Microsoft owned very little of Nokia prior to the sale. What was the mechanism by which Microsoft got Nokia's board of directors and executives to implement plans to the disadvantage of minority shareholders? For that matter, how were minority shareholders disadvantaged by Nokia not going bankrupt and receiving subsidies from Microsoft followed by a buyout for more than the phone division was worth.
The stock jumped not fell on the buyout Your post doesn't even make sense.
The decline in margins started in 2002. The crash in Symbian sales started in 2010 several months before Elop was even hired. The failure to get MeeGo out on time was his predecessor.
What Elop did was get a company that was on its way to bankruptcy through a tough restructuring bring them back to profitability and get them sold for a moderate amount. I don't agree with everything he did, but Nokia fans have an analysis which is frankly clueless. They should read more of the business press.
They don't have the best camera on any Android. They have a very good camera given a normative form factor. I think Apple on balance is better (920, 1020 Nokia is the clear winner) but that's a matter of taste. Nikon makes an Android with an insanely good camera and Samsung has a camera phone which is better. In the end software is cool but things like lens size dominate for people who want camera quality.
It wasn't ready to go they only 4 models in the pipeline though 2014. Moreover to get the N9 version out it had to be end of life because otherwise the conflicts between MeeGo and Symbian conversion were too large. MeeGo could have been excellent. But there were tough choices that were never made and Nokia took much too long in what they were doing.
Phones are not general purpose. The hardware is tweaked to work with the OS. For example the camera in the Nokia 920 would not function under Android, Microsoft had to write custom low level code to integrate camera components in a different way. The video system for the 920 is specific to the camera, now maybe 95% of the code was shared with other camera of a similar type but it is entirely possible that a very different camera design wouldn't work at all on Windows. Android is designed for greater hardware diversity so it has less problems going on new systems. But look at how badly the Android for iPhone projects are doing with Apple's tweaks lately. Android isn't able to get nearly the same performance out of that hardware.
Samsung only sells half the Android devices. So what you are saying is that a consortium of non-Samsung mutually opposed companies are colluding to build 400 million devices this year, selling them for perhaps $120 billion, and losing money on every one.
They tried to kill XP. Repeatedly. They extended the deadline many times. They're going to do it again with Windows 7, because 8 is a steaming three coiled turd.
No they aren't. They main reason they extended XP was they were worried about Linux on netbooks and Vista/Windows 7 was just too heavy. It also took them a long time to get Windows XP stabilized with the early service packs doing a lot. Neither of those apply to Windows 7.
As for Windows 8 being a turd... you are being silly. Microsoft is shifting their platform, Windows 8 does better than Windows 7 on virtually everything the objection people have is to an additional functionality which is easily adjustable. Windows 8 works well on the hardware for which it was designed: touchscreen, mobile hinge... Microsoft certainly made the same mistake they did with Vista in telling people that they can and should upgrade inappropriate hardware to Windows 8. That's a marketing mistake not a bad OS.
They can't. Too many of their customers have long terms support contracts embedded. That's years less than XP but they can't mover over to Apple's model.
From IBM. i-Series, Z-Series.... they will support for decades. You just have to be willing as a company to pay generally 3x as much for your IT infrastructure.
The end of Windows 7 extended support is January 14, 2020. Microsoft is not going to make the same mistake of indefinitely extending this date by continuing sales indefinitely.
That's not really a market segment it is a use case. If you want to say "high power desktops" then Linux does much better there than on the low end possibly around 4%. OSX is the big player that in general has far worse hardware support than Linux.
GP was talking about drivers not working between versions. You are talking about the complexity of maintaining a kernel module. That's a different issue. And yes stuff will break between kernel versions.
But most manufacturers don't WANT to provide sources to their drivers - they'd be quite happy to provide a binary interface, but that's difficult to do in Linux.
Agreed. The server manufacturers didn't want to either that was until large number of customers made Linux compatibility a reason to buy hardware.
The kernel developers can stick to their policy as much as they like. But put up barriers between businesses who make the stuff people want to use, and a small price to pay being keeping their source (IP) hidden and providing a binary driver instead, is no way to garner support. Since this policy is never likely to change, I can't see why anyone is surprised Linux has still never made it on the desktop.
Have you noticed Android tablet sales? Unless by desktop you mean x86 Linux is finally doing quite well. Linux has been successful in other arenas where there were barriers. The difference was the competition screwed up more than Microsoft has on desktop. Ultimately
a) OSX provides an excellent Unix workstation OS b) Microsoft fought very hard for the low end
Printing has nothing to do with kernel drivers. The printing systems on Linux are rather standard. There aren't meaningfully printer drivers in the Windows sense at all.
This is X11 not the kernel and other developers aren't going to take over Intel's whole subsystem. If Intel doesn't want the XMir in there, it won't be in there.
When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?
Never. The moves to support binary compatibility on Linux have been rejected time and time again by the Linux community. And that is far from the case for every other OS on the planet. Many OSes don't support arbitrary drivers at all.
I guess RMS thinks that is oppressive and wants opensource hardware even though patent holders from the likes of the h.264 consortorium forbid it!
RMS has little to do with this policy. Even Linus mostly supports it. The people who don't support it are mostly Windows users.
Why can't you just use one driver written a few years ago and use it universally across all distros due to this?
You can. You can use drivers from almost 2 decade ago that were sources into the kernel. You can't generally with binary drivers because Linux doesn't offer binary compatibility.
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Shipped and sales from quarter to quarter may not be. When we are looking at multi quarter trends, yeah... pretty much they are the same thing.
What are you talking about?
Microsoft owned very little of Nokia prior to the sale. What was the mechanism by which Microsoft got Nokia's board of directors and executives to implement plans to the disadvantage of minority shareholders? For that matter, how were minority shareholders disadvantaged by Nokia not going bankrupt and receiving subsidies from Microsoft followed by a buyout for more than the phone division was worth.
The stock jumped not fell on the buyout Your post doesn't even make sense.
The decline in margins started in 2002. The crash in Symbian sales started in 2010 several months before Elop was even hired. The failure to get MeeGo out on time was his predecessor.
What Elop did was get a company that was on its way to bankruptcy through a tough restructuring bring them back to profitability and get them sold for a moderate amount. I don't agree with everything he did, but Nokia fans have an analysis which is frankly clueless. They should read more of the business press.
They don't have the best camera on any Android. They have a very good camera given a normative form factor. I think Apple on balance is better (920, 1020 Nokia is the clear winner) but that's a matter of taste. Nikon makes an Android with an insanely good camera and Samsung has a camera phone which is better. In the end software is cool but things like lens size dominate for people who want camera quality.
It wasn't ready to go they only 4 models in the pipeline though 2014. Moreover to get the N9 version out it had to be end of life because otherwise the conflicts between MeeGo and Symbian conversion were too large. MeeGo could have been excellent. But there were tough choices that were never made and Nokia took much too long in what they were doing.
Phones are not general purpose. The hardware is tweaked to work with the OS. For example the camera in the Nokia 920 would not function under Android, Microsoft had to write custom low level code to integrate camera components in a different way. The video system for the 920 is specific to the camera, now maybe 95% of the code was shared with other camera of a similar type but it is entirely possible that a very different camera design wouldn't work at all on Windows. Android is designed for greater hardware diversity so it has less problems going on new systems. But look at how badly the Android for iPhone projects are doing with Apple's tweaks lately. Android isn't able to get nearly the same performance out of that hardware.
I don't agree with Hairy on a lot. And yes, 2011 I believe Samsung and Apple combined made 101% of the profits in the industry the other players on average lost money. The situation is not pretty. This doesn't include the smaller players like LG but the situation is worse not better as you go down market:
http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/51f97ca0ecad04705b00000d-800-/chart-of-the-day-oem-profits.jpg
No they aren't. They main reason they extended XP was they were worried about Linux on netbooks and Vista/Windows 7 was just too heavy. It also took them a long time to get Windows XP stabilized with the early service packs doing a lot. Neither of those apply to Windows 7.
As for Windows 8 being a turd... you are being silly. Microsoft is shifting their platform, Windows 8 does better than Windows 7 on virtually everything the objection people have is to an additional functionality which is easily adjustable. Windows 8 works well on the hardware for which it was designed: touchscreen, mobile hinge... Microsoft certainly made the same mistake they did with Vista in telling people that they can and should upgrade inappropriate hardware to Windows 8. That's a marketing mistake not a bad OS.
They can't. Too many of their customers have long terms support contracts embedded. That's years less than XP but they can't mover over to Apple's model.
From IBM. i-Series, Z-Series.... they will support for decades. You just have to be willing as a company to pay generally 3x as much for your IT infrastructure.
The end of Windows 7 extended support is January 14, 2020. Microsoft is not going to make the same mistake of indefinitely extending this date by continuing sales indefinitely.
That's not true. IBM's retail on their 1u SAN module 26TB is $33k. You'll never pay more than $26k, and they might go as low as $21k if they love you.
You aren't dealing with the support payments issue.
Creative professional are part of the high power desktop category. And as I mentioned:
a) OSX is a big player
b) Linux is a bigger player (around 4%)
c) Windows has been steadily losing ground for years
So for ggp Linux is a viable (though not preferred offering)in that space.
That's not really a market segment it is a use case. If you want to say "high power desktops" then Linux does much better there than on the low end possibly around 4%. OSX is the big player that in general has far worse hardware support than Linux.
A quality offering is not defined by sales. Lots of quality products don't sell well and lots of crap does.
GP was talking about drivers not working between versions. You are talking about the complexity of maintaining a kernel module. That's a different issue. And yes stuff will break between kernel versions.
Agreed. The server manufacturers didn't want to either that was until large number of customers made Linux compatibility a reason to buy hardware.
Have you noticed Android tablet sales? Unless by desktop you mean x86 Linux is finally doing quite well. Linux has been successful in other arenas where there were barriers. The difference was the competition screwed up more than Microsoft has on desktop. Ultimately
a) OSX provides an excellent Unix workstation OS
b) Microsoft fought very hard for the low end
So they lost.
If you lose a patent suit and use someone else's patented work, yes.
ZSeries OS (MVS), ISeries OS (OS/400), Cisco iOS, most embedded.... In general most OSes that don't care about quick and easy hardware support.
Well if you are picking the hardware then you pick hardware without binary drivers.
I don't know that Android would have been any different than Windows phone. Once they stepped back from MeeGo, the soul was gone.
Printing has nothing to do with kernel drivers. The printing systems on Linux are rather standard. There aren't meaningfully printer drivers in the Windows sense at all.
This is X11 not the kernel and other developers aren't going to take over Intel's whole subsystem. If Intel doesn't want the XMir in there, it won't be in there.
Never. The moves to support binary compatibility on Linux have been rejected time and time again by the Linux community. And that is far from the case for every other OS on the planet. Many OSes don't support arbitrary drivers at all.
RMS has little to do with this policy. Even Linus mostly supports it. The people who don't support it are mostly Windows users.
You can. You can use drivers from almost 2 decade ago that were sources into the kernel. You can't generally with binary drivers because Linux doesn't offer binary compatibility.
They do that. Almost all ISP offer business plans and higher caps from there.
Yes nothing apart from platform support payments, which were a very good reason not to. Those payments covered Nokia's very high restructuring cost.