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Nokia Selling Its Headquarters To Raise Funds

PolygamousRanchKid writes with news the Nokia is looking to generate some cash by selling its headquarters and leasing it back from the new owner. The sale price for the 48,000 sq. meter building is €170 million. "The struggling mobile phone company has operated in the glass and steel building in Espoo near Helsinki, known as Nokia House, since 1997. The sale is another step towards reducing costs and concentrating on its core business. Nokia has spent almost a third of its cash reserves in 12 months, and in October had about €3.6bn left in the bank to turn itself into a smartphone manufacturer capable of competing with Apple and Samsung."

119 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Tax or Financial Engineering by alexander_686 · · Score: 2

    I wonder if they are doing this for

    Tax Reasons: In the U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts have favorable tax treatment – which is why the owner of the building and the occupier of the building is almost never the same, or for

    Financial Engineering reasons: a one time transaction to raise cash and is good window dressing for the financial statements. Better than taking out a mortgage, but it’s only a one time, stop gap measure.

    1. Re:Tax or Financial Engineering by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      3) Monetary reasons. They actually need the cash right now to stay in business. They're betting on a recovery and future sales covering the cost of money. (Speaking as having worked for a failing company that tried this. It probably helped them stay in business for a few more months.)

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    2. Re:Tax or Financial Engineering by yoshi_mon · · Score: 1

      1. 7 Digit UID, check.

      2. Bashing non-conservative talking points, check.

      3. Talking about the stock market as if it is not a rigged game for the rich, check.

      Why is this post not at -1?

      --

      Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
    3. Re:Tax or Financial Engineering by alexander_686 · · Score: 1

      Er – I am not a jaded socialist.

      If Finland’s tax code allows REITs then this maneuver will create long term value for the company. (I dislike REITs because the REIT tax code distorts the real economy - which might give you a hint where I am on the political / economic spectrum).

      If Nokia is doing this for some quick cash and for some window dressing to its balance sheet – that is something else. That would reek of short term desperation – which implies long term hardship.

    4. Re:Tax or Financial Engineering by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      4) Protection from a hostile takeover. The first thing that corporate raiders look at, is what assets a distressed company has. If the stock market value of a company is less than its physical or intellectual property assets, you can by it, sell the assets, close up shop, and make a tidy profit.

      Nokia has just made itself 170 million € less attractive to corporate raiders.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    5. Re:Tax or Financial Engineering by Retrieve+Password · · Score: 1

      Selling the family silver. Although compared to the original press reports, they only got half the asking price. - proof once more that selling when you're desparate often results in getting less than the asking price. 50% less in this case....

    6. Re:Tax or Financial Engineering by ultranova · · Score: 2

      What kills me is I wasted the whole day trading

      Stop doing that then. A get rich fast scheme is hardly worth your life.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  2. A really sad demise by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I have a Nokia n770 and n900, and they were capable systems. In some ways Android is only now reaching a similar capability. If Nokia could have been convinced to market them, Android might never have taken the market the way it did.

    I was one of a series of consultants they did not listen to with regard to Open Sourcing Symbian and what was, and was not, still of value in Symbian at that late date. Much of what they really valued - like the Symbian kernel - wasn't really business-differentiating in the eyes of the customer and nobody wanted it any longer, but yet they spent Billions on it.

    Their destiny is to become a patent troll or to have their assets bought by one. What a shame.

    1. Re:A really sad demise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They should have gone for Linux/Unix derivative in late 1990s instead of the obscure Symbian. I can tell you that there were working prototypes at that time.

    2. Re:A really sad demise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe I'm not the average customer but the Symbian kernel is differentiating to me. Symbian phones are fast as hell and have battery life that Linux and BSD powered smartphones can only dream of.

    3. Re:A really sad demise by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Informative

      Maybe I'm not the average customer but the Symbian kernel is differentiating to me. Symbian phones are fast as hell and have battery life that Linux and BSD powered smartphones can only dream of.

      Maybe so, but would you have spent a king's ransom to make it run IPV6? I think they did.

    4. Re:A really sad demise by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

      I don't think we're contradicting each other, are we? Of the companies you've mentioned, I think Broadcom is the least litigious. They sued Qualcomm once.

    5. Re:A really sad demise by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2

      It was an anecdote for a while that their MeeGo / Harmattan based N9 was outselling their entire Lumia line combined, despite Nokia doing it's best to bury the thing, by not selling it in such core markets as the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc ... this may have been true of Q4 2011, although Nokia have released no real numbers on the N9.

  3. of course they are. by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why of course they are selling the headquarters. Why would Microsoft need it when they already have a headquarters? All they just want the patents software(nokia maps) talent and factories. They already have all the bureaucracy and buildings they need.

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    1. Re:of course they are. by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Side note, does Microsoft actually need Nokia's factories or talent? Once Microsoft owns the IP, can't they simply close everything down and move the business to the US, and the manufacturing to China? If Microsoft is only concerned with (essentially) one product (the Windows 8 phone), why would they need Nokia's talent at all?

      Side side note, I wonder if this will have an appreciable effect on the economy of Finland? (Probably not, but I don't have the numbers in front of me.)

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    2. Re:of course they are. by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      They probably don't "need it" but with the MS surface move Microsoft has made signals that they want a more apple like hardware operation, where they control hardware and software. Nokia has everything MS need aside for a phone and tablet show. Nokia had had dismal product lines recently but that because their CEO is trying to kill them so his former employer can buy up Nokia on the cheap. mind you much of thier products lines failing has been because they killed everything except windows phone but even there the hardware is descent quality and they have a record of building great phones before E(f)lop came along.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    3. Re:of course they are. by alexander_686 · · Score: 2

      Let me try to refine this question - Do you want to manufacture high quality phones or clone phones? I don’t know the answer.

      Nokia is known for 1. Engineers who make really good hardware and 2. High quality manufacturing in context of supplying different models in different markets (think different languages, networking standards, supply chains, etc.).

      Now, can Nokia charge a premium for it’s hardware over it’s rivals “beige box” android rivals? If the answer is yet then MSFT should keep Nokia intact. If not..

    4. Re:of course they are. by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Many Nokia factories are in other parts of Europe (or further) with cheaper labor rates. To be fair there was also some sense of being a larger EU/World player than just a Finnish brand. But some bad blood generated when they backed out of factory plans in Bochum Germany.

      The Nokia talent is good though, better than MS talent. If MS wants to make a good phone then there is no better place to look for talent; unless they merely want an inexpensive phone. However phones these days aren't really much in the way of phones anymore, they're more about being tiny computers with a cheap phone tacked on and a lot of customers don't really care about high quality phone calls, so I suspect MS won't want good phone engineers. MS certainly doesn't want all the Nokia talent that dealt with back end networking, MS won't be selling hardware to carriers.

      And it's just the headquarters. There are(were) many buildings, not just in Finland but around the world (including a new one in Silicon Valley that was quite probably a mistake). However the headquarters are very nice. It's in a prime location overlooking the bay, the building is very nice looking and stands out with glass everywhere, great access to freeways and busses, etc. You can send execs there to reward them in summer, or to punish them in winter.

    5. Re:of course they are. by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      > Let me try to refine this question - Do you want to manufacture high quality phones or clone phones? I don’t know the answer.

      In the context of this question, you want to manufacture Windows 8 phones, and *only* Windows 8 phones. Whether that falls into either above category is a matter of opinion.

      > Nokia is known for 1. Engineers who make really good hardware and 2. High quality manufacturing in context of supplying different models in different markets (think different languages, networking standards, supply chains, etc.).

      ...but the Windows 8 phone is already designed, and surely it can be manufactured cheaper in China?

      > Now, can Nokia charge a premium for it’s hardware over it’s rivals “beige box” android rivals? If the answer is yet then MSFT should keep Nokia intact. If not..

      I think the question boils down to, what value to Microsoft is Nokia after they're bought out? Microsoft's business model is to charge a premium for their *software*. The hardware is peripheral. Microsoft has absolutely no interest in any hardware Nokia makes that isn't running Windows. So all that engineering and manufacturing pertaining to feature phones is not interesting to Microsoft. What's left? The manufacturing and IP of the Windows 8 Phone. (Windows 7 phone being a dead product and everyone knows it.) Manufacturing can easily be shipped offshore, (everyone else is doing that; the process is known) and the only thing left is the engineering crew specific to the Windows 8 phone. Then the question becomes, do you keep a skeleton crew employed in Finland to design the next iteration of the phone, or do you just pull all that back to Redmond? I think that question answers itself.

      In summary, the larger question is not, what value does Nokia's manufacturing and engineering and current (non-MS) product line have to Nokia, it's what value does all that have to Microsoft. I'm thinking, not much.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    6. Re:of course they are. by symbolset · · Score: 2

      I guess it depends on many factors. Finnish retirement funds owned many hundreds of millions of shares of Nokia. In the last five years the value of that many shares has dropped by about 3.4 billion dollars. Many Finns also invested in the company, a point of national pride. The value of Nokia has fallen by about $100B in the last five years. There are only about 5 million people in Finland.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    7. Re:of course they are. by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Ooh. Well done, Microsoft. I wonder if they had some investments on the exchange rate markets.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    8. Re:of course they are. by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I understand, but if Microsoft acquires them, that will all by necessity go away.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    9. Re:of course they are. by TheLink · · Score: 2

      You also have to ask how much of Nokia's talent is still working for Nokia.

      --
  4. Google sells Android for less than free ... by Cassini2 · · Score: 1

    Microsoft charged money for their software, and Nokia is history.

    1. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by Swampash · · Score: 2

      Seen how much money Microsoft is making out of Android?

    2. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by Threni · · Score: 1

      Not sure - nobody's being straight with their figures.

      I do know that nokia have a good reputation for hardware, and that if they sold quality android phones they'd quickly be up there with Samsung and HTC. People have heard of them. 2 year ago, *noone* had heard of HTC. If nokia aren't careful, nobody will remember them in 2 years time.

    3. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by Flipao · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seen how much money Microsoft is making out of Android?

      More than they make from Windows Phone.

    4. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      HTC have been making smartphones and PDA's for 10 years. Back then most of them were rebranded though. I was using HTC phones rebranded as i-mate around 8 years ago.

    5. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by Threni · · Score: 1

      Yeah, rebranded, and/or not used by regular people. Like I say, no-one had heard of them, and they just came out of nowhere, took the stage, and then faded as Samsung's star ascended.

    6. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by symbolset · · Score: 1

      Nokia promised to deliver their Symbian customers into the Windows Phone camp. They drove them all away instead. Now that they are out of Symbian users they are about to be reminded of the fine print.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    7. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      A lot of business types used them here back then. It was one of the few good alternatives if you wanted a personal computing device of that type. Most of the PDAs back then had no phone capability.

    8. Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... by cheesybagel · · Score: 1
      Google makes more from iOS than they do from Android.

      That's funny. Last time I upgraded iOS it asked me to switch search engines to Yahoo and I clicked the wrong button. Now I can't figure out how to switch back to Google. Hmmm... time to google it.

  5. Why a smart phone manufacturer? by dubbreak · · Score: 1

    There is still a big feature phone market out there. One option would be cutting back everything but feature phones and be profitable in that market. From what I remember Nokia made some rock solid feature phones.

    --
    "If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:Why a smart phone manufacturer? by s73v3r · · Score: 1

      I would highly doubt that market is anywhere near as profitable as the smartphone market was.

    2. Re:Why a smart phone manufacturer? by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      But it's going to be a diminishing market. The majority of phones seem to be offered on a plan basis in Western countries, so even phones which would be prohibitively expensive up front are available to people who would otherwise get feature phones.

      The only people I know with feature phones are people who explicitly do not want a smart phone (generally, but not always, the older generation). For most people, the cost difference between a plan with a feature phone, and a plan with a smart phone is marginal. I guess developing countries might be more interested in feature phones, but then again, I'd imagine they'd be in less of a hurry to continually upgrade than their developed counterparts, resulting in lower turnover for Nokia.

      It used to be that feature phones were the default, with smart phones an expensive niche, but now, feature phones are really becoming the niche.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    3. Re:Why a smart phone manufacturer? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Feature phone market is down in the dirt. I can go to a shop and buy a feature phone for $29 with $20 credit on a prepay plan with no contract and the phone isn't even carrier locked. Android smartphones start at under $100. (all prices in NZD)

    4. Re:Why a smart phone manufacturer? by master5o1 · · Score: 1

      Cancelling troll mod because phone moderation is a bad idea.

      --
      signature is pants
  6. They need to sell Finland by Diamonddavej · · Score: 1

    Finland's GDP was US$189.4 billion in 2010 v's Apple's revenue of US$156.508 billion in 2012. Hard to compete when you rival's revenue exceeds your own countries' GPD.

    1. Re:They need to sell Finland by alexander_686 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      GDP is more akin to profit then to revenue. Apple's net profit was 47b in 2012, or about 1/4 of Finland. We should compare apples to Apple.

    2. Re:They need to sell Finland by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Nokia's 2011 revenue was US$50b. Samsung Electronics was US$150b, which also includes all their TV's LCD panels, DRAM, Flash, Hard drives, Cameras, batteries and other appliances. They're beating Apple in the smartphone market.

    3. Re:They need to sell Finland by alexander_686 · · Score: 1

      Maybe for phones – but smartphones are the future – and it does not look pretty for Nokia.

      http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart-6

    4. Re:They need to sell Finland by Local+ID10T · · Score: 2

      GDP is more akin to profit then to revenue. Apple's net profit was 47b in 2012, or about 1/4 of Finland. We should compare apples to Apple.

      False.

      Whichever method you use for calculating GDP, it is measuring economic activity -thus revenue, not profit.

      • Production method -market value of all final goods and services calculated during 1 year,
      • Income method -sum total of incomes of individuals living in a country during 1 year,
      • Expenditure method - all expenditure incurred by individuals during 1 year.

      Simply put: "[GDP] is akin to ignoring a company's balance sheet, and judging it solely on the basis of its income statement." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product

      --
      "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
    5. Re:They need to sell Finland by alexander_686 · · Score: 1

      I am going to disagree with you.

      Pick apart the wiki article you posted and you will see things like:
                Production approach: Net Value Added = Gross Value of output – Value of Intermediate Consumption. (where Gross value of output is revenue) or
                Income approach: .Corporate profits
      Etc.

      Here is an example.

      In country Y
      Manufacture A has revenue of 45b and profits of 5b.
      Middle Man B distributes company’s A product. It has revues of 50b and profits of 5b.

      In country Z
      Integrated company C produces and distributes 50b of product and has 10b of profits.

      Question – Is countries Y GDP twice as big as country Z. No – because you nailed it on the head when you referred to real “economic activity”.

      There are differences between corporate and GDP accounting. Investing is assets is a cost to companies reducing profits (short term, accounting wise). For GDP it is added in. But it is still more akin to prfoits then revenue.

      http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/06/28/gdp-for-a-country-is-not-the-same-thing-as-turnover-for-a-business/

  7. Makes you wonder... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 1

    Industry titan hits tough times and sells HQ. Apple is doing well now, but you have to wonder if we might see the new "mothership" on the block at some point.

    1. Re:Makes you wonder... by inglorion_on_the_net · · Score: 1

      The thing is, Apple went through hard times and managed to turn things around. People were predicting they would go out of business for years, then came iTunes, OS X, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, all of which have been resounding successes, propelling Apple to previously unthinkable heights.

      Nokia actually has a similar story. It's an old company, and they have been in many businesses that they have since abandoned for more profitable ones. The question is: Will they be able to do it again?

      As far as I know, Apple did well under Jobs, then declined after Jobs was gone, brought back Jobs, and became successful again. Nokia apparently tried the "change the leader" approach, and the new leader certainly made large changes to the company. So far, it doesn't seem to be working out very well. Maybe it needs more time, or maybe it needs a different strategy.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    2. Re:Makes you wonder... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Part of the decline of Apple during the mid-80s was due to the incredibly inept management that Apple used after Jobs left, but Jobs wasn't exactly instilling the same values at Apple back then that he did in his second tenure.

      It was Apple's arrogance that caused the hardships of the 90s, and their recognition of that arrogance and the purging of all the busywork ridiculous money-bleeding projects, as well as a good amount of luck and a nice fat settlement of what could have been a billion dollar lawsuit over QuickTime that saved Apple.

      Remember OpenDoc? QuickDraw 3D? Mac clones? CyberDog? eWorld? The multiple attempts at a new OS (Copeland, Rhapsody, Taligent, etc.) before they just went and bought OpenStep?

      All bad projects that wasted talent and money in the mid-90s at Apple, which were summarily executed.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  8. not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I seem to remember a comany called SGI that went into the real-estate biz to subsidize themselves... how did that work out for them?

    1. Re:not the first time by MrEricSir · · Score: 2

      Worked out great for Google!

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    2. Re:not the first time by stox · · Score: 1

      Google got a nice campus out of it.

      --
      "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  9. How long before by stox · · Score: 1

    they put Navteq up for sale?

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    1. Re:How long before by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      How much money do you think Apple would pay for it, considering the spotlight shown on their rather mediocre maps app?

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  10. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by Flipao · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is SLASHDOT. We are BIAS.

    You mean the company that single handedly set the web back at least five years and has been criminally convicted for anti competitive behavior and the company that is being run into the ground by the 8th largest shareholder of the previously mentioned company?

    Gee, I wonder why anyone would hate them.

  11. Nothing to do with perhaps a Memo by tuppe666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is SLASHDOT. We are BIAS.

    Its not bias of slashdot!? that has made Microsoft Windows Phone and that Nokia Strategy as popular Marmite covered spiders. Nokia twinning themselves *exclusively* with an OS that late; with less features and incompatible with its predecessors, with no viable upgrade path, with proprietary software...on hardware made in china; with less features than its predecessors or the competition at the cost to real peoples jobs, its market value, revenues; market share; brand value....only for it being replace with the latest suitor HTC [with the pattern repeated as Microsoft become their own OEM]. Has become a patent troll with Microsoft...while devaluing those patents to anyone who would have bought them.

    I'm just barely touching the surface of what is perhaps a decline of company on an unrepresented scale. I find it insulting to an nth degree that anyone would try to pass anything, anyone saying anything against this is, as emotional, although I suspect the thousands of newly unemployed probably aren't loving them right now.

    1. Re:Nothing to do with perhaps a Memo by Divebus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hehe... You said "surface"

      --

      Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
    2. Re:Nothing to do with perhaps a Memo by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      At least when IBM entered it's decline in the mid-80s and early 90s, it was smart enough to divest losing businesses (PC business, though Lenovo is making a go of it now) and rely on proven revenue where they make some of the best stuff on the market: servers and services.

      Microsoft only has software, and it's dwindled to the Windows products, Office, and Exchange. Everything else is a loser, and the lack of innovation is starting to show cracks in the remaining three.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  12. The Microsoft and the Nokia by DrJimbo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A Microsoft asked a Nokia to carry him across a river. The Nokia refused because it was afraid of getting stung by the Microsoft. But the clever Microsoft argued that if it stings the Nokia then they would both drown. So the Nokia agrees and carries the Microsoft into the river. Halfway across the Microsoft stings the Nokia dooming them both. In its dying breath the Nokia asks the Microsoft why it did such a thing. The Microsoft replies "it is my nature".

    --
    We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
    -- Anais Nin
    1. Re:The Microsoft and the Nokia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A Microsoft asked a Nokia to carry him across a river. The Nokia
      refused because it was afraid of getting stung by the Microsoft.
      But the clever Microsoft argued that if it stings the Nokia then
      they would both drown. So the Nokia agrees and carries the
      Microsoft into the river. Halfway across the Microsoft stings
      the Nokia dooming them both. In its dying breath the Nokia asks
      the Microsoft why it did such a thing.

      The Microsoft looks to HTC and Samsung as the Nokia sank. Grinning, it reaches for Nokia's patents as it goes under, whispering, "You see, Nokia, I can swim."

  13. Re:"The sale is another step towards reducing cost by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    It "reduces costs" on the VERY short term, as you get an influx of cash and then essentially have to pay it back plus the holding company's profit margin. A desperate company will try this at some point, hoping against hope that this allows them to stay in business long enough to turn it around.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  14. Re:"The sale is another step towards reducing cost by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    ...it's a little like outsourcing. Cost savings (on paper) is largely smoke and mirrors, as the cost savings from cheaper manpower must be balanced against the cost of the outsource company's profit margin, and the increased cost of doing business due to incompetent staff.

    I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  15. Nobody knows? by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    Seen how much money Microsoft is making out of Android?

    What money!? There is loads of nominal amounts listed around the internet, Thinks hinted at of what has happened behind closed doors. We know a lot of deals have been struck we just can only speculate at what they are. The reality is I suspect very little actual money has changed hands.

  16. They gave it away by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    There is still a big feature phone market out there.

    Elop destroyed it by saying they were crap. In fact the OS set to replace symbian on these featurephones, the linux based "Meltemi" was cancelled make of that what you will. Samsung [featurephones]...and well "Value Android" are replacing these. I think you will be astonished at how powerful these value androids are...Check out the Huawei Ascend G330 look at the specs http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_ascend_g330-4966.php.

  17. Is Apple doing well by tuppe666 · · Score: 2

    Apple is doing well now

    Apple had had billions wiped off its value; Its market share is declining; The launch quarter figures for its most profitable product the iphone, and its new product the iPad is already being overtaken by Android...again. There last product launch the mini, was disappointing.

    ...but this is all off topic. Apple has different problems..and is a long way from being in any immediate trouble. Unlike Nokia which Microsoft have destroyed in months.

  18. Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I do not own any Nokia shares - and I thank the man upstairs for granting me the wisdom for keeping myself away from Nokia as far as I can.

    Back to the main stuff ---

    I still do not understand the rationale of Nokia's BoD hiring a M$ mole to run Nokia.

    What's so special of that M$ mole in the first place?

    I mean, look at Nokia now, versus the Nokia before that M$ mole took over.

    Nokia was in a decline - yes, a decline, before the M$ mole was hired.

    After that mole took over, Nokia took a nose dive.

    No longer a decline, but a nosedive.

    For how many quarters already Nokia has posted a loss?

    Because of that M$ mole, Nokia has run out of cash - and now, even its HQ building has to be sold to raise some.

    Man ...

    As I have said - I just do.not.understand !!

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It wasn't a "M$ Mole" that fucked Nokia, it was 5 long years of having its thumb up its ass and no direction that killed Nokia.

      I mean look at the situation elop had handed to him, they had not one, not two, but THREE different OSes, all of them fighting internally for resources, none of them were up to the task of taking Android and iOS head on, the only thing they had in their favor was dumbphones and anybody with eyes could see dumbphones are going the way of the 8 track. They didn't have the money to compete with HP for WebOS, Apple sure as fuck isn't gonna license them iOS, the MeeGo team was quoted as saying it would "be a year to a year and a half" before it was able to match iOS and Android and of course neither would be standing still during that year and a half, and with Android they would be an also-ran because frankly Samsung and HTC just do Android better than anybody else.

      So I honestly don't see what call everyone think Elop should have done, did you want him to get the company curbstomped by putting out a half baked MeeGo? Jump into the race to the bottom that is Android? FYI look at the numbers, Samsung is making a profit but barely, nobody else is looking good right now thanks to all the competition and cheap prices, so what? What could he have done? I mean we all know the best move would have been to get WebOS but that was off the table by the time he got there, so their choices were 1.-Get slaughtered for a year and a half and hope the MeeGo team could pull a miracle out their ass, or 2.- Take a finished product from MSFT and have them foot the bill for advertising it as well.

      Hindsight is always 20/20 folks, and if he would have chosen MeeGo or Android they'd be just as fucked as they are now, Android prices are in a freefall and MeeGo simply wasn't done. So he made a call, a call that didn't pan out but frankly other than closing the doors and giving the money back to the stockholders i don't know what other call the guy could have made. maybe if they would have brought somebody in 5 years earlier, maybe if they wouldn't have let their resources get so fragmented, maybe things would have come out differently. But Elop didn't have a time machine, he had to work with what he had which by that point was a sinking ship.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by LavouraArcaica · · Score: 1

      To me, the whole problem is that Elop had 3 different OSes (fighting internally for resources) and then he though to put all 3 OSes in the garbage and take another one. Nokia could improve Symbian (big costs to improve the system itself, small costs in changing mindsharing) OR improve Meego (not so big costs improving the system, bigger costs creating another software ecosystem and gaining mindshre). But no! Let's try another complete new thing. something that don't have mindshare, don't have software ecosystem and it's not even ready yet! Looks like a fantastic idea! Nokia, in the bottom line, though they could stop de time for 3 years and, after this time, enter the market again.

    3. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by bmcage · · Score: 1
      Samsung making barely profits?? http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/25/samsung-q3-earnings/

      Samsung has more than 3 OS for their phones. It does not seem to hurt them. A company like Nokia could bet on several horses in 2009 without worries, as long as management had clear goals and niches for each OS. Making a Nokia build with Android OS would sell.

    4. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by 21mhz · · Score: 2

      Nokia could improve Symbian (big costs to improve the system itself, small costs in changing mindsharing) OR improve Meego (not so big costs improving the system, bigger costs creating another software ecosystem and gaining mindshre).

      But no! Let's try another complete new thing. something that don't have mindshare, don't have software ecosystem and it's not even ready yet!

      Windows Phone 7.5 was basically ready by the time they put out first phones with it. MeeGo... don't get me started, I worked on it. Nokia has Microsoft's shoulder now to drive the software ecosystem; alone, it did not stand a chance. The competencies simply weren't there in sufficient strength, and it would take a lot of time and pain to build them. Moreover, there was a lot of "anti-competency" in the company, all the dead weight accrued during the Symbian years.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    5. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Nokia could improve Symbian (big costs to improve the system itself, small costs in changing mindsharing)

      The reality is Symbian was never going to be able to compete with iOS and Android, the app selection would never get close thanks to the development tools, SDK and APIs making it painful to develop for.

      improve Meego (not so big costs improving the system, bigger costs creating another software ecosystem and gaining mindshre).

      They spent years on that project, then the merge with Moblin and got absolutely nowhere.

      But no! Let's try another complete new thing. something that don't have mindshare, don't have software ecosystem and it's not even ready yet!

      Well actually it was ready by the time Nokia were ready, and wrt mindshare and the software ecosystem they stood a far better chance with someone like Microsoft pushing those as well than they would going it alone. Sure they could have gone with Android and maybe even struck some kind of deal to be the sole Nexus partner or something (since this was before the Motorola Mobility deal), maybe that would have worked out for them. Or perhaps they could have taken on WebOS, though that probably wouldn't have been much different from continuing with MeeGo.

    6. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Look at the post below you friend, even those that worked on the MeeGo team said it wasn't even alpha quality, no way in hell it could compete with iOS 3 and Android 2 which were out when Elop took the reins. And Symbian? Really? That would be like saying if you threw enough money at PalmOS 1 (the old 3.1 looking PalmOS Garnet) that you could have a product that could compete with android and iOS. I'm sorry but Symbian was a low rent OS that was designed for low resource dumbphones, it would have had to have had the entire graphical and networking stacks trashed and started over, no way in hell he could have got that out the door in less than 6 months. And the third OS was a JavaSE based mess that they had been working on for ages and was basically a pig, so it would have been pointless to try to save it.

      So I'm sorry but you can't bring a guy in when the bow is already under and the ship is filling with water fast and expect him to magically raise the ship with nothing but what he has on hand. I urge you to go read the blogs of the MeeGo devs from that period, this isn't a secret ya know, even they said a year to a year and a half MINIMUM to get up to the level of iOS 2 because there was serious issues both with memory leaks and with the networking stack sucking power. Nobody is gonna buy a phone that crashes every couple of hours because it runs out of memory or you have to plug in every time you want to get on the web.

      At the end of the day what you had was a horribly fragmented company without a single product that could be sold in the high end space, not one. So his choices were either jump into the meat grinder that was Android ( and even then the market was flooded with cheap smartphones running Android, anybody with eyes could see that market was saturated and 90% of the customers were buying strictly on price, and Nokia never was competitive in the "el cheapo" markets like Motorola) or take WinPhone and let MSFT foot the bill for the advertising they couldn't afford.

      So I don't see how you think he had another call, MeeGo wasn't even in beta and you know you can not just magically throw more devs on a project and make it come out quicker, and between all the infighting and internal politics all three OSes were WAY behind and had serious issues. In a way its exactly what Apple found themselves in in the late 90s with the pink and blue teams, only there was no NeXT to buy to save their behind because HP was willing to pay Dr Insaneo prices for WebOS...which they promptly sat on as they didn't know WTF to do with it, so that only left them 2 options, get curbstomped in the Android mosh pit, or let MSFT bring in a team of engineers (on their dime no less) as well as pay the ad budgets and practically give them the OS for nothing.

      But if they would have hired somebody 5 years earlier I think your plan would have had merit, they could have EOLed Symbian, tossed the JavaSE based, and sunk the resources into MeeGo and had a serious competitor. But that was then, this is now, and they virtually ZERO money coming from smartphones, the bottom was falling out of dumbphones which all could see were doomed anyway (hell Walmart now sells $50 Android phones with their El Cheapo prepaid plans, no way higher priced Nokia hardware could compete with THOSE prices) so frankly no matter what you think of Elop I would state that being put in the big chair we all would have made the same call, not like they had time to just start over what with Android and iPhones exploding.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    7. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Since you worked on MeeGo would you PLEASE point out it wasn't ready and had serious issues next time the whole "The big bad M$ came and killed poor little MeeGo!" myth comes around again?

      Please speak up, I'm sure as an insider you could shed a LOT of light and bust this myth once and for all, its not like MeeGo was this perfect mobile OS just sitting there ready to ship but the "evil M$ Mole" killed it, it simply wasn't up to the task of taking android and iOS on and they didn't have the right people there capable of bringing it up to speed in time.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      I'm trying every time this comes up, but it's a whack-a-mole (pun intended).

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    9. Re:Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      I mean, look at Nokia now, versus the Nokia before that M$ mole took over.

      Let's follow your advice and actually look at it.
      Nokia was in decline, now its stock is rising.
      Nokia hadn't had a competitive device in the smartphone segment in a while. Now it's got several and announces yet more.

      Pray tell, what nosedive are you talking about?

      For how many quarters already Nokia has posted a loss?

      This question sounds stupid, considering the magnitude of problems Nokia got themselves into over many years.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
  19. sell the HQ by rossdee · · Score: 1

    Congress could sell the Capitol building to aid in reducing the deficit

    1. Re:sell the HQ by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      The Capitol building is OK. It just needs to be fumigated.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  20. Apple irrelevant; Android got swag by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    the fact of the matter is that for every vendor making money off of Android at least a dozen have come and failed.

    Show me these facts. The irony in reference to this post is Asus and Sony are now profitable since they dropped Windows. Samsung I believe is making out like gangbusters. Lenovo; ZTE; Huawei doing great. Stop spreading this ill informed garbage.

    ...oh you mean HTC which is STILL profitable, and makes...you guessed it windows phones.

    Oh your making a point about your beloved Apple making lots of profits...I'm afraid Apples pursuit of profits is already hurting Apples market share, which didn't work out well last time...they became Microsofts Bitch. They are already irrelevant.

  21. California: ahead of the curve by slew · · Score: 1

    California was going to try to sell and lease-back a few buildings, but they bailed out before they did the deed...

  22. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by Divebus · · Score: 2

    I'll try that one - the ruling forced Microsoft to survive on the merits of their products rather than strong arm tactics to force business partners to submit to their wishes. No innovation allowed that would circumvent their leverage of Office into every other aspect of business computing.

    There was lots of innovation going on and lots of excitement about what could be done with a microcomputer. Microsoft uniquely understood the power of cross platform capabilities (that's exactly where they started - porting software to the myriad platforms out there). When they suddenly realized they had created their own platform, everything shifted to protecting it. They would "partner" with countless software companies like the old days, modify the product to be Microsoft only, release it to the masses stripping away any cross platform capability and made the original technology irrelevant.

    That was the death of any threats against Microsoft for several years.

    --

    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
  23. Android is all swag by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    Google makes more from iOS than they do from Android.
    and Apple basically just prints money

    I bet you can't show me current figures to support your claim. Ignoring the indirect benefits of not having another vendor dominate the smart-phone market, when you want make money from advertising on mobile, or the intangible benefits it brings like heavily promoting its brands Google; Chrome; Android; Nexus; Gmail; Play; Wallet; Google+ etc. I suspect the direct benefit from taking a cut from every sale on play as it continues to be launched; inproved; expanded.

    As for Apple printing money...absolutely, but as the tablet; phone market continue to mature its pursuit of profit over marketshare. Is looking increasingly shaky, but hey they learnt last time they did this right....

    1. Re:Android is all swag by MisterSquid · · Score: 1

      As for Apple printing money...absolutely, but as the tablet; phone market continue to mature its pursuit of profit over marketshare. Is looking increasingly shaky, but hey they learnt last time they did this right....

      I don't understand all the people who measure and forecast success according to marketshare. Minority platforms not only can be healthy, they also can outperform majority platforms.

      For one obvious example, Apple has about 10% marketshare for computers and low single-digit percentage in the installed base. Yet, Apple has fully dominated the consumer computer industry in terms of profit and growth. Apple does better than every single one of its competitors in consumer computing (selling new computers) because marketshare is not a factor now that the Internet and open standards exist.

      This is even more true with mobile computing.

      Who cares how many Android devices exist in relation to iOS devices? Consumers don't because what they mostly do is connect to the Internet with their smartphones, where they watch video, comb Facebook, check email, send texts, and post Tweets.

      Why does anyone even talk about smartphone OS marketshare as if it matters?

      --
      blog
    2. Re:Android is all swag by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

      Why does anyone even talk about smartphone OS marketshare as if it matters?

      Because it matters. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html.

    3. Re:Android is all swag by Swampash · · Score: 2

      I bet you can't show me current figures to support your claim.

      Eric Schmidt's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Hearing, August last year. He admitted that two thirds of Google's revenue from mobile comes from Apple devices.

  24. Re:"The sale is another step towards reducinCostco by jbengt · · Score: 1

    There are some advantages to leasing rather than owning, though. Owning is not free, and can be more expensive than leasing Leasing can give more agility, you can (usually) grow and shrink more easily, being saddled wit a 5-year lease or so, rather than a 30-year mortgaqge. Leasing avoids some risk if you sign a favorable lease, you don't have to worry about cost fluctuations, paying for unexpected repairs, or whether the lease pays for the cost of operating. You don't have to become an expert in constructing and operating buildings, you don't need staff for all that. If you're actually profitable, you can make money doing what your company does, and hopefully make a better return on investment than you can running the building. It's classic capitalism, do what you do efficiently and trade (using money) for what others are good at. Though, none of that means it is necessarily wise in this case, when Nokia already has the building, and seems to only be using the money to invest in losing more money.

  25. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by samkass · · Score: 2

    ...and has been criminally convicted for anti competitive behavior...

    Not to nitpick too much, but the court decision was not criminal and therefore not a "conviction". It was a civil anti-trust suit.

    --
    E pluribus unum
  26. Re:"The sale is another step towards reducinCostco by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    Some good points, but I've yet to see an instance where a company sold their buildings to a holding company so that they could grow or shrink or move elsewhere more efficiently. I've only ever seen it as a short term cash grab.

    Even if you owned the buildings, you (as a company) probably did not build them, nor do you necessarily have to have a crew to maintain them. All that can be contracted out. Moreover, you can sell a building with a 30 year mortgage and still recover some equity, whereas getting out early from a 5 year lease may be more costly.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  27. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by Divebus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Exactly how did MS set the web back 5 years?

    Oh.. that 5 year span when NOTHING improved on IE? That piece of time between the death of Netscape and the advent of tabbed browsing (and RSS feeds) on Firefox? The lack of innovation certainly WAS Microsoft's fault. Not only that, it was their plan - eliminate everything else so they didn't have to spend money on competition.

    People used IE in the early 2000s because it came with the computer. Microsoft had won the desktop wars and with it, everything else. The era of being cross platform was gone. Everyone clicked the Big Blue E to get on the Internet and nobody was going to PAY for Netscape. IE was the logical choice as most people thought Microsoft was the only source for computer software. Under threat of never seeing your precious Word and Excel documents again, they were right.

    The ability to stifle innovation (including their own) came from two things; Microsoft Server Extensions and tolerance to really bad code, both of which were a good thing in a way. The big problem with Netscape at the time is they were trying really hard to be W3C standards compliant and, except for the addition of Java to Netscape, things moved very slowly. Microsoft grew impatient with the W3C and leapt out way ahead with Server Extensions, those little addons which made the browser much more like a client-server relationship instead of the stateless relationship originally intended with browsers. Front Page made it easy to activate complex tasks by moving the heavy lifting to the server and calling it with a simple trigger in HTML.

    Of course, Server Extensions brought many new capabilities never before seen on a browser, something the W3C couldn't keep up with and it was never Microsoft's intention to standardize them (as in go through a standards committee to define and publish the technology). The problem was that all these sites were "IE Only". Microsoft was VERY close to ensuring anyone not using a totally Microsoft technology chain on the Internet saw a blank screen. In other words, they nearly owned the Internet.

    IE's tolerance for bad coding was good for IE users as it rendered pages with broken code pretty well. Microsoft handed out a lot of free copies of Front Page to create this broken code which would render with unexpected results on other browsers. Front Page (and plain bad hand coding) made anything other than IE look illiterate. That's the price of sitting around on your hands. Microsoft was there to take it all away in a long series of brilliant chess moves... and then everything went thud for a while.

    It actually functioned rather well when it was novel, but nothing moved in terms of real technical advances unless Microsoft was threatened by some shred of competition which was quickly squashed. The next software patch would allow IE to do the same thing for free but for Windows only. Otherwise, Microsoft pretty much sat on their asses and took their sweet old time releasing anything new. Innovation was dead as long as nobody dared try to use anything else.

    --

    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
  28. You need to reread your links. by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    Yes, their market share has gone down because the market has expanded with tons of shitty Android phones flooding the market not because they are selling less phones and tablets.

    LOL and that is the point. Android had great phones at every price range...apple have only one phone, and its poor value..and its killing them. You need to recheck your links [those that aren't behind paywalls] I don't think you read them they include quotes like "now held over 12 percent of the Chinese smartphone market." and "It also claimed that the Ascend P1 and Ascend D1 had become best selling handsets in China, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and Canada"...a market Apple is being outsold 21:1 by Android. Calling these phones cheap, is a mistake they are great phones, and the words you're looking for is "good value"

    As I said these Android phones are very profitable for those companies. If you can find evidence to the contrary I would love to see it :). Like I say even HTC are still making profits from Android, even with the Windows handycap.

    1. Re:You need to reread your links. by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      I guess he needs to buy himself a TAG Heuer Android phone since he seems to be more concerned about having an expensive phone than anything actually useful.

  29. No hate here, just sorrow by EzInKy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It really is painful to see such a fantastic nerd friendly company hit bottom like this. I really would like them become a phoenix and raise from their ashes, but I'm not seeing it in the cards. But you know, if they would only ship an updated version of their famed N900 I'd certainly be willing to send another $600 their way, and I'd be willing to wager so would a few other million people as well. Hope those 170 million Euros will keep Nokia alive long enough to come to its senses.

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    1. Re:No hate here, just sorrow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's still very early, but there is Jolla. I'll be curious to see what they do and whether I'll be switching from my N8 ( which is :-\ ) to a Jolla phone in a couple years.

      (Holy crap I haven't posted here in years. Writing out anchor tags in comments takes me back...)

  30. Well I just received a new E6 today, by treadmarks · · Score: 1

    It looks like if I waited much longer to buy it, I wouldn't be able to. Apparently if you stick around long enough you will live to see a respectable version of Symbian. And that makes the situation even more tragic, because just as Symbian is (almost) caught up, they decide to kill it and hitch their cart to Microsoft, the most laughable non-innovator of the last decade. Predictably, this has failed, and now my only wonder is whether this new phone will outlive Nokia, like some artifact from before its shameful marriage of desperation with Microsoft, when it still had something to be proud of.

  31. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by PYRILAMPES · · Score: 1

    Microsoft does this to every business partner. They always have. If Nokia was fool enough to trust Microsoft, there will be no tears shed. The more reasonable answer is Nokia officers dropped the ball and got paid well for dancing with the Microsoft. The "only" losers were the employees and their stockholders.

  32. Nokia Meets Monty Python's Meaning of Life by guttentag · · Score: 2
    In the "birth" chapter of Monty Python's Meaning of Life, a hospital administrator walks in on a woman giving birth and is excited to see that they are using the most expensive machine in the whole hospital: the useless "Machine That Goes Ping." He explains to the doctors, nurses and students, who have forgotten all about the woman in labor, the twisted accounting brilliance this machine represents:

    You see, we leased this back from the company we sold it to, and that way it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.

    Everyone applauds.

  33. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

    Netscape 4 and later were a steaming pile of dung. That was the problem. IE from version 3 onwards was quite useable. It was only after IE 5 came out and Netscape basically folded that development froze seemingly forever.

  34. What demise? by 21mhz · · Score: 1

    So, they are in the sad company of their neighbors in Keilaniemi, like Kone and Fortum, who have also sold their headquarters to real estate conglomerates years ago and stayed on as tenants. Of those, only Neste Oil still owns their HQ.

    --
    My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    1. Re:What demise? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

      Were they in a better position, they'd be able to sell stock to make money. But that will be more difficult now. Assets like real estate keep the value of the company from being entirely speculative. After this, expect them to sell some patents. And at the end of that, their value will be based entirely on whether people think the company can pull itself out of its current problems or not, they'll be a really poor rated stock, and they'll have no more sources of cash if they can't fix the company in the short term.

    2. Re:What demise? by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      And if they can't fix the company, holding onto that ownership title will help them how?

      It can be the case of somebody finally taking a hard look on things and saying: "WTF are we still doing this when we could get 170 million now and save on upkeep costs in the long run". Makes sense when a corporation optimizes its finances. It evidently made sense to Kone, who are not in any kind of trouble.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    3. Re:What demise? by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      How exactly would they save on upkeep costs in the long run?
      Whoever they lease the building from is going to want the building properly maintained (especially considering nokia aren't likely to be around very long, so they will need to find replacement tenants soon), as well as making a profit from leasing it out,

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    4. Re:What demise? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

      Actually, Kone has had their ups and downs over the past decade. They suffered from a consolidation in the elevator market - their major business at the time - that pushed them out of the market to a great extent.

    5. Re:What demise? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

      If they can't fix the company what they did with assets is moot. But disposition of assets reduces valuation over time despite any momentary uptick, so it can hinder fixing the company as well as help.

  35. They DIDN'T give it away by 21mhz · · Score: 2

    Nokia is selling featurephones like hotcakes, they just don't run that ugly OS called Symbian. No Linux either, but who says that everything under the sun should run Linux?

    Just because you don't see these phones sold on the perennially screwed U.S. market does not give you an excuse to repeat misinformation.

    --
    My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
  36. Re:"The sale is another step towards reducing cost by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    You're right, but it's, like, something to try before going under. A responsible CEO will try it. Of course, a responsible CEO wouldn't have been in the position in the first place, but never mind...

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  37. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1

    There was Opera "between the death of Netscape and the advent of tabbed browsing (and RSS feeds) on Firefox".

  38. Reduce costs? by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    This won't reduce costs, day to day costs will increase as they will now be leasing the building and the new owners will want to profit from doing so, it will just give them a temporary injection of cash.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  39. Re:lumia 920 by stooo · · Score: 1

    Perhaps because you can't sell phones with an English GUI ?

    --
    aaaaaaa
  40. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    Better browsers were out for quite some time before firefox started gaining traction, and most of that was not because firefox was a better browser but because ie was a massive security hole and people were getting owned with drive by exploits on a regular basis.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  41. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    Which at the time was not free, and could not render many of the broken sites designed specifically for ie... The fact that it was the sites that were broken and not the browser didn't matter to users, they blamed the browser.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  42. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by hairyfish · · Score: 1, Insightful

    People used IE in the early 2000s because it came with the computer.

    I'm an IT guy, I used IE because it was better than anything else available at the time. Most other "people" clearly thought the same thing.

    most people thought Microsoft was the only source for computer software. Under threat of never seeing your precious Word and Excel documents again, they were right.

    Crap. People used MS because it was the one of the only producers of user friendly software that wasn't a pile of steaming dog turd. Firefox, Apple and Google showed that if you produce quality products, people will use them.

    Innovation was dead as long as nobody dared try to use anything else.

    Jesus fucking Christ, if innovation died then where the fuck did Apple and Google and Facebook come from? The biggest IT companies around all came to power during your so called period of innovation-death. Good luck with that hypothesis...

  43. Re:Why O Why o Why ELOP??? by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only thing they can do now is make Android phones, in a marketplace dominated by Samsung.

    Their Linux OS efforts are now so far behind, and with the sale of Qt, not likely to pick up speed, that they can't take the risk of trying to introduce another "burning platform" to the mix. Apple are not going to license them iOS, and Windows Phone is obviously a no-go (does the N9 *still* outsell all their Lumia lines?)

    The board are likely not able to mentally process the idea that the only way forward for Nokia is as a minority player in the smartphone market. They've been so used to dominating the mobile phone market, that anything that isn't domination just doesn't sound good enough. Windows Phone is their only hope for domination, because it's the only thing that can significantly differentiate them from all the Android phones out there.

    Honestly, they should go for Android ASAP. Nokia still has brand recognition - they are still the iconic phone brand that people think of, still the most recognisable default ringtone in the world, still have a reputation for quality. They should leverage their ability to build decent hardware, slap Android on it, get out there in the market (Android is the *largest* high end mobile market), and fight for their survival.

    Alas, they've become lazy. They don't want to fight - they didn't have to for so long. Instead, they are King of the Windows Phone market. Whoopee-do.

  44. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

    Opera cost money and Netscape put out the abortion known as NS4, nuff said.

    I'm sorry AC but the other guy is right, hell I was a big NS fan and even I had to put up with IE for a few years because there just wasn't anything out there. Sure you could get a free version of Opera...if you didn't mind 30% of your browser to be a giant flashing adbar, but those of us on limited bandwidth connections really didn't want to pay the bandwidth for opera's ads.

    And again look at the numbers, when FF came out people started jumping and then Chrome made even more run away, the second anything better came along we bailed. i know I was one of the first ones using the Moz Suite, followed by FF before it was even called FF and now I'm on a Chrome variant, I honestly don't even know what version of IE comes with Win 7 because I haven't ever fired it up.

    You can't blame "The big bad M$" if nobody else is making a decent product, and at the time there really wasn't any decent product that competed. This is the same way MS Office took off BTW, WordPerfect ruled the roost until they didn't bother putting out a Windows version until nearly 2000, before that they put out a badly ported DOS version which crashed and ran like shit. people didn't buy MS Office because they liked it, they bought it because they liked having their work done without 3 crashes making them start from the top multiple times.

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    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  45. There can be only 2 by gelfling · · Score: 1

    There are only two phone companies: Samsung and Apple. All others will disappear soon.

  46. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by Divebus · · Score: 1

    Jesus fucking Christ yourself, buddy. Apple, Google and Facebook was disruptive to Microsoft and only had a choice to face an uphill battle against it or partner with it. There were innovators and practically every one of them had to battle Microsoft in one way or another. Hell, Microsoft even viewed newspapers and television as competition. I'm an IT guy too with the difference that I also saw the strengths of things NOT Microsoft.

    It's pretty well documented that Microsoft leveraged three things because of their popularity; (1) strong armed business partners into doing whatever Microsoft wanted under threat of getting thrown off the gravy train, (2) tied their software together so, to the end user, it appeared everything would fall down if anything non-Microsoft was introduced to the system and (3) was actively replicating functions other innovators were coming up with and releasing it en-masse to be Windows only, suppressing many innovators, large and small.

    At some point, the "popularity" of Microsoft shifted from having desirable products to "people" being fearful of exiting their ecosystem. By "people", I mean people who didn't know any different. Microsoft products were getting very shoddy and expensive, and they didn't care. I can't tell you how many eye rolls I've spent on board meetings where mentioning something that didn't come from Microsoft sent them scurrying in terror. They all thought email was Outlooking, the Internet was the Big Blue E and the only possible computer to buy was anything Windows because they needed to print Word documents. The real innovations were happening elsewhere and it took 10 years before the frustration of being stuck in Microsoft world came to the surface.

    Ha... I said "surface".

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    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
  47. nerd-friendly mobile phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You are badly informed. The update to the N900 is the N9 (Wikipedia, price comparison). It has been available on the market for over a year now.

    You will not get anything better than this from Nokia anymore as the development teams are sacked. There will be no more official software updates for the N9, but the fan community picks up the ball because the OS (MeeGo, a Debian derivative) is quite hackable. I have installed the whole GNU and Qt developer toolchains and can develop both live on the device and cross-compiling to ARM from my laptop. It's also easy to flash alternative OS like Mer.

    Some ex-Nokia developers formed a new company, Jolla, and have demoed their first product just a couple of days ago.

    1. Re:nerd-friendly mobile phone by EzInKy · · Score: 2

      I've been watching Jolla, but thanks! The N9 doesn't even have a real keyboard so it is hardly a replacement for the N900.

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      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  48. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

    Also, it beg's the question, irregardlessly, I could care less?

    This wins.

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    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  49. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    Opera had tabbed browsing in 2000. I remember because that's why I switched, opening multiple tabs at modem speeds was awesome. Read what you've got on the screen, and by the time you finish, all your other tabs have finished loading. Firefox? Bullshit.

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    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  50. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by TheCycoONE · · Score: 1

    I refute your claim that NS was trying to support standards any more than IE was, and assert that they were trying harder to deviate from standards.

    Netscape tried to push their own tag which was needed for overlapping elements in that browser (nothing else worked with z-index), a small violation of the HTML spec, and a huge violation of the CSS spec. They also didn't support any units except px, and sometimes %. Stylesheets wouldn't render at all if you turned off javascript. As others have said, it's an ugly horrible mess of a browser.

    IE 5/6 were the best browsers at the time. The problem is when they ran out of competition they quit spending money, disbanded the IE team, and left things to stagnate for years - but without competition why would a company innovate? They are not a hacker group making the internet better for fun, they're a publicly traded company vying for the most market share.

  51. Re:Why O Why o Why ELOP??? by exomondo · · Score: 1

    Alas, they've become lazy. They don't want to fight - they didn't have to for so long.

    They did fight! They just kept losing. Various Symbian refreshes and many years spent on Maemo/Meego that yielded only marketshare to iOS and Android.

    Instead, they are King of the Windows Phone market. Whoopee-do.

    Personally i think they should have become the champion of stock Android, with timely updates running the stock OS on well-built and well-engineered hardware, sticking to what Nokia is good at. But even that would be a big gamble and would make them a Nexus competitor. Making some Nokia-specific - but compatible - distribution of Android would probably offer little.

    Blackberry 10 licensee? Maybe, but that probably would have been even riskier than Windows Phone.

    There's nothing particularly wrong with Windows Phone, it just needs to win mindshare, the name would have been a good start, disassociate it with Windows.

  52. Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. by Divebus · · Score: 1

    It's really hard to have an intelligent exchange just about anywhere, and you're becoming a poster child as to why.

    Ever hear of "embrace, extend, extinguish"? Microsoft built in browser incompatibilities with an object tag for ActiveX to make sure Netscape and Opera performed poorly (Opera sued for that), MSN.com even served a different CSS to Opera visitors to make it look broken, for a while, you saw a blank screen on msn.com unless your user-agent string said MSIE, they extended and broke CSS favoring their own -ms- property extensions, they broke Java in browsers with J/Direct, they created Java development tools that stripped away all the cross platform intentions of Java (Sun sued for that), they planned to extinguish the HTML standard with their own free browser to "cut off Netscape's air supply" (Paul Maritz revealed this in a meeting with Intel), they extended and broke Kerberos to lock out other platforms from Windows 2000, they embraced and extended the AOL IM protocol to make AOL's own IM software stop working, they made a mess out of ISO-9660 with their Joliet extension (so you only see the 8.3 names in other platforms), they told Intel to withdraw VDI and threatened PC makers if they implemented it (look up Steven McGeady's testimony), Bill Gates told Andy Grove to shut down the Intel Architecture Labs driving CPU level Internet technologies without Microsoft's permission, Intel had to kill NSP, kill Java support, stop support for Netscape - all part of their illegal restrictive licensing agreements with OEMs to favor Microsoft and harm everything else, they signed up OEMs for a rebate on installing Windows on PCs in exchange for a fee they had to pay for any PC they sold without Windows, effectively making a PC without bundling Windows more expensive for the OEM to make (anti-competitive and illegal), Microsoft threatened Apple unless they abandoned the ability of QuickTime to play multimedia content on computers (they refused and Microsoft sabotaged QuickTime's functionality on Windows with misleading error messages and technical changes or bugs so that QuickTime software sometimes didn't work properly on Windows), they stuffed an ISO standards body to make OOXML (a compendium of Microsoft proprietary undefined digital glop) a "standard" which only they controlled (instead of the truly available ODF standard), Microsoft had fully developed FUD as a marketing strategy (announcing nonexistent products to head off something a competitor actually made or claiming competitive software will crash Windows), If you’ve bought a new PC lately, it probably came equipped with something called “Secure Boot” (UEFI), a feature which prevents you from running anything but Windows on the PC...

    These people aren't very nice, relying on a mix of brilliant marketing, threats against OEMs (Microsoft thought they owned any PC right down to the metal), failings of competitors, vaporware and fraudulent illusions. Sure, Netscape had problems and so did Microsoft. They earned their success with their best office productivity software, but their biggest success came from bending everyone over and fucking them, including the customers. Good competition could have been here a lot sooner.

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    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
  53. They have been doing this for years by jfanning · · Score: 1

    I remember them building one site in the early 2000's in Espoo, Finland. Soon after it was completed they sold it and leased it back.

    They have been doing this for years.

    They are not, and have never been, interested in owning their properties. The head office was pretty much an exception.