Nokia Is On Fire

[Crushdepth]

Nokia's new CEO has given a damning assessment of the company, saying the 'our platform is burning'. And he's opened the possibility of a) dumping Symbian and adopting other platforms like Android or Windows etc.

Must be a rocket scientist?

[Totster]

vhs / betamax

totster

[bangkokburning]

I bought a 5233 6mos ago. It was 5K all in (cable, screen protector, case) and appeared to meet all my needs ( I have an issue spending big money on a phone )The largest - ability to use as a modem w/ stable set of drivers, etc...I regret it.

Ovi Suite is literally made for children and very simple people from very developing nations. The apps are so silly, weak and pathetic next to worthless.

The interface itself is classic Nokia - but I am very tired of this look.

I detest the layout/hierarchy of the phones icons and placement (so I have relo'd them all). It is super complicated and some functions have 2 even 3 ways to lauch a function. I have all sorts of other minor issues as well.

I have DLd two OVI Suite massive file upgrades over GPRS hoping for new features and fresh look - but nothing, bug fixes. Just DLd whopping 128mb to the phone - phone is snappier, but the look is the SOS. I went back to PC Suite just to get away from the rubbish but this interface is VERY old and lacking - BUT they have included new buttons for all sorts of crap like upgrade to OVI, music...

Nokia is FINNISHed in the developed world.

Symbian w/ a stable SPB shell for a cheap price would be a real winner for business people in Africa and the ME. Other than that its "pull my finger" apps and cheap phones.

LOSERS

[Crushdepth]

As much as I bag them out, I think Nokia can recover - if they dump Symbian in the trash and start shipping Android/Windows phones very quickly. They know how to build a good phone, quality isn't an issue.

Their problem has been their incredible and ongoing denial of how crap Symbian is and how outdated their 30s are. And their refusal to jump onto obviously superior (and free) platforms such as Android where someone else has done 90% of the engineering for them (they can't afford to test the waters with even one model??). And their - I lack adequate words to describe - assertion that they are (and I quote) "a software company".

Adapt or die, dinosaur.

[nikster]

As much as I bag them out, I think Nokia can recover - if they dump Symbian in the trash and start shipping Android/Windows phones very quickly. They know how to build a good phone, quality isn't an issue.

Their problem has been their incredible and ongoing denial of how crap Symbian is and how outdated their 30s are. And their refusal to jump onto obviously superior (and free) platforms such as Android where someone else has done 90% of the engineering for them (they can't afford to test the waters with even one model??). And their - I lack adequate words to describe - assertion that they are (and I quote) "a software company".

Adapt or die, dinosaur.

As long as Nokia is still around, they can certainly recover - they can, after all, produce hardware, and get it shipped on a very large scale.

All they need to do is switch to Android while they're figuring out what their competitive edge might be going forward.

I am hoping they'll also realize that they are not a software company, which is the whole reason for this mess. They need to fire their entire software dept. and start from scratch.

Windows phones at this point should be considered an experiment - there should be one model, and if it turns a hit, great. But I think it's much more likely the world will go Android / iPhone, and that's it. The problem with WP7 is, there is absolutely no reason to choose it over Android: Android is better, Android has more software, is more of a standard, and Android is free. Google is behind Android. WP7 has going for it... MS is behind it - that's pretty much it. And it's not much worse than the competition. While that's good enough for a new version of Windows, it's not good enough for a brand new mobile OS, which, as it turns out, is also utterly unsuited to run on tablets. WP7 is DOA as far as I am concerned - not because it's bad, just because it's not needed.

[thrilled]

for just a phone they do ok.for A smart phone they have A ways to go

[lomatopo]

Nokia has an interesting history, having been around since ~ 1860's, with wood, paper and rubber products (rubber boots and car tires), so they may be able to survive. They should probably split the handset/phone business up, at least internally, into two or three separate business units allowing one to focus on Android, one on low-margin handsets and one on apps., thereby spurring internal competition and innovation. (I was a Nokia employee for ~ 3 years when they bought a start-up where I worked. I spent ~ 30% of my time in Finland and was impressed with the people and company. I sold all my stock long ago; I still have AAPL though. )

[Phil Conners]

It's getting worse. Nokia wants to partner with MicroSlush. The blind leading the deaf.

[lomatopo]

Yes, this link-up with Microsoft seems to be pretty desperate, and certainly disappointing, but maybe not altogether unexpected given Elop's previous employer? Maybe this is what the Board wanted when they hired him, but it isn't what I would have wanted.

Nokia to Use Microsoft Software in Smartphones

Published: February 11, 2011

LONDON Nokia, the struggling world leader in mobile phones, on Friday said it would discard its own cellphone operating system for software made by Microsoft, in an alliance of market leaders designed to shore up their halting efforts in smartphones.

The announcement by Stephen Elop, the former Microsoft executive hired by Nokia in September as the companys first non-Finnish chief executive, was a dramatic admission of failure by Nokia, the proud world leader in handsets that helped define the mobile age in its infancy.

At the same time, the alliance, made ahead of a Nokia investors conference in London, is a bold gamble, a perhaps last-ditch effort for both Nokia and Microsoft, which dominates the desktop and laptop software market, to gain a lasting foothold in the booming smartphone business.

Full article here --> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/technology/12nokia.html?src=busln

[nikster]

Hmm... I don't usually short stock but in this case...

Succinct tweet from a Google exec the same day - quoting a former Nokia Exec, no less: Two turkeys together don't make an eagle.

I didn't know they'd hired a former Microsoft exec as CEO. I suppose the writing was on the wall then. This is such a hare-brained move, it's beyond comprehension.

[nikster]

Here's an interesting view - this is a plain takeover of Nokia by Microsoft, and for $0Bn.

http://www.appleoutsider.com/2011/02/11/nokia/

Ex-MS executives now run Nokia. The only thing that makes me wonder is.... why, Nokia, why?

[MJo]

Let's face it, mobiles will be the same as pc's in near future. You buy your phone based on spec like screen and processor etc and then you buy OS of your preference or use one the free open source ones.

For Nokia choosing MS i kind of understand the logic behind the decision. They negotiated also with Google but Android is not exactly free either. It is also already established with all the competition like Samsung and HTC. So why become one the many hardware vendors for Android when you can partner with Microsoft that have first WP7 release, and very good first release, out already. What i have seen it looks much better than first Android release. Nokia can also make it better together with MS and develop their own twist into it to differ from others using "standard" WP7. I understood they got the right to tweak the WP7 as part of the deal.

Also remember that MS is dominating the pc side. MS Office and Exchange servers are the norm. Expect WP to have superior sync and other features with office and emails etc in near future compared to iOS or Android. For corporate market that's big advantage.

[nikster]

Let's face it, mobiles will be the same as pc's in near future. You buy your phone based on spec like screen and processor etc and then you buy OS of your preference or use one the free open source ones.

I don't think so. In fact, it's moving in the opposite direction already: Even PCs are not going to be bought / sold like that anymore. As with any other gadgets, what you can do with them moves to the foreground, rather than what kind of tech is inside them. Do you know what kind of processor your DVD player is running? Or your XBOX? Nobody cares, because it's not important - you want to play DVDs, or play games.

iPad and Android tablets are blazing a trail here. Desktop PCs based on specs are still going to be sold - it's just going to be a minority and for niche market applications.

WP clearly will gain from PC integration - but MS needs to be pretty careful - if they simply cut off the other OSs - and Exchange server 2007 for example is an open spec so they'd have to close it down again - then they might lose the server market as well. That's because in effect the services offered by Exchange server and other MS server technology are trivial - they could easily be replicated by open source alternatives - there's already a few out there I am sure.

The issue with this is also that Blackberry is the big player in corporate sync. Microsoft can challenge, but they're the underdog.

Anyway the reason I think WP will fail has nothing to do with that - I think it's going to fail because of two reasons:

- Lack of technology at Microsoft. Microsoft historically never produced "good" software - software that's adaptable, that can change easily, that can be molded into something new, in short that's flexible. MS has done very well with the "put together a hack and then keep improving it" method. I don't think that's going to cut it going forward.

- Lack of imagination at MS. That starts at the top. It's not entirely their own fault of course, it's pretty hard to come up with new ways of making money when the best investment you can make is in ensuring the old ways keep making money; Billions of basically free money every quarter depend on the MS Windows monopoly so the companies priority must always be to protect that.

They've done a good thing with the XBOX but I think that's mainly because they're up against equally corporate and technologically incompetent competition - Sony. They're playing the game console game well but they haven't exactly out-invented anyone.

GOOD LORD, SORRY FOR THE LENGTH!

[Crushdepth]

Apparently Microsoft paid Nokia a very large sum of money to dump its own crappy OS and switch to Windows.

It's an improvement for Nokia's situation but I don't think this story is going to have a happy ending. It's amazing to me that they aren't building Android phones as well.

[MJo]

I still think it's very possible that in few years when you buy a phone. Granted, you might not be interested in the hw spec that much but when purchasing you can choose if you want it on Android, WP7 or something else. Although it seems to be that Android and WP7 has different hw platform still but Chinese are good with this. Coming up a hw that supports both. There was some new numbers on market shares earlier this week in the news and seems that Chinese el cheapo manufacturers are gaining ground in low end market, the market Nokia is still dominating.

I also agree that WP7 is the underdog, that's why i believe Nokia went with Microsoft. More risky but more to gain. Android would have made them just another low margin hw manufacturer. But i would not be that surprised to see Android in Nokia phones in a couple of years time. Especially in very probable scenario that WP7 is not the next big thing in smart phones.

[Crushdepth]

But they *are* just another low margin hw manufacturer, they just don't want to admit it. The high end of the market belongs to Apple, the mid range is rapidly being devoured by Android. What's left?

The thing is there's *nothing wrong* with being a hardware manufacturer and Nokia are very good at it. But they need to realise that they are appallingly bad at software development (Symbian, PC Suite, argh) and they really need to stop.

Microsoft has two incredibly successful software products - Windows and Office. Nearly everything else they have tried on the consumer side is a disaster. I quite like previous versions of Windows mobile, but they were not successful in the same way that iOS and Android have been.

I hear very good things about the new version but Microsoft just doesn't have the sex appeal to beat Apple on the high end and they just don't have the capacity to out-engineer Google on the mid range. And they move far too slowly to keep pace with either of those companies.

The good news is there are a lot of people out there that just want to make phone calls. And their number will keep growing for quite some time.

[nikster]

Apparently Microsoft paid Nokia a very large sum of money to dump its own crappy OS and switch to Windows.

Interesting - I guess the "takeover" theory wasn't a bad one. MS won a big coup and pretty much bought Nokia without actually buying them. But they have to pay $Bns....

A duopoly would have big ramifications for everyone, he said. "A decision to go with Windows Phone creates a very different dynamic," Elop said. "It's an environment where now, Windows Phone is a challenger."

It's funny that whenever Elop tries to explain why this is a good thing, it comes out as a good thing for Microsoft. How this is supposed to be a good thing for Nokia is very unclear.

With Android, Nokia could have customized it like crazy, make a whole app suite to add value, and also keep options open with MeeGo; I'd have recommended developing their own in-house branch of Android where they can drop Google whenever they want - that's possible thanks to it being an open source OS. You stay in control of your destiny. As it is... two turkeys don't make an eagle.

[raro]

very smart move to hook up with M$. As others said already, they had the choice of being just another Android Phone or going in the business market with the assumed (but in reality crappy - for WP6.1 that is, never tried it with WP7) syncing advantage with Windows computers, thus going against Blackberry. Risky, yes, but if done well this can be a threat to BB. After all, the hardware of Nokia was always superior. Personally I would have welcomed a Nokia with Android and will never ever buy a Windows based phone again.