Microsoft To License Nokia Brand To Foxconn, Says Report (techtimes.com)

SmartAboutThings quotes a report from Windows Report: It's no secret that Microsoft's phone business isn't going according to plan. Last quarter alone saw a 46% drop in phone revenue, slightly better than the 49% drop the quarter before that. And now it seems that Microsoft is finally realizing this: according to rumors, the tech giant is considering licensing 50% of its mobile business to Foxconn -- in other words, the Nokia brand it had purchased for 10 years, until 2024. It appears that negotiations have reached very advanced stages, with Microsoft and Foxconn currently deliberating the final clauses of the deal. Some of the implications of such a deal could mean about 50 percent of the Microsoft Mobile members would be looking for new jobs. The rest of the team is said to join the Microsoft Surface team, and may be tasked with working on an upcoming Surface Phone which has been rumored for some time now.

Comments

Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

happens again.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitter... Twisted... Sad....probably why you can't get the job

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[MightyMartian]

Just another pathetic Slashdot Libertarian type trying to explain away what are clearly intrinsic factors for their lack of success. Bigots develop these scripts to preserve their tender egos from the realization that they are worthless lumps of flesh. There was a time when there were enough of them that they could rig the system, but now that they are quickly fading minority, they just flail about, impotent and useless, pathetic little men who won't be missed when they pass on.

Re:Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Z00L00K]

Nokia is already dead, it's just a logo that gets passed around to make zombies.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[ArmoredDragon]

Well I'm another "Slashdot Libertarian Type", and I think most people would define being in the top 20% of income earners in the US as successful.

That said, I think pushing minority groups towards a particular career path is kind of dumb really, and forcing companies to hire more of them is even more dumb.

Suppose we have 100 people:

50 are white
20 are black
20 are latino
10 are asian

Now, suppose there is an economic demand of 25 IT workers. Of this population of 100 people, 15 of the white guys are into IT, 8 of the asians are, 2 of the blacks are, and 1 latino is. Now, suppose all of these people have exactly the job that they want, and all of them are very good at it because they really like doing it.

Well, to social justice types, this is a HUGE problem in need of correction. Why? Because whites are 50% of the population and represent 60% of the IT work force, while asias are 10% of the population and represent 32% of the IT work force, meanwhile blacks and latinos are 20% of the population with 8% of the workforce and 4%, respectively. This obviously must be because of discrimination. People should be working in a given industry to represent their population numbers, and they aren't. So the solution is to tell the whites and asians to either not get hired or get different jobs so that they represent less numbers, and we have to convince more blacks and latinos that they need to work in IT, even if they really don't care for technology, and thus do a worse job than those who do care about it. And if that doesn't work, we just need to make more minorities in IT and have programs that exclude some groups while being exclusive to others (for example, lots of programs out there for IT education are exclusive to girls; meaning, no boys allowed.)

However here's what reality looks like: I don't know about today's k-12, but when I was in high school and younger, peer pressure was AGAINST going into a technology career. Other kids would often poke fun at you if you were into computers at all, hell, I remember being bullied quite a few times for that fact alone. I'm part of what is called the millennial generation, by the way, so I'm not sure how much has changed since the 16 years I've been out of the k-12 system. But, the present grown ups that are in IT, which is supposedly racially biased, were mostly in that generation. It sure as shit didn't require somebody encouraging me to go into IT to make me go into IT; it's just inherent in who I am.

That said, you're going to have a very difficult time convincing me that the solution is to push more minorities and girls into IT and expect to have more of them employed in IT. It's well known that people tend to associate more with other people that look like themselves, which is part of our biology. That said, different races and indeed different genders are going to have their own co-cultures that will differ remarkably from people who don't look like themselves (For example, think about how many black country singers you've heard of, and how many white rap singers you've heard of. Notice anything?) Given that they'll have different cultural values, it's inevitable that they'll be interested in different things as well, which includes career choices. Which means that if you want to change their career choices because you've taken it upon yourself to tell them that the things they value are inherently wrong, you're going to have to forcibly change their cultural values.

And if you want to do that, then I'll have no choice but to ask: What are you doing calling other people a bigot?

Re:Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends which Nokia. Nokia, as in the one that makes phones, is history. The networking side of Nokia just slurped up Alcatel-Lucent [1], and seems to be doing solidly.

[1]: Alcatel-Lucent makes telco grade stuff. It is expensive... but there is a big difference between a telco-tier, NEBS compliant appliance than even enterprise-tier fabric.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[AK Marc]

If the issue is that the school system tells Blacks and Latinos that they should go into manual labor because they are too dumb to work a computer. Is that a problem? Should it be addressed? Does it matter if the person telling the minorities that they are inferior is private, not government.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Kokuyo]

Yes, if that is the case then it should be addressed. But like your parent poster said, the aversities did not stop him. Why do you have reason to believe that the aversities minorities face are so much worse for them that the same concept cannot apply to them?

Also what are you going to do about other minority members? A common theme in rap songs is how the homies peer pressured them into being gansta rather than scholars. When your peers actually and actively try to herd you away from legal careers, how does it become white people's fault when these people don't go into legal upper middle class careers?

Now I wouldn't know how prevalent the problem truly is but I do get the impression minorities do a pretty good job of keeping the status quo alive themselves. How are you going to change that doozie of a roadblock?

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Z00L00K]

Even the network side is challenged. Many telcos are today abandoning analog lines and go VoIP.

And there are challengers out there to the classic telcos that runs Asterisk and similar cheaper solutions. Even Skype is a considerable factor.

Next evolution would be the mobile networks where challengers will appear. The telecom industry is changing fast now. In two decades the classic phones may be extinct.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[saihung]

I'm going to suggest that if your ideas about how black people actually live are derived from rap lyrics, then this is probably not a subject you should feel confident discussing.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

And VOIP does not need a network?

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

You make one mistake, it's the same as saying 50% of people are woman, so 50% of the work force needs to be woman. You should use the amount of people that can do that job. Now you will see that the percentage of white people or asians or indians will be higher than that of black people. Same with man, more man will have IT background than woman. Subsequently you will have more good man in numbers than good IT woman in numbers. Still not being racist. Now you can say racist, because more white people have better education than black people. But yes more white people have money in comparison to black people.... This story can go on and on...

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

> how does it become white people's [...]

See? and that's exactly the problem. Its the responsibility of society *as a whole*, i.e. of all of us, white, black, female, male, LGBT, whatever.

Or are you trying to suggest ony "white people" decide who goes where?

Inducing change always involves unsettling things and always brings along some awkwardness. Look at history. Today, we (I dare to include you here) consider female vote a Good Thing. Look at the rationalizations used to keep women from voting... roughly 100 years ago. Heck, late adopters in Europe were in the 1970s and -80s.

It is essential to a civilized society to think about equality of access, and that includes looking at the stats and incentivizing change. Of course that includes a discussion of possible side effects, but labeling these people as "stupid conservatives" or those people as "social justice workers" is *not* a discussion, but *avoidance of a discussion*

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Lumpy]

Trying to talk reason to the Retard social justice types....

You have a better chance of convincing a rock it is actually a water mist and watch it float away.

Re:Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[stealth_finger]

Not surprising really. I got myself a lumia 950 when they first came out. I thought sweet, windows 10 laptop, xbox and phone will all be able to interact and all that. Can they fuck. Ok you can stream the xbox video to the laptop and play from there. That's cool I guess if I wanna use a 17" screen with tinny speakers instead of a 43" with huge fuckoff speakers behind it. Maybe if the wife's parents come over or something. As for the phone there's nothing. You can get the pc version xbox app but you can't stream to it and it offers nothing over the desktop version other than being in your pocket. The fucking smartglass app is so much better on android it's not even funny. At the end of the day the actually hardware is solid and I have no real complaints but the software side just sucks, I should've stuck with a 'droid but now I have this for another 18 months. It's not like I can even install android on it ffs.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[dbIII]

Well, to social justice types, this is a HUGE problem in need of correction

Your strawman rarely exists beyond the first year of college.
Big house of cards you built on it though - why bother? Are you feeling so left out that you feel the need to yell at a bunch of angry kids?

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anne Thwacks]

No. It uses the cloud!

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[dwillden]

You call it a strawman yet give no evidence to refute it as such.

Re:Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Rob Y.]

I thought I'd read that the real (non-Microsoft) Nokia was about to start having Foxconn manufacture Android phones under the Nokia name - which the terms of the original sale of the phone division to Microsoft allowed to start happening around now.

So are we going to get Nokia Android phones manufactured by Foxconn for the Finnish Nokia as well as 'Nokia' Android phones manufactured by Foxconn for Foxconn? Or has the real Nokia telecom company dropped its Android consumer plans once again?

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[BronsCon]

Sadly, though, he's absolutely right: hiring policies which take into account one's race, gender, or age do lead to missing out on top talent. Whether you're not hiring the black guy because he's black or you're not hiring the white guy because you "need" more black employees (because reasons?), your hiring criteria is no longer solely based on qualification and you will miss out on good talent and, inevitably, hire an inordinate percentage of poor-quality employees.

Note where I also mention age. A lot of tech companies don't want to hire anyone over 30 and that's coming back to bite the tech sector as a whole, in a very real way. Yes, don't hire people with experience. You know, people who've made (and learned from) the dumb mistakes, who've already solved the problems your company is going to encounter, who've been around the block a time or two and have seen things done the wrong way (and even, perhaps, done it themselves) enough times to know better today. Yeah, them. DO NOT HIRE. That seems wise.

I almost wasn't going to touch on gender because, honestly, it's just silly that it would even be considered. Well... it should be silly, but the reality is that, while the vast majority of women just want to come to work, do their job, and keep their noses clean just like the vast majority of men, a very small but very active and vocal (and damaging) minority of women have caused enough problems as to make women a liability in some workplaces. It's not that women complain when they're harassed; they should complain about that, and those who do are not the minority group I am talking about; I'm referring to those who complain about harassment where there was none. No, I don't think false harassment complaints are more prevalent than real ones, but the way harassment is handled in many cases is very "cover the company's ass", requiring the accused to prove they didn't do whatever was claimed, rather than the other way around. And, since you can't prove a negative... well... Like I said, very small minority, but very vocal, active, and damaging. Damaging to their own, that is, because a lot of companies will look for any excuse not to hire all but the most qualified of women as a result.

Should any of this be the way it is? No, I don't think so. I don't think age, gender, or race should ever factor into the hiring process, with very few exceptions. Exceptions like requiring applicants to be at least 18 to work in your restaurant if you serve liquor (this is a law in some places) or only hiring actors the same race and gender as the characters they're portraying; you know, where it's reasonable to expect that these things might be considered.

But no, we have affirmative action laws that require a company's employee population to roughly match the racial makeup of the wider population. I get it, those laws are meant to stamp out racism in the workplace, but here's the thing: they don't work. Not only do they lead to passing over a more qualified person because they're not of the race you need to hire at that moment, they don't actually do anything to curb workplace racism. Sure, the black guy or indian girl might get the job but, if the employer is racist, they won't get the same pay. What's a better solution? I don't know, but it probably starts with not forcing the employers who aren't going to treat them equally to hire them, so their job hunt ends with finding a workplace where they will be treated as equals. Will some people be offended when they walk into a place and see an all white male workforce, or all black, or all indian, all mexican, all whatever? Sure! And they should be; they should be offended enough to turn around, walk out, and not do business with that company. Take away companies' ability to point to the law and say "but we're compliant" when they're really not treating their employees equally; we've move forward enough, as a society, that the rest will sor

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[BronsCon]

Yes, if that were happening, it would also be a problem. The school system shouldn't be telling anyone what field they should get into, it should be left to personal preference. Expose students to as many fields as reasonably possible (yes, including cotton) and let them decide what fits.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, suppose there is an economic demand of 25 IT workers. Of this population of 100 people, 15 of the white guys are into IT, 8 of the asians are, 2 of the blacks are, and 1 latino is. Now, suppose all of these people have exactly the job that they want, and all of them are very good at it because they really like doing it.

Bolded for emphasis.

This is the problem with your logic. You are supposing an ideal condition of inherent worker satisfaction, that is not evident from the real world, or even likely. And in fact, the real world, has a lot more than 25 people, or 100 people, and it's full of a lot of different things.

Here's a hint: Discrimination can and does exist, even just in terms of what schools are around and what they offer.

That said, you're going to have a very difficult time convincing me that the solution is to push more minorities and girls into IT and expect to have more of them employed in IT.

Unless you have money, or a vote, it's unlikely anybody is going to care about convincing you. So don't worry about it.

That said, different races and indeed different genders are going to have their own co-cultures that will differ remarkably from people who don't look like themselves (For example, think about how many black country singers you've heard of, and how many white rap singers you've heard of. Notice anything?) Given that they'll have different cultural values, it's inevitable that they'll be interested in different things as well, which includes career choices. Which means that if you want to change their career choices because you've taken it upon yourself to tell them that the things they value are inherently wrong, you're going to have to forcibly change their cultural values.

It's funny that your example is based on the music industry, professional performers at that, a very small subset of individuals. But it's also an industry FULL of problems, and questions...still, it's not relevant to most people, you really should look at more career paths and situations, to see what's going on in a broader picture.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia, as part of acquiring Alcatel-Lucent is producing high end network switches that all carries data which enables VoIP, while they produce analog line cards at the customer provider edge, more revenue comes from the xDSL and PON line cards for customers. Nokia is leader in mobile networks, augmented by the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition. Yes, the telecom industry is changing fast, but Nokia is at the forefront of the changes. Their threat is competition from the likes of Huawei.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[ArmoredDragon]

This is the problem with your logic. You are supposing an ideal condition of inherent worker satisfaction, that is not evident from the real world, or even likely. And in fact, the real world, has a lot more than 25 people, or 100 people, and it's full of a lot of different things.

It's called a thought experiment.

It's funny that your example is based on the music industry, professional performers at that, a very small subset of individuals. But it's also an industry FULL of problems, and questions.

The whole point of bringing up that industry is that it's highly reflective of the cultural values of its listeners, and I didn't use it for any other purpose.

Anyways, you're nothing more than a douche, so get over yourself already.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the problem with your logic. You are supposing an ideal condition of inherent worker satisfaction, that is not evident from the real world, or even likely. And in fact, the real world, has a lot more than 25 people, or 100 people, and it's full of a lot of different things.

It's called a thought experiment.

So? I'm not sure that was unrecognized, I'm really quite perplexed at what you are trying to assert. Are you saying that your thought experiment can't be examined or challenged?

You constructed something, to get the outcome you wanted. It's not exactly uncommon to do that, but hardly meaningful. Anybody can write a story that says what they want.

It's funny that your example is based on the music industry, professional performers at that, a very small subset of individuals. But it's also an industry FULL of problems, and questions.

The whole point of bringing up that industry is that it's highly reflective of the cultural values of its listeners, and I didn't use it for any other purpose.

What if the industry is not reflective of the cultural value of its listeners, but instead controlled by other influences? Or even if it does, perhaps the industry is exceptional, and the conditions for it do not exist in a larger pattern.

Your purpose was to use it to make a demonstration, but it simply doesn't work that well. It's a poor choice just on its character alone, and a much better way to do it would be taking a broader look.

Anyways, you're nothing more than a douche, so get over yourself already.

Perhaps you should take your own advice? Seems to me you think your thought experiment was somehow meaningful, for example. But if you had thought less of it, you might have realized the flaws on your own.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[ArmoredDragon]

So? I'm not sure that was unrecognized, I'm really quite perplexed at what you are trying to assert. Are you saying that your thought experiment can't be examined or challenged?

No. You specifically complained that it's not reflective of the real world. A thought experiment isn't supposed to be a real world situation, otherwise it would just be a survey.

Honestly you're a bit on the retarded side dude, I don't think any rational thought will ever make any sense to you. Have a nice...existence.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

No. You specifically complained that it's not reflective of the real world. A thought experiment isn't supposed to be a real world situation, otherwise it would just be a survey.

Honestly you're a bit on the retarded side dude, I don't think any rational thought will ever make any sense to you. Have a nice...existence.

Again, I'm a bit perplexed since I can't imagine why you would think saying something to make a point about the real world is not supposed to reflect the real world.

Perhaps you should consider your own rationale. It seems deficient in integrity.

Or do you expect me not to remember that you were trying to make a point about real world people, the "social justice types" as you called them? You wanted to portray them as being deficient in their appreciation of reality, when in fact, your own portrayal is out of touch. Not even a matter of being nowhere close to the reality of their real world concerns, but simply based on a faulty logic of your own concoction.

Real world? Nope, you can't suppose that people have exactly the job they want just so you can scathingly declare those "social justice types" as being so obviously wrong. So your criticism of the "social justice types" remains void, as your premise is unsustainable since the real world is quite different.

But I guess you thought I'd forget what you were trying to do, and somehow give you a pass since you were just "making a thought experiment" which apparently in your mind has some meaning.

Look, you want to write a work of fiction, go ahead, but at least add the standard disclaimer.

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[ArmoredDragon]

Again, I'm a bit perplexed since I can't imagine why you would think saying something to make a point about the real world is not supposed to reflect the real world.

Because the point isn't to create an alternate reality, like you seem to think I'm attempting. The point is to show the weakness in the argument in favor of suggesting that we need to create exclusionary educational programs that cater only to minorities and females, which I did pretty effectively I might add.

Look, you want to write a work of fiction, go ahead, but at least add the standard disclaimer.

So in other words, you're saying that you thought the numbers I posted earlier were real, and I had to explicitly tell you otherwise? ....Oh....

Re: Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the point isn't to create an alternate reality, like you seem to think I'm attempting. The point is to show the weakness in the argument in favor of suggesting that we need to create exclusionary educational programs that cater only to minorities and females, which I did pretty effectively I might add.

Nope, the point I think you were making was to cast aspersions on a particular group by creating a misrepresentation of them and the weakness was in your argument, since you conjectured a situation that bears no resemblance to reality. So no, you were not effective in accomplishing a demonstration of anyone else's arguments or suggestions being weak.

So in other words, you're saying that you thought the numbers I posted earlier were real, and I had to explicitly tell you otherwise? ....Oh....

Nope. But another example of your use of misrepresentations in order to disparage others.

At least you're consistent.

Foxconn...

[Frosty Piss]

Don't they build iPhones?

Re:Foxconn...

[NotInHere]

Yes that Foxconn, the one with the suicide nets around the factory.

And they don't just build phones, they have their own brand as well and sell monitors and mainboards under it.

Re:Foxconn...

[nawcom]

According to Wikipedia, they make products (hardware) for: Acer, Amazon.com, Apple, BlackBerry, Cisco, Dell, Google, HP, Huawei, InFocus, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba, Vizio and Xiaomi. So yeah they build a little more than iPhones.

Re:Foxconn...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Until we start talking about abuse towards their employees, then Apple is Foxconn's only client.

Re:Foxconn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even my bloody keyboard has a Foxconn stamp sticker on it. There seems to be nothing that doesn't come out of that particular suicide factory.

Re:Foxconn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes that Foxconn, the one with the suicide nets around the factory.

It is popular to bring this up.
I would like to point out that the total number of suicide attempts (18) at Foxconn is relatively low.
There are buildings in the US with a higher suicide count where no discussion about building suicide nets is taking place.

Re:Foxconn...

[stealth_finger]

Yes that Foxconn, the one with the suicide nets around the factory.

It is popular to bring this up. I would like to point out that the total number of suicide attempts (18) at Foxconn is relatively low. There are buildings in the US with a higher suicide count where no discussion about building suicide nets is taking place.

Are people jumping off them because they're easy to jump off if that's the way the wanna go or because they work long shifts in the building, eat shit food in the building and live in cramped dorms in the building all for a pittance?

Re:Foxconn...

[stealth_finger]

For electronics Made in China almost means Made at Foxconn

Re:Foxconn...

[Ol Olsoc]

Until we start talking about abuse towards their employees, then Apple is Foxconn's only client.

Oh, I'd love to see your email moderation notifications - there has to be a nasty war between "Insightful" and "Troll" mods going on right now. Looks like the insigthful is winning out so far.

Re:Foxconn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are people jumping off them because they're easy to jump off if that's the way the wanna go or because they work long shifts in the building, eat shit food in the building and live in cramped dorms in the building all for a pittance?

When it comes to ways people wanna go they tend to jump from bridges in the US so there is where the suicide nets are installed.
For wall street jumpers it is mostly long shifts and abusive bosses. The food and pay are OK but those are often irrelevant to why people kill themselves.
It's almost always because of social situations and sleep deprivation can cause people to not think straight.

Re:Foxconn...

[AK Marc]

Suicide nets for a suicide rate less than the general population of the US.

I thought that you shouldn't prevent suicide by restricting access to the suicide methods. The NRA says that if you make suicide hard, it won't affect suicide rates.

It's the OS, not the phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft/nokia actually still makes some nice phones for the money.... but they run Bing Adware on them, more annoying than google's crap....

The don't own the brand

[Anonymous Coward]

They bought the phone business not the 'Nokia' brand. Nokia continues on as a Networks business and that company owns the Nokia brand.

Nokia licenses Nokia to Foxconn

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha. It's even worse than that. Nokia, the real company, not the phone business sold to Microsoft. Licensed the 'Nokia' brand to Foxconn to make Android tablets the day after Microsoft bought the phone business:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia

"On November 17, 2014, Nokia technologies head Ramzi Haidamus disclosed that the company planned to re-enter the consumer electronics business by licensing in-house hardware designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers. Haidamus stated that the Nokia brand was "valuable" but "is diminishing in value, and that's why it is important that we reverse that trend very quickly, imminently."[20] The next day, Nokia unveiled the N1, an Android tablet manufactured by Foxconn,"

So all those games Microsoft played with Elop to get Nokia (the top selling smartphone at the time), and its ends up with nothing. Not even the name.

Re:Nokia licenses Nokia to Foxconn

[NotInHere]

Yeah it was an awesome deal for Nokia and a really shitty one for Microsoft. But microsoft doesn't really care, they have craploads of money, as long as some of their super expensive purchases work out for them they stay relevant in some way.

Re:Nokia licenses Nokia to Foxconn

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome my ass, Elop took from the from the top market share for smartphones to a corpse that could only be sold to Microsoft because of the license agreements, and has was rewarded with $20 million for doing it.

This end was more like Karma.

As to Microsoft making many super expensive purchases and this being only one failure, they're only 15% of the OS market now, with negligible numbers of new apps being made for Windows, and an Office app reduced to free on Android App Store.

Karma is a bitch.

Re:Nokia licenses Nokia to Foxconn

[Stormwatch]

So all those games Microsoft played with Elop to get Nokia (the top selling smartphone at the time), and its ends up with nothing. Not even the name.

It's even worse, when you think about it.

MeeGo was very likely to be hugely successful. It could be the dominant platform now, or going head to head with Android. It would be a more divided market, with room for smaller platforms, possibly WP among them. But, with MeeGo stillborn and WP widely rejected, the market quickly consolidated around Android, with iOS alone retaining its luxury niche. To the point that there is no room left for a "third ecosystem" now.

Stephen Elop fucked up in the exact right ways to make Android unstoppable. Google really should write him a check.

Re:Nokia licenses Nokia to Foxconn

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Elop fucked up in the exact right ways to make Android unstoppable.

fucked up? What makes you think he fucked up? I think what you mean is Nokia fucked up by letting him in charge.

Re:Nokia licenses Nokia to Foxconn

[Anonymous Coward]

Some years ago, I thought Meego was promising, at least as promising as the early android. I was running it on an Asus Atom netbook.

Re:Nokia licenses Nokia to Foxconn

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, MeeGo was dead on arrival.

Nokia (before Elop) throughly screwed it up with multiple changes in direction, screwing over of developers, etc. as they couldn't decide what it should be.

Starting out a system (Maemo) using GTK, and then a couple of years telling app developers oops we now want Qt, you need to rewrite your apps, it not a way to be successful.

Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[rsilvergun]

I'm not sure what they're licensing. Patents maybe? Is the brand still strong in some countries? The only time I hear about Nokia is when folks from Europe talk about how much better the Lumina was than it's competition. But then Apple & Google came out with their phones and well..

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[Stormwatch]

Nokia used to be the king of cell phones essentially everywhere but North America. So yes, the brand is still powerful, because of some great stuff they did before the disastrous WP move.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[kamapuaa]

Give the Europeans something. "We designed better cellphones, up until nine years ago" is just so precious.

It wasn't Windows that killed them - it just failed to revive their fortunes. Elop came in because the company had fallen apart under the previous CEO.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[rtb61]

That would be the disastrous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... move, now he is going to Australia and Telstra, meh, company sucks balls, so they deserve him. Although based upon past evidence it would seem likely that M$ is now demonstrating a clear interest in Telsta, likely they want to grab the NBN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... to keep Google out.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what they're licensing. Patents maybe? Is the brand still strong in some countries?

Stronger than a no-name.

There are plenty of brands that aren't marketed/marketable in the west.
With their regular brand names western consumers would just disregard the phones as "Chinese junk" despite them being just as good as any other phone on the market and really popular in Asia.
I can see a certain value in being able to take a brand consumers have heard of and stamp it on a phone that previously had a name that westerners can't even pronounce.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they were not. The writing was on the wall in 2006 as many employees were looking for other jobs because the word was layoffs were coming, which happened in 2007. Some folks jumped to Nokia Siemens Networks. Between RIM and Motorola, and subsequently Apple and the Android pact, the nail was in the coffin for Nokia. In 2010, Elop was hired to save Nokia and he did a great job, he excised the dying division from the parent company.

Nokia controlled about 50% of the smartphone market in 2006, and by the time Elop was the CEO in Sep 2010, that number had dropped to almost 30%. The handset division employed 16,000 just in R&D and spent about a third of the global research dollars for mobile phones, and it took them 2 years to get a product out the door which most people were not buying. They had competing platforms; teams were throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck. Nokia was slow to adapt and they had dysfunctional executive management, and this happen before Elop joined the company.

Your revisionist history is a lie.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[dbIII]

Oh fuck no! First Sol Trujillo and now that prick.
Do you Americans think that just because we have crocs, snakes, stingrays, crocs, spiders, crocs and sharks that your worst vermin should be sent to Australia?

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[stealth_finger]

The only time I hear about Nokia is when folks from Europe talk about how much better the Lumina was than it's competition.

The Lumia's are great phones, I have a 950. They're just hampered by shit software. I doubt ms will continue with it for too long and nokia are making a great move getting their hardware designs out with android on it. I used to have an n7 on their propriety OS which I can't remember what it was called but suffered one of the same major problems as there being a fraction of the apps available and even the best just on par with average to good android apps. Even the xbox smartglass app is better on droid than wp.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[stealth_finger]

Oh fuck no! First Sol Trujillo and now that prick. Do you Americans think that just because we have crocs, snakes, stingrays, crocs, spiders, crocs and sharks that your worst vermin should be sent to Australia?

You're supposed to be feeding them to the crocs (because you could do with some more, right), but somehow they keep getting jobs instead. Come on Australia, sort it out.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[dbIII]

Crocs have standards.

Re:Is there anything here for Foxconn?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that Windows Phone 8.1 was sub-par, although it was quite usable. But Windows 10 Mobile is quite an improvement. The problem is that those platforms miss a lot of major apps in the US market. I dunno about Europe, but in places like India, Android doesn't always have a big advantage over Windows Phone

My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[EzInKy]

It is going on 7 years old now, but I keep hanging on to it because I have yet to see anyone come up with a hand held computer that makes phone calls that has all of its features. Number one in my book would be the requirement that it the ability to run whatever software the devices owner to choose to run. Number two would be the ability of the devices owner to create whatever software that he choices to run on the device. Oh, and above all, a good hardware keyboard.

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have some money to burn you might look at the Neo900 project.

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[EzInKy]

I've looked at it and it appears to just be a big scam to me. Might buy when it is backed by Amazon or NewEgg though.

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't number one be the ability to run without crashing or hanging all the time? I actually had one of those myself. Talk about rose-coloured glasses...

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[drinkypoo]

Number one in my book would be the requirement that it the ability to run whatever software the devices owner to choose to run.

Android is actually pretty good in that regard. If you pick out a phone that already runs Cyanogenmod and has a good kernel, which I admit is more research than you should really have to do, it will do a good job of running software. You can install a full Linux in a chroot...

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dragonbox Pyra will.

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[quenda]

Oh, and above all, a good hardware keyboard.

Try Swype. Even Nokia had it since PR1.1 on the N9, and it made hardware keyboards redundant.

However, if you are still not convinced, you can buy a phone-case with slideout bluetooth keyboard.
It makes a modern Android or IOS phone almost as thick as the N900.

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[encad]

I can feel your pain, mine died the USB-Port-Death years ago and I still havn't found anything that came close to that experience.

What I still miss most, that calls (and to some extent your chats, text messages) all went through the same telephone app and had just different icons there, not this i need telephone app, skype app, lync app, SIP app......

I went with Jolla and the phone didnt let me down so far, but the tablet disaster is still hard to swallow ( I got mine though).

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[Blaskowicz]

Number one in my book would be the requirement that it the ability to run whatever software the devices owner to choose to run.

Android is actually pretty good in that regard. If you pick out a phone that already runs Cyanogenmod and has a good kernel, whichdmit is more research than you should really have to do, it will do a good job of running software. You can install a full Linux in a chroot...

Number one in my book would be the requirement that it the ability to run whatever software the devices owner to choose to run.

Android is actually pretty good in that regard. If you pick out a phone that already runs Cyanogenmod and has a good kernel, which I admit is more research than you should really have to do, it will do a good job of running software. You can install a full Linux in a chroot...

I tried to look for what supports AOSP 6.0 and it's a pain in the ass. Did find one result, Galaxy S3 I think with some hardware not supported yet ; maybe what's needed is to know a list of 50 phone models or so and make a dozen canned searches or so on each (and how to select the likely models?).
You find forum posts with no information and empty github pages. I believe we would have had it better in the era of web 1.0 - when there were even faq's in txt format still.
You can find all kind of crazy stuff about old school hardware and software, and that'll be long reads or if not that long there will be the information about what it's about. Now if you do find something at all it's 'download this crap' or 'here is a code dump' or "rooting procedure : run xfgfhc.exe from that unknown file sharing site, download tyhggtyyiooui.apk from here, reboot with one finger in the jack and one in your private hole, ..."
And when a project has a website, it will be a dynamic one with five or seven sections but nothing in them ("so, there are no docs. Maybe I will find something on the wiki? Hmm, there's f.a.q. like material in the wiki but no system requirements except for setting up a build server...").

Sorry for the crapped out quoting : I'm on a phone and the comment box is running slow so I won't edit it by fear of losing my whole post.

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[drinkypoo]

I tried to look for what supports AOSP 6.0 and it's a pain in the ass. Did find one result, Galaxy S3 I think with some hardware not supported yet ; maybe what's needed is to know a list of 50 phone models or so and make a dozen canned searches or so on each (and how to select the likely models?).

I would go to XDA-Developers or perhaps even Reddit and ask the community. You're likely to get several responses, so you have some choice.

Re:My N900 is getting long in the tooth.

[Jamie Lokier]

I've been using mine daily since they were first released, and it doesn't crash or hang.

It's slow to start apps, and due to lack of updates the browser is no longer compatible with some current sites, annoyingly including some that used to work fine.

I'm in the market for something more modern to replace it, but like the GP, still haven't found an appealing replacement.

Android makes me uncomfortable due to the Google-mothership thing, or any other proprietary service for that matter,
I know you don't have to, but at every turn it practically begs you to link up with them to use it properly, and it doesn't
come with options to link to your own generic services instead.

I have an Apple laptop but the iOS walled garden is even less appealing.

But hardware keyboard is probably the #1 feature I'm looking for.
An Android 4g device with one of the current top quality cameras, a fast CPU, enough storage, and a hardware keyboard (that doesn't replace half the screen - sorry Blackberry) is probably what I'll end up with - when someone makes one.

Funny Flashback

[SuperKendall]

When I think of the term "Surface Phone" I can't help having visions of someone leading over to put their ear against a table to talk...

Re:Funny Flashback

[HiThere]

That's something "Get Smart" missed.

If it weren't for places like Iran

[Anonymous Coward]

The IMF team would have had no plots, and there would of course have been no Space: 1999, and likely no Drusilla.

MS is missing the obvious

[realmolo]

I still can't believe that MS blew it so badly.

ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS THIS:

1. Make a phone that could be fully integrated/managed with Active Directory and Group Policy, as if it were a normal PC. Including AppLocker functionality.
2. Put a fully-functional Exchange client on it. FULLY functional. Hell, throw Skype for Business on there, too.

That's pretty much it. Corporations would buy one for every employee. Managing Android and iPhones is a colossal pain-in-the-ass, and MS could completely take over the "business smartphone" market if they made a phone that could be easily managed. But...no.

Re:MS is missing the obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

amen.

Re:MS is missing the obvious

[encad]

3. Do it in a way, that made PC-Windows great... Open it completly to sideloading and puplish the specs, so that other IDEs would work as well.

WIth DA/Exchange Integration and not three incompatible Overhauls that left older users completly in the dust, it would have been an instant buy....

On the other Hand it seems they are trying to replicate the whole "experience" with W10, so Microsoft might not be that long around to create a PC-OS anymore after they tried to swallow HP or Lenovo ...

Re:MS is missing the obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds reasonable enough. But if that's all they had to do to achieve success (or at least more success than their current strategy), then why didn't they do it?

I find it hard to believe Microsoft is so fucking stupid as to plow along with a failing strategy for mobile domination. They must have invested in the concept of a unified operating system that achieving market success by catering to a niche that's not being served adequately is by itself not enough to stray from the path of this vision, no matter how much it isn't working out for them. Someone high up must be sponsoring this vision as a personal quest, otherwise Microsoft would have scrapped it years ago.

Then again, Microsoft were pushing hard for the Windows 8/8.1 start screen despite almost everyone hating it, so perhaps they're too use to being arrogant to have some self-reflection except in certain cases (e.g. the half-revival of the start menu in Win 10).

Re:MS is missing the obvious

[johanw]

No, some MS-junks at the support desk would probably advocate that, but the employees would not go for it. I've seen it happen, the (MS-only) IT department wants WP but the higher managers won't have it.

Re:MS is missing the obvious

[mdm-adph]

THANK YOU. Been saying this for years. My organization, after getting tired of managing Blackberries just this month, started moving to iPhones.

Windows Phone has been around for five or six years -- you'd think MS would've tried to get into the business world with their phones by now, but nope. We would've loved buying a bunch of phones that just integrated with everything we're already using, but now we're having to get it working on iPhones.

Re:MS is missing the obvious

[Rob Y.]

Because Microsoft, true to form, wanted to copy and co-opt Apple's and Google's business models. So they needed to have an app store that they could collect a percentage of all app sales from, and they needed an advertising-funded search engine - presented front and center in their OS. I guess they decided that WIN32 was not appropriate for this, so they threw their biggest asset to the street (i.e., the sheer number of existing Windows apps that could've been relatively easily ported to a mobile platform that supported them).

In any case, while Microsoft employs lots of smart people, and there are probably a lot of good things about their mobile OS, Microsoft (at least during the period where they were seriously trying to compete in the mobile OS market) remained a lazy monopolist who figured they could be late to market with yet another product that cloned somebody else's success and take it away anyway because of their desktop OS dominance. Didn't work this time, and the current management finally understands that. They're scrambling to adjust, and they might just manage it. But it's a long shot - and it seems to involve a plan to co-opt Android itself, rather than simply clone its business model.

Re:MS is missing the obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but AD and GPO's are a colossal bastardised steaming pile of turd.
It really is a case of the head not knowing where the tail is.

Microsoft's reverse Midas-touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia is now the Zune, the Bing, of cell phones?

Make ruggedized phones

[spiritplumber]

you've already got all the marketing done for you.

Re:Make ruggedized phones

[adolf]

Casio already does.

So does Milwaukee (the company known for their tradesman-oriented power tools), IIRC.

Marketing is not so simple, or you yourself would've already known these two things.

Re:Make ruggedized phones

[fastcare1]

thay màn hình sony z3 this realy a good news

Re:Make ruggedized phones

[spiritplumber]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/...

Re: Make ruggedized phones

[adolf]

Your meme is 15 years late.

Report is complete FAIL

[Anonymous Coward]

> the Nokia brand it had purchased for 10 years, until 2024

My understanding is that Microsoft has a licence to use 'Nokia' for dumbphones and feature phones for 10 years, but for smartphones it was only 2 years. 'Lumia' they have for ever (unless Panasonic dispute the use of this because it is too close to 'Lumix'.

Foxcon has already licensed 'Nokia' from real Nokia for the N1. Why would they care about Microsoft?

Re:Report is complete FAIL

[Hognoxious]

That struck me as odd too. If you purchase something it's not time limited. If it's time limited it's more like a lease or - as you said - a license.

Missed opportunities

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows CE 6.0 fixed most of the glaring problems with building a phone around WinCE but it came along too late and with far too little emphasis to stem the rising tide of Android and iOS. I hate seeing decent technology turned into grist for the patent wars but the current generation of MS 'me too!' phones won't be remembered fondly by anyone, IMHO.

Re: Missed opportunities

[Z00L00K]

As someone who did develop an app for 6.1 I would say that it did suck big time because a lot of the functions in the api weren't implemented. So the app compiled but many things didn't work. Light is on but nobody home.

Good'ol Stephen Elop

[pablo_max]

Personally, I think that Stephen Elop should be in prison for what he did. From every action he took it was clear that he was a plant from MS to devalue the Nokia brand as much as possible so that MS could purchase it for pennies on the dollar.
I do not think that MS was ever too serious about producing phones, but they were very serious about acquiring Nokia's patent portfolio.
To think about 1000's of jobs lost and lives ruined because of that ass hat. That, to me, is criminal.

Would Nokia have turned things around eventually? Personally, I think they would have. At the time, I was in a position to see many of the models Nokia had in the pipeline. I thought they looked fantastic. Then the came Elop and Windows phone. Then came the speedy end.

Now, I am not saying that I would condone such actions, but it has always surprised me guys like him don't get murdered by some former employees. I mean, looks at the amount of lives these guys screw up. Like Chris Galvan at Motorola in the early 2000's. This guy fired 10's of thousands of people and made one ridiculous decision after another. The year he kicked out 40k employees, he saw fit to give himself an 8 million dollar bonus. I was a lower level manager at the time as send him an email asking how much he would get when he fires the rest of the workers. I got an email back from his secretary saying his bonus was inline with the industry, to which I responded that other CEO's don't lose half their market value in 2 years.

Re:Good'ol Stephen Elop

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree, my wife had a nokia n9, I had an n900, both great phones, that would have sold much better if allowed to. Why they didn't hedge their bets with an android model is beyond me. The n9 met its end with the washing machine, but allowed its data to be backed up one more time after it dried out. The n900 still lives but is no longer in use. These models even had an active open source community and could run java se. I used to log in to servers using ssh from an xterm and could even run x apps remotely, albiet slowly.

Re:Good'ol Stephen Elop

[zyzko]

Well, then Elop failed because Microsoft did not acquire Nokia's patent portfolio (fully). They received about 8500 design patents related to phones, but the crown jewels (technology patents) are firmly still in Nokia's hands. Microsoft received a 10-year license as part of the deal, with right to renew (for more money).

For shareholders who bought Nokia for 60 € / share of course Elop was a disaster (although Nokia was already going downhill, and nobody can say for sure if they could have recovered with different strategy to their former valuation as a mobile handset company), as well as for those 10's of thousands that were laid off (it is not nice being sacked against your will even if you do get re-employed in near term future).

Re:Good'ol Stephen Elop

[Kjella]

Personally, I think that Stephen Elop should be in prison for what he did. From every action he took it was clear that he was a plant from MS to devalue the Nokia brand as much as possible so that MS could purchase it for pennies on the dollar. I do not think that MS was ever too serious about producing phones

Huh what? Elop took over in 2010, three years after the iPhone. Everyone that wasn't blind and deaf knew smartphones would be absolutely huge by then. Even if we assume he was a plant, his job would have been to aggressively convert people to Windows Phone at the expense of Nokia's other platforms and total market share, not burn the house down over a bunch of patents Microsoft hardly needs if they get wiped out of the mobile market altogether. And if the plan was just to sink Nokia, why would Microsoft tie Windows Phone to the mast of Nokia's ship before they did it? I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but this one really doesn't make any sense.

Particularly when there's a much simpler and saner answer that fits with being a plant, Nokia wasn't pushing WP hard enough because a Nokia customer is already a Nokia customer right? But not to Elop and Microsoft if they want WP to compete with Android and iPhone. So the "burning platform" memo was to say "Windows Phone is the one and only future, all the other platforms are legacy and you really need to start pushing all the customers to start migrating to WP right now." It was supposed to be an internal memo, remember? Unfortunately for him it was a catchy enough phrase to become public and a huge PR disaster causing customers to scramble in all other directions but WP.

Re:Good'ol Stephen Elop

[Rob Y.]

Microsoft didn't 'tie Windows Phone to the mast of Nokia's ship'. They tried to get the main Android OEM's to build Windows phones - even by giving it away for free while charging patent royalties for Android. Nobody was able to sell them - including Nokia. Nokia was just the only OEM that was willing to tie their business to Microsoft's mast.

Early versions of Windows Phones had some severe limitations, as I recall, so nobody built Windows flagships. Even the early Nokia models were low end - capitalizing on WinPhone's ability to run okay on cheaper hardware than Android at the time. If you start counting Windows Phone from the release of version 8, they were even farther behind iOS and Android than it otherwise would seem. And the first truly compelling feature, Continuum, isn't out yet. It might actually beat Android to it, but I assume something like Continuum is being announced this week at Google I/O. So don't expect developers to start writing en mass for Windows 10 on that gamble...

Didn't know!

[gnu-sucks]

I mentioned this to my wife and she said, "Microsoft is in the phone business?"

Re:Didn't know!

[ITRambo]

It's more of a hobby with them than an actual business. They've proved that over and over again.

So FoxConn will make dumb phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Nokia-Microsoft deal, Microsoft can use the Nokia brand only with dumb phones.

hm...

[Tom]

46% drop in phone revenue, slightly better than the 49% drop the quarter before that

So that's a 72% loss in two years. That's not a drop, it's much faster than freefall could accomplish.

The rest of the team is said to join the Microsoft Surface team, and may be tasked with working on an upcoming Surface Phone

from the we-created-a-total-disaster-one-time-lets-try-again department ?

Look, Mickeysoft: You just can't produce phones. You've been trying for 20 long years, and produced nothing but total failures. When the market says no to you so clearly, loudly and consistently, maybe it's time to give up and do something else?

License 'Nokia' to Nokia

[GlowingCat]

Perhaps next Microsoft will license the 'Nokia' brand to Nokia. Btw, who owns the 'Microsoft' brand ?

Could have been worse

[pablo_max]

They could have been bought by HP.

What about Elop ?!?

[LordHighExecutioner]

He should be in Australia now, not too far from China. Any hope to see him heading to manage Foxconn ? It would be the final blow to chinese economy...

Failure comes with lack of support

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows phones are certainly not terrible. They obviously have had the support of not only Nokia for hardware but Microsoft for an OS. But in the smartphone market you need developers for apps, and that support was driven by shear numbers of potential users of those apps. In the end those developers chose IOS or Android and decided Windows mobile had little chance to gain from those two giants. I think Microsoft plans to try success with a smartphone as it has with a tablet/notebook of the Surface branding. Will a Surface smartphone driven by perfection in hardware and OS still lack the apps to support it?

Odds of success are never high

[sjbe]

MeeGo was very likely to be hugely successful. It could be the dominant platform now, or going head to head with Android

And what evidence do you base this hypothesis on? Is it possible that it could have been successful? Sure. It's conceivable it might have been a player. "Highly likely"? I don't see any reason to believe that. Nokia (the major backer along with Intel) was already on shaky ground by the point MeeGo became a viable product. It was always more likely to fail than to succeed just like most projects. That's not a critique of the technology or it's merits or the efforts of its backers but rather the fact that it's really frickin hard to develop a commercially successful OS that captures substantial market share. Even Microsoft with all it's billions of dollars has struggled to capture even a fraction of the market share they have on the desktop in mobile.

I agree that Elop really screwed Nokia in a big way but he really just hastened the demise that was already underway. Nokia didn't realize until too late who their real customer was. They thought it was the telecom companies and they developed phones with that in mind. Apple proved that the customer was really the person holding the phone. By the time Nokia figured that out, handset buyers were already heading for the exits and it was too late to stop them. Nokia's hardware was (mostly) great but their software was terrible. Symbian wasn't good enough and MeeGo was too late to the market. They gave Apple and Android a 3 year head start in the market before MeeGo was introduced (2007 vs 2010) which is an eternity. While MeeGo had a lot of positives, it simply was too late to be likely to capture substantial market share. Obviously we can never know for sure but it seems hard to envision a scenario where MeeGo really turned into a game changer in the face of Apple and Google.

Re:Odds of success are never high

[dbIII]

And what evidence do you base this hypothesis on

The N900 sold all available units on little more than word of mouth and the newer device with MeeGo was an incremental improvement - thus a fair assumption.

Nokia (the major backer along with Intel) was already on shaky ground by the point MeeGo became a viable product

Putting a manager from a rival in as his first ever attempt at being a CEO did that. Before Elop turned up Nokia was selling more mobile telephones than any other company in the world. It's actually amazing that MeeGo got as far as it did in those last months given how few people were working on it.

Re:Odds of success are never high

[Anonymous Coward]

MS licenses Nokia name to Foxconn, while Nokia licenses Alcatel name to TCL. World gone crazy.

(Alcatel-Lucent owns Alcatel name, but Alcatel-Lucent itself is part of Nokia.)

Re:Odds of success are never high

[Stormwatch]

I recall reading that Nokia had a huge contract for MeeGo devices with a major Chinese carrier. They were going to make it big there.

Re:Odds of success are never high

[HiThere]

I think he's assuming decent management. The assertion is not without plausibility. The reason that MeeGo never amounted to anything was clearly managerial. Whether it would ever have been good enough to challenge Android is not clear. (And remember, it would only need to be challenging the first version of Android.)

Being plausible doesn't make it true, of course.

It was obviously failure from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine two uncles long past their primes are trying together to look attractive and cool for a bunch of teens. Remember that PC guy from I am Mac ads? Just two of them.

Windows Phone was such a crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

That even a decent hardware couldn't help.

Re:Windows Phone was such a crap.

[Anne Thwacks]

That even a pact with the devil couldn't help.

FTFY

No objective evidence of customer interest

[sjbe]

The N900 sold all available units on little more than word of mouth and the newer device with MeeGo was an incremental improvement - thus a fair assumption.

First, the N900 sold with Maemo, not MeeGo. MeeGo was made for the never sold to the public N950 and the well received but dead on arrival N9. Second, one product selling a handful of units to some core fans is hardly sufficient evidence to believe that MeeGo would have been "highly likely" to succeed. The N900 sold less than 100,000 units in it's first 5 months which on the market. That's a rounding error. The iPhone sold somewhere close to 16 million units during the same period. And you think such ludicrously bad sales figures are evidence it was going to take the market by storm? There is NO objective evidence to realistically believe that MeeGo was likely to capture substantial market share. None.

Putting a manager from a rival in as his first ever attempt at being a CEO did that. Before Elop turned up Nokia was selling more mobile telephones than any other company in the world.

Nokia was already fading in the smartphone business before Elop showed up. Elop became CEO in September 2010. Nokia's market share had fallen from near 50% in 2007 to about 40% at the start of 2010. Their market share fell to around 32% in 2010 prior to Elop taking over. So the fall was well underway long before Elop arrived. He merely threw gas on the fire. That is a 25% fall in market share in 9 months. This is after MeeGo was released and before Elop took over. If people were really excited about MeeGo (which they weren't) then it makes little sense that Nokia would have seen continued market share erosion after its release and before Elop killed the platform in February 2011. Fact is that almost nobody gave a shit about MeeGo in 2010 aside from some fanboys. It wasn't that it was a bad product but it was WAY too late to the party to really matter in all likelihood.

Re:No objective evidence of customer interest

[Stormwatch]

If people were really excited about MeeGo (which they weren't) then it makes little sense that Nokia would have seen continued market share erosion after its release and before Elop killed the platform in February 2011.

Because Elop the Saboteur had already declared that the N9 would be Nokia's only MeeGo device, and they were going with WP no matter what. The reviews at the time were all: "this phone is fantastic, the operating system is the best, too bad it's a dead man walking."

Why Nokia didn't go Android

[sjbe]

Why they didn't hedge their bets with an android model is beyond me.

That's really easy to explain. Profits. The profits on smartphones aren't in the hardware but in the software. Hardware-wise there is basically no real difference between an iPhone and a similarly equipped Android smartphone. All the real difference is in the software. If Apple were to put Android on their phones their profit margins would evaporate faster than you could say "shareholder lawsuit". There would be nothing really different about it and thus no real reason to pay more. Nokia would have been in the same boat.

The dominant reason Apple is able to charge more is because people are willing to pay more for their software. (No it isn't because of "marketing" - marketing is not magic pixie dust - there has to be products that people like behind any marketing) Apple's software is what really makes their products unique. There is only one company that has made substantial profits selling Android phones (Samsung) and there is no particular reason to believe Nokia would have been able to capture substantial profits on the Android platform. Even Samsung makes far less profit than Apple. For Nokia to really be profitable they needed software that made their phones different from everyone else's. Nokia knew this but were unable to fix the problem. There was really very little upside for Nokia on the Android platform and a large chance they would end up with little to no profits.

So Nokia bet the farm first on Maemo/MeeGo and then on Windows. The bet didn't work out for a variety of reasons but it's easy to understand why they did it. They were gambling on being able to control the platform which is where the real profits in smartphones are.

Re:Why Nokia didn't go Android

[tlhIngan]

The dominant reason Apple is able to charge more is because people are willing to pay more for their software. (No it isn't because of "marketing" - marketing is not magic pixie dust - there has to be products that people like behind any marketing) Apple's software is what really makes their products unique. There is only one company that has made substantial profits selling Android phones (Samsung) and there is no particular reason to believe Nokia would have been able to capture substantial profits on the Android platform. Even Samsung makes far less profit than Apple. For Nokia to really be profitable they needed software that made their phones different from everyone else's. Nokia knew this but were unable to fix the problem. There was really very little upside for Nokia on the Android platform and a large chance they would end up with little to no profits.

Actually, Samsung beat Apple in profits a few years ago. Though they did it the hard way - basically by sheer volume of phones shipped. Apple only had around 6 phone models on sale, while Samsung had over 100+ over the year. (2014, Samsung averaged 3 new phones a week, and 1 new tablet a week).

Apple makes more money per phone, while Samsung makes less and makes it up in volume. It's just like Dell and Apple - Dell moves way more PCs than Apple, yet their profits on both were comparable (were, because Dell is now private).

And yes, software is key. Nokia had Symbian, while nice, was being rapidly out-classed by both iOS and Android (Nokia's rapidly dropping market share attests to this, and it doesn't help that application developers were dropping Symbian at the first opportunity). It's not that Symbian was lacking (they weren't, at least compared to early iOS) but it wasn't as easy to develop for and there wasn't a standard distribution system (plus the user had to download it on their PC, then sync their phone in order to install it).

The real problem was seen during the iPhone announcement in 2007 - Nokia, Microsoft and RIM (Blackberry) both scoffed at it thinking it wasn't going to matter. Instead of seeing it as a threat, or to try to compete with it, they rested. By the time they realized that the iPhone and Android fad were not going away, it was too late.

Re:Why Nokia didn't go Android

[Rob Y.]

Except that they weren't adopting a platform they could control at all. Unless the plan from the start was eventual sale to Microsoft, Nokia would have, even if Windows Mobile had been a huge success, been just another manufacturer of Windows phones - no different than if they were just another manufacturer of Android phones - but with a 2 year lag to market. If Windows phones sold, then Samsung and the rest would've started making them too. They were never going to have Apple-level profit margins. Hell, Apple's not going to have them forever either. The bulk of the mobile market worldwide is not for $800 devices that get replaced every 2 years.

Microsoft is in the right track

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, the track toward irrelevance and, with any luck, decomposition. With any luck, in a few years time it will have split itself into a number of smaller, less obnoxious companies.

No objective evidence of reading comprehension

[dbIII]

First, the N900 [wikipedia.org] sold with Maemo, not MeeGo

Hence the words, which you even quoted "the newer device with MeeGo was an incremental improvement".

Why bother replying if you have got things that messed up?

Nokia was already fading [statista.com] in the smartphone business

Goalpost shift detected. I wrote "more mobile telephones than any other company in the world" which is correct. Changing goalposts to a subset just so you have something to argue about would normally be considered utterly pathetic.

Why bother typing all of that out when it has little or no relationship to my earlier post? Writing "fact is" in front of opinions doesn't make them reality either. I did not pretend my opinion that it could have taken off as a platform was reality, please have the decency of not trying to browbeat reader by pretending your opinions are "facts".

Another thing

[dbIII]

This is after MeeGo was released

There was never a public release of a MeeGo device. I wanted one - Nokia would not sell me one of the limited number of developer units. Pretty obvious from that why "nobody gave a shit about MeeGo in 2010 aside from some fanboys" - nobody else had even heard of that unreleased product!

A 46% drop?

[Trailer Trash]

I could see a 50% drop - they went from selling two phones per year to just one single phone. But 46%? They must have raised the price on the phone they sold.

It's even worse than you think...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even worse than you think. Want to know what happened to the poor slob who was in charge of the Windows Phone team for the past several years and was, in many ways, responsible for its abject failure? Terry Myerson is the name of this particular "genius". Surely he was fired, right?

Well, he became head of the entire Windows division at MS in 2013. You can lay everything wrong with Windows 10, from the frequent bugs, the ads, and the telemetry, at his feet. Wonder how much damage he can do to the Windows brand before they sack him?

Re:It's even worse than you think...

[HiThere]

Nope. Those things are so blatant that if he was in charge of implementing them, he must have been doing what higher management wanted.

He's merely an accomplice before the fact.

Re:It's even worse than you think...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Those things are so blatant that if he was in charge of implementing them, he must have been doing what higher management wanted.

He's merely an accomplice before the fact.

LOL. What part of "Myerson is head of the entire Windows division" did you fail to understand? The only higher management he has is Nadella.

Re:It's even worse than you think...

[HiThere]

So...
Are you asserting that Nadella didn't want these developments?

And Nadella also has higher management, the BOD. I'll grant that oversight tends to get a bit diffuse, but the changes in MSWindows 10 have receives loud and numerous quite public complaints. If either Nadella or the Board of Directors had disagreed with the policies, changes would have happened. This hasn't been anything quiet or secretive.

Weak arguments

[sjbe]

Hence the words, which you even quoted "the newer device with MeeGo was an incremental improvement". Why bother replying if you have got things that messed up?

Oh I understood you just fine. However you were conflating two operating systems and implying that sales of the N900 somehow were evidence that there was widespread demand for MeeGo. I obviously disagree and the evidence seems to back me up. If you can show me a logical narrative backed by evidence of how a few thousand N900 sales somehow implied MeeGo would be a game changer I'd be impressed but so far I'm not buying that argument at all.

Goalpost shift detected.

Only if you fail to understand my point completely. Nokia's problems started well before Elop got on the scene and I said so right from the start. There is plenty of evidence of this and I provided some. Nokia was hemorrhaging market share before they hired Elop and Nokia was several years behind the curve in the smartphone market. Elop merely accelerated the already underway decline through some spectacularly idiotic decision making and/or conflicts of interest.

I wrote "more mobile telephones than any other company in the world" which is correct.

And irrelevant. Most of those "mobile telephones" sold by Nokia were not smartphones and that was clearly not where the growth or profits were by 2010. Smartphones didn't outsell "dumb" phones until 2013 but the writing was on the wall by 2010 to anyone with a functioning brain. Nokia sold a lot of Symbian phones and that accounted for the nearly all of their smartphone sales prior to 2011. However Symbian was technologically behind Android and iOS by quite a lot in 2010. Nokia knew this and was working on new systems to replace Symbian. Maemo and MeeGo had statistically insignificant market share so any argument based on Nokia's market share for their success implies that Nokia could transition all those Symbian customers to the new system(s) which is a hard trick to pull off without much evidence that Nokia was up to the task. Worse the fact that Nokia was dabbling in several system made the picture confusing for developers. The fact that Nokia still led the world in handset sales by quantity in 2010 is true but badly misses the bigger picture of what was going on.

Writing "fact is" in front of opinions doesn't make them reality either.

Find me any objective evidence that there was widespread interest in MeeGo in 2010 and that it had any realistic chance to displace Android or iOS or even Blackberry and I'll concede the point. Good luck with that.

Re:Weak arguments

[dbIII]

And irrelevant

Then why are you wasting so much time with revisionism?

Nokia N9 my friend

[sjbe]

There was never a public release of a MeeGo device.

Not true. The Nokia N9 was released to the public and was the only device from Nokia with MeeGo on it sold to the public. You can get them on eBay today. It was not released in the US and much of Europe but it was sold for a time.

Pretty obvious from that why "nobody gave a shit about MeeGo in 2010 aside from some fanboys" - nobody else had even heard of that unreleased product!

Oh there was a fair bit of press about the N9 and MeeGo but it was met with a huge yawn by most and puzzlement by anyone with a brain. Why would anyone buy a phone with an OS that would be dead and unsupported by the maker of the product? Why they even bothered to actually bring it to market is a mystery. Nokia had already announced their intention to go to Windows so the product was effectively dead on arrival.

Samsung hasn't beaten Apple profits over time

[sjbe]

Actually, Samsung beat Apple in profits a few years ago.

Samsung has beat Apple for short periods from time to time but over longer periods Apple has substantially out performed Samsung in profits from smartphones. With some slightly odd mathematics last year Apple had 92% of all profits from smartphones. Samsung had about 15%. Together they actually have more than 100% of the profits because other smartphone makers actually lost money. Nobody else made any meaningful profits. You are correct that Samsung has taken the low margin high volume route and they have done well but they haven't been able to match Apple's profits.

Lie, then cry

[Anonymous Coward]

It's what happens when you lie to your customers promising an OS update for all your devices running a certain version, and then you leave the best selling ones out of the update. Your customers won't fall for it twice. Enjoy your dead mobile division.

Nokia N9 limited release to developers

[dbIII]

I couldn't get an N9 - stop making things up.

Weak playing the man not the argument

[dbIII]

implying that sales of the N900 somehow were evidence that there was widespread demand for MeeGo

I was addressing a potential and not an actual thing as you are very well aware so please stop acting like an idiot. I this some sort of stupid high school debate tactic to try to get me angry? It's not the place for that, this is no debate, it is a situation where on person is aware of an issue and another is a fanboy needlessly filling the site with noise to attempt to justify the actions of Microsoft vs Nokia.