[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Mize

Not at all. Sales nosedived when Elop said their products were shit and he would discontinue Meego (Maemo was 2-3 years ago) and the would be nothing to buy until windows 7. We'll documented attempt to out do the Osborne effect.

So basically looking at their stock performance, they, as a company fell off a cliff just prior to Maemo. In other words, Nokia was a burning ship 2.5 years before Elop took over.

Amazing that he still gets the credit for something that happened so long before he took over.

Regards,
SB

[Mize]

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

Nokia needs the help of MS to stay relevant.

Uh...no, they didn't. HTC didn't. Samsung didn't. And what's more, Nokia went, as I've noted over and over, with unilateral MS exclusivity. Sure if it were bilateral with Nokia being the only source for WP7/8 (for, say 2-3 years) or if Nokia had simultaneously licensed Android or something. But Nokia in no way "needed" or "needs" to have a single OS platform.

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm not sure HTC is a good example to use here as they were sinking rather quickly as well last time I looked. They started out well, but have since plummeted rather drastically.

As far as I know of the premium Android phone makers, only Samsung is still growing. It's possible that Nokia could have had success similar to Samsung or that it could be failing as badly as HTC is now.

Regards,
SB

[Dr Evil]

Originally Posted by Mize

Uh...no, they didn't. HTC didn't. Samsung didn't. And what's more, Nokia went, as I've noted over and over, with unilateral MS exclusivity. Sure if it were bilateral with Nokia being the only source for WP7/8 (for, say 2-3 years) or if Nokia had simultaneously licensed Android or something. But Nokia in no way "needed" or "needs" to have a single OS platform.

Basically I meant that they need outside help for creating a competitive software ecosystem for their products and now it's MS, Android could have been a good solution. Hard to say how it would have worked for them. The purchase of Navteq might have been problematic for Google integration.

[Snyder]

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

Well what gives basically is that while many of you guys like to think that everything was fine before Elop took over and that profits were "at a all time high"

This is the last 5 years for you:

Yeah. That's not news. 2007-2009 were a massacre, a long string of stupid decisions and bad execution. (They still managed not to make losses in all those years!) Now look at the last three years.

Things weren't fine, they were already done, no matter what you feel about Symbian or Meego. Android or WP were the only options that ever had a chance to make them big again.

No. They weren't done. Not by a long shot. They were consistently profitable, they were still market leader ("big again"?! Seriously?), they had huge cash reserves, they had splendid carrier relations around the world (except US), they had (as the stable stock price from 2009 - Feb 2011 reflects) something resembling a sensible transition strategy for the first time in years.
They were still a bloated moloch with too much middle management infighting and the lot. And THIS was something for Elop to change - which he did, and which is a good thing! For Nokias reaction times, for their execution, for the working climate in the company.
But his strategy decisions are what hurt Nokia more than everything else the years before. His strategy decisions alone are responsible for the brutal losses (something which never occured before, not even in the worst times!) in the previous few quarters. And he has burned a lot of bridges with his WP exclusive + osborning Sym/Mee/Qt strategy (esp. with carriers) in markets where nokia was firmly entrenched before.

[wco81]

Just two years ago, Nokia shipped more smart phones than Apple, Samsung, RIMM combined, IIRC. Margins may not have been what they wanted but their volume was very high.

The burning platform memo is only a year old?

[french toast]

Originally Posted by ams

Just to further illustrate the point about opportunities lost, Nokia had developed touchscreen smartphone and tablet prototypes more than 10 years ago, but the designs went nowhere. These guys were years ahead of Apple and most other companies: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...591315494.html

Thanks for that..a brilliant insight into the convoluted and bloated managerial mess that Nokia had become...and how so far ahead of there time Nokia were developing touch screen phones with a single button that could use the internet and play music and racing games an astonishing 9 years before apple.

40 billion $ in r&d wasted....the company needed a complete restructuring from top to bottom....I still think the burning platform memo was a disaster which ever way you spin it...it didn't have to swap so fast.

[french toast]

Here is a good overview of the situation Nokia finds its self in
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07...a_q2_analysis/

The losses seem. Be slowing down..but they need a sales hit..soon.

[ToTTenTranz]

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

Well what gives basically is that while many of you guys like to think that everything was fine before Elop took over and that profits were "at a all time high"

This is the last 5 years for you:

(...)

Things weren't fine, they were already done, no matter what you feel about Symbian or Meego. (...)

Woah, you're actually convinced that things were already done with Nokia having growing profits from the smartphone division for two quarters in a row and most of the smartphone marketshare until the "elopcalypse" in February 2011?!

Talk about not being able to handle temporary defeats! That´s like quitting a Street Fighter IV match while throwing the gamepad at the TV, kicking and screaming just because the adversary got to throw two punches despite having half of your HP.


No, things weren't fine. Nokia had severe problems with execution, everyone knows that.
Symbian wasn't a future-proof solution, everyone knows that too. Nokia said so, publicly, more than a year before the elopcalypse. But Nokia had determined an upgrade path for that ecossystem, which has been proving absolutely crucial for carrier and customer relationships.

And despite all the hatred you seem to feel towards Symbian/MeeGo it doesn't make none of them such a bad platform as you make it believe.
The N9 was absolutely adored by every single reviewer, won several awards for UI and design, it actually sold better than the Lumias during a quarter despite its stupidly high price and scarce availability.
It had no Microsoft behind it, no marketing money, no developer support, Elop said it wouldn't get any sequels despite its success... and it sold almost as much as all the Lumias combined for two quarters.

This isn't "my opinion", these are facts. "Things were already done"? The goddam phone hadn't come out yet in February 2011. Elop didn't even bother to give it a chance, such was the "rush" to feed Microsoft some cookies.

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

Android or WP were the only options that ever had a chance to make them big again.

I understand Android, but tell me one - just one - intelligent reason to assume that Windows Phone 7, in February 2011, was "a chance to make them big again".

- The OS? It was tanking hard for almost two quarters before February 2011. No one was buying it, people were complaining about not being able to do the most basic things like synchronizing with Outlook 2010 or downloading an e-mail attachment. In February 2011, despite some average reviews on the UI, the WP7 was crappier than Bada (which until a couple of months ago it was still selling more than WP7.5, btw).

- Microsoft's expertize? What success was Microsoft having in anything mobile? Zune? Failure. Kin? Failure. WP7? Failure.

- Money from Microsoft? Bah, Nokia was having growing profits until February 2011. And it had something like $10B in cash. Money wasn't an issue.


So tell me: why are people assuming - besides Elop's own and apparently very successful Reality Distortion Field - that Windows Phone 7 was, in February 2011, an intelligent decision for mobile O.S.?

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

I know plenty of people who work for Nokia, many of them don't share your view of the situation. My own income (and some other close person's) is somewhat tied to Nokia doing better (no stocks), I've already took a significant hit this year do to their problems so I definitely want them to do better, I just don't think their previous strategy that already took them down was better as it would have killed them. Now I believe there is a chance.

Which makes this whole situation a lot weirder, really. How did you and all the people you mention get so pessimistic over Nokia's developments?!
Was it only the stock prices? Everyone shit their pants so much with the iphone's success that they forgot they already had a very profitable business and a established, coherent and fairly competitive ecossystem, and throw themselves into the much more obvious failure that WP7 was?

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

I don't view Elop's burning platform note as a catalyst to the nosedive, but more like an analysis on what had taken and was taking place.

Oh please, it's useless to defend Elop even with the burning memo. The guy himself admitted the memo was destructive for the sales!


You don't view it as a catalyst?!

So the CEO of a company:
1- tells the world + dog their products are shit
2 - announces the company will crap on the products and everyone who bought/develop for them
3 - offers no alternative for the products he said were shit for 8 months

And you think it wasn't a catalyst for the sales plummeting, it was just "an analysis on what had taken and was taking place"?!

What. The. F"#$%?

Analysis would have been "The competitors are offering a better smartphone experience than us, at the moment".
Analysis would have been "we're going to need to try harder on aspects A and B if we want to stay competitive".


Analysis is not, by any rational means ever, "OMG this is a burning platform! This company is doomed! Everything you've been working on for the last 5 years is complete shit! I'm gonna fire you all you bastards!

Signed, Your Boss

And now I'm gonna send this memo to everyone in the company to make sure it's on the news tomorrow morning."

I mean, how is this even defendable?! How is this even slightly rational?! How is this coming from a guy that's the head of one of the largest European companies that ever existed?!

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

So basically looking at their stock performance, they, as a company fell off a cliff just prior to Maemo. In other words, Nokia was a burning ship 2.5 years before Elop took over.

Amazing that he still gets the credit for something that happened so long before he took over.

Regards,
SB

That's an overly simplistic way to look at things, and it's how Elop wants everyone to look too. I'm dumbfounded on how successful he's been!

The truth is that Nokia's shares were overly inflated in 2007. The mobile businesses were starting to show incredible prosperity and pretty much everyone who was betting on mobile, was betting on Nokia.
The iphone comes, and many of those betting on mobile start betting on Apple instead. Android blossoms and even more investors sell their Nokia stock to bet on Google.

But the stock market is still a game of guess. That graph doesn't show sales, profits or even marketshare.
Sure, Nokia was dropping in value, it wasn't doing well. But it wasn't dead. It wasn't "done", it was further from "done" than any company will ever be.
Just look at some sales and profits numbers:






Fact 1: Ever since they entered the mobile market, Nokia didn't post losses even once until the elopcalypse in February 2011.

Fact 2: The burning memo came after two quarters of growing profits from the smartphone division. This alone is reason enough to laugh at the idea of canning everything you've got (Symbian/MeeGo) in order to throw into a proven failure (WP7).

Fact 3: Nokia wasn't firing people in the tens of thousands before the elopcalypse.

Fact 4: Nokia wasn't shutting down European factories before the elopcalypse

Fact 5: Nokia wasn't closing down European research centers before the elopcalypse

Fact 6: Nokia wasn't in need for cash, despite all the bad management, they had profits and they had $10B of cash. All the decisions on firing people, closing down factories and research centers come from the fact that they suddenly stopped selling and stopped their revenue.




OPK was bad. But he was just "poor decisions" bad. The results of his bad management had already taken their hits with the Symbian^3 series delay. After their release, things were actually going rather smooth.

Elop is bad too, but he's "destructive bad". From telling everyone in the company how bad their work is, firing people, shutting down factories, shutting down research centers, canning tens of billions worth of R&D projects, refusing to sell critically acclaimed devices on key markets, etc. he's beating the company to a pulp.
This is purely destructive. There's no other way to put it.

[Dr Evil]

Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

Woah, you're actually convinced that things were already done with Nokia having growing profits from the smartphone division for two quarters in a row and most of the smartphone marketshare until the "elopcalypse" in February 2011?!

Some poisons take time to kill you, but you are already done when it enters your circulation. That's how Nokia was done before it really showed in their financial numbers. The poison made them unable to react to the challenges presented to them by Apple and Android.

Huge market share, mind share, manufacturing advantages etc. carried Nokia far, further than their line up would have otherwise warranted.

I understand Android, but tell me one - just one - intelligent reason to assume that Windows Phone 7, in February 2011, was "a chance to make them big again".

I know how much Florin likes this, but WP7 really was just a stop gap solution at this point. Obviously Elop and Nokia had and has more information on where the WP platform is going and they certainly didn't make the jump just due to WP7. WP8 is the one that decides everything. I don't know how convincing case I can make against Android, because that could have worked. The risk there would have been going head to head against Samsung and lose that battle. Being the big fish in WP gives them some advantages if WP grows.

Which makes this whole situation a lot weirder, really. How did you and all the people you mention get so pessimistic over Nokia's developments?!
Was it only the stock prices? Everyone shit their pants so much with the iphone's success that they forgot they already had a very profitable business and a established, coherent and fairly competitive ecossystem, and throw themselves into the much more obvious failure that WP7 was?

I saw how the competition just flew past Nokia. Over here everyone used to have Nokia phones, I mean every single one. Year by year things changed. Others evolved while Nokia didn't, soon people were buying different phones and many said things like "I'll never buy Nokia again", because the new experience was so much better. In few years Nokia went from a "no brainer" to something like "yuck hell no". It was pretty clear to me that Symbian was done, even if the latest iteration is really not THAT bad.

If they lost so much ground here, things would not be great in less Nokia friendly countries.

Oh please, it's useless to defend Elop even with the burning memo. The guy himself admitted the memo was destructive for the sales!

You don't view it as a catalyst?!

So the CEO of a company:
1- tells the world + dog their products are shit
2 - announces the company will crap on the products and everyone who bought/develop for them
3 - offers no alternative for the products he said were shit for 8 months

And you think it wasn't a catalyst for the sales plummeting, it was just "an analysis on what had taken and was taking place"?!

What. The. F"#$%?

The world already knew that the products were not competitive or at least found out quickly by the time Galaxy S2 and others came out. iPhone had gained huge mind share at this point also. Imo it's more of a coincidence that Elop happened to point out some awful truths about the situation at the same time the competition was on the verge of delivering some critical blows to Nokia.

It's a pity that the transition takes a long time and the future is in danger. I just don't think that the memo was very important piece in all this. Imo Nokia's sales dropped about the amount I think their unattractive line up warranted at that time. The competition, their phones and ecosystems just flat out were much better. A trend that finally caught a company that was standing still.

That's an overly simplistic way to look at things, and it's how Elop wants everyone to look too. I'm dumbfounded on how successful he's been!

But the stock market is still a game of guess. That graph doesn't show sales, profits or even marketshare.
Sure, Nokia was dropping in value, it wasn't doing well. But it wasn't dead. It wasn't "done", it was further from "done" than any company will ever be.
Just look at some sales and profits numbers:

Fact 1: Ever since they entered the mobile market, Nokia didn't post losses even once until the elopcalypse in February 2011.

Fact 2: The burning memo came after two quarters of growing profits from the smartphone division. This alone is reason enough to laugh at the idea of canning everything you've got (Symbian/MeeGo) in order to throw into a proven failure (WP7).

Imo your graphs and interpretations are more of an over simplification and cherry picked view of the situation. The Q4 2010 results and numbers in reality weren't very good. Yes they shipped 28 million smart devices, but most of those devices were lower cost older models. While it's true that the ASP rose due to the launch of higher end Symbian^3 devices, the Symbian^3 models were already getting owned badly by the Apple and Android models. Nokia's market share numbers were bad against the growing market.

Fast forward few months and Samsung really drove it home with the Galaxy S2 and Apple getting continuously stronger, yet it was only Elop's memo that caused all the problems... No the Memo was not their problem. Things were falling apart and the memo just said what was in plain sight anyway.

[eastmen]

I'm not sure how it is in other countries but here in the united states from 2007 through 2012 I had not seen anyone with nokia phone. It wasn't until the windows 7 lumia series that i started to see any nokia phones and even then it be very very rare.

Megoo and symbian was never going to catch on in the states. In 2007/8 nokia was in the postion that blackberry finds itself in now. They have phones a smaller and smaller group of people who want and there are no life boats. Every day more people jump ship.

Andriod wouldn't have worked , just look at motorolla and espcially HTC . Nokia would have entered a crowded market and phones like the one x , galaxy s3 and viper would have stolen all their thunder.

[Mize]

eastmen...can you explain why Meego wouldn't have worked? You conclude it somehow so I'd just like to understand how you got there.

You do realize only one Meego phone was ever released, that it sold very well in the markets were available, that it was Qt based so its app base grew incredibly fast (and is still growing in spite of all things), that it was never launched in the US. How you can conclude it wouldn't ever catch on is something I'm really interested in.

As for Nokia in those years, they OWNED Asia and Europe. Pre iPhone, Symbian was king in most of the world while RIM, Palm and Windows mobile duked it out in the US.

Then to presume that Nokia couldn't take the fight to HTC and Samsung is going a stretch further. You don't think a form-factor like the Lumia 900 with a dual-core S4 running ICS would sell? I think you're wrong. The only reason the Lumia couldn't have that kind of processing power is WP7.

Anyway, love to know how you are so certain about such things.

[Mize]

Just for reference check out n9-app.com to see how many quality apps were and are being created for a phone (only one) that was released dead.

I have an N9 and I use it regularly. Certainly I use my Galaxy S3 more lately, but the N9 is a great phone that would have been a great start to a competitive player.

[french toast]

Yea exactly...remember elop put the stopprs on the n9 Christmas 2010!! As evidenced by its last gen omap 3630 when it launched mid 2011...just imagine if it hear launched on time with full world wide availability and marketing support...

Or just imagine if they had put the camera module from the n8 into it with an omap 4430??...it would have trembled sales just with the hardware alone...

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by Mize

eastmen...can you explain why Meego wouldn't have worked? You conclude it somehow so I'd just like to understand how you got there.

You do realize only one Meego phone was ever released, that it sold very well in the markets were available, that it was Qt based so its app base grew incredibly fast (and is still growing in spite of all things), that it was never launched in the US. How you can conclude it wouldn't ever catch on is something I'm really interested in.

As for Nokia in those years, they OWNED Asia and Europe. Pre iPhone, Symbian was king in most of the world while RIM, Palm and Windows mobile duked it out in the US.

Then to presume that Nokia couldn't take the fight to HTC and Samsung is going a stretch further. You don't think a form-factor like the Lumia 900 with a dual-core S4 running ICS would sell? I think you're wrong. The only reason the Lumia couldn't have that kind of processing power is WP7.

Anyway, love to know how you are so certain about such things.

I'm only talking about in the usa and its lack of mind share. Nokia might as well have been a dead brand. Ask people what meego is and they'd tell you a pokemon . Nokia had no clout left here and they needed a large brand to even enter the market. They found that with windows.


Think about a brand no one cares about and what it would take to get people to buy that brand or shop in those stores again . I guess you can look at A&P in the united states, it has lingered along in bankruptcy and just continues to close stores , no matter how they try to reinvent themselves no one cares. It would be the same with nokia going at it alone. They would simply be another company trying to compete with Iphone and Andriod and it would not end well for nokia here in the states.

[Mize]

You realize that Apple is a comeback brand, right?

So was nintendo...Marvel...Volkswagen...Lego...etc.

So much for that theory.

[wco81]

Sounds like MS got Elop to kill a potential competitor, so that WP had a better chance to emerge as the third option to iOS and Android.

[french toast]

Elop unleashes his grand vision for microkia..
" CEO Stephen Elop revealing that the company’s “aim is to become the ‘Where?” company.” Just as Google became the go-to place for “What?” and Facebook for “Who?”,"

http://www.slashgear.com/nokias-elop...pany-19239317/

Are you excited yet....

[Florin]

Where is my WP8 upgrade?
Where do we dump these unsold Lumias?
Where in China did they ship my job?
Where does this Elop guy live?
Where can I buy tar and feathers?
Where can I get more armed security guards real quick?

Yeah that's just perfect. I have new found respect for the man.

[tuna]

Originally Posted by eastmen

I'm only talking about in the usa and its lack of mind share. Nokia might as well have been a dead brand. Ask people what meego is and they'd tell you a pokemon . Nokia had no clout left here and they needed a large brand to even enter the market. They found that with windows.

The thing is, the US phone market is not that big compared to others (such as the china market). If Nokia loses in the US but wins everywhere else, Nokia wins.

[wco81]

There were some cheap Nokia clamshells of all types.

Nokia smart phones were for those willing to pay hundreds to import.

[Mize]

The thing is, the US phone market is not that big compared to others (such as the china market). If Nokia loses in the US but wins everywhere else, Nokia wins.

thing is...Nokia was #1 in China pre Elop...no longer.

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by Mize

You realize that Apple is a comeback brand, right?

So was nintendo...Marvel...Volkswagen...Lego...etc.

So much for that theory.

I'm not sure your using the best examples for your point


Apple has never come back in home pcs. So while the brand may be strong again it never regained its original market power. So mabye nokia should follow apple and make something besides cell phones ?


Nintendo never really went anywhere and its questionable if they have had greater sucess in recent years. While the wii might have been an increase in user base from the gamecube , the 3ds is not doing well and the wii has fallen off a cliff. Perhaps this would have been nokia's fate if they stayed with meego/symbian

Marvel was bought by disney and still its comic sales are a fraction of what they were at the height, they like apple have been reinvented and while apple still makes its original core product like marvel releases comic books , marvel's sucess is largely now in the movie busniess . Perhaps MS buying nokia would fit this example better than what you want to use it as .

I'm not exactly sure where VW was , they've been stable for as long as i can remember back into the 90s when I was getting into cars. Same with lego , when did that brand go away ? I a child of the early 80s grew up with lego's , my litle cousin a child of the 90s grew up with lego's and some of my oldest cousins who had children would buy them lego's in the 00s and now finally my niece and nephew have lego's in the teens.

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by tuna

The thing is, the US phone market is not that big compared to others (such as the china market). If Nokia loses in the US but wins everywhere else, Nokia wins.

Does it ? What are the margin diffrences per teritory ?

[ToTTenTranz]

Originally Posted by eastmen

Does it ? What are the margin diffrences per teritory ?

I read somewhere that the US' investment in smartphones is something like 14% of the "world cake". That's huge, but it's obviously not worth as much as China's.

What the US brings is a lot of mindshare. But mindshare alone doesn't pay salaries.