Nokia's Present & Future

How can anyone claim "the only way X could ever happen is Y" and then follow it in the very same post with a way X happened using Z?
It's absurd to say that Nokia had no other choices or chances. That was one talent-laden company before Elop destroyed it and the very nature of true innovation is that others don't see it coming.

...unless your Silent_Buddha of course ;)
 
Yes, defending his actions was ridiculous then, but it's even worse doing it now, when everyone can see all the destruction he left in his path.

Just one small note that negates all Elop-sympathizers:
- By February 11 2011, the day of the burning memo, Nokia had been raising their profits for 3 quarters in a row.

B-but they were losing everything already - Yeah, except for money and sales.
 
Yes, defending his actions was ridiculous then, but it's even worse doing it now, when everyone can see all the destruction he left in his path.

Just one small note that negates all Elop-sympathizers:
- By February 11 2011, the day of the burning memo, Nokia had been raising their profits for 3 quarters in a row.

B-but they were losing everything already - Yeah, except for money and sales.

Driven more by their feature phone lineup, which dominated their revenue and profit lines. Something that was going to start taking a tumble once low cost Android devices started to enter the low end phone market. That influence wouldn't start having a large impact until after 2011. Nokia did a good job of staying relevant in that space for awhile but the writing was already on the wall. But with people already abandoning their Symbian platform, it just compounded things as their feature phone lineup also started to fall.

It doesn't matter who was at the helm, and it doesn't matter if that memo never went out. Symbian was a dying platform. The only reason Elop was brought in was because the board of directors saw it coming long before 2011, and didn't see the current CEO doing anything to address the problem in a satisfactory way.

Or do you think the board of directors felt that the company was in a wonderful place, making nice tidy profits with a bright future, and deliberately sabotaged their own company? Because it certainly wasn't Elop that made that decision. And it certainly was Microsoft or anyone else that made that decision. It was Nokia that made that decision to hire Elop after looking at their company and how their company's products were trending and looking at the marketplace and watching developers leave their platform for the competition. They hired Elop because they knew Nokia was headed downward unless they did something about it. Elop wasn't the answer as history shows. But in hindsight there was likely nothing they could have done to improve the situation.

Regards,
SB
 
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How can anyone claim "the only way X could ever happen is Y" and then follow it in the very same post with a way X happened using Z?
It's absurd to say that Nokia had no other choices or chances. That was one talent-laden company before Elop destroyed it and the very nature of true innovation is that others don't see it coming.

...unless your Silent_Buddha of course ;)

When the market is new is the best time for upstarts to make a play. Once established it takes extraordinary effort to shift the balance. While smartphones existed before Apple entered the market, smartphones as people know them today was defined by iOS and later expanded on by Android before iOS could establish a dominant position. And even then it wasn't easy. Similar to how Microsoft entered the GUI desktop OS market before Apple could establish a dominant foothold there. Microsoft was able to push Apple to a minor player and Android is slowing doing the same to iOS.

Android now is like Windows in the 90's, except with Apple stronger now than they were back then. It's going to take something extraordinary to be anything other than a footnote as a smartphone OS. Especially with app. lock in. Especially purchased apps. Again similar to Windows dominance.

Just introducing a novel OS isn't going to cut it. Not if it only does the same as current smartphone OS's just with a "better" UI or minor feature upgrades. The only reason I mention Microsoft having a sliver of a chance is if phones become powerful enough to serve as productivity replacements for Windows desktops/laptops while being able to run the same apps as desktops/laptops. And that only potentially gets them a minor stake as the 3rd player. In other words, even with that potential advantage it wouldn't be enough to displace iOS much less the gorilla in the room, Android.

Regards,
SB
 
Symbian had been projected to terminate since 2009, to be replaced with MeeGo.
The N9 with MeeGo was launched half a year after the burning memo, 2 months before Nokia launched the first Windows Phone, and was received with critical acclaim throughout the world, its user interface was incessantly praised as something better than iOS and much better than Android at the time, and it won dozens of "Device of the year" awards throughout the world. And it got all this despite using an old-ish SoC, not getting any marketing budget and Elop forbidding its sales in any of the major markets (so it wouldn't cannibalize on the lumias).

The first Nokia WP, the Lumia 800, never got even a fraction of the attention the N9 did and never sold a fraction of what the N9 did, despite being sold in all major markets and having a huge marketing budget which translated completely on losses.



Some people will still try to re-write history, though.
 
Indeed, I purchased an award-winning N9 and it was a very nice phone. Much nicer HMI than Android or iOS. Maybe not up to the polish of webOS, but about ten times faster.

The conflicting interests of controlling board members have already been documented, BTW.
 
Unlikely MeeGo would have won big share against iOS or Android.

The question is whether Nokia might have done better adopting Android instead of Windows Phone back then.
 
The question is whether Nokia might have done better adopting Android instead of Windows Phone back then.

Yes, back in 2011, should they adopt an O.S. with the most terrible and stale/declining adoption rate ever (WP7) equipped with a rigid UI that blocks customization (and differentiation) or the one getting the fastest adoption growth (Android) and allows for complete customization (so much that they could even port the acclaimed Swipe UI to it)?

Hum.. such difficult decisions..
 
Well short term it would have made sense.

But long term?

Only Samsung has been profitable with Android and it's seeing profits decline.
 
Yes, defending his actions was ridiculous then, but it's even worse doing it now, when everyone can see all the destruction he left in his path.

Just one small note that negates all Elop-sympathizers:
- By February 11 2011, the day of the burning memo, Nokia had been raising their profits for 3 quarters in a row.

B-but they were losing everything already - Yeah, except for money and sales.

Just one small note that negates all Elop-haters:
- Nokia had chosen the path they were going for before and regardless of Elop
 
Geez, I really wish this "only Samsung makes money with Android" myth would go away because it's so very wrong...

Samsung, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, Huawei and Xiaomi are making profits with Android. And even HTC had profits until recently.
Not to mention other smaller companies like TCL/Alcatel, Oppo, OnePlus, Meizu etc. All of them making profits with Android.

It's very safe to say there's at least a dozen companies making profits with Android, and that number hasn't changed much since 2011 (actually, the number of companies has increased?)


And in the meanwhile, how many companies made money with Windows Phone from 2011 to 2015?
Zero.
 
It was just reported that Apple makes 92% of the profits and Samsung 15%.

The rest are negative or maybe positive at a very small percentage.
 
Actually based on data on these forums sony have been making profits on their phones the last 2 years

I was actually wondering about this myself because earlier this year there was this rumor claiming that Sony was looking for company to buy their smartphone division.
IIRC the rumor was denied by Sony, but it might have appeared for weak/negative profits from that division.
Which I find odd because they've been making great smartphones with the Xperia Z line, and the Z1/Z3 Compact are a class of their own.
 
Must be an accurate report!
yes I posted this before, Doing their maths if samsung had a worse quarter then apple would of had more than 100% of the profits
this was the same report that states sony mobile has been profitable for the last 2 years, so based on their incompetence, who knows if sony is profitable.
Which I find odd because they've been making great smartphones with the Xperia Z line, and the Z1/Z3 Compact are a class of their own.
yes Im looking at a xperia Z phone next, waterproof and excellent battery/GPS are important for me. Im waiting to see how the Z4 is before I purchase
 
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...nd-hmd-foxconn?CMP=twt_a-technology_b-gdntech

And Nokia continues to get fucked, this time it's gotten Atari'd and turned into another company's name.

Will wonders ever cease? Will Microsoft ever fuck up another acquisition as much as this one(From what I hear, Lionhead wasn't much better)? Will something ever truly surpass sliced bread as the greatest thing ever?

The answers are no, no(Though they'll certainly try!) and no.
 
It was Nokias choice, they didn't get "Atari'd"

HMD got rights for the basic/feature phones from Microsoft, but for tablets and smartphones from Nokia
 
To be clear, Microsoft never had the rights to the Nokia brand name. They couldn't sell it. Nokia retained all rights to the Nokia brand name (phones or otherwise) but Microsoft had exclusive rights to the name for phones (smart and dumb) for a limited period of time so that they could transition the lines to a Microsoft brand.

What Microsoft did own, however, was the manufacturing, distribution and sales units that formerly belonged to Nokia as well as some of the existing feature phone and smartphone (Windows Phone) lines. That was part of the deal with Nokia. I'm sure Microsoft would have preferred to license manufacturing from Nokia, but Nokia wanted out of the phone business entirely as it wasn't a profitable venture and there was no way to turn it into a profitable venture.

Microsoft sold off the manufacturing, distribution and sales units as they are far more comfortable licensing manufacturing from another entity and the distribution and sales units were redundant (waste of cash flow).

Once Microsoft's limited time exclusivity to the Nokia brand name for phones was up, Nokia was free to sell the rights to the Nokia phone brand to whomever they wished. That is what happened. They had already licensed the Nokia brand for tablets to a third party previously.

TL: DR - Nokia hasn't been "fucked" by anyone. At least not by anyone that isn't on the company's board of directors.

Regards,
SB
 
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