Nokia's Elopocalypse two years on: Has Microsoft kept its side of the bargain?

It's two years since the "Elopocalypse". This week in 2011 Nokia's new CEO Stephen Elop set Europe's biggest technology company off in a radical new direction. Nokia would license its flagship phone software from Microsoft, rather than develop its own, set fire to three of its own mobile platforms, and eventually shed …

[Thomas 4]

Hmmm

I just bought a Lumia 820 last weekend and I'm quite pleased with it so far. The interface is fast and responsive. and the phone itself has a pleasing solidity that's been lacking in my previous handsets. More applications need to take advantage of the Live Tile feature though. I understand Live tile is supposed to function in a similar fashion to widgets in Android but aside from providing shortcuts, they don't seem to offer much else. I'm still getting used to the phone so I might have missed something.

[.thalamus]

Re: Hmmm

Stick a 32GB class 10 SD into it and sync some music to it and watch it all go to fuck, probably requiring a factory reset to get into some state of normality. I suffered that on several occasions with both a Samsung and Sandisk micro SD, and that occurred with both with the shipped and the 'portico' update.

The whole Xbox music thing is an utter mess and completely unfit for purpose. The syncing applications are a load of shit. The micro SDcard support doesn't work with commodity class 10 cards and every now and again the mobile baseband will hang causing texts and calls not to get through. All documented issues on the Nokia support forums too, so definitely not an isolated case of bad hardware.

Those are the main reasons why I sold my 820, that and of course the complete lack of app traction.

The OS simply isn't ready. It needs a lot more work to bring it up to standard. It's been rushed, it feels rushed and it acts rushed. Which is a pity, because I was waiting for it a long time to replace my WP7 device.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm

Thants because the Sandisk SD cards have a big problem - Amazon have had thousands returned. Get a Samsung - works fine for me....No issues at all.

Xbox music is also great - just stream whatever you want whenever you want - no need to worry about 'if it is in your collection' etc.

The phone itself automatically syncs everything to Skydrive without issue.

All in all a very polished experience.

[Zola]

Re: Hmmm

Thants because the Sandisk SD cards have a big problem - Amazon have had thousands returned. Get a Samsung - works fine for me....No issues at all.

Do you have a source for this, because it sounds a bit as though you are trying to shift the blame - he said he also tried a Samsung SD card which also went to fuck, so it doesn't sound like it's a card specific issue (and I've not heard of any problems with Sandisk cards from Amazon).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm

Just read the feedback on Amazon....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm

Just read the feedback on Amazon....

So no source then, otherwise I'm sure you'd have provided a direct link.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Hmmm

Live tiles haven't really worked so far. At least as a user of Win Pho 7. Because apps weren't really multi-tasking, they weren't really allowed to do the clever stuff. So, for example, my weather app would update its live tile when I looked at it, but it never seemed to manage to do it again until I ran the app again. Whereas what could be simpler than a weather app that shows you the picture of today's forecast? Not that iOS can do it either... The people hub could keep changing, showing bits of photos, but only if you were plugged into Facebook and got your phone filled up with all the pointless Facebook chatter. No, I really don't care how much of a melon-farmer you've just been...

Sadly the only thing that really seemed to work well on the live tiles was badges. Which is no better than what iOS can do, and massively worse than Android's brilliant widgets. Although, none of the non-techies I know have managed to customise their widgets very much, so maybe it's not the huge advantage it ought to be? Many things frustrated me when I was on Android, but the ability to customise the phone to perfection is something I missed on Win Phone. I've just taken delivery of a work iPhone 5, and as a phone it's a step back from WP7. My trusty £130 Lumia 710 is sadly going out to pasture. As a mobile computer the iPhone is superior, but then it does cost 4 times as much...

One thing I've noticed that should worry MS and Nokia is how prominent the new Blackberries are in the phone shops. They're getting pushed in a way Windows Phone and Nokia's Lumias never did. Does this mean the phone companies are going to push Blackberry as the 3rd way (to keep Google and Apple honest)? They never seemed to have their hearts in pushing Windows Phone...

[Microsoft 5636771]

Re: Hmmm

I too have a Lumia, as do all my friends, we totally love them, they are the best phones we ever bought, we couldn't wait to sign up to all the fantastic Microsoft subscription services like Xbox Live, Zune Pass etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm

"I too have a Lumia, as do all my friends...."

You really must remember to use the joke icon !

[Robert E A Harvey]

@Microsoft 5636771

"1 post • joined Thursday 14th February 2013 12:28 GMT"

I think someone with a sense of humour is having a complicated joke here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm

The Lumias are great. And none of the Malware or reliability and performance issues of Android.

[Dan 55]

"make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

They can't. If they really want one overarching platform they need to unify Windows 8, Win RT, and WP. But as the Win RT is tanking, Windows 8 is getting slated, and the priority for WP is probably featuring matching BB10 instead of making nice APIs I can imagine internally management are like a rabbit trapped in front of the headlights and don't really know where to go from here.

[MacroRodent]

Re: "make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

Unify? Phones are a fundamentally different form factor from desktops. What works in phones, does not work on the desktop in an usable way, and vice versa. (But of course they can share a lot of low-level code underneath; I have understood this is already the case with WP8, and the same way Android and the Linux desktop distributions share the same kernel code).

[Spearchucker Jones]

Re: "make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

"What works in phones, does not work on the desktop in an usable way"

That depends on what you mean by "what works" - if the UI, then yes, you're right. If you mean the technology stack then no. And that second one is where Microsoft should be focusing.

All three platforms (W8, WinRT, WP7 and WP8) use a declarative language (XAML) on top of an object-oriented framework (either the Windows Runtime or the .NET Framework). The languages across all platforms are C++, C#, F#, Visual Basic.NET. All there now use DirectX instead of GDI.

So XAML and languages tick the box already. What's up in the air is whether consolidating the Windows Runtime with the .NET Framework is the way to go, or unambiguously separate them into current (Windows Runtime) and legacy (.NET Framework).

XAML is the ace in the hole though - it lets you quickly skin a new presentation layer on top of an existing application and data layer, which is !almost! portable between Presentation Foundation on the desktop, Windows Runtime and Windows Phone.

[Dan 55]

Re: "make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

It's the almost part which means its not unified. You can take any technology/language/framework and one of them will be slightly different on one of the three platforms, it'll be there but you're not allowed to use it, or it'll be missing (e.g. see here).

They did a lot of behind the scenes work for WP8 but people complained that there were few visible changes from WP7. They're only about half-way there but they've got to concentrate on features instead of technology for WP8 if they don't want it to bomb.

[asdf]

Re: "make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

>XAML is the ace in the hole though

Funny I have heard a lot of devs say WPF and Xaml is a giant step back from Winforms.

Here is a good article explaining why.

http://loyc-etc.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-wpf-sucks.html

[danbi]

Re: "make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

Bla, bla..

What matter is the consistent API. If you don't have the same, consistent API across all platforms, you can't claim they are any compatible. Only XAML is not enough, especially because he mobile and desktop UIs are by definition different and expressing both in XAML makes no difference.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

Careful. You said 'C++'. Transferable skill.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "make its phone OS its priority number one (and two and three)"

They are already unified. They all run the same kernel....

[Anonymous Coward]

Still Hope for Nokia

If it adopts a platform agnostic approach.

Imagine offering, WIndows 8, Android and other platforms on its hardware. will be a surefire winner due to its quality assurance and supply side management/logisitcs pedigree.

IF possible, even revive Meego, Maego, Symbian, whatever.

This could be its last chance saloon moment and could make out to be the the biggest turnaround in its corporate history.

HTC does, Samsung does it, Huawei and LG do it, Why cant Nokia make multiple platform handsets? And if ego is the problme due to Elop at the helm, get rid of him and get someone with an open mind, having no hangups about Microsoft sugar daddy.

[Raumkraut]

Re: Still Hope for Nokia

I'd bet dollars to salmiakki that one of the requirements of Nokia's "favoured partner" agreement with Microsoft is that they remain bound tightly to WinPho for the duration of the agreement. Any move to platform agnosticism will likely result in Microsoft withdrawing their regular support payments, and probably an increase in the WinPho licensing fees as well (or at least a "warning" that they may "have to").

[Shagbag]

Life Support Payments

"Any move to platform agnosticism will likely result in Microsoft withdrawing their regular support payments."

If MSFT did that, NOKIA would be dead. MSFT is turning NOKIA into a heroin addict where the heroin is MSFT subsidies. The more this goes on, the more "going cold turkey" is no longer an option. At that point, NOKIA will have no choice but to become an operating division of MSFT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Still Hope for Nokia

The licensing fees on all 10 of the Lumia handsets they have managed to sell to real punters?

[Andus McCoatover]

Re: Still Hope for Nokia

"I'd bet dollars to salmiakki..."

Oh, ta. I promised my daughter a couple of packs of salmiakki. Forgot. Ta muchly for the reminder...

(Salmiakki is a Finnish candy, based on licorice, that has the same effect on non-Finnish girls as eating garlic before a first date, farting during it, or requesting (same date) the Karaoke Lapland singing style of Joiku - which to me is the sound you would make if your toenails were being pulled out, one-by-one)

[JDX]

Re: Still Hope for Nokia

The article made the point that Nokia focusing on WinPho is what makes the ahndsets good. If they have to fragment their resources -which are now rather limited - they might turn out half-baked products on both sides.

[PrivateCitizen]

The PAYG Nokias are quite cheap indeed (at least if you use 3's prices as a guide) compared to comparable phones from Samsung or Apple. It seems a good way of checking if people buy the brand or the price.

It should be interesting to see where this goes and I am a big fan of there being more competition in the mobile phone space.

[Andrew_b65]

Metro light touch makeover?

Nokia could be on the right track when even El Reg is going for a light touch Metroish-style makeover.

Square corners, big typefaces, grid layout. Looks much more, modern...

[Anonymous Coward]

'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

The market would appear to strongly disagree.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

The jury is still out on that, and we'll only know in a year or two's time.

But what if MS see retail buyers as secondary to business users? IN MS shoes, yes I'd want to have something shiney to put in the shops to sell retail, but the real long term value is not through shop sales to individuals, but through getting business users on board. Eat the lunch that RIM used to enjoy, take back business users from Android, sell related services, reduce the corporate traction of other platforms.

Most corporate IT buyers don't care about apps. They want a decent mobility solution based on phone, email, text, maybe IM. A few built in fripperies like mobile internet and navigation are welcome, but third party apps count for nothing. They want t it to be secure, play nicely with the existing IT infrastructure.

A mid to low end smartphone with MS software really ought to do that, and if few retail users buy it, does that matter? I wouldn't buy a WP8 phone, but of far more importance to MS is whether my employers would buy 10,000 of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

"Most corporate IT buyers don't care about apps."

What testicles, a lot of corporate services are moving app based. Have you been living under a stone the last 2 years ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

> The jury is still out on that, and we'll only know in a year or two's time.

No it isn't. We've already had a year or two. We already know.

[dogged]

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

Does it?

How many Androids were sold in the first two years of the OS's life?

[David Hicks]

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

@ dogged - "How many Androids were sold in the first two years of the OS's life?"

The original G1 sold pretty well, IIRC, though not barnstormingly so. However this is not the first year of Windows Phone is it?

"Coming soon, new awseome phone OS! Look, all these bloggers say its the best thing ever for users and developers even though there's no way anyone has got one yet and we just announced it yesterday! And it's got so many apps! Look! Shiny! No of course the last one didn't sell very well, it was crap. But this new one is revolutionary"

Which then turns to - "Well yes, of course all these features you like from iOS and Android are missing, it's a new OS, give it time, Windows Phone has only been out a few months hasn't it? And of course the sales are slow, duh, new platform!"

Are we going to have to watch the same pattern with Win Phone 9?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

The market would appear to strongly disagree.

Hardly had time to do that yet, or do you mean it wasnt an overnight sell out means the market has utterly rejected it for all time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

Erm, but the Lumia's WERE a sell out initially.

[cyberdemon]

Still using my faithful old N900

And still very happy with it.

The platform is just about staying alive DESPITE being dumped by nokia two years ago.. Applications like Yappari (a Whatsapp client) are still making releases.

It strikes me that if Nokia had stuck with their Maemo platform instead of sacrificing it to the gods of Redmond, it could have been a game-changer for the whole industry.

[Spearchucker Jones]

Re: Still using my faithful old N900

I *really* like my Lumia 920, but still have and use my old N900. Resistive touch feels pretty dated now, but the OS is built like the Lumia 920's hardware - it's a tank. I love that N900. My all-time favourite Nokia was the E90 though. Still have it, but don't use it.

[Philip Lewis]

Re: Still using my faithful old N900

I use my N9 every day

[mmeier]

Re: Still using my faithful old N900

I had the N770 and N800. Nice units but software development was a PITA. Never understood why Nokia did not enable the JAVA features in the CPU and / or produced a Java(ME) VM. Would have been a boost for the little units and back than ME was still a contender.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: Still using my faithful old N900

> N800. ... software development was a PITA.

Then you were doing it wrong. I wrote using Python, SQLite3 and Glade (UI design software) and the applications ran unchanged on Linux, N800 and Windows.

[mmeier]

Re: Still using my faithful old N900

No - just not with a snake, I am mainly a JAVA developer these days. Could offer C/C++, 68k assembler and Fortran77 (as well as VB, VB.NET, DICOL, Step5, C# and some SQL dialects). Java was totally out and C would required a rather complex sandbox setup IIRC.

[IHateWearingATie]

I think it was worth a shot

I think the 'get into bed with MS' strategy was the best alternative at the time. Remember, their products were not great and their technical bureaucracy was incapable of producing but internal fights were easier. The alternatives were to go android and fight toe to row with HTC et al ( not an inviting prospect) or try and carry on with the internally developed new tech which was stuck in the mud.

MS have a reputation for throwing money and resources at things until they get them right, and that must have been attractive to Nokia at the time - first mover advantage and better integration on a platform that MS will just keep throwing money at until it succeeds.

It may not be working yet (and MS may yet fail) but it gave them breathing space (especially from investors ) to get their engineering depts back in a good place and be in a better position to slug it out on android should MS fail.

[Dan 55]

Re: I think it was worth a shot

If you've ever seen an N9 in action you'd have a different opinion. BlackBerry have taken a year and a half since it was released to come up with something very similar.

[MacroRodent]

Re: I think it was worth a shot

> to get their engineering depts back in a good place

Only if you define "good place" as "the street, looking for a job"...

Actually, startups have been increasing in Finland recently due to talented people having been kicked out of Nokia. That may yet turn out to be a blessing: the tech sector is no longer so dependent on one big company.

[Vic]

Re: I think it was worth a shot

> MS have a reputation for throwing money and resources at things until they get them right

DialsForSure?

Vic.

[TheVogon]

Re: I think it was worth a shot

Office? Windows? Xbox? Servers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I think it was worth a shot

> MS have a reputation for throwing money and resources at things until they get them right

*cough*sendo*cough*

[james 68]

Hmm...

looks more like an iphone than the galaxy s does.

how long before apple sue i wonder?

[David Hicks]

Re: Hmm...

Apple will only sue if it becomes a threat. To become a threat they would have to sell some!

[Anonymous Coward 101]

Re: Hmm...

Nokia have a strong patent portfolio. Apple actually pay money to Nokia for every iPhone sold.

I expect Apple will not sue Nokia.

[james 68]

Re: Hmm...

...and apple buy the majority of their electronicy parts from samsung - that wont stop em

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm...

I expect Nokia will not copy Apple and therefore Apple will not sue Nokia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm...

> Nokia have a strong patent portfolio.

Which they are already selling off to trolls.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's no "power user"

I've been using my WinPhone for almost one year now and quite frankly I don't quite agree that the blogwriter is "on the money". In fact; if you call yourself a "hardcore user" and eventually give up with the installation of your previous apps. because its too tedious then you're basically showing your own ignorance.

I'd expect any "power user" who (I quote): "Yep, that wouldn’t be me - as a “hardcore” smartphone users – I need all the new apps, new features, timely updates, good support and the list goes on."

I'm by -far- a power user, merely a casual business / techfreak user yet even I managed to come across ReInstaller. A free app which does just that: re-install everything in your purchased list. Its also not that hard to find: simply search for "reinstaller" and you'll find it.

A "power user" giving up on a task while there's an app for it ?

And when it comes to his endless list of shortcomings I can't help wonder why he got a WinPhone in the first place. I can understand the desire for a notification centre, I don't agree with it because the live tiles work fine for me, but I can see where he's coming from. However... He claims to be a power user yet gives us: "Fair enough but am I supposed to sit blankly at the screen every second of the day or wait 30 minutes for a tile to be updated or better yet wait for a push notification to come and decide to pick between a sip of coffee or clicking on the notification before it goes to a never to be discovered black hole?".

What black hole? That's totally bogus; the notifications only disappear when you activated 'm. When I see "5" on my e-mail tile I know there are 5 unread messages. When I click it the 5 disappears. Which by itself is something which annoys some real power users: they want an option to make it so that the 5 only disappears when they actually read (or handled) all 5 new messages.

Well; and quite frankly its about there when I gave up reading on that rant blog. I mean really; VPN is a mandatory feature on a smartphone ? Heck, I wonder if he actually knows that you can adjust the interval in which the phone checks for new e-mail.

Doesn't mean I disagree with his points perse; there are quite a few things which should be fixed on the WP platform. But there is a difference between constructive criticism or a rant which makes some people wonder why you'd got that phone in the first place. Sounds like the "I gave into the hype, bought a phone, now I hate it" kind of thing.

[Pie]

Re: That's no "power user"

Unfortunately the Reinstall app is no longer working.

[Mystic Megabyte]

Oi!

"Did you dream that at one point, Nokia decided to give all its phones the same name, such as C3,"

Don't knock my C1-01, it makes phone calls very well.

If I get mugged they can have it, I'm not putting up a fight that.

I won't be buying a WinPhone, I will maybe just wait a another year to get my first smartphone. I might even go for an Ubuntu phone, at least I will have more trust that my data is not be sucked up somewhere.

[JDX]

Re: Oi!

And of course nobody will want to nick that either.

[TeeCee]

Dream vs. Reality.

Did you dream that at one point, Nokia decided to give all its phones the same name, such as C3, differentiated only by an extension number?

You mean like "Lumia nnn"?

[RyokuMas]

Give it another year...

While I can't verify accuracy, this is worth looking at.

Yes, I've linked this before. Just as I've made this sort of point before.

It took Android the best part of three years to gain traction against the iPhone - of course, it has since exploded, but it is possible this has nothing to do with Android itself. And of course, this was in a still relatively new market field.

It's a shame that unit sales per month/year for the Windows Phone since launch seem to be available (and I'm talking "sold" here, not "shipped") - I haven't found them, and neither has anyone I challenged to (too busy spreading FUD, I guess). But not making them available does weaken Microsoft's position.

Competition, variety and choice are always good. Windows Phone has massive challenges ahead, especially with the new Blackberry launch being pushed as hard as it is, and some quite frankly crap decisions by Microsoft. But given the state of the market, I think writing off the Windows Phone completely at this stage is still a bit premature. This time next year I think will be the crunch point.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: Give it another year...

> I think writing off the Windows Phone completely at this stage is still a bit premature.

In 2006 Microsoft had 42% of the US smartphone market. Since then it has steadily declined to now be less than 3% (it did get above 3% in 12Q2).

Some of the reasons for the decline include letting 6 outlive its usefulness, in spite of promising a wonderful renewed phone MS released 6.5, then killed it with an incompatible 7 which in turn was dead-ended by 8.

Comparisons with the first couple of years of Android are irrelevant. MS had the market share (after a slow start with versions up to 5) but failed to keep up with more agile developments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Give it another year...

Comparisons are not irrelevant because Windows Phone is a completely new platform, and bears no resemblance to Windows Mobile.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: Give it another year...

> Windows Phone is a completely new platform, and bears no resemblance to Windows Mobile.

That, of course, was one of the problems. After waiting too long for a post-6 update the app developers got a disappointment with 6.5, and then were dumped with WP7. WP7 was then dumped too and with a history that included Zune and Kin why would anyone want to start again from fresh with WP8, yet another new platform*.

One major issue with WP is that the hardware, at least many aspects of it, were laid down at the start and are controlled by MS. For example the SoCs can only be from a limited range and for WP8 were controlled to the extent that OEMs could only deal with specific manufacturers for specific part numbers. These were set a year ago and in a year's time will be obsolete. This means that, like WP7, WP8 will not have 'bragging rights' for technical superiority.

* While there are some aspects of WP8 that are continuance from WP7 there are enough differences to make redevelopment necessary.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Give it another year...

> Comparisons are not irrelevant because Windows Phone is a completely new platform, and bears no resemblance to Windows Mobile.

Oops.

[JDX]

Re: Give it another year...

MS have now got themselves to the point their phone OS is as good as the competitors, give or take... for the majority not techies who like tinkering.

So now it's basically just inertia. Can they pay their way through or is the market sewn up? It might seem 'obviously' the latter but Windows had the desktop sewn up and Apple is slowly eating out a respectable bite of this.

Maybe time for some brand awareness to grow and they can. Probably a long haul thing though... even Android started off slowly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Give it another year...

> While I can't verify accuracy, this is worth looking at.

> Yes, I've linked this before. Just as I've made this sort of point before.

One of the links on the very same page will take you to another article on the same site by the same commentator in which he explains why Nokia must now embrace Android.

[Matt_payne666]

I cant belive no one has mentioned the lack of a 'backup and restore phone' option in winpho8! yes your app list gets saved and you can re-download them, but any data will be lost and hardly any apps have an export option... yes, your contacts get synced, but if you add images to the contacts those don't get restored when you reset and restore your phone...

Migrating one win8 phone to the next should be as painless as an iPhone, back up backs up the whole phone, restore restores the whole phone... simple! people do loose phones, people do break phones and people might possibly want to upgrade one win8 phone to another...

[Krystanimyth]

Really?

Have you tried the Win8 phone? It links to SkyDrive and you can back everything up. You can even save pictures on the fly by default. I had switched jobs and phones - and my new Win7 phone picked up so much just with a few login inputs it was amazing. The same when I wife got her Win8 upgrade. It wasn't even a restore, it was more or less just done. Apps are a different story, but honestly I almost found that to be a blessing in disguise - when it comes down to it I found myself using maybe a dozen apps, but I had 100 or so. Now I just have the dozen, and feel a bit wiser and waste less time.

[Matt_payne666]

Re: Really?

Yep, I have had a Lumia920 since launch day... and have had to do a hard reset to find that all my app data had gone down the pan, my homescreen needed setting back up and lots of the contacts were screwed.

The phone does backup to skydrive and I checked the settings before I restored... losing all my car fuel data was a sod! as was the only game I had played... neither app having the ability to export data...

[W. Anderson]

unknown details on Microsoft Nokia deal

Because Andrew Orlowski has no intimate knowledge of the terms and conditions of the Microsoft-Nokia deal, he should not speculate as to whether Microsoft or Nokia received the benefits "supposedly" promised or calculated, since the usual business practices may not apply.

Several long time experts in the field of business cooperatives of this nature speculated some time ago that it would make no difference to Stephen Elop if Nokia got shafted in the deal and remained unprofitable, as he was very well $$compensated by Microsoft directly to ensure that the Nokia Windows 8 smartphones got produced, irrespective of any worthwhile Nokia sales gains.

Under those circumstances Stephen Elop comes out smelling like roses financially, no matter Nokia's future. He can always quit and move elsewhere to another company that Microsoft wishes to exploit through his servitude to Redmond.

[dogged]

Re: unknown details on Microsoft Nokia deal

Several long time experts in the field of business cooperatives of this nature

all of whom wear hats made from tinfoil, by any chance?

[something]

This would be a nice article....

... if it was for a company like HTC or a boutique shop...

However for a company at the size of Nokia??? No way.

I think there is one rule... dont put your faith in the hands of another. Nokia had internally whatever they wanted and also had the ability to license multiple other operating systems. Throwing away in virtually one night all the work that they had done with Symbian, Maemo/Meego and whatever else was something that one should put Elop to stand trial.

Even Samsung which now is the king of the mill with Android, is always looking for alternatives (they have internally Bada and are involved in the name-of-the-jour Linux flavor Meego, they use Android, Windows etc).

Nokia had massive R&D. What do they have now? How can they be at the forefront again? By simply putting together a nice package? Come on...

It is just a shame to see the demise of a company like that...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gadget Show

TV's Gadget Show anointing the £150 midget gem as the best budget smartphone and even the best Windows phone.

Follow the marketing money, via the sponsors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Gadget Show

Currys and PC world are currently the sponsors of the Gadget show. How many phones do they sell? What is their interest in pushin MS' phone OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Gadget Show

Indeed! A show that is bookended by Windows Phone adverts - is it any surprise they gushed over the 620? The Gadget Show is purely for entertainment, it long ago stopped being a worthwhile or credible show that reviewed gadgets.

[petur]

N9

"all the while the long-slated successor Meego failed to arrive"

Either this sentence misses 'to' somewhere in the middle (preferably right before 'Meego'), or the author never heard of the N9. It got very good reviews and was promptly killed by restricting the countries where it was available.

[diodesign]

Re: N9

"the author never heard of the N9"

Rest assured, we have.

C.

[Krystanimyth]

My WP7

I have to laugh at all the people who don't like the Windows Phone. Even my "old" 7.5 HTC Titan is pretty awesome. I have used Blackberry and Droid phones, and would never again. I refuse to pay Apple to join the Cult, so I have to be honest and admit I cannot compare user experiences. The whole App comparisson is a bit over blown though, and I can sum it up this way: search the Apple and Google app ecosystem for "weather" and see how many hundreds, if not thousands, of apps come up. I believe Apple and Google could easily have 10 times as many weather apps as Microsoft - but all 3 platforms can get Weather.com's app and a bunch of others, and all 3 can get the weather information needed.

I have also noted Microsoft's Phone OS includes a bunch of features that other OS platforms have Apps for. I was at dinner a couple of friends, one with an iPhone, one with a Droid, and my with my Windows Phone, when a song started playing. We could not remember the name of the familiar tune, so they started talking about their cools apps for that - I just hit my search button and tapped the microphone and it was found. No app, built-in. Similarly I have a UPC/Picture/Book title type function, hit seach, and the camera icon and it finds it. No app needed, again, built-in.

Best of all? So far my phone is rock-solid stable, and no update has broken a single thing. My phone doesn't crash/spontaneously reboot (Droid?!) and my last updates didn't break my phone or enterprise mail systems (Apple?!). You keep you million apps and market share, I will keep the best phone I have ever used.

[Bad Beaver]

Poweruser?

The reason why the new BBs will sell like hot cakes is that they bothered to come out with a product that "powerusers" crave: One with a physical keyboard.

A touch-only device can never keep up with that. I use Swype on my N9 (still the best touch phone in existence and possibly also one of the worst "political" fuckups ever) which makes for a very good crutch but it is still not the same and it makes for a completely different writing experince. Touch keyboards without Swype? No. Just no. You can still pick up the E6 and E72 for a reason. Running Symbian. Ha.

BB will likely also let people do all sorts of stuff they expect from a "powerusers" device such as proper BT file transfer and all the other nasty worky stuff. You know, the stuff you used to take for granted on Symbian and MeeGo devices and that nobody at MS botherted to implement since "hey, Apple doesn't do that".

Let's all hope for Jolla not to screw up.

[mmeier]

Oh yes, real keyboards are nice. Even the small ones are a lot better than pure touch.

OTOH pure touch ist (thankfully) dying again with the new Atom-based penables. And if having to choose between a 7'' mail client (as nice as QNX is - used in the early 1990s) or a 10'' tablet pc - I lug around the tablet pc. With 3G (or external router) it can replace smartphone and notebook.

[Charlie Clark]

Welcome to the Muppet Show

Does anyone else think that Eadon & Dogged are the Waldorf & Stadler of Vulture Central?

[dogged]

Re: Welcome to the Muppet Show

Upvoted.

I should really just let him spew his bile everywhere and either never read comments or find a different site, I guess. The sad part is once upon a time, I would probably have agreed with him (although not with his rampant obsession). At age 43 with less idealism and more realism, I can admit that I was wrong about MS. They're just a company that makes and sells software and Bill Gates is not the devil; he's a man doing his best for people. The older I get and the more I learn, the more I think that even Steve Ballmer is just a guy who loves Microsoft (I don't think this can be argued, actually) and just wants it to make the best stuff.

Oddly, I prefer that to a company that collects and sells data about people so although I can't see that I'll ever replace linux/debian as OS/distro of choice, the whole new "ANDROID IS THE WAY AND THE TRUTH" thing disturbs me. For a start, it's the least "open" linux distro ever created.

Second, its job is to be spyware. I'll take MS over that any day of the week. At least they don't pretend their code is open source.

[mmeier]

Re: Welcome to the Muppet Show

At the end of the day the question is: Did the gear what I wanted for a resonable price and with good stability. If yes - everything is fine. iOS can not deliver, Android can not deliver. Maybe WP8 can.

[A Butler]

Lumia 820 rocks even easy to fix.

Just last week my wife broke the screen on her Lumia 820, thought it was the end of the world, she had to suffer an olde button handset for 3 days while it was fixed.

On the plus side it was an easy, relatively cheap fix, dropped it off at a local Nokia repair center they ordered the outer layer touch part of the screen fixed it up all for 70euros. The service guy said the phone is lovely to repair and really serviceable.

She is now happy, just raves about the phone, even droid and iphone users really like the package.

Their is a lot of old button phone users and this is where the Lumia 620 comes in, Nokia just needs to believe in the product and flood the worldwide market at the right price with the device and it will sell, Windows phone 8 is the best OS when upgrading from an olde push button phone.

Apple have nothing at the 150euro price point, all almost all the Android devices are cheap and nasty; the horrible Samsung Ace comes to mind.

[Gadgety]

Nokia 2008 annual earnings €74bn???

Nokia, the most profitable company ever!! €74bn earnings on a €50.7bn turnover in 2008. Now, that's impressive! It would yield a 146% Return on Sales... No wonder Apple wanted to get in on this market. In fact the US government would prefer to start selling mobile phones than printing money.

Where did you find these numbers?? In fact Nokia's turnover was down by 1% and profit down by 38% compared to 2007.

[Gadgety]

"During what I call the "years of madness" - sweeping from Nokia's peak in 2007* to the Elopocalypse - good reviews were rare. "

What does rare mean? What is a good review? The Nokia N900 received with very, very favorable reviews. Complaints were about it not being launched by Nokia in the UK, US etc. There were even a gray imports for the N900. It's swipe interface received a lot of positive attention, as did it's one piece, machined shell.

[Cyrus Lesser]

You've got to be joking!

Wake me up when Windows Phone 8 can do everything that Windows Mobile 6 could do, like USB cable sync with Outlook Notes, Tasks, Calendar and Contacts. What moron decided that users didn't want ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center functionality any more?

[TheVogon]

Re: You've got to be joking!

Welcome to the 21st Century. No need for cables anymore, or syncing via your email client. It's over the air and direct to the email server these days....