Nokia's Present & Future

[Kaotik]

How much time have you spent with Symbian Belle? It's hardly as bad as you seem to believe. Symbian was creating wifi hotspots and using forward facing cameras for video IP calls before Apple had facetime or Android had hotspots, etc.

Yes, I know it had features years before the rest, I was talking about the user experience on Symbian devices, including Belle and various before it (though I admit that I haven't used Belle that much, but at least the first impressions were horrible after getting used to what you can get on Android for example)

Great deal there with MS, huh? They lose $7 billion, drop about $30 billion in assets and get to be the King of a Turd Operating System.

I didn't say it was great, I said it would have been worse. And Windows Phone is far from "turd operating system", it's leaps and bounds better than Symbian ever was for example (even if it lacks some features, the user experience is what counts in the end more)

 

[Mize]

Dude seriously belle was looking very like android when I played around on it..admittedly I havnt used it as much as your self (probably) but my general impressions were that...ive read reviews also saying the same sort of thing.

Ah...the Belle HMI overhaul was like Android (and iOS). Yes. This is true. I thought french toast meant features, not just look and feel. Android largely copied iOS and Belle took its Symbian underpinnings and clothed them similarly. There are notable deviations, of course. Basically it's a leapfrog thing. Symbian did a long list of things first...was overtaken by iOS and Android...tried to play catch up.

 

[Mize]

I didn't say it was great, I said it would have been worse. And Windows Phone is far from "turd operating system", it's leaps and bounds better than Symbian ever was for example (even if it lacks some features, the user experience is what counts in the end more)

The same could be said for webOS and MeeGo. A good OS does not mean a successful OS. I'd also argue that WP7 was utter crap and WP8 is still severely lacking for a modern OS. Granted, so is iOS until you jailbreak it...

 

[french toast]

Ah...the Belle HMI overhaul was like Android (and iOS). Yes. This is true. I thought french toast meant features, not just look and feel. Android largely copied iOS and Belle took its Symbian underpinnings and clothed them similarly. There are notable deviations, of course. Basically it's a leapfrog thing. Symbian did a long list of things first...was overtaken by iOS and Android...tried to play catch up.

Correct..i meant look and feel or UI,I was going to edit my post and tack on something similar untill you beat me to it.

Edit... http://m.gsmarena.com/windows_phone_8_gdr3_update_to_give_users_more_tiles-news-5848.php

 

[Zaphod]

5,6 million Lumia phones sold in calendar Q1 2013, according to their financials. They're emphasizing growth (up from 4.4 million last quarter), but it's still a pittance of the smartphone market overall.

 

[Mize]

Nokia's Q1-2013 results are in and they sold 5.6 million Lumias while losing a net 150M euros.
For reference Apple shipped 47.8 million iPhones in Q1-2013.

[Edit: beat me by a minute]

 

[french toast]

Thats actually pretty decent if not spectacular.

How does that compare to other smartphone vendors except apple/samsung?

 

[Helmore]

And they expect to sell at least 7 million Lumias next quarter (Q2). If they can keep up that growth then they might get somewhere.

 

[Mize]

And they expect to sell at least 7 million Lumias next quarter (Q2). If they can keep up that growth then they might get somewhere.

I wouldn't count chickens yet. The next quarter's growth is in lower-end Lumias which means lower gross margins. If you can lose 150M on your flagship margins...

As for other smartphone companies...HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony, Huwei and ZTE are all shipping more smartphones than Noka. All Microsoft OS is about 3.2% of the smartphone market up from 3% last year. Apple represents 38% of that market so at 48M that makes the entire market 126.3M units per quarter putting Nokia's 5.6M at 4.4% of the entire market (so the numbers don't match the Microsoft OS share of the market - discrepancy of 1.2% but then the % market OS is based on *subscribers* and Nokia is counting phone in channel).

Let's be generous and give Nokia 4% of the total market compared with HTC at 11%, Moto at 9.5%, etc.

 

[Mize]

For comparison, Blackberry shipped 6.9 million smartphones in Q4-2012, of which 1M were the BB10 Z10 recently released. It had operating losses of $12M USD on revenues of $2.68B but generated a net profit of $94M. Also, Blackberry's numbers are GAAP whereas Nokia is reporting non-IFRS numbers.

So even Blackberry is selling more and earning more with a mainly dead product line, one new phone, etc.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The Lumia EOS, which supposedly brings a camera module that joins Pureview phases 1 and 2 together (very large sensor for zoom and downsampling + OIS) should be able to get lots of attention from the press, and might get them some traction.
Unless they manage to screw everything else (small and low-res screen, bulky, heavy, slow SoC, etc.), which is not unexpected given Nokia's recent history.

The Lumia x20 family wasn't going to do any miracles, anyone could see that.

In fact, I don't see WP8 going anywhere, as it doesn't offer either the flexibility of Android or the strong app store + developer mindshare of iOS. Microsoft needs to get the full, backwards-compatible Windows 8 on smartphones to ever pick some interest.


A decent Windows 8 smartphone/phablet using an Atom Z2580, with accessories like a docking station for charging, video/audio output and USB hub, or a detachable screen+keyboard (like Asus padfone) would radically change the paradigm of personal computers.
It's too bad that Microsoft, Nokia and even Intel seem too slow to understand that WP7, WP8 and RT aren't going anywhere without Microsoft's strongest point ever: compatibility with Windows x86 software.

 

[french toast]

For comparison, Blackberry shipped 6.9 million smartphones in Q4-2012, of which 1M were the BB10 Z10 recently released. It had operating losses of $12M USD on revenues of $2.68B but generated a net profit of $94M. Also, Blackberry's numbers are GAAP whereas Nokia is reporting non-IFRS numbers.

So even Blackberry is selling more and earning more with a mainly dead product line, one new phone, etc.

Well if you break it down like that then it doesn't look that great.

http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/tech...h-41MP-camera-Report/articleshow/19578883.cms
Nokia EOS is still in development, if you believe the story (im sceptical..Nokia hates multicores) the snapdragon 800 was "tested" but consumed too much battery. ..so they are going with a "dual core" for that reason.

On second thought that may well be true as that flawed logic fits in with elops smartphone vision of "more cores = more power and heat".

A snapdragon 800 running at 1.7ghz im guessing would be extremely efficient. ..I think elop (and nokia in general) like to put really low performance processing inside their phones so they can skimp on battery size.

With EOS likely to be beach whale like in size then I would be very disappointed if only a 2000mah battery was inserted, and a mid range SOC bunged in to make batterylife competitive.

 

[Mize]

Even *I* would buy Windows Phone if I could get a Pureview (808, not 920) type camera in a decent sized package with good battery life. Not for a daily-driver, mind you, but for business trips and vacations where a camera comes in very handy.

 

[Jubei]

And they expect to sell at least 7 million Lumias next quarter (Q2). If they can keep up that growth then they might get somewhere.

The problem is that Symbian sales are dropping dead faster than Lumia sales are picking up. Horace D at Asymco made a breakdown of this

 

[Deleted member 13524]

http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/tech...h-41MP-camera-Report/articleshow/19578883.cms
Nokia EOS is still in development, if you believe the story (im sceptical..Nokia hates multicores) the snapdragon 800 was "tested" but consumed too much battery. ..so they are going with a "dual core" for that reason.

On second thought that may well be true as that flawed logic fits in with elops smartphone vision of "more cores = more power and heat".

A snapdragon 800 running at 1.7ghz im guessing would be extremely efficient. ..I think elop (and nokia in general) like to put really low performance processing inside their phones so they can skimp on battery size.

With EOS likely to be beach whale like in size then I would be very disappointed if only a 2000mah battery was inserted, and a mid range SOC bunged in to make batterylife competitive.

Elop isn't an engineer and I doubt he's even tech-savvy, so his view on multi-cores are nothing but what he's told to say by the commercial engineering department.

Nonetheless, his previous statements on multi-core SoCs were made when WP8 hadn't come out and WP7 never got support for anything but the single-cores Snapdragon S1 & S2.
While he expressed an opinion on multi-core SoCs, it's obvious it was an excuse to cover up for the fact that Microsoft was too lazy to add higher-performing chips to its pool of supported SoCs in WP7.

When the Lumia 920/820 were launched in Q4 2012, they carried the most powerful SoC that Qualcomm was willing to sell them (Nokia must be considered a low-priority customer by now), which were the S4s with dual-core Kraits and Adreno 225.
AFAIR, only the Nexus 4 and a couple of low-volume devices got the privilege of shipping with the quad-core S4 Pro before 2013.




What is really weird is the "Snapdragon 800 consumes too much so we'll go with a dual-core instead" part.
If they can't get the 800 to work, then try the 600 which supposedly consumes less. And even then if the integrated baseband is a concern, go with the older MSM8960T.
But going from Qualcomm's top quad-core to a 1.5-years-old dual-core doesn't make much sense.
Then again, this is Nokia.. They haven't made sense for over 2 years now.

 

[wco81]

So they lost money on higher volume. Are they selling below cost or something? Or are the high-end Lumias profitable for each unit sold but the low-end models are being sold at a loss?

Certainly they seemed to be selling the 920 for a discount compared to other high-end phones.

If they are selling them for a loss in an effort to raise unit volume, they're hoping that the people who got the Lumia 920 for cheap will upgrade to another WP Nokia but for a higher price?


Also, what value is x86 software on a mobile device? Won't work with touch, probably suck the battery life, probably poor on a smaller screen. OK, so in docked mode, you'd run Photoshop or other desktop software? Why would Intel and MS necessarily want this? They'd want you to buy a WP device AND either a Windows desktop or laptop. As well as tablets and so on.

A phablet might eliminate the need for a tablet (or at least to carry it around) but probably won't eliminate the need for a computer.

 

[wco81]

Well Nokia and Qualcomm used to clash about 3g patents.

So Nokia probably doesn't want to use Qualcomm baseband if they don't want to. Probably bad enough to have to go to them for SOC.

 

[french toast]

Nokia havnt been making any sense since n96 was released.. (07?)

 

[Deleted member 13524]

So they lost money on higher volume. Are they selling below cost or something? Or are the high-end Lumias profitable for each unit sold but the low-end models are being sold at a loss?

Certainly they seemed to be selling the 920 for a discount compared to other high-end phones.

If they are selling them for a loss in an effort to raise unit volume, they're hoping that the people who got the Lumia 920 for cheap will upgrade to another WP Nokia but for a higher price?

As I said before, being a low-priority customer with an OS that few people want is probably making them get some very poor deals in component, manufacturing and distribution price. I think many carriers are still making their life pretty hard because of last year's Skype deal too.

Maybe they're not selling at a loss per se, it's just that the profits aren't remotely enough to pay the salaries of over 90 000 people, patent maintenance, credit interest (Moody's have been consistently downgrading Nokia's debt), R&D investments, etc.
Oh and rent, since they don't even own their headquarters anymore lol.

Q4 2012 would've probably shown a similar scenario if it wasn't shrouded by the sale of their headquarters for 150M €.

Also, what value is x86 software on a mobile device? Won't work with touch, probably suck the battery life, probably poor on a smaller screen. OK, so in docked mode, you'd run Photoshop or other desktop software?

Lulz "Photoshop or other desktop software"? How about almost all multi-client software licenses used for business productivity sold during the last 30 years? What exactly do you think the cumulative Windows x86 marketshare is in business offices?

Of course I'm not suggesting to use Excel, Powerpoint and a SAP Suite in a smartphone using nothing but the touchscreen. The point is to always carry your personal computer in your pocket and be able to access any information (file type) anywhere.

Why would Intel and MS necessarily want this? They'd want you to buy a WP device AND either a Windows desktop or laptop. As well as tablets and so on.

Right now, want Intel wants the most is to stop losing tons of marketshare and mindshare to ARM. What Microsoft wants the most is to stop losing tons of marketshare and mindshare to Android, iOS and MacOS.

That should take precedence to trying to make people buy a laptop that they don't need (5 year-old laptops are still good for most software) along with a smartphone they don't want (WP8).

A phablet might eliminate the need for a tablet (or at least to carry it around) but probably won't eliminate the need for a computer.

It will if your computer is already in your pocket and all you need is to connect it to a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse.

 

[tuna]

I think the problem with the available WP8 HW is that the HW makers (Qualcomm etc) will not divert resources to make drivers etc for such low volumes as WP8 represents. And the only solution to that problem is to throw shitloads of money on them, something both MS and Apple should be pretty reluctant to do....