Posts by jmal555

We're Finnished: Nokia replaces CEO Rajeev Suri in industry Lundmark decision

Jäähyvästi = stay well

Jäähyväiset = farewell

What a load of bollards! Object of bloke's street furniture romp run over

Sounds like an autoerotic accident.

... I'll get me coat.

Nokia: Oops, financials aren't great. Never mind, 5G will solve our woes

Surely the headline should've been: "Hey Suri, what's the Nokia's profit margin 2018"

Grief and disbelief greet Elop's Nokia revolution

haha...

I get thumbs down for analysing Nokia's strategy. Love it.

I love to read what bloggers and geeks write about tech companies, but don't seem to understand anything about global strategy. Only thing they analyse is if a particular phone model suits their current need or expectations.

Just look at Gizmodo or Engadget, who do exactly this, and also only concentrate on US operator provided phones & their tech specs and not on global business models and long term strategies.

Luckly The Register has wider understanding and provide quality analytical news...

clarification

yes you're right technically, but the features of S60 trickle down to S40 platform and the new S40 phones act and look like simplified S60. S40 has followed the S60 development for some time now and despite being simpler platform (no multitasking, etc) it's used widely on lower end and mid range phones.

Pretty much like iPod Touch vs the new Shuffle.

100% my own words.

My own words, based what I saw on the webcast today.

As I mentioned in my post, Meego could also be the exit strategy for Nokia in case deal with MS goes sour.

Two different companies

I think you missed a point there, Apple produces 2-3 different mobile products at the time, and uses the same team to do the work consecutively. Apple doesn't have anything to offer to emerging markets and is only now apparently bring in iPhone Nano to compete in the mid-range handset market. And yes, Apple does sell iPhone in the emerging markets, but really has no market share there, except among the 'rich'.

Nokia has multiple market segments and tens of phones for different customer groups. If Nokia was to concentrate on 2-3 devices, Nokia could cut the R&D staff in half and still produce as good devices once they get the usability sorted.

Analysts' oversights.

Windows Phone

Nokia chose to join up with the less than loved giant because the other options were slow death with dated or delayed platforms or to become an OEM for Google competing with agile Asian manufactures and losing out the Services battle rendering investments like Navteq practically worthless. Nokia chose the option, where it has most influence on its future. This alliance enables:

New, modern OS with better usability (which has been the problem with Symbian). Even though it's early days for WM7, the initial feedback has been good and much better than S^3 reviews

MS has an army of coders developing the OS, which will enables Nokia to save significantly in R&D cots

MS has enormous marketing engine and budget

Even if the first N+MS phone is not perfect, both companies have huge resources to push forward and improve the products over time until the product is mature enough (think Zune player) This is a luxury many companies don't have.

MS enables Nokia a quick, yet expensive access to North American market. Even few per cent market share with MS has more media value than Nokia's individual attempts to win over North America.

Nokia's alliance is not unique. HTC also has WM and Android phones in its portfolio. Nokia has the advantage due to its size and can use it to affect how WM will be developed in the future and how it will be integrated to Nokia services.

Symbian

Symbian will be around for a long time, but as a S40 version. Nokia has built different versions of emerging markets for a long time and today S40 Touch phones offer nearly the same user experience as the older S60 phones, such as N97. Even if S60 would be totally discontinued, the development of S40 can offer nearly similar phones as current S60 for emerging markets.

Analysts seem to forget the massive potential, which lies dormant in emerging markets. As Elop mentioned, the next billion users are waiting to access internet. Nokia with a strong foothold on those markets can offer that access. These markets have grown up with and customers have aspired to own a Nokia phone and eventually gotten it are an easy target for Nokia to build upon with new services in addition to internet, such as Nokia Money and Life Tools.

Nokia could offer WM7 phones for these markets, but due to hardware requirements, those phones will be too expensive for the masses. S40 will offer similar user experience, but much more cheaply.

Meego

On important thing to remember is that Nokia and Microsoft contract is not binding, leaving Nokia with the option to check out anytime and this might be the reason for Meego being left as an alternative platform. Meego will be developed on the side, creating new and exciting products until something so strong comes along that Nokia no longer needs Microsoft. This may never happend, but the exit strategy exists.

Another thing analysts have missed is the embedded Meego. Today Meego and WM are strong contenders for car computing. Navteq has worked years with car manufactures, so there's even more potential. Nokia builds its future on two platforms which have practically untapped market so far.

Meego will become Nokia's 'Skunkworks', where new technologies are tested, competitive advantage is created and exit strategy is being secured.

Google finally pulls Gmail contacts tool into line

Gmail revamp

Unfortunately they removed the quicklinks in the inbox toolbar to select All, Read, Unread emails etc, which I used every day. That's a downgrade in usability just to make the user interface look cleaner.