Is this a serious piece of writing or just trolling?
> 2003-2008 = back when euro was worth real money.
1 euro was worth between 1.1 and 1.5$. Now, it is worth 1.25$...
> Rather than spend its resources on building an OS that depended on novel interfaces and sensors,
Like the first (and best) GPS phones?
> that allowed for outside development
Like symbian and the nokia owned qt creator.
> If Nokia had gone with Android[...] Windows Phone, on the other hand [...]
Aren't you forgetting the numerous other hands that are symbian and its successors: tizen, meego and meltemi?
> Elop [...] clear-eyed
Humm. Choosing to ditch their own system to use another one may have been a bold and smart move, but still developping 2 or 3 different systems while trying to integrate an external new (and unproven) one seems to me like increasing the problem rather than solving it.
"If Nokia had gone with Android, the best that it might have achieved was to become an also-ran—another in an endless stream of me-too commodity smartphone makers."
No. Nokia could've been Samsung, which has the lion's share of the Android market. And Android Lumia would be the prettiest Android handset on the market.
I have to agree. My friend bought a Samsung SII the other day, and I was mighty impressed. However, we soon saw a number of shortcomings, and none of it was really the phone hardware or even Android itself.
Instead, it was the way that the phone software UI was put together. It was awful. So bad, in fact, that my friend replaced almost all of the software widgets and components with his own - by the end the phone looked amazing, and virtually nothing like Samsung/Telstra's UI.
And this is where Nokia could win. By producing amazing, kick-arse phones (which we actually know they can do!) and putting on Android, with a compelling feature-set, I believe they'd wipe the floor with Samsung, et al. Probably not so much with Apple, but they could yet compete head to head with them.
The innovation just isn't there. I don't see it with WP8. There's just not enough compelling reasons for me to go back to Nokia. And I was so badly burnt by the last phone I used, that I'm unlikely to go back without a good reason!
The Pando author also seems to have forgotten that Android saved Motorola, took HTC to new heights and enabled Amazon and B&N to make tablet lines of their own.
It's a bit of a bizarre claim to begin with given that there are a number of manufacturers pitching Windows Phone devices to very limited success.
So instead of being a possible also-ran me-too in a large, successful market, they're an also-ran me-too in a small, uncertain market. I'm not buying the logic.
If they used the Android bit to explain a wholesale adoption of Meego or Tizen or something then sure. But going to WP...that just doesn't make sense.
While I certainly wouldn't call Nokia's position anything but worrisome, I think it might be a little early to start planning the funeral.
One of the benefits Nokia has by going with Windows Phone is the relationship it now has with Microsoft. I'd be very surprised if Nokia's tablet offering isn't front and center in just about every piece of marketing MS does.
The biggest issue that Windows Phone has currently is a lack of third party applications. I really do think that standardizing the platform across Phone/Tablet/PC will help in a big way with this problem (not pushing them to higher numbers than iOS/Android, but much, much closer than they are today).
For the average non-tech user, is the lack of third party apps really that big of an issue? In all honesty, all they need is Facebook, Twitter, Angry Birds and sudoku, which WP7 has. You're really not at a loss for apps when it comes to the popular 1st tier apps.
The bigger issue, from my personal experience seeing people pick up and use a WP7 device, is that it's awkward to use compared to the grid of icons in iOS and Android. They're utterly confused and have no idea how to even begin. Metro, as executed by MS, is simply not intuitive. The starkness of the white on black text is cold and unfriendly. Interaction paradigms they learned from iOS and Android are slightly different in WP7, which results in frustration around every corner. The pure icon based menus make it a guessing game on which icon does what. From my personal experience, regular people have a much easier time switching between Android and iOS. WP is just too different.
Nokia won't last until 2014. They are declining too fast. They went from 45% market share to 18% in China, one of their strongest and biggest markets, last year alone. This year they will probably fall way below 10%. Nokia will most likely be acquired by the end of this year or in the first half of next year (or go bankrupt otherwise).
Microsoft won't let them go under, they need quality WP phones that aren't an afterthought to their manufacturers. Worst case scenario, if/when Nokia is on the brink of bankruptcy, MS will take it over.
There was a story recently that Microsoft already had considered taking over Nokia but walked away from the deal after looking at their books, which may mean that MS is just waiting for an opportune moment to take over Nokia on the cheap.
Nokia won't last until 2014. They are declining too fast
If the failboat called RIM has managed to stay afloat for so long, I cannot see Nokia failing any faster.
At least Nokia has (finally) released something which belongs in this time and age, while RIM still insists it will release BB OS 10 "real soonish now", like it has for the past year. Or is it years? Plural? I don't know. I just know that their current premium product is something which was hard to sell 3 years ago. They're so dead.
Where I live, the Blackberry-stores have started stocking iPhones and Samsung Android-phones just to sell something. The Nokia-stores are at least still selling Nokia-phones only.
I have no doubt that Nokia tanking is a very real possibility. But RIM is going down first. Unlike Nokia, they have absolutely nothing.
I wonder if at the same time markets still grow at an enourmous rate, so that even a declining market share could still be a net increase? Apparently it doesn't seem to be the case for Nokia atm, just saying that market share alone is maybe insufficient.
(One person's anecdotes do not a trend make - I know)
I can offer an Indian perspective - When I was first shopping for a good phone in India in 2008 or so, every single person (techie) said "Nokia" without hesitation. From the savviest Tecno-geek to the manual laborer at a construction site -everyone had a Nokia.
Fast forward to 2011 late/early 2012; virtually NONE of the techies I interact with recommended a Nokia. Infact, I haven't heard even one of my friends/acquaintances purchase a new Nokia; it is always Samsung/HTC/iPhones or rarely Blackberry. On the lower end, the flood of cheap Chinese phones in the Indian market means no cheap Nokia's.
Nokia was a name many people swore by in India, now not so much...I am afraid the end is near for them.
Nokia get rid this problem by doing some encouragement to develop in their old J2ME/Symbian platform in such country that still have good market share like Indonesia. In Indonesia, Nokia encourage developer to develop games in their platform in a contest named "Developer War", and now it has 4 episode/chapter.
I'm really pleased that Symbian is dead (or on life support). It is, so far, the worst platform I have ever had to deal with. Eclipse-based IDE for €300-1300, partner-only premium APIs, completely unusable multi-gigabyte emulator (if you needed to run two instances, you had to install... two copies in different directories!), awful documentation, terrible system libraries, and quirky Symbian C++ dialect... it was quite an experience, but I will never miss it.
I don't think it's necessarily game over for Nokia, but they've got to drastically rethink their game plan.
They burned through cash getting the Lumia phones ready, gorgeous as they are, which is a gamble not yet to pay off. They're using the third horse in the race, a platform which it's creators have yet to successfully manage into the mainstream consciousness. Too many flaws to stand next to Android and iOS, but not completely down yet.
Lets not forget Nokia is still one of the biggest mobile handset companies in the world, they've got a solid brand name appreciation in areas of the world yet to be opened up.
Essentially they've still got chips left on the table, it just depends on the next run of cards whether they grow their stack or not. But lets not get in the way of a snappy headline.
I don't think it's necessarily game over for Nokia, but they've got to drastically rethink their game plan.
Flash their back catalogue of 800s with stock ICS, call it the Nokia Lumia A, sell them for $200 a pop (sans contract). That'll stem the bleeding and give them time to come up with their real Galaxy-killer.
If Nokia actually dies, Microsoft will pretty much have to buy them in order to ensure that they don't lose their (rather shaky) grasp on the mobile market (more of a foot in the door really...)
That would make Microsoft the third company producing an entire mobile ecosystem of its own after Apple and Google. It's interesting to observe that the technological trend towards ecosystems is also happenning in the business sphere, albeit with some delay.
Also, I would be sad to see Nokia go - I always liked their well-built (dumb) phones.
I met a Nokia developer evangelist at one of the events and asked him about some of the map features. The dude told me that he would get back but never bothered to. I'm not judging a company by one individual's behavior, but it surely gave me a negative impression about their developer evangelism.
Windows 8 preview is good..may be not windows7 killer with PCs..but surely can compete with Android OS in mobile devices....only problem with Windows 8 is free development tools..hope MS looks into it..else it may loose the race before it starts....
and saying 'RIP Nokia' is very bad...i feel Nokia is still the best with its hardware and looks..i like Nokia 900 looks n hardware rather S3....
Android would have been better option...but they can switch to ANdroid as well when Windows 8 is not helping..there should be no worries about that...
[+] [-] ernesth|13 years ago|reply
> 2003-2008 = back when euro was worth real money.
1 euro was worth between 1.1 and 1.5$. Now, it is worth 1.25$...
> Rather than spend its resources on building an OS that depended on novel interfaces and sensors,
Like the first (and best) GPS phones?
> that allowed for outside development
Like symbian and the nokia owned qt creator.
> If Nokia had gone with Android[...] Windows Phone, on the other hand [...]
Aren't you forgetting the numerous other hands that are symbian and its successors: tizen, meego and meltemi?
> Elop [...] clear-eyed
Humm. Choosing to ditch their own system to use another one may have been a bold and smart move, but still developping 2 or 3 different systems while trying to integrate an external new (and unproven) one seems to me like increasing the problem rather than solving it.
[+] [-] krakensden|13 years ago|reply
Note the author. All his articles are like this.
[+] [-] jinushaun|13 years ago|reply
No. Nokia could've been Samsung, which has the lion's share of the Android market. And Android Lumia would be the prettiest Android handset on the market.
[+] [-] chris_wot|13 years ago|reply
Instead, it was the way that the phone software UI was put together. It was awful. So bad, in fact, that my friend replaced almost all of the software widgets and components with his own - by the end the phone looked amazing, and virtually nothing like Samsung/Telstra's UI.
And this is where Nokia could win. By producing amazing, kick-arse phones (which we actually know they can do!) and putting on Android, with a compelling feature-set, I believe they'd wipe the floor with Samsung, et al. Probably not so much with Apple, but they could yet compete head to head with them.
The innovation just isn't there. I don't see it with WP8. There's just not enough compelling reasons for me to go back to Nokia. And I was so badly burnt by the last phone I used, that I'm unlikely to go back without a good reason!
[+] [-] bitwize|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trimbo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huggyface|13 years ago|reply
So instead of being a possible also-ran me-too in a large, successful market, they're an also-ran me-too in a small, uncertain market. I'm not buying the logic.
If they used the Android bit to explain a wholesale adoption of Meego or Tizen or something then sure. But going to WP...that just doesn't make sense.
[+] [-] barranger|13 years ago|reply
One of the benefits Nokia has by going with Windows Phone is the relationship it now has with Microsoft. I'd be very surprised if Nokia's tablet offering isn't front and center in just about every piece of marketing MS does.
The biggest issue that Windows Phone has currently is a lack of third party applications. I really do think that standardizing the platform across Phone/Tablet/PC will help in a big way with this problem (not pushing them to higher numbers than iOS/Android, but much, much closer than they are today).
[+] [-] jinushaun|13 years ago|reply
The bigger issue, from my personal experience seeing people pick up and use a WP7 device, is that it's awkward to use compared to the grid of icons in iOS and Android. They're utterly confused and have no idea how to even begin. Metro, as executed by MS, is simply not intuitive. The starkness of the white on black text is cold and unfriendly. Interaction paradigms they learned from iOS and Android are slightly different in WP7, which results in frustration around every corner. The pure icon based menus make it a guessing game on which icon does what. From my personal experience, regular people have a much easier time switching between Android and iOS. WP is just too different.
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pilsetnieks|13 years ago|reply
There was a story recently that Microsoft already had considered taking over Nokia but walked away from the deal after looking at their books, which may mean that MS is just waiting for an opportune moment to take over Nokia on the cheap.
[+] [-] josteink|13 years ago|reply
If the failboat called RIM has managed to stay afloat for so long, I cannot see Nokia failing any faster.
At least Nokia has (finally) released something which belongs in this time and age, while RIM still insists it will release BB OS 10 "real soonish now", like it has for the past year. Or is it years? Plural? I don't know. I just know that their current premium product is something which was hard to sell 3 years ago. They're so dead.
Where I live, the Blackberry-stores have started stocking iPhones and Samsung Android-phones just to sell something. The Nokia-stores are at least still selling Nokia-phones only.
I have no doubt that Nokia tanking is a very real possibility. But RIM is going down first. Unlike Nokia, they have absolutely nothing.
[+] [-] Tichy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexFromBelgium|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] suprgeek|13 years ago|reply
Fast forward to 2011 late/early 2012; virtually NONE of the techies I interact with recommended a Nokia. Infact, I haven't heard even one of my friends/acquaintances purchase a new Nokia; it is always Samsung/HTC/iPhones or rarely Blackberry. On the lower end, the flood of cheap Chinese phones in the Indian market means no cheap Nokia's.
Nokia was a name many people swore by in India, now not so much...I am afraid the end is near for them.
[+] [-] fidz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] obiterdictum|13 years ago|reply
No. Just... no.
I'm really pleased that Symbian is dead (or on life support). It is, so far, the worst platform I have ever had to deal with. Eclipse-based IDE for €300-1300, partner-only premium APIs, completely unusable multi-gigabyte emulator (if you needed to run two instances, you had to install... two copies in different directories!), awful documentation, terrible system libraries, and quirky Symbian C++ dialect... it was quite an experience, but I will never miss it.
Anything we have today is better than Symbian.
[+] [-] mtts|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicholassmith|13 years ago|reply
They burned through cash getting the Lumia phones ready, gorgeous as they are, which is a gamble not yet to pay off. They're using the third horse in the race, a platform which it's creators have yet to successfully manage into the mainstream consciousness. Too many flaws to stand next to Android and iOS, but not completely down yet.
Lets not forget Nokia is still one of the biggest mobile handset companies in the world, they've got a solid brand name appreciation in areas of the world yet to be opened up.
Essentially they've still got chips left on the table, it just depends on the next run of cards whether they grow their stack or not. But lets not get in the way of a snappy headline.
[+] [-] bitwize|13 years ago|reply
Flash their back catalogue of 800s with stock ICS, call it the Nokia Lumia A, sell them for $200 a pop (sans contract). That'll stem the bleeding and give them time to come up with their real Galaxy-killer.
[+] [-] greyerzer|13 years ago|reply
Also, I would be sad to see Nokia go - I always liked their well-built (dumb) phones.
[+] [-] deepGem|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itsbits|13 years ago|reply
and saying 'RIP Nokia' is very bad...i feel Nokia is still the best with its hardware and looks..i like Nokia 900 looks n hardware rather S3....
Android would have been better option...but they can switch to ANdroid as well when Windows 8 is not helping..there should be no worries about that...
[+] [-] xxiao|13 years ago|reply
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