, and you bet the bank on a non-entity in the market? That stinks of a hail mary. By itself, that is less than encouraging. Their choice of MS, given MS's history in the mobile arena, should immediately call into question the sanity of the decision makers. Or at the very least, their bias.
Were I trying to save the company, I would have thrown my lot in with a line of android devices which had distinctive features. Maybe aimed at the mobile market. Hell, maybe I would have even approached RIM about developing a secure platform for corporate users to pair with my hardware devices.

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Signs it's deteriorating? by s.petry · 2012-10-23 05:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oh come now, who wrote this crud a Microsoft Marketing rep? The market hates MS phones, and it showed after the first what.. 2 were released and sales of Nokia devices plummeted to single digits? Fan bois would buy it, but hell they also bought a Zune. bah...
Look, the market has really 2 devices they are choosing from. If they want lock-in, they to with Apple. If they want cutting edge they go with a Droid. Everyone, and I mean everyone advised against dumping Symbian for another lock-in phone OS in Windows Phone. Those same people saw what happened to Blackberry, which was an exceptional OS and fully mature. It died a painful death, simply because of the 2 choices I started with.
The only reason this deal ever went through is because.... well fuck it I'll be blunt.. look who Nokia hired to captain the ship..

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-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
1. Re:Signs it's deteriorating? by s.petry · 2012-10-23 06:43 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes, the market does hate MS phones. The same way they hate Blackberry phones. The sales numbers from the first release were bullshit, and it was reported on a few days after the "huge buzz (according to Microsoft and paid media)". The numbers they reported were numbers they "sold" to factories that hold the devices prior to purchase, and not what was sold to consumers.
  Developers have bitched since Microsoft released the APIs for WP8, apps suck, controls suck, it's too expensive, etc... So developers are not touching the Phone either. In fact the /. article referenced fart machines as the best application that could be created for the phone, which was validated by them having nearly 30 on the store compared to a dozen or so flash light applications. I just read another article a week ago where a development team just said "fuck-it" to developing even after dumping 50K in to MS licensing.
  Look, I'm sure it's a great platform.. for someone.. I work with a fan-boi that has one. He thinks it's great, but he can't do anything with it. Our T&M apps that run in Droid and IOS won't run in Win Phone, mail does not work, so if all you do with your phone is need a "phone" and "camera" I guess it's fine.
  And me implying that the person who wrote the article is biased, makes me biased? Did you RTFA? It's worded like WinPhone was uber awesome, and because Apple and Google are big meanies it will make Nokia fail. If the article is biased, how would you expect me to react.. like I didn't read the fucking thing?
  Now, am I anti-Microsoft? That's a loaded question. I never had a Zune, and thought it was a failure (damn, I was correct). I never had an X-Box, and refuse to get one. I won't be buying a Windows Phone either. I use MS products at work, some are okay. I think Visio was much better before MS bought them, but that's not an unpopular point of view. I use Office and despise the 2010 ribbons and bullshit like "font auto-preview" that makes doing something so simple take a long time. Excel is still a good app, but there again the ribbons make it inefficient.
  
  --
  -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
They're pretty by rodrigoandrade · 2012-10-23 05:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

Nokia Lumia phones are pretty and the WP8 interface is a joy to use, but, when the honeymoon is over, we need APPS, which WP8 doesn't have.
Until WP8 has a huge library of apps like Google Play and iTunes, I don't see the situation improving.
This, in turn, leads to a chicken-and-egg situation: Consumers go for the phone with most apps, developers, developers, developers develop for the phones with most users. Ballmer throws chairs...
Right... by advantis · 2012-10-23 05:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

"damage accelerated by Nokia's failure to embrace big trends". So let's embrace something else that isn't a big trend: Windows Phone. Yep... that would work.

--
Question for religious people: where do unrepentant masochists go when they die?
...not savable anymore by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-23 05:32 · Score: 4, Interesting

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(
Lumia looks good by vux984 · 2012-10-23 05:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

My wife got a couple weeks to demo a spare lumia 800 they had at work this week, and likes it enough to be seriously thinking of switching to a 900 series when her contract is up.
I looked at them hard myself when i upgraded earlier this year, i ultimately went with a galaxy s3, which i don't regret as the lumia's at the time are going to be stuck on windows phone 7.5, and I'm perfectly happy with the s3. It would have been a tougher choice had the lumia 900 series with windows phone 8 been out. (I upgraded from an iphone, but had no interest in the then unreleased iphone 5 given that it was pretty well known that it wasn't going to be a big leap forward from the 4S.)
I also note that the pre-orders for the lumia 920 seem to be going well. I heard BestBuy is sold out online already of the quantities they put up for pre-order.
Overall, I hope Nokia pulls it off. And i hope Windows Phone 8 succeeds. Its a good mobile OS, and competition is good.
Yes they can by thammoud · 2012-10-23 05:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

Create Android phones. They have fantastic engineering talent that is being wasted by a dead platform.
Meego by Jack+Malmostoso · 2012-10-23 05:44 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
1. Re:Meego by Frekja · 2012-10-23 07:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Mod parent up! The decision to EOL Symbian sort of makes sense, though it was totally stupid to say so. The decision to axe Meego was stupidity in the extreme. The N9 swipe user interface is so transparently superior to WP7/8, Android, and iOS that this alone should have told Nokia to keep Meego alive. It also does all that normal back-end stuff (bluetooth OBEX push, actual multitasking, etc) that WP still doesn't do. And the N9 won loads of awards and tech blog / reviewer love. I'm not a developer, so don't understand if Qt makes it as easy to port things as Nokia implied, but if apps are the measure of the ecosystem, it's hardly better than WP.
Nokia’s price for exclusivity by Relayman · 2012-10-23 05:50 · Score: 4, Informative

Horace Dediu of Asymco wrote about Nokia's situation yesterday and showed where Windows Phone phones have not filled the gap in the loss of sales for Symbian phones. He also concludes that the goal of 150 million Symbian phone sales (beginning Q1 2011) will never be reached. He's got some good thoughts on this situation.

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Re:To post something a bit to the contrary here... by Ogi_UnixNut · 2012-10-23 06:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.
Lame, poorly timed speculation by mcrbids · 2012-10-23 06:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Microsoft has a knack for getting it wrong several times before finally coming up with something that works. They are not, in any way, a visionary company, they are simply good at recognizing their mistakes early and dropping them.
Look at their history going all the way back, it took until MS Word 3.x before it even compared to their competition. They suck at first, and always do.
But now that Apple and Android have led the way, Microsoft is about to release the biggest update to their product suite since Windows 95. And this time, I'm rather certain they mean it. They are betting their farm on Windows 8, and have revamped all their products on a unified code base. This isn't Zune, this isn't Wince, (er, WinCE) this is serious.
And it's about to launch. Speculating about the future at this stage in the game about the most useless endeavor imaginable. I'm willing to throw a few hundred in to buy Nokia junk stocks just because, while the odds of MS making Win8 seem scant, the payout if they do could be significant.

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I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Re:No they can't (anymore) by squiggleslash · 2012-10-23 06:44 · Score: 4, Informative

Two phones, the N900 and N9, and four tablets. N770, N800, N810, and N810+WiMax. That's if you're being fair by saying "Six years" in which case you have to include Maemo. If you're limiting yourself to Meego(tm), and not including Maemo, then they certainly weren't working on it for six years.
It's also worth pointing out that the entire point of Meego (as opposed to Maemo) was to get management behind what until then had been virtually a skunkworks project. Nokia's management more or less refused to give Maemo any backing initially because they were too committed to Symbian. It's an interesting question what would have happened had the N810, as originally intended, been released as a phone rather than cut down at the last minute and released as a tablet.

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