Nokia's Present & Future

From "The Nokia Blog":

Update: Just learned from a source that this is real, but it was not sent as a memo. It was a post on CEO Stephen Elop’s internal blog. I was also told “some of the info is false some true.”

Update 2: Engadget has requested not to republish the entire memo. You can read it all here:
Can you please not republish the entire Elop memo. It’s not a press release, it’s original content acquired by Engadget.

So according to thenokiablog:
- There is false info in that "memo"
- Engadget acquired the true info, but also created the false info?




@Arun

I agree that WP7 is not a good strategy for Nokia . Functionality, features and openness wise, WP7 is the exact opposite of Symbian (but so is its user-friendly UI, though).
It's just that this is a situation where there are no good options and WP7 is simply the less bad one. iOS is impossible and Android is a growing bubble that could be about to blow up (thanks to chinese manufacturers).
And there's no way that Nokia, with a Finnish\European OS, will ever get positive publicity from the giant mindshare controllers that consist the USA-centric e-press and analyst firms.
Unfortunately for our open market worldwide, this political\nationalist factor is real and should be confronted as such.
That said, there's little chance that MeeGo would be accepted by the USA, even if Intel is oficially a nose-poker in the platform. The only alternative? WP7 for the USA.
 
http://thehandheldblog.com/2011/02/08/alien-dalvik-android-apps-meego-maemo/

According to the press release, Alien Dalvik ‘enables the majority of Android applications to run unmodified, allowing application store owners to quickly kick start Android application store services by simply repackaging Android Package (APK) files’.
I personally would like this thingy as a stop-gap measure more than going to full-blown android/WM7. Baseline OS will be Meego but apps would be from Android. That way it wouldn't be that hard to gradually move to full-blown Meego based system over time.
 
Here is part of Stephen Elop's speech during the earnings call, 2 weeks ago:

Stephen Elop said:
(...)
With our new Symbian family of products, Nokia is addressing an opportunity to improve our position at the higher end of the market. The Nokia N8, the first of our new Symbian devices started shipping at the end of Q3 and delivered a solid performance in Q4.

Our consumers gave the N8 enthusiastic ratings mentioning its industry leading capability to capture and share high quality photos and videos. We then delivered a cadence of new Symbian launches in Q4 introducing the Nokia C7 and the C601, and in total we shipped more than 5 million new Symbian devices in Q4. This helped us to deliver a better mix of sales, higher ASPs and higher levels of absolute gross profits in our Devices & Services business compared to Q3.

Our data also shows that these devices are driving more people to use our Ovi services and at a greater frequency. In fact, a study by iResearch looked at applications store traffic in China. The study ranked our Ovi Store as the leader. As I mentioned earlier, the Ovi Store ramped to 4 million downloads per day. Going forward in 2011, our focus will be on both driving consumer engagement and increasing revenue opportunities for our developers and partners.

We have a healthy base of developers across the globe
developing globally and locally relevant apps. We support operator building with more than 100 operators and we now have more than 30,000 apps in the Ovi Store. We are now seeing meaningful growth in developer activity supported by the improved user experience on our new devices as well continuous improvements of our Ovi services platform.

This is encouraging to see, but we are not yet at the level of our high-end competition, when it comes to the strength of our differentiation and the scale of our ecosystem. To streamline and accelerate our progress, we announced in early Q4 that we would unify our internal development efforts around Qt development platform. We fully transitioned to Qt development for out Ovi services and I am pleased to see that things are starting to move faster.

Another area where I see lots of potential is in location-based services. We have received positive feedback from consumers for our latest offering and we have truly global scale spanning over 180 countries in regions with 100 of them navigable. Our NAVTEQ asset is a unique and critical building block.

In the low to mid range, the attractively priced Nokia C3 QWERTY device continued to see strong demand in Q4 and was one of the top contributors to our overall revenues and gross profits. We estimate that we have the leadership position in global QWERTY volumes driven primarily by the C3, which also contributed to solid uptick of our messaging service.

On the other hand, Asia-based suppliers have made it possible for new handset vendors with limited R&D capabilities to enter this part of the market. In addition, in Q4, we were challenged by component constraints and the lack of competitive dual SIM products in our portfolio.

In summary, in a tough competitive environment, our devices and services business, overall contributed positively to Nokia's Q4 results and we have some remarkable gems upon which we can build our future.
(...)

There's just no way he would change this speech into a "let's jump off this burning platform" one, in just two weeks.



I call that memo a fake, a memo that was so heavily edited that it more fake than true, or a viral-marketing scheme from Nokia by making Engadget their bait (wich would be awesome, IMO).
 
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When is NOKIA going to announce their new strategy again? In two days? I think we could wait that "long" instead of burning bandwidth on awkward conspiracy theories.
 
Yes, in 2 days we'll know exactly what all this means.
However, someone over at mexican Nokia has made an interesting (non)comment:
We do not comment on our internal communications, memos or documents, or their legitimacy (or lack thereof). For clarity on the current view of our CEO of Nokia, we suggest reviewing the transcript of our call about fourth-quarter results: http://seekingalpha.com/article/249092-nokia-ceo-discusses-q4-2010-results-earnings-call-transcript
IMO this pretty much confirms that it's either fake or heavily edited into being taken out of context.




On a non-related note (but related to Nokia's HW roadmap), it seems Reuters has jumped in the rumour bandwagon that Nokia has scratched the N9-00 to release a Medfield-equipped MeeGo solution.
 
IMO this pretty much confirms that it's either fake or heavily edited into being taken out of context.

Numerous major publications, like the BBC, have verified that the memo is genuine. It is also 100% accurate in describing Nokia's current situation.

I think it is time for Nokia fans to start facing reality.
 
Numerous major publications, like the BBC, have verified that the memo is genuine.
Those verifications kind of make me cautious when reading those couple of links a few posts up from some nokia workers saying it's not genuine. We'll see in two days I guess
 
Numerous major publications, like the BBC, have verified that the memo is genuine. It is also 100% accurate in describing Nokia's current situation.

I think it is time for Nokia fans to start facing reality.

They also refer to it as a "memo", which was never a memo. It's supposedly an entry in his internal blog.

Maybe this Friday is rather a day when Nokia haters will get a dose of reality themselves.
Nonetheless, we'll know in less than 48 hours.
 
And what happens if it's the exact opposite? Not that I know anything but NOKIA should know best what's good for them.

Let's just put it this way:
Do you honestly think that a sane person in the same position as him would change his previous moderate and realistic speech to an emotional "OMG-we're-doomed-let's-jump-off-this-burning-platform-right-now" attitude, filled with technical mistakes?


Sure, the company isn't perfect and needs to change. Sure, symbian desperately needs that PR2.0 with the UI overhaul and MeeGo devices need to come out asap.
Sure, the company definitely has too many operative layers that need to come down in number and they'll probably need to fire lots and lots of "old people" who own over-paid bureaucratic jobs that slow down the company's overall execution (we get loads of those here in Europe - damn union rights, lol).

But hinting that they're dropping Symbian and MeeGo altogether, after things being (finally) on the right track?! Flushing away all the money and resources spent on the world's most popular smartphone OS?! It doesn't make any sense.




Nokia is doing their keynote during the same day and time as Samsung and LG. I have no doubts on who will take all the attention now.
I wouldn't be surprised if this "memo"\blog entry\whatever was part of a viral marketing plot to achieve just that.
 
Nokia is doing their keynote during the same day and time as Samsung and LG. I have no doubts on who will take all the attention now.
I wouldn't be surprised if this "memo"\blog entry\whatever was part of a viral marketing plot to achieve just that.
True or false, the funniest part in this whole story is the reaction of Tomi Ahonen. As pointed out by Gruber, if his thinking reflects that of current Nokia execs, a relentless attention to the presence of gimmick checkmarks and calling it innovation, it explains a lot about the current state of Nokia. He seems to think the NGage was actually a good thing. ;)
 
He keeps showing his fear for chinese Android handset makers, but those are the very same makers that screwed Windows Mobile 6.5 (and below) and are on their way to do the same for Android.
How did handset makers screw Windows Mobile 6.5 and how are they screwing Android?
 
True or false, the funniest part in this whole story is the reaction of Tomi Ahonen. As pointed out by Gruber, if his thinking reflects that of current Nokia execs, a relentless attention to the presence of gimmick checkmarks and calling it innovation, it explains a lot about the current state of Nokia. He seems to think the NGage was actually a good thing. ;)

You'll see that Tomi Ahonen's insights in that blog post are an exact match of Elop's speech during the earnings call. It is the very same position that Nokia assumed during Nokia World 2010 back in September.
The only shockingly different attitude is the one we see in this rumoured "memo"\blog-entry\whatever.


BTW, the original idea behind NGage was awesome (hey, people are using game consoles and cellphones, let's make a single device with dedicated gaming input that does both) but it was poorly executed. They did get a few good games out, but the device had that sidetalking thing (which is a huge problem if your target consumers are insecure teenagers) and the games were a tad too expensive to compete with the GBA SP. NGage QD was a better device, but in 2004 it was clearly outdated (hardware-wise) and overshadowed by the Nintendo DS and PSP.
Then there was the NGage platform for a few (high-end) select devices, with OTA game purchases.
It was also a great idea. Back in 2005, it had online friend lists, achievements, leaderboards, online+offline chat with friends through WiFi, GPRS or by simply connecting by USB cable to an online computer.
But they didn't rise up the hardware requirements (3d processing hardware, screen size, resolution, etc) to visually match the the PSP, so the games were clearly outdated for 2006's standards, and the DS was untouchable as a social phenomenon.
Had Nokia decided to extend the NGage platform for higher-resolution devices and more powerful hardware (i.e. making N95's OMAP2 as a base requirement for NGage 3.0), and had they released their touch-based devices with 3D hardware (sticking with OMAP2s with more memory and higher clocks would suffice, IMHO) I believe the mobile gaming world would have been quite different today.


What Nokia did about NGage in 2008/2009.. was a bit as if Microsoft dropped out of the console business after the first XBox. The NGage service was a commercial success, but the hardware decisions for the higher-end phones chocked it to an early death.
They built the infrastructure, gained momentum, spread the word.. but in the end they had to drop the service because the hardware couldn't catch up.


How did handset makers screw Windows Mobile 6.5 and how are they screwing Android?

This was explained to me by a couple of friends who work at NDrive, and it's kind of a long story..
Basically, if you release a handset OS were all you do is establish a required processor architecture and instruction set and don't control who is making the handsets and exactly which hardware is being used without any kind of certification, anyone can do the handsets.
And anyone includes low-quality chinese manufacturers, using poor-performance CPUs, with only compatibility in mind, making hundreds of thousands of handsets that are exported at a fraction of the price of branded devices, apparently carrying the same functionality at the cost of build quality.
Now the problem is that when you sell a software for an OS, or an OS version i.e. WM6.5 (and not a list of devices), you must support it. Now try explaining Mr. John Doe that the software you sold to him works poorly\doesn't work in his WM6.5 smartphone, not because your software is subpar but because his smartphone has an ARM9 @ ~400MHz which was never meant to handle WM6.5 or Android 2.2, the RAM amount is too low or the GPS\WiFi\Bluetooth\etc ICs are subpar.
A couple of years later, you'll have all the software companies running away from your OS because the OS version and hardware fragmentations are unsupportable and government laws forces any company to provide service support for paid software.

That is Android's fate, if Google doesn't cross the whole "it's open, we can't do anything about it" barrier and finds some way to certify the handsets (and since the Android Market can be installed by anyone, that's by no means a certification).
As "dumb" as WP7 turned out to be, almost every software house aplauded with joy the tight hardware requirements and the lack of backwards-compatibility with previous "Pocket PC" iterations.
 
BTW, the original idea behind NGage was awesome but it was poorly executed. .

"poorly" is being incredibly kind, absolutely everything they did *AFTER* they had the initial idea, was terrible.

In terms of hardware, they have an N95 with great (for the time) graphics and so they come up with a new gaming platform based on handsets, and they decide to make the new platforms graphics standard, software rendering, and worse, even on handsets that had hardware acceleration, it might be used...it might not !.

I think the above single sentence just typifies the thinking that got Nokia from where it was at the time to where it is now.
 
"poorly" is being incredibly kind, absolutely everything they did *AFTER* they had the initial idea, was terrible.

I disagree. Sidetalking + game prices is what killed NGage 1.0. Why they thought insecure teenagers would ever adapt to holding the phone sideways, looking ridiculous during phonecalls, is the biggest riddle to me. But those are two mistakes.
The "experimental" 3D engines they ported from that time's PocketPCs\Palms were quite decent (tomb raider on ngage looked pretty cool in 2003, back when the best graphics you ever had in a handheld console was probably Golden Sun). Other than that, the vertical screen alignment was odd but not a deal breaker, but construction quality and button responsiveness was on par with GBA SP.
And they even had almost all the great developers working for the platform: Sega, Capcom, EA Sports, Activision, THQ and others. They were all betting on the platform -> that's practically the most difficult part for a newcomer in console gaming.



In terms of hardware, they have an N95 with great (for the time) graphics and so they come up with a new gaming platform based on handsets, and they decide to make the new platforms graphics standard, software rendering, and worse, even on handsets that had hardware acceleration, it might be used...it might not !.

I think the above single sentence just typifies the thinking that got Nokia from where it was at the time to where it is now.

The first NGage was launched in 2003, N95 came out in 2007.. you're skipping a few steps here.
As I said, the NGage 2.0 (service) had lots of great features and was also another great idea: online gaming+social networking as a service for high-end phones, with almost all the gimmicks you could find in the first-gen XBox Live.
Things that you would only find later in 2010 with WP7's Live and iOS 4 and people now recognize as "fantastic and innovative", Nokia had all that implemented 3 years before, with NGage. Plus, screen orientation was now horizontal as default.

In this second round though, the hardware implementation was indeed horrible, and that's what killed the platform (which was further extended to S60v5 and its poor UI, as we all know).
For this second round, just blame the guys who decided to downgrade the N95's capabilities for future models, leaving the NGage 2.0 platform with no option but to adopt an ARM11's software rendering capabilities as a base spec for game development.


But it's just not fair to say that "everything they did after the first idea was horrible".
 
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In this second round though, the hardware implementation was indeed horrible, and that's what killed the platform (which was further extended to S60v5 and its poor UI, as we all know).
For this second round, just blame the guys who decided to downgrade the N95's capabilities for future models, leaving the NGage 2.0 platform with no option but to adopt an ARM11's software rendering capabilities as a base spec for game development.

But it's just not fair to say that "everything they did after the first idea was horrible".

It was indeed the relaunched Ngage I was referring to (i.e. what you call Ngage2), and in that regard what i said still stands, in that it basically summed up Nokia (mis)fortunes ever since (in this case making hardware decisions without realising/caring what effect it has on ecosystems that other parts of the company are trying to encourage).
 
That is Android's fate, if Google doesn't cross the whole "it's open, we can't do anything about it" barrier and finds some way to certify the handsets (and since the Android Market can be installed by anyone, that's by no means a certification).
As "dumb" as WP7 turned out to be, almost every software house aplauded with joy the tight hardware requirements and the lack of backwards-compatibility with previous "Pocket PC" iterations.
I don't know what Android's fate will be, but WinMo 6.5 wasn't doomed by the hardware. The interface was awful and wasn't finger friendly.
 
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