Nokia on 'brink of failure', warns analyst Nokia's comeback will fail unless Microsoft pulls its finger out, according to one analyst. Ian Fogg of IHS isn't isn't optimistic, however, and recommends the Finns develop a Plan 'B' - in case Windows Phone fails to crack the Android-Apple duopoly. Fogg commends Nokia for a strong comeback product range in the shape of its …
Under any CEO other than that Eloper, Nokia could have just offered smartphones with the already complete Megoo, Windphone7, Symbian and Android.
Let the market decide what sells best, then allocate resources for new products and improvements accordingly. But no, Elop cares naught about profit and cash flow, he's got Ideology, a Religion called Microsoft. So he made sure nobody would buy the Megoo phones by pronouncing it dead at the release event, what a pervert!
Nokia shareholders and employees pay for the fool's ideology.
I guess finding an inventive realist for the CEO position is tough, but shareholders should better get to it.
Hey, I got an idea! Lets all buy one Nokia share and then oust that slimebag!
"Stephen Elop has done as much as any CEO could in transforming Nokia's culture in a short space of time"
That's nonsense, had Nokia taken the Android route, they could i'm sure be pushing out decent, affordable smartphones that are different from the rest.
Instead, they are lumbered with mediocre Windows Phone, with no developer support, another burning platform, and the problem that all Windows Phones are basically the same, as the OS is so uncustomisable (either by the end user, or the integrator), there is zero differentiation, aside from some coloured plastic bumpers.
Elop was never interested in what Nokia needed, nor what Nokia's customers wanted, he was only interested in what Microsoft wanted. That's is obvious to everyone.
And this is why everyone is dropping shares like the shitty stick.
Perhaps I too can be an analyst, but I might have to change my name by deed pool.
I mean really, it's not hard to see where Nokia have gone wrong... It all started the day they employed several ex-Microsoft bods in high ranking sales positions, and an ex-Microsoft bod as their CEO.
The only mystery left is pinpointing the date they file for bankruptcy, and it RIM will beat them to it.
Elop is a tool but Nokia's problems long predate him. Nokia's massive unresponsive bureaucracy, the infighting, the lack of follow through on platforms after Symbian and lack of follow through on products the market wanted are why Nokia was desperate enough to hire Elop in the first place.
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I, for one, would subscribe to the "Shitpeas Report" just to have the binder on my bookcase (as opposed to the usual placement of Analysts reports in the "smallest room" where the high quality paper is really useful)
With any prediction like this it amuses me that no-one compiles league tables of how bad Analysts actually are at predicting anything ... I wonder if there's a business in that...
Elop is ex-Microsoft. No way would Andorid be considered. The shareolders voted him in, they should have known what would happen. It's like appointing an ex-Accenture CIO and then being amazed at an influx of Accenture consultants arriving to work on projects at £2500 a day.
The share price will dive, Microsoft or someone else will buy them for a pittance. If Microsoft buy them then Nokia will end up the same way as Zune. The XBOX is Microsoft's only hardware success and it's basically a PC. RIM could buy them, Nokia know how to make good hardware.
Nokia RIP. My 6310i was a great phone. It did things my iPhone can't (e.g. be on silent until 5pm and then use a loud ringtone). It wasn't a computer, so my battery lasted all week.
XBox is indeed their only hardware success but by the sounds of it they are going to make damn sure to change that with their next version if what people are saying is true (killing second hand market, locking games to 1 account etc).
MS seem to have really gone a bit mental recently. It's worrying because I really don't fancy moving platform any time soon.
to be fair Zune was actually a fantastic piece of hardware, arguably better than the iPod, and the zune player for windows is miles better than itunes (shame it never integrated syncing with other devices), unfortunately MS screwed up big time by releasing it with minimal enthusiasm and marketing in the US only and then essentially sitting on their backsides hoping to knock apple off their perch without putting any effort into it. Lets hope Nokia do better.
Not sure how you factor that. 4+ years of acute unreliability and forcing owners to buy multiple units, whilst it might be marketing genius to create a crap and broken one, and then brainwash gamers into wanting one, locking them through Xbox Live and then sell them a working one again later down the line, it's certainly not a success in the conventional sense.
When Microsoft buys a floundering Nokia at a fire sale price, Nokia's transformation as just another Microsoft's little OEM bitch is complete.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Anybody that had collaborated with Microsoft (Sendo) were doomed. Even a recent Microsoft's acquisition, Skype, turned to a steaming pile of turd after being bought.
I hope the Nokia board of directors muster up enough courage and sack Trojan Horse Elop, and come up with a coherent and sensible Plan B.
Oh, and Nokia can continue to make Windows phones, just like Samsung and HTC. Just don't bet the company's entire fortune on a proven failure of a mobile OS. There should be no more than 2 Windows phones released every year.
"That's nonsense, had Nokia taken the Android route, they could i'm sure be pushing out decent, affordable smartphones that are different from the rest."
Nokia IS pushing out smartphones that are different than the rest: no other manufacturer wants to make a phone with WP7!
"That's nonsense, had Nokia taken the Android route, they could i'm sure be pushing out decent, affordable smartphones that are different from the rest."
Alternatively they could have built a decent UI and development environment for Symbian and be pushing out absolutely stonking affordable Smartphones which are different from the rest...
I have to declare an interest here in that I spent a good few generally very enjoyable years making a pretty good living out of Symbian, doing work for Symbian themselves and (both directly and indirectly) a number of handset manufacturers, but, if you compare the performance and battery life of Symbian handsets with other products running on similarly hardware it's hard to see the alternative platforms as exactly a giant step forward...
That too could have worked.
Basically, had they done nothing, or done anything else than Windows Phone, they might not be fighting for survival now.
Nokia shareholders decision to hire Elop will go down as the worlds biggest fail in the history of epic failures..
On the Symbian thing,
Personally, I don't think Symbian had it, and Android would have been better suited, as developers migrated from a Nokia-only ecosystem for their apps, to the Android ecosysem that supported all phones (aside from those shiny/fruity designer ones that are more fashion statement than phone), eventually nokia would have been forced to either go Android, or provide some kind of compatibility like RIM have tried to do.
So strangely, I'd say, they've been doing exactly that over the past two years.
I might be biased being an N8 owner, but the improvements to Symbian^3 with Anna and Belle have been pretty impressive even for this now-nearly-two-years-old hardware. The developer downside is that everyone's written off Symbian and don't care how much better it's become. The Qt/QML development platform is first class.
You do realize that the Windows Phones only consist of 1/6th (2 out of 12 million) of all the phones they sold in the past quarter?
Sure, they could have expected higher sale ratings, but then again; the OS is still quite new. And it seems to me that Nokia isn't betting on a single horse here given that the majority of phones sold weren't Window Phones.
Yet it seems that everyone is ignoring that part.
It is not as much as what have been sold as what to expect from a more Win centred line up that is expected to come. If Nokia hardware is not the missing piece for a Windows phone then we will have a few phones from Nokia if they are interested in such a small market cap at all when it sinks in? That is what bet on one plattform is about. You'll see how Nokia is going to cut of the other platforms and going Win only. That's certaintly not meant as 'Win' as in winning anything.
I believe if Nokia had gone the Android road they'd still be in a bind. Firstly they'd have to compete with every cheap'n'cheerful Android-running handset out there and, secondly they'd be at the mercy of Google to push the feature envelope, e.g. could they do the PureView (or FM transmitting, or, or) if they had to rely on Google or Microsoft to tweak the OS, more so if they're just one of many licensees?
I've looked at the overview of handsets introduced at MWC and nobody in the Android world is really trying to push the envelope...everyone's waiting or punting ICS.
This is the age of the software experts. Both Apple and Google have software development skills no phone company from the past had or have today. The typicall Android phone maker gets the most of the OS for free and yet they have a hartd time to get updates out in a quick fashion. This demonstrates how uncapable they are when it comes around to software.
Apple have a better position here since they certaintly are well suited to develop a system with all the bells and whistles that meet the new level we have today.
Google have their system under control and seems most to be dragged behind by the phone makers a bit. If they would be on par with Apple at all levels all the Android phone makers would push out new updates the day they were released.
Nokia was in the phone handset business not the promote Microsoft software business.
Unfortunately, Elop was too stupid to know it.
If you really want to be successful selling phone handsets you should not and can not limit your hardware to a single platform. There is absolutely no reason to do so.
Apple thinks there is. But, they will be rellagated to a premium high priced market - a niche market. So too is Nokia. Just not the premium market. More like an also ran with a small percentage of the overall market.
Nokia should be trying to license the Apple technology if it could. Maybe Apple will have none of that. But, Android is readily available. And yes, by this time Nokia could easily have a number of Android phones out there doing well. But, instead they are sinking fast. A phone from Microsoft is not going to make any company profitable. Unless, of course, it is just one of the many options available.
Elop was only interested in what Microsoft wanted. That is very clear and obvious. And it has doomed Nokia.
Well duh? Developers are taking a wait-and-see approach, and can you blame them? The CF and Silverlight were obvious choices for mobile development - and they were dropped. I'm wary of investing in Metro when, looking at history, chances are it will be discontinued in a few years anyway. I don't even trust HTML5/JS very much at this point. Microsoft needs to stop behaving like a kid with ADD.
HTML/JS is just one way to code for WinRT, and fundamentally there is no reason to believe WinRT won't become massive. It's clearly obvious WP8 will run WinRT apps just like Windows 8, and porting the existing WP7 apps over to WinRT will be absolute minimal effort. It's also pretty obvious WP8 won't simply drop support for all the existing apps, it will happily run everything WP7 runs today. Microsoft aren't f'ing idiots!
I simply don't see why any developer should be put off developing an app today, nor do I see why any developer wouldn't have faith in WinRT. There is already massive amounts of documentation freely available from Microsoft detailing all of this.
Given Microsofts history, you know WP8 won't be available as an upgrade for current handsets. Historically Microsoft's licensing model makes it difficult (read expensive) for their licensees to provide upgrades for existing handsets (unless it was in the process of being released when you bought the handset - and only to avoid everyone to hold off for a handset with the new version on it).
What the hell is a company like Nokia doing not being at the Android cutting edge. And getting into bed with an old dinosaur like MS ? It seems to go against all Nokia values.
I worked for Nokia '94-97 and it seems to be now the exact opposite of what it was then, in every way. The whole company seems to have gone through a crappification process.
...and if Microsoft are behaving as normal, there's a skunkworks team hard at work right now on reverting the Nokia map support and there are contract terms that let them just push the update that does it if Nokia jump ship. Microsoft didn't insist on the ability to push updates without carrier permission just for the benefit of users.
Anyway, didn't Nokia get into trouble by having too many competing smartphone 'not skunkworks' projects?
Probably a multi-pronged attack. I'm pretty sure they already have some Linux kernel running on their development prototypes. How else should they test them?
What Nokia would have to do is to "unbundle" their Hardware and their Software, at least internally. So they can bring out the same device with multiple operating systems.
By 2010, high quality Android devices were coming out and the iPhone was all over the place. Nokia were nowhere to be seen. They fannied around and pissed away inordinate sums of cash on failed acquisitions when they should have been creating great phones. In 2007, Nokia were mega rich and had lots of engineers to create a modern phone OS. It has all turned to dust.
When even MS drones whinge about Windows Phone you know its on a hiding to nothing. You can get a more credible 'smartphone' buying a second hand Touch Pro/Diamond and putting the hosts UI on it, oh look its free. All the Windows Phone tilegasms, less of the monumental bugs. Or you could have Point UI, thats free too, and the steampunk theme is great.
I said months ago that bad bugs could be a problem... Oh look, they are.
I said months ago that all Symbian needed was a UI makeover... Oh look, its getting hugs and people are wondering why its being killed. Why? They gave it a UI makeover.
Can someone tell me where to go to get a cushy job spouting the bleeding obvious please?
I connect up my E7 to a bluetooth kb, a mouse through USB, tv through HDMI or analogue/SCART & 99% of the things I can do on my laptop I can do just as well on my SYMBIAN phone, with the 680mhz processor, and the nHD, and the confusing-to-americans OS... Not to mention a full sound system through HDMI too if I want to listen to music...
And lookee ma, I still manage a days battery life!
Mr Elop, here is my advice. Take Lumia phone hardware, put Belle on them, walk away from Windows Phone. Nokia might just make it.
Go and look at AAS april fools phone - the E7-10 - E7 + N8 camera, FM transmitter & a sodding REMOVABLE battery/microSD! Build it and they will come, 60+ comments all wanting one.
Plus with Belle, Mr Elop, you wont be making a $200 loss on every one you sell. Whats not to like about profit?
You do know what profit is right...?
Too soon...?
Nokia Symbian Belle is bloody brilliant. (On my N8, it's superb). If only that had come out at the time, iPhone and Android would be hanging on the ropes, calling for the towel to be thrown in. But, as others have said (and as an ex-Nokia employee myself) the beaurocracy was fatal. Ollila was very smart, but I don't get why he didn't see it coming, 5 years ago. Most of us did. Now, thanks to Beresford-Wylie, they've another millstone to drag them down to the Deepwater Challenge.
Nokia Siemens Lossmaking Networks Incorporated.
Once the timed (next year, I think) weight-holding wires to this dead elephant corrode in the seawater near the burning platform and the weights fall, freeing the ship from the abyss and allowing it to rise again, can we expect some progress.
In short, unless and until NSN breaks apart, or is sold to Huawei, expect stagnation.
On the desktop they have decades of pushing their agenda and most every case was about making sure developers were locked into the Windows economy at the API layers. The UI locks(licensing restrictions starting with Windows 95) initially prevented 3rd party desktop innovations and later it looked like it was just a way to tie patents to the most used desktop UI platform. All this worked for them because they had 100% control of the market with Windows desktop licensing at the OEM level.
They are trying this same approach with the phone platform because it is all they know how to do. They crushed Palm with OEM marketing deals tied to Windows PocketPC, migrated that to the phone and then sat on that when Palm and its Treo phone platform failed to get a real OS under the PalmOS UI. They were dealing with problems Windows Vista presented when the iPhone and Android busted out and all they did was refresh to Windows Phone 6.5 and use marketing money to try and block OEMs from a big Android opening. But, WP6.5 was a yawn and Android with the Verizon Droid marketing push knocked Windows Phone almost off the map and started the assault on the AT&T/iPhone juggernaut. They are no longer in the position to dictate anything in the phone segment and the phone is not tied to the desktop. Nokia will learn this too late to remain as anything more than another phone vendor until they drop exclusivity with the Windows Phone platform.
Some analyst said, "Nokia's problem is that Microsoft appears to have stood still. A year-and-a-half after Windows Phone 7's debut, it has changed little. In effect, the gap in features between Windows Phone and Android or the iPhone has widened and not shrunk as Nokia needed it to."
So that must be true then. And of course, sensible tech journalists just swallow that sort of statement whole, and don't even think about actually looking at the list of key features that are available in iOS and Android but not WP7 or comparing said list to the same list 18 months ago... I mean, it's obvious that WP7 still doesn't things like copy & paste, or multi-tasking, or NFC. You know, the really important stuff that iOS and Android both have...
"smartphone developers will begin to drift away" ... Of course that statement is totally backed up by the facts. Adding 3,000 new apps to the WP7 marketplace in the last 2 weeks (http://wp7applist.com/en-US/stats/) certainly sounds like evidence that the developers are drifting away in droves... Frankly, the fact that the number of registered developers for WP7 has more than doubled in the last 6 months is irrelevant, and is totally the sort of thing that both analysts and journalists should pay no heed to.
> number of registered developers for WP7 has more than doubled in the last 6 months
Isn't it a lot easier to double the number of developers when you have a small number to start with? Nice to see such passion for a company that lost its mojo long ago and now has become the king of me too underwhelming clones. Are you a reseller or is M$ responsible for your paycheck in some other way?
Fair play to the author. In the last 18 months Android has been redesigned into ICS and the iPhone given Siri. In the same time frame WP7 has gotten some basic functionality it should have had from day one
Its the "shinny shinny" like ICS and Siri that get the punters to part with their money along with the key free goodies - Facetime on IOS, Google Navigation on Android.
The sad fact is WP7 hasn't developed anything near fast enough in the minds of your average consumer and though the number of developers is indeed increasing there are more apps & games for iOS and Android and by a massive margin.
> Frankly, the fact that the number of registered developers for WP7 has more than doubled in the last 6 months is irrelevant, and is totally the sort of thing that both analysts and journalists should pay no heed to.
Please grow up and don't try to equate the quantity of commodity with the quality of skill. The fact that the number of call centre workers has increased doesn't mean that industry is booming.
You're completely right. But sadly El Reg is filled with Microsoft haters today, so any pro MS article or comments get the downvotes like mad. There is a strange desire amongst many on here to see Windows Phone fail at all cost, so deride it and Nokia at every turn. In all likelihood it's born out of worry at the fear people might actually like a Microsoft product and start using it.
This bull of measuring their success based on months is stupid. Everyone know Microsoft plays the long game. Was the original Xbox succeeding 18 months in - I don't think so. The combined effect of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 will be massive, all of which is 6 months away! It's hardly a BlackBerry upgrade style time frame. It doesn't matter where you are today, it's where you are going!
And for everyone who keeps harping on about how Nokia should have moved forward with MeeGo or Symbian - how do you still not understand it is all about the ecosystem and not the OS?!? You can create the greatest OS in the world, but if you can't back that up with all the services people desire it will fail. Whether you like it or not, there are only 4 companies in the World that have the resources and services to maintain and compete with a smartphone platform - Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
"""The combined effect of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 will be massive, all of which is 6 months away!"""
It is unlikely that current WP7.x models will have the resources to run WP8, and in any case single core, 800x480, no SD, makes this very much a last year's model rather than something you would sign up for two year for, even if it wasn't going to be obsoleted by WP8.
> It is unlikely that current WP7.x models will have the resources to run WP8
Really? Not according to Microsoft reps (can't find link right now) in France and not, interestingly, according to MSNerd who has been right about everything else regarding WP7.
He does make it clear that not every feature will come to every phone. For example, no NFC chip in your phone, no pay-by-bonk. No front facing camera, no video calls.
But otherwise, the update will be there.
You've tried to spread this line of FUD before,m I recall. It made no sense then and less now. Essentially, your argument appears to be that because WP8 supports dual (or more) cores, it can't support a single core.
That's not how software development works, friend. Not unless you're a shitty developer. If it were, you couldn't put ICS on a HTC HD2, which you most definitely can.
Stop spreading this one, please. It makes no sense.
"This bull of measuring their success based on months is stupid. Everyone know Microsoft plays the long game. Was the original Xbox succeeding 18 months in - I don't think so"
Yes but how many people hold an xbox to their ear ?????
I would be embarrassed to be seen in public with a Windows Phone :/
"But sadly El Reg is filled with Microsoft haters today, so any pro MS article or comments get the downvotes like mad"
Now that's just not true.
The couple of avidly pro-WP7 posts in this thread got massive and highly unusual up votes before then being down-voted. Looked suspiciously like the up votes were orchestrated while the down were just a reaction to it as they came after the up votes, not simultaneously. The up-voted posts were neither funny, informative nor well written, just very pro MS/WP7.
The posters of the pro-WP7 messages are also overlooking one important fact - WP7 just is not selling in anything like the quantities MS or Nokia need it to.
Say what you like about iOS and Android - and both are pretty far from perfect - they seem to be what Joe Public want, rather than BB or WP7.
I fear all the "wait for W8" guff is misplaced too. W7 sold because Vista was pretty poor - slow, bloated, resource hungry. Not sure 8 will be such a massive leap forward from 7 in terms of day-to-day usability for the man in the street. I jumped from Vista to W7 as soon as I could. I feel no compunction to upgrade to W8, the Metro interface notwithstanding.
In five years time I expect world + dog to still be using W7 (and by pre-loaded in the factory default W8) on their laptops and iOS/Android on everything else.
" I mean, it's obvious that WP7 still doesn't things like copy & paste, or multi-tasking"
I know WP7 never did and prob never will multi-task (it just has a crappy task switcher), but didn't it get copy and paste in the nodo update, anyways I agree with your point that WP7 hasn't changed much and is still missing LOADS of apps and features to be really usable.
After nodo the next update should be dodo :D
Actually you're wrong, though I can see where you're coming from because at one time I said the exact same thing ;-)
The multitask bit isn't to be found in the task switcher; but in the settings section. To be precise the: "background tasks" option in the apps section.
But to make it more obvious: My Omnia collects mail for 4 accounts every hour. I keep an application which live tile shows the actual temperature, this also gets automatically updated. Another app. keeps track of the stock market; during the times the market is open (local time) it updates every xx minutes (customizable).
And so forth... Do you really believe all of that were possible without multitasking? ;-)
I'm sorry but you are totally wrong
"My Omnia collects mail for 4 accounts every hour"......err thats is not multitasking.
Background Agents and scheduled tasks are NOT Multitasking, plus App developers can only use a small set of API's with these two methods.
"Another app. keeps track of the stock market; during the times the market is open (local time) it updates every xx minutes (customizable)."
Again you seem confused to what multi-tasking really is.
Tell me can you open 5 games at the same time , and will they all carry on regardless if they are in focus or not ??? the answer is of course no.
That is why skype beta for wp7 doesn't work UNLESS it is in focus, it won't multitask in the background polling for incoming calls.
WP7 technically does not multitask, and that's the facts i'm afraid.
No, that techincally is multitasking. Multitasking is running multiple threads/applications/tasks at the same time. It might not be multi-window, but this is a phone!
Also, Spotify and a few other apps demonstrate background audio streaming, you can be playing music whilst playing a game, and I think that matches even your broken definition of multitasking.
Windows CE as an operating system is also a fully multitasking OS, you might want to read what multitasking actually means before complaining about the lack of it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_multitasking)
To answer a couple of the questions:
When WinPho8 rolls out it will support existing applications. it will also support WinRT, which is a new development platform being rolled our for Windows 8. So existing Silverlight apps will work on WP8.
As for developer support, the marketplace is now at 80K apps. It's small compared to the 600K of Apple apps but it's growing pretty quickly. At this time last year there were about 10-15K apps.
I do agree with the need to get new functionality out. One major release a year just isn't cutting it with Android and Apple still progressing. Apollo will add a whole bunch of new stuff (multiple screen-sizes, sd cards, multi-core support, etc) but they need to be churning this stuff out faster if they want to stay in the game.
If you have trusted Nokia as a developer you would be knowing Java, python, perl, c, c++, qt, flash and their widget system.
These were the technologies they told developers to learn if they will code for Nokia. Oh I almost forgot they talked about a mini posix, implemented and... Dumped.
Sticking with symbian for too long lost loyal customers. The Windows mobile marriage ensures they stay away and are happy they made the right call.
Nokia has always made decent hardware, and this is what will bring customers back. But only offering some Android devices will save the firm. They'd wipe the floor with HTC and their historic foes (samsung, Sony etc).
They have the hardware they just need an OS people want!
Symbian is still moving 5x as many smartphones for Nokia as Windows Phone is. That's as of today, over a year after Symbian was deprecated, all the developers fired or outsourced, the company committed publicly to let Symbian die. This is clear from the 12M smartphones, 2M Windows phone figures given. 12-2=10M Symbian smartphones still for the quarter, or 5x Windows Phones.
How committed does Nokia have to be? Do they have to put a tire around their neck and set themselves on fire to make you happy? Do they have to leap into a pool of flaming oil? I think they've done that.
And what of Microsoft? Just this week Microsoft Office for Symbian was announced. What in the world is up with that? Is that fulfilling a contractual obligation like "if WP doesn't move units you have to ship Office for Symbian?"
Fact is they lost belief in Symbian and wasted resources developing a dozen other technologies. Symbian Belle is good and could have happened years earlier. WPho is just another wrong turn in a company that lost it's way. Ironic considering how they give away a decent Sat Nav app with all their smart phones.
"Fact is they lost belief in Symbian and wasted resources developing a dozen other technologies."
I agree they dithered around and should have stuck with one or two new platforms, but you can't say they never gave Symbian a chance. The man hours spent trying to make it modern could have put a man on Mars.
"Symbian Belle is good and could have happened years earlier."
Why didn't it?
WP is not too bad for regular folks. It just disappoints us spoilt Symbian and MeeGo powerusers. That's to say Jemma's comment is full of truth. The E7-00 simply destroys the competition due to its Communicator DNA that allows its user to do neat stuff that no X-core processor can help to achieve. Not even to speak of the Clearblack AMOLED display that is among if not THE very best you can shove into your pocket today. Which states one thing: Nokia is very able to make great phones, even with superbly innovative interfaces, see N9. Meanwhile, Nokia Beta Labs churns out impressive software that truly puts the "smart" in phones. And then there are the fashionable WP phones, pushed by an incredible marketing force but oh so depending on other peoples' work.
It's all very much "in transition" now which is what makes people so edgy. They like neither change nor challenges and they cry havoc about a platform being announced EOL four (!) years from now. Seriously?
Elop said plan B is for plan A to succeed. I guess we'll see about that. Four years is a long time – and if we have learned one thing lately it's that in Nokialand, changes can come quickly.
based on the blind faith, that there will be someone catching it. Maybe it's the old confidence building game out of that motivation / trust-building trip. Let's see if MS will be there ....
I just don't see how Nokia wants to position itself in the future. Offer me cheaper phones with decent functionality -- I might buy that. Offer me superior reliability and battery performance -- I might buy that. Offer me a compelling user experience that is way beyond the competition -- I might buy that. Offer me an open platform without a major company sucking out all bits of monetizable information -- I might buy that too.
But simply offering another smartphone with the same set of features and problems as all the other competitors, and for an amount of money that would buy one of the famed iPhones -- I don't even have to stop or hesitate before telling you I won't buy that.
That although MS have worked through and bred a common working set of API's - these are not windows. They are a metro based structure, WinRT, and so on, and basically break with previous windows. Metro isn't windows. The new WinPhoMo isn't winpho mo - the software isn't even compatible in terms of legacy apps.
All the garbage being punted about Metro. Its a shitty garbage touch UI. Its being foisted on people because MS got into a funk and think they have to get on ARM. They also think they can just drag and force everyone over. This kind of stupid arrogance in multiples deserves failure.
And having had some conversations with Sinofsky - Its clear the guy doesn't give a fig about what was, only what he thinks will be, there is a tear taking place.
MS is full of stupid idiocy at present. But someone there is still smart. They extended the lifespan on windows 7 - if they are in fact smart in response to realising the harsh factors that are going to be Windows 8/Metro world.
I have no idea why people media wise like Metro. In my testing orf it - its a steaming, clunky, pile of garbage. Yes, it kind of drags a windows version onto ARM. Assuming you can do without legacy, support for management, win32 apps, and a shitload - then fine.
As for Nokia - to be clear, IMHO Nokia are slow. Clunky. Old school. When they make handsets - its bedevilled by lack of supply, hitches, and slow updates. In the face of the new platforms - where the updates and rate of change are rapid - its just way off the pace. The Linux N900 took ages to get into supply.
Their new model has arrived, but has a glitch. Frankly you can make nicely engineered phones all you want, if they are riddled with poor, unsupported, lacklustre software - you deserve failure.
And Elop's mad Winphomo idiocy deserves failure. Nokia should have been shipping as wide a range of Phone OSs as anyone, but plumped for Metro. Idiots.
AS the N9 was one of the best received handsets for ages, Nokia should push out the Nokia N9 ASAP to all the countries it held it back from like the USA and the UK, and use it as a "disruptive technology" as Elop calls it, and as a bridgehead to improve the Maeego/Maemo experience, and develop and push more phones quickly.
Christ, with the MS Apps just released Symbian is waay more usable than Windows Phone.
Despite what MS say, Windows is just not an aspirational platform like iOS or Android, and never has been.
Im sure Elop once said that there was no plan B, in which case they're fscked.
Microsoft have stated unequivocally that WP8 will run all WP7 apps:
They've even emboldened the relevant bit!
> stated unequivocally that WP8 will run all WP7 apps:
No. What they actually said is:
"""today’s Windows Phone applications and games will run on the next major version of Windows Phone."""
They may regard Tango as "the next major version", there is no indication that they mean WP8.
What I found interesting was "Driving application compatibility is a function of Microsoft’s commitment to its developers." which is why all WM6.x apps run on WP7, oh wait ...
"""We’ve also heard some developers express concern about the long term future of Silverlight for Windows Phone. Please don’t panic; XAML and C#/VB.NET development in Windows 8 can be viewed as a direct evolution from today’s Silverlight."""
This is directly saying that Silverlight is dead and that apps will need to 'evolve' (ie rewritten) into XAML and C#/VB.NET.
> """We’ve also heard some developers express concern about the long term future of Silverlight for Windows Phone. Please don’t panic; XAML and C#/VB.NET development in Windows 8 can be viewed as a direct evolution from today’s Silverlight."""
Well look at that. Off you go, MS developers: once again you are to abandon a non-transferable, proprietary 'skill' and learn a different non-transferable, proprietary 'skill' in order to continue putting bread on the table. Not much of a 'professional career' it's turned out to be, has it.
...which is to force an once successful company to rely on them to produce the software for the Nokia hardware - and once Nokia "fail", having been designed the hardware for WinMob, then MS come along and buy them up cheap - giving MS their own hardware platform.
Then MS can compete with the likes of Google (who have Motorola), Sony (after buying out Ericsson) and Apple.
My guess is that there'll be plenty more Android devices coming along soon, esp as processor improvements continue and the Chinese producers keep making them, and that within a short space of time, even the cheapest phones will be Android based.....and in that case, I can't see how MS will make any money from their phone software.
... is that they completely messed up the launch of the Lumia 900, their important flagship product upon which the whole future of the company rested, from pure incompetence - and then we have sat and watched them try and spin it up as if they actually did it *on purpose*, to show us all how good their customer service and PR is.
Obviously the product shipped with show-stopping bugs because the people responsible for testing just did not do their jobs properly. Any company who thinks we're stupid enough to believe otherwise deserves all it gets.
Mr Elop said Nokia was on a burning platform so what was his reaction, yes I remember now................ he threw Symbian over the edge to drown.
What he forgot was Mr Symbian was holding the Nokia fire extinguisher !!!!!!!!!!
Nokia is now still a burning platform but the flames have engulfed them.
But don't worry Mr Elop the flames will soon be out because Nokia is about to go crashing beneath the waves as the burning shell that is now all that remains of Nokia collapses.
I find it funny a former Nokia ceo said if Nokia went android it would be like peeing in ones pants to keep warm.
What I cant get is why they went WP7.........................thats akin to defecating in ones pants to keep warm.
Nokia are being backed by Microsoft. The mobile / tablet area is somewhere Microsoft NEEDS to be to stay relevant so they are going to move heaven and earth to be at the forefront of the market.
Nokia will ride on their coat tails and when Microsoft have risen to #1 position Nokia will be reaping the benefits. Android fragmentation and the limits of iOS with it's siloed applications will soon have consumers fed up and they will go with Microsoft and Windows Phone on Nokia. Brands and names they trust
"MS is making lots of money with Office and Windows. If they acted rationally, they would ignore Apple and Google, as they are not challenging MS's money-spinners."
And at the minute Windows and Office is X86 only. All the successful mobile devices and tablets run on ARM processors and will continue to do so in the future.
Microsoft can't afford to let Android and iOS own the mobile / tablet space, because if they do then how long before that demo of the Android smartphone suddenly transforming into a full Unbuntu session when connected via HDMI becomes a reality for a standard device?
And then where are you left? A 300 - 500 quid smartphone that also doubles up as a Desktop when connected to a television using a standard connector and a keyboard / mouse. For a LOT of people that will be easier and cheaper than buying a Desktop PC or Laptop when your phone is the only device you need. It also appeases all the people who refuse to move to the cloud for storing their data as their hard drive is always with them on the phone
Seems to me that M$ forgot how to take somebody elses product, reverse engineer it and do a fabulous marketing job.
It also seems that hardware manufacturers have learned not to get trapped into shelling out to one dominant company.
M$ might even have the best product, but who is willing to trust them?
Nokia should have realised this before they got hooked to just one pusher.
Hardware companies that develop a close relationship with Microsoft are inviting disaster. Microsoft worked out terribly for IBM, they have dragged HP into a commodity morass, likewise with Dell (although I don't feel bad about that situation). Nokia is only the latest victim, although they probably realized it before hand and were desperate for Microsoft's cash opiate.
It works like this... You start a product line with Microsoft as a close hardware partner. Two things can happen: It is a huge success like Windows on PCs, so Microsoft sells the OS to all of your competitors, doesn't allow you to differentiate the product, and you are selling commodities for no profit margins. Second, like smartphones, it is a flop and you are tied at the hip with the behemoth that will drag you to the ground. Either way, long term, it is a bad deal for the hardware manufacturer.
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I understand your concerns and the human impact. But I do think the Fins have to take responsibility. From what your saying have based thier entire countries economy on the fortunes of one company. This is a truly stupid act. Its not Nokias or Microsofts fault that Finland is now having financial woes. Its Finlands governtment for reliaing on Nokia to prop up its country. Tech moves so fast that yesterdays success is tommorrows faluire, and those that run the country should have been aware this could happen.
Have to disagree here.
I live in Finland, and (OK, I'm on welfare) but haven't seen a real 'sea-change' to our economy.
The idea that towns are closing (Salo? still OK) is preposterous. Like the rest of the world, we're in a recession - saying it ain't so doesn't make it go away.
(Oh, at Illgaz, Finland has a very good secret service. Ever tried talking to a Finn? Paint dries faster than they reply...)
As a long time IT nut, I've grown to hate Microsoft and everything it does. Too long spent fixing peoples insecure computers, trying to speed them up, removing junk, registry problems etc etc. Sick of BSoDs, sick of needing to run AV, sick of re-installs taking HOURS, sick of chasing down drivers after a fresh install, sick of buying new PCs full of Junk ware that takes hours to remove before the PC is as it should be..
I use Linux myself, and it is almost impossible to buy a computer WITHOUT bl***y Windows on it pre-installed, as manufacturers refuse point blank to sell you one without. I had a small business account with Dell that I closed when they refused to sell me a laptop I wanted unless I had Windows on it - and Dell are a Hardware company FFS! HP did the same. What kind of stranglehold does M$ have when a computer company refuses to sell you a computer without M$ installed? Can you imagine Sony refusing to sell you a TV unless you paid up front for a SkyTZ subscription too? Imagine buying a TV that you had to buy AV for in case you went to the 'wrong' channel!
I work as a teacher, and M$ products are rammed down pupils throats. IT 'qualifications' mean learning how to use 'M$ Office' and no concept of alternative Office programs, browsers or OS are given - it is M$ being force fed to the next generation.
When Linux netbooks appeared, M$ were worried and killed the market dead by re-releasing XP and "encouraging" hardware manufacturers to sell XP ones only. (At my local PC World I was offered Norton Anti-virus as an "essential" when buying a Linux netbook!!)
With the Linux netbook market killed off Microsoft sat back on its Laurels, but didn't see what was going to hit them when tablets came out, and when Android took off in the phone market. All of sudden they get desperate and fly executives into Nokia to try to buy the phone market with their junk products. If M$ EVER get a hold on the phone/tablet market they will try to dominate everything and get back to the market abusing monopoly position they have on the desktop.
Personally, I don't care whether WinPho is any good or not (it isn't though!), I want Microsoft OUT of this market before they kill it dead. The future with them becoming dominant is too dreadful to behold.
</rant>
pah, if you're such a techhead, then why did you go and buy prefab machines? any IT person worth his salt will build their own.
I can't stand all those "i f*cking hate Microsoft" people, it's the same as the "i hate apple" people (oh shit, that's me, but at least i know when i'm talking crap). Microsoft has been a massive factor in how the tech world has progressed over the past decades and we should all be thankfull for that. Serioiusly, complaining about machines being preloaded with Windows, while that's one of thew few peices of added value Windows still has?
So Ipads shouldn't be preloaded with IOS, and MACS? didn't hear you complain about that one. Or how about preloaded Andriod? workings of the devil, i'm sure.
"pah, if you're such a techhead, then why did you go and buy prefab machines? any IT person worth his salt will build their own."
I normally do, but if you read carefully you would see I wanted a specific laptop. Laptops are almost impossible to build yourself from scratch.
Re pre:loaded Windows.
It is called customer choice. I should not be forced to buy one companies product, when I have no intention of ever using it. If you like Windows so much, that is fine, but would you like to be forced to buy a spare Mac OS every time you wanted a new Windows computer?
As a sometime web-developer, I see all of your rant and raise you Internet Exploder.
For inflicting that standards-shitting-on, website-breaking, undeservedly omnipresent heap of stinking ordure on the world, M$ deserve to burn in hell for all eternity.
It's just a shame they're going to drag the once respected Nokia down with them.
...that there's an advert on El Reg staring me straight in the face saying "Appvertise with Nokia now". Wha? What does that mean? Not buy my phone, it's fantastic, it's a smartphone unlike any other. The marketing for the new Lumia phones has been shocking, the adverts on TV mean zero and Nokia have done nothing reestablish the Nokia faithful.
Cockyness has been their failure. When they had the softphone market all swooped up during the SMS craze between 1998 and 2003, they didn't look ahead like Apple/Google did in dramatic fashion.
The Symbian OS could of been easily forked into a smartphone edition if they hadn't tried to make it difficult for dev's or not be clear on their stratedgy changing their minds from one day to the next.
I'd love to buy another Nokia phone. Always solid hardware and easy to use as a "phone". You could damn the current players for giving customers what they didn't need but realised they wanted eventually. However, Nokia's top boys were smoking cigars and laughing to the bank everyday until they saw Jobs with his creation of iOS. Ironic how the new boys in the game boys taught the old boys a lesson. That goes the same for RIM for sitting down with hands on their bottoms.
Saw first-hand the shambles of Nokia from 2007 and it wasn't pretty. Crazy, slow decision making and constantly shifting objectives. Hopeless.
Qt on Symbian should've been the path out and viable in 2009. But the Qt team were wedded to their Maemo/Meego wet dream and treated their work for Symbian like colonic irrigation. At the same time the Symbian team were burning roadmaps of technology support and instead splitting codelines to create an illusion of open-source. Chaos. My personal fave was punishing all the Symbian developers for a 12 week dealy to N8 shipment by canceling all bonuses. Yet, the 13 month delayed Meego N900 team got full bonus and then another top-up to persuade them to deliver something "soon"... couldn't make it up.
Finally a decent strategy emerged in 2010 to move Symbian to the low and mid range, taking its advantages of running on limited hardware and then adding a great UI and the superb Qt app development framework. This was just begining to gain traction and had superb potential to buy Nokia some transition time until it found a new high-end. Then along came Elop and burned the platform, rather like moving into a new house, deciding you don't like the living room so setting fire to it. It was an ignorant, pig-headed decision.
Doomed. And Windows Phone... why oh why? I believe the 18 month old N8 still outsells all the Lumia devices combined. Who'd buy a device to be a beta tester of a sub-standard OS for 18 months and then be rewarded by being told that it's not upgradable to the next release???
If you know all these things, you also know that the N8 wasn't just 12 weeks delayed, you also know how much efforts went into "post-release" fixing the N97 (for what gain, exactly ? how delayed was that again ?), you also know that Symbian isn't a great base for anything as POSIXly-dependant as Qt (heck, Symbian doesn't even have a per-thread errno, file handles don't share across threads, handle types on Symbian are quite different for all those nice things that Windows does on HANDLE and UN*X on filedescriptors, ...). And you of course also know how "trivial" is was to make changes to Symbian in order to accommodate Qt better.
And I thought feelings about being entitled to bonuses even if the business isn't doing well is something only bankers have. Yes, it's been horridly unfair that the Meego folks were paid while Symbian was ground to pulp, so you're entitled to envy obviously. But reward for failure is reward for failure, and the track record for any part of Nokia's smartphone/S60 side since the release of the N95 was not what anyone can call reasonably "stellar".
Advice: Let the bitterness pass through you. The horse has had cardiac arrest around 2008, but the vets didn't give up resuscitation for two years while the jockey was standing by, waiting. When the new guy came in, he only did the obvious - change horses. He mounted the wrong one, and for that he's got to take the blame. But that he decided to call the dead one out, that's only what he got brought in for.
LOL, always suspected the Maemo/Meego folks really did smoke crack but thanks for proving the point about the pathetic infighting. Porting Qt to Symbian as a serious effort in 2008/9 would've yielded results by early 2010 and just because it would've been hard to do, doesn't mean that wasn't the right thing to do. As you are no doubt aware, most of the trash in "Symbian" was the result of S60 UI, taking the UI and App layers off and building from scratch would've worked but the compatibility hit was the killer. Oh yeah, thanks for the N97 horror relived... that was truly dire.
Bonuses when business isn't doing well... er, Symbian kept Noka afloat and making profit. As Symbian declined where did Nokia's profit go? The platform was dying but remember that a dying platform can have a VERY long slow death (anyone know how Series 40 is doing when it was described by a former CEO as end-of-life in 2005?) Symbian at least would've given Nokia options for producing other form factors than touch-slab for the mid/low-end. Why did Elop need to shoot anything? Nature takes care of the weak.
Not bitter, I did very well out of the disaster, just sad to have lost a great European (more so British) OS once again.
maybe proving a point ... ack, but then I've got nothing to do with the Maemo/Meego folks and never had.
Worked for Symbian at the time. I agree with you the dumping-of-baggage (death to S60) would've had to happen in 2008 (in fact - earlier; even the 5800 shouldn't have gone with S60 ...). Also agree a fast-tracked/high-prio port of Qt would've been necessary, also agree that much of the trash was in the higher levels of the OS. Also agree it's sad a formerly-great British company was euthanized this way.
Nonetheless, hindsight's 20:20, and while it's easy to say "we should've" (or even easier, "they should've"), I can't remember too many such voices around the time when that would still have mattered.
The above contains far too many modals for my comfort ... in any case, good memories of Symbian, as well as sad ones. A doomed struggle it was, for sure. But I don't like to assert blame to the (former) Maemo/Meego folks. Their perspective, if you've met and talked to any of the folks, is actually not that different from (y)ours ... but that's a different topic.
True, the picture is always fairly complicated. But I wouldn't say that it wasn't foreseeable to have to plan a different path on the UI & app dev direction. Actually "Hitchcock" and "Orbit" were projects leading that way that got killed.
I loved Qt and enjoyed my time in Oslo with some great folks though I did warn them of their fate once they got absorbed into the beast. Actually some of the mistakes that Nokia made with the Qt acquisition are what made them f$%k up the Symbian takeover so royally. They hated the independence of Qt and their small company ethos which they alllowed to persist and felt that Qt didn't really care about delivering value for Nokia. So those lessons meant that when they acquired Symbian, they came in with fists of iron and asimilate everyone to Nokia immediately. Actually if they'd preserved Symbian's independence and let the strengths of the comapny come through, they would naturally have aligned with Qt and fixed Nokia anyway.
Yes, Nokia in 2008 was still doing the rabbit-in-iPhone-headlights thing and that only really seemed to stop when it finally soaked up through enough layers of management that Android was going to eat into Symbian's market share. Elop and pals presumably thought that it would be a great plan to sacrifice Symbian to give Windows Phone a boost, but that seems to have been based on wishful thinking more than anything else. I get the impression that he'd made up his mind to go the Windows route pretty soon after being installed as CEO and all the talk of weighing up the options was just for show. A shame really, because it looked like he actually had the opportunity to fundamentally change the company instead of just breaking it up.
I think it's more than a little unfair to say that the Qt team was picking favourites in the never-ending Symbian vs. Maemo sibling rivalry. It always looked like the colonic irrigation work had a higher priority than having wet dreams (though some people do like their shiny gadgets a bit too much), and it came with higher pressure and stress levels for all involved. Personally, I think Qt got the shittiest deal at the time, having to service all these other business units who always seemed to spend most of their time having meetings. You know that Qt was originally supposed to be left to run as a semi-independent business until the other parts of Nokia got their claws into it?
As one of the three people in the UK who actually has a Lumia (after moving from an Iphone), I would liken the ownership experience to the early days of owning an iphone. It’s a good product but it feels very much in it’s infancy and needs to mature. I’ve no doubt that after a couple of iterations of handset and OS it will be up there with the rest but it isn’t there at the moment and that is the issue.
The problem is that Nokia/MS have come to the party very late and the only way they are going to make an impression is if they bring something that blows the other out of the water. All they have done through is release a perfectly good phone which has a few clever ideas and that just isn’t good enough.
I also have to take issue with it’s applications store, yes there isn’t the selection that Apple have but that’s to be expected but there are glaring omissions such as Skype, which I really don’t understand given MS owns it. There is also the cost of the apps, Angry Birds for example costs £2.99 on the Nokia compared to 69p on the Iphone. You aren’t going to attract customers if you are charging more than your rivals for the same thing.
I won’t get started on the appalling marketing and PR campaign as it’s too early in the day to get myself that wound up
The Lumia is a good phone and that is it’s problem, For Nokia / MS to stand a chance it needed to be an Iphone beater and it just isn’t
Somehow I doubt 'a few iterations' will get WP7 or 8 up to parity with the moving targets of IOS and Android. If the Win8 reboot traps WP7 apps in a legacy support mode, that brings its own developer AND user hell.
The Win8 strategy is an open admission that WinPhone cannot compete on its own merits, even if it achieves parity with the competition. Or indeed even if it surpasses them, 1st mover advantage in a market they cannot easily manipulate is hard to overcome. Hence the attempt to manipulate it with Win8...
You decide you want a smartphone.....
If you can afford it, you get an iPhone.
If you can't, you get something Android.
MS doesn't fit into this. Every Joe Normal suffers the endless Windows problems at work, or knows that Windows isn't well regarded by the friend or family member that fixes their PC every time it goes wrong (all too often), and they dream of being able to have that shiny expensive Apple instead (which they believe is rock solid). So why would they want to lock themselves into tainted Winblows when buying a phone? When they can easily see better alternatives, and know that they'll be laughed at?
Previously dominant player tries to crack duopoly of Apple and commodity 'good enough' software + hardware solution.
Even with a technically superior system and armies of sales droids it didn't work out well for IBM and OS/2...
(I've no experience of WP7, so for purposes of this comparison its technical superiority is assumed).
In case?!?
What's the OS called, Windows Phone _7_, 7! that should be a fairly good hint that if 1 - 6 failed to crack the market, 7 stands about the same chance. M$ were failures in the smartphone market for all the time Nokia was king. What is supposed to have changed that means they now hold the key to reclaiming the crown? Nothing as far as I've seen.
I long for the day when someone - other than Microsoft - buys Nokia and tells Microsoft (and Elop, and most of the non-Finnish Microsoft-loving Nokia board) to go f*ck themselves, then installs Anssi Vanjoki as the new CEO.
That will be the end of Windows Phone, permanently, and would mark the rebirth of Nokia doing what it knows best, and former customers will come flooding back. Everyone can put what went before as being a bad dream (apart from those that, unfortunately, lost their jobs).
Of course it won't happen - Microsoft will fight tooth and nail to prevent Nokia escaping their pernicious grasp at any cost. Unless of course Microsoft really, really don't want to be a mobile phone hardware manufacturer as they claim (let's hope so).
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/23/anssi-vanjoki-on-quitting-nokia-i-didn-t-become-the-ceo-it-is/
No, the contracts between MS and Nokia will be written in United States' Industrial-strength Legal steel. As we have learned, such contracts are nuclear-proof.
Once Ballmer and co. signed up, no hope. Put April 19 in your diary. If you're a Finn, call in sick that day.
Because when they outsell the WP version by 10-1 or more, and generate considerably more profit per device, what person in their right mind would continue flogging the dead WP horse?
By allowing Nokia to offer an alternative to Windows Phone, Elop (and Balmer) know that it will be the end of WP. That's also why they had to terminate MeeGo - Windows Phone can only compete at Nokia when it has no other competition.
Nokia shares are a Buy - Forget Symbian and focus on Lumia urge analysts at Jyske Bank
<quote>
"We are now in the middle of the transformation from the Symbian to the Windows Phone platform. It hurts and makes heavy demands on investor patience. However, we maintain our BUY recommendation for Nokia, as we expect the efforts to be fruitful."
Indeed, analysts believe that the main culprit behind the downgrade is weak sales of Symbian martphones.
</quote>
So this "analyst" believes that low Symbian sales are the reason for the Nokia downgrade? Not vanishingly small Windows Phone sales? And this is the same Symbian that the genius CEO took a dump on back in Feb 2011 - so no criticism of the CEO, then, for not having a replacement ready in time? And ignoring the fact it's the (miraculously) ongoing Symbian sales (at a rage of 5-1 better than WP) that have actually helped the Nokia bottom line?
Some analysts are totally out to lunch.
... and which analysts, exactly, are we supposed to be laughing at? The ones that say "Buy Nokia", or the ones that say "Nokia is on the brink of failure"?
First up, let's ignore the inevitable iphone/android trolls that seem to crop up whenever anyone event *thinks* WP7 here. We've heard it all before and it's boooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing...
Analysts... "lies, damn lies and statistics"? In many ways their like a more sophisticated, better educated form of troll - in that they do some research before making claims. Of course, as every government knows, figures can be massaged to suit the claim...
Ultimately, it comes down to developers. Yes, I'm a WP7 developer and proud of it. It was the logical choice, as with XNA I could port my PC/Xbox code pretty much straight to the phone. Going iPhone would have required a full new development kit - phone and suitable Mac, to the tune of about £1500. Android... well, I want to spend my time writing what I want to write, rather than having to muck about supporting the multitude of OS versions, screen resolutions etc., plus the development emulator is a joke and then there's the issues of security, marketplace saturation etc.
But I digress. Basically, it comes down to who can get the most developers on board. And I'll admit that Apple/Google have a hell of a headstart.
Moreover, with Win 8 and the dumping of tools that many have invested a lot of time in, Microsoft are about to commit developer suicide. And unfortunately, that may well drag Nokia down with them.
So for now, I'm going to continue developing for the WP7 and watch Win8 like a hawk... and start saving for that new Mac development rig - just in case.
The M$ devs are just entitled, hippster, mac wannabies that think Bob 2 is going to be the greatest thing ever for everything. I suppose it is OK on the phone but nothing that is going to save Nokia from certain doom. As much as they want to believe otherwise the writing on the wall was put there long ago by Nokia themselves from back in the heyday when they were the best. Nokia could conceivably saved themselves if way back and had jumped on board with Android when it first got rolling and really pushed the envelope with it to avert disaster. But they didn't and now they will pay. M$ will as well.
It is so focused on trying to be something like Apple that they forget that coming up with something truly new and innovative is what will take them past Apple. Bob 2 is not new and nonnative. It is just a twist on the iOS.
For either to make it they have to take bold radical steps that take tech in a new direction. Following Apple with something that is "a little different" isn't working.
Here's my Analysis
3 points here:
1 Microsoft strangles anything not microsoft
They did Symbian once before when Psion started using microsoft winCE
Interesting that people are praising Symbian Belle
2 There are phone buyers and phone renters
The phone buyers want something that looks cool
The phone renters are on a 18 or 24 month replacement cycle
How does Nokia and microsoft sit in those spaces
3 Apps, Apps, Apps
Are the app writers just protecting what they already have on the other platforms
Sad to say, but it looks terminal to me. How the mighty are fallen!
Although resurrection is possible - who'd have said that Apple would be a trillion
dollar company 15 years ago?
3 points here:
1 Microsoft strangles anything not microsoft
They did Symbian once before when Psion started using microsoft winCE
Interesting that people are praising Symbian Belle
2 There are phone buyers and phone renters
The phone buyers want something that looks cool
The phone renters are on a 18 or 24 month replacement cycle
How does Nokia and microsoft sit in those spaces
3 Apps, Apps, Apps
Are the app writers just protecting what they already have on the other platforms
Sad to say, but it looks terminal to me. How the mighty are fallen!
Although resurrection is possible - who'd have said that Apple would be a trillion
dollar company 15 years ago?
Blind freddy can see Nokia's WinPhone experiment has been a total failure (with even the N9 outselling the WP7 models), Elop's judgement calls in the smartphone area a complete train wreck, and yes Google's 20 man Android dev team leaves Microsoft's WinPhone team eating it's dust. I assume even Nokia now realises their smartphone platform is dead.
However this does not mean Nokia is dead. Nokia is primarily a feature phone maker. They make most of their revenue from feature phones (obviously, since they don't sell significant numbers smartphones any more). Nokia's survival hangs on whether they continue to do this. They are fighting tooth and nail in this area. (As one wag pointed out in another forum, Nokia's feature phones actually do more than their smartphones do now.)
So this "analyst" has it completely arse about. Nokia's survival doesn't depend on WinPhone 7. It depends on Meltemi, which is what the next generation of Nokia's feature phones will running. It is a Maemo / Meego derivative, ie Linux. It never ceases to amaze me how these people manage to get it completely wrong, and still manage to make the news headlines. Brickbats to ElReg for putting them there.
Nokia saw perfectly well that the feature phone market was rapidly eroding as the traditional consumers for those low-cost phones were switching to dirt-cheap Chinese Android smartphones. The global market has shifted, and even in African countries the days when you could compete without a smartphone and an apps store are over. Walk down the street in Addis Ababa and you'll see all the people who used to buy Nokia phones because of their reliability now carrying shiny new smartphones made by ZTE and Huawei.
While it's true Microsoft have entered and succeeded in a mature and competitive market previously (Xbox/Xbox360) and they are capable of bring innovative product to market (Kinect), mobile is a whole different ball game.
Metro takes away everything that most users are long-familiar with: icons and windows. As a mobile UI this might make it easier to use in a stab-the-big-button kind of way, and having information laid out in tiles is (arguably) easier on the eye. But as a desktop UI with a mouse and keyboard in the mix, it makes no sense at all. Both iOS and Android have proven that users are more than happy with a wallpapered desktop to launch apps from, and Android widgets and screens make personalisation easy and accessible. Inflicting this on desktop users makes even less sense.
Nokia betting the farm entirely on Windows Phone and Microsoft betting the (mobile) farm on Nokia is about as terminal as it gets. Sure, other hardware manufacturers have produced WinPho handsets, but it's going to be a trickle from now on in comparison to the number of new Android handsets. As other commentards have suggested, Microsoft's plan B may well be to acquire Nokia if the going gets tough.
Despite the idiotic bureaucracy and infighting that existed (and, to an extent, still exists) in Nokia, they still have the capability to produce stellar handsets and innovative applications. We will just have to wait and see if WinPho can blossom into a truly usable and enjoyable platform (replete with a thriving developer-driven app market), or whether it will sink Nokia in the long run.
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