Is it really going to happen? Will we see one of the more momentous announcements in the tech world next week? The web’s been abuzz about Nokia possibly adopting Windows Phone 7 for a number of handsets, and now even The New York Times has chimed in – at which point it might be time to start taking the rumours seriously.
The backbone of the rumours is Nokia’s new CEO, Stephen Elop. He left Redmond on good terms, and probably loaded with contacts and ideas on how to bring his old and new employer together. Last week, Elop stated that Nokia will set individual strategies for its low, mid, and high-priced mobile phones, while also saying Nokia may join existing ecosystems under this new scheme. Considering his Microsoftian past, Windows Phone 7 would make sense.
Nokia would be a major channel for Microsoft, and I could definitely see select, high-end Nokia phones running Windows Phone 7. Nokia has always had great hardware; it’s usually been the software part of the equation where the Finnish giant fails. I’m currently reviewing an HTC HD7 with Windows Phone 7, and I can assure you – the software is great. WP7 is fresh, new, innovative. It makes my iPhone look like an outdated Fisher Price toy.
The rumour now is that Nokia will drop Symbian or MeeGo in favour of Windows Phone 7, and announce said switch next week, Februari 11. It would be my guess that if this is true, MeeGo would be the one to be dropped. Symbian is still widely popular and can run on lower-specced devices as well, which is where Nokia still has a lot of presence. WP7 would then become the high-end choice.
Nokia and Microsoft have worked together before, bringing Office to several business phones. All this is not as strange as it seems – although I’m still skeptical. We’ll see next week.
If this is indeed the case, it would be absolutely horrific news.
MeeGo was the hope of GNU/Linux fanboys, as it actually contributed upstream, sported a beautiful Qt interface, and did not diverge from the upstream kernel by too far.
I wanted to replace my Android phone with a MeeGo one.
If anything, Symbian should be dropped as it is obsolete and decrepit.
On an android phone, can you…
-Code and run QT applications ?
-Keep your phone on for several days of intensive battery use without having to plug your handset in ?
-See in the blink of the eye, by looking at your home screen, what’s on your schedule, what new messages/emails/calls are around, what time is it, all that while still having some application launchers around ?
-Kill a running app without having to install an external program ?
-Read a PDF without having to install an external program ?
-Boot your handset in less than a minute and have it run relatively smoothly
All that on a phone that costs around 200€ without being subsidized and includes a hardware keyboard ?
Symbian is not more obsolete than what is currently the most popular mobile platform, so I think it does pretty well
The dilemma posed is whether to drop Symbian or MeeGo, not Symbian or Android. What does Android have to do with anything? It’s not the purview of Nokia.
Android just serves as an example that shows that Symbian is not exactly obsolete and decrepited by today’s standards (embodied by the best-selling OS).
Should Nokia drop one between Symbian and Meego, it would be a thougher choice than some think. Sure, Symbian’s application market is not exactly healthy, but for Meego it’s worse, as the product does not even exist yet, and even when it will does not seem to bring much more than existing solutions on the table.
Nokia had some hard time fixing all the long-standing flaws of Symbian in the recent releases, awakened by the competition. It has finally become a nice operating system again by today’s standard. Is it really a good idea to drop all this work just as it gets completed in favor of yet another new, unknows OS ?
As an aside, I think that Nokia should and will keep a multi-OS strategy. “One size fits all” doesn’t work well in the mobile space, it’s not for nothing that low-end Android phones run outdated 1.x releases. Slower but cheaper low- and mid-end hardware is bought by users with specific needs, which are not the same as those of the users who would buy a Meego phone.
Edited 2011-02-05 10:47 UTC
Funny, in Canada, Nokia has MeeGo Phones flying off the shelves. The President of my company is perfectly able to do anything on his Nokia phone I can do on my Android… except use an “App Store”…
I don’t know, MeeGo is a very capable Mobile OS. Just as capable as Android.
I’m not against Symbian, except that it’s a total mess, as it stands, with some brilliant pieces sprinkled around. And the history of treating mobile application developers like sh*** is still not on Symbian’s side.
But trying to slam Android with outright lies is over the line.
No, but I reallly could not care less about it.
No, but then I use it as a phone and remote access tool for work. I can replace the battery easily.
No, but that is because I have it off on another of the 6 side screens. I don’t have to run “Lookout” integration.
Standard fare for my DROID-X, I can kill any application anytime, using bog standard default tools.
Yes, without anything. Not even Flash.
Yes, quite nicely. My DROID-X is perfect in this way. In fact, “Fast and Fluid” would be my choice of terms.
Yes, cost is right around there, in the US, though subsidized brings the price hugely down. I also find hardware keyboards troublesome with my BIG FAT FINGERS. I had a hardware keyboard before my Droid, my testing and typing speed (when using ConnectBot) is dramatically faster and I get things done faster.
Symbian is a decent Embedded OS, but not anywhere close to what Android or iOS is able to cohesively do.
WP7 seems to be ok, but, if its like anything I’ve been demonstrated, it’ll be crap when I get to use it.
Nokia has always found it difficult to make significant headway into US markets. Piggybacking on the Microsoft brand over there is probably a good move. If Nokia can utilise the QT platform across MeeGo, Symbian and WP7 the wider OS set should not be too much of an issue.
QT on WP7? They are still to release an NDK for WP7.
So this rumor is based on pretty much nothing at all. The guy worked at Microsoft, made some generic CEO statements and…uhm…yeah, that’s it.
And they will drop Meego and Symbian to replace them with TelePhone 7 because they are desperate to sell their share of the volume of phones that M$ is licensing to vendors ; some 8 to 10 million a year based on first quarter sales. What manufacturer isn’t just dying to shrink their output by that percentage, eh? Of course that could change. Most analysts see M$’s share of the phone market going from 5.2% this year to 3.9% by 2014. And WM phones are now outselling TP7 devices.
This makes about as much sense as the rumors on the M$ stock boards that M$ will buy Nokia. They will either wind up selling and supporting other OSes almost entirely or have to shut down/sell off most of the business in order to focus on their own phones.
Not that consumers don’t like it, those that have heard of it (22% brand recognition) and tried it (93% product approval)
But so far, according to Samsung comments about disappointing sales, the only devices being licensed and produced are the high end models. When the mid range and low end units hit the market, what then?
I think it’s a good idea for Nokia to offer them, but I don’t see it reaching anywhere near the sales volumes of Blackberry, iOS or Android, much less displacing all three of them and Meego and Symbian too.
http://goo.gl/9uOgV
Sure, they take the Qt Quick offline because the want to switch to windows mobile 7. Riiight.
No way they are going to drop Meego.
I highly doubt this news, too. All this current speculation around an alliance with Microsoft is based on the expected “big announcement”. If one combines the recent MeeGo news, instead of the personal history of the new CEO, with the “big announcement” one could get a completely different conclusion.
Edited 2011-02-05 00:49 UTC
I don’t see it as that hard to disbelieve. Nokia are drowning under the wave of iPhone and Android converts and for good reason. Going with MeeGo would be riskier than WP7. Microsoft have a solid SDK, developer following, a very good mobile platform, shit loads of money to throw at it and they need a strong hardware vendor (which Nokia is) to leverage their OS on.
Nokia are good at hardware. Their software has sucked for God knows how long.
I don’t really see much room in the market for another mobile platform provider. There are already very good, well established players.
The branding alone is a problem. The name is unknown and the market has matured quite a bit. Pushing “MeeGo”, something nobody has heard of against iPhone or Android is going to be difficult. Nokia has suffered a lot due to delivering sub standard products (at the software layer) for quite some time, so the Nokia brand is damaged. Add to that a new mobile platform brand called “MeeGo” and I just don’t see it as selling.
On the other hand, Microsoft and Windows are known solid brands. Nokia joining forces with Microsoft strengthens both brands I think. I don’t think people had issues with the hardware of Nokia, it was the software, so with the slickness of WP7 on top of Nokia hardware and Microsoft’s app store (which will improve) it would seem to make sense to me for them to join forces.
Makes sense for both of them in fact.
Edited 2011-02-05 11:33 UTC
Problem is, they’re not exactly drowning. Their market has actually expanded, even though Android has expanded more. And of course Android has expanded more, as many big handset producers have started making Android phones, but the biggest Android companies are still much smaller than Nokia (in the phone business, that is).
Meanwhile, you have a bunch of tech “journalists” hyping Android and iOS while pretending Symbian is outdated simply because its UI layer is somewhat oldfashioned. And yes, the UI needs to improve and adapt to touch screens, but the whole idea that Symbian is such a poor piece of software is based solely on superficial bling. Just like your complaint about the MeeGo “brand” is only about fashion. Just what exactly is “better” about phone OS software that doesn’t even have proper multitasking, takes far more resources and has inferior power management?
One thing is for certain, which is that you can’t be a leader if you only follow the herd. And that’s what most “analysts” and “journalists” want Nokia to do. Follow the herd, the known brands, and the current fashion. It’s bad advice.
Nokia is the brand and it’s damaged by their shoddy software. They need to reboot their image.
Why go with a Nokia when there’s an iPhone or Android.
MeeGo elsewhere…
What if I don’t want a smartphone? Which company will have a product for me?
I know, “don’t want a smartphone”. Blows the mind, doesn’t it? Here some news: there’s quite a few of us around. People who want a phone you use as a phone and whose battery lasts a week on a single charge.
I’ll second that. I gave up iPhone for Blackberry because I wanted something more than a toy. I gave up Blackberry for Android because on the surface it appeared to offer a few compelling features still in the tubes for BB. I gave up Android for Symbian because Android didn’t live up to the hype. It was neat and pretty like the iPhone, and had decent email support (though not as good as the BB), but stability, battery life and overall value were pathetic.
In the past I’ve dismissed Symbian saying it’s not a true smartphone OS. I still believe that, but in a positive light now. By owning a Symbian phone I’ve discovered that I don’t need a smartphone, I just needed a phone that does what I ask of it. The Nokia I chose (Nuron/5230 as I am on T-Mobile US) does exactly what I need and no more. In fact, I’d say the only thing it could do better is email; it does support IMAP and Google Sync, but it could be better at it. Regardless, I now have a phone that can browse the web well, instantly notify me of email from several accounts, guide me with the best phone-based GPS software I’ve ever used (Ovi Maps, even works without a network connection), and tether seamlessly with Windows and Linux.
It does all that with up to three days battery life if I don’t tether, and I bring my charger with my netbook so if I do tether it’s a non-issue. I would have been happier with a physical keyboard, but my choices were limited on T-Mobile if I wanted 3G speed.
All that said, I don’t see why Nokia can’t go with WP7 on their higher-end phones to directly compete with HTC and the other big players. They could reserve MeeGo for the N900 successor, and keep Symbian for mid-to-low end phones, where I feel it belongs.
As far as Symbian is concerned Nokia has to sort out its Sh*tty SDK.
Symbian has a long dating (deserved) bad reputation for developer friendliness and chaos. Its SDK is a relict from the times when a Smartfone was an elite small market-high margins gadget, that had tight business oriented scope and didn’t really needed blooming app market. That situation was comfortable for Nokia but it’s long gone (ironically thanks to another “elite” phone). Now it has to be mended both in terms of technology and PR and that’s a lot of effort.
Edited 2011-02-08 12:10 UTC
Tried the QT SDK ? It’s pretty sweet…
Well, Nokia is an established brand name. And they don’t need to push MeeGo as MeeGo, they can just push it as Nokia smartphone.
I don’t doubt that MS needs a strong manufacturer to back it up. But Nokia would be idiots to fall for that. For all the pros you list for MS above, there’s also some big cons. They had a mobile business and ran it into the ground. They tend to treat their manufacturers like slaves, stiff them and occasionally even undercut them. Why do you think WP7 is doing so poorly? For all its technical merits, MS had to twist many arms to get it out there. That’s the only reason it wasn’t still-born.
MS has still not outgrown their classic M.O.: aquiring or piggybacking other companies’ tech and products then enjoy a competition-free market. Doesn’t work anymore. They’ve just recently started realising they need products that compete on actual technical merit, and they got WP7 and W7 out. But they still fail in so many other respects, such as treating their customers, developers and OEMs like crap.
They had their duds but lumping it all under “sucks” is a gross exaggeration. Symbian will not be touched in terms of performance and battery life by anything out today (Android, iOS, WP7 etc.) On features it does not compare, but the performance/battery/UI speed makes it perfectly suitable for a market which most people apparently forget exists: the feature-phone.
The 1st world countries may be going gaga over smartphones, but most of Africa, India, China, Eastern Europe and South America are using cheap ($100-$300) phones (without subsidies!) that last around a week on one charge and provide calls, messages, calendar, taking pics and video, web browsing/email/IM/facebook/twitter over 3G. The “high end” or business ones offer hardware keyboards, touchscreens, GPS, WiFi, office apps and boosted specs.
Speaking of the office crowds, they favor the Blackberry for certain reasons. They need serious sync and integrated solutions, hardware keyboards etc. That’s another market that high end consumer gizmos will not penetrate any time soon.
Nokia’s MeeGo is an attempt to expand their marketshare into smartphone territory. It will not shrink their feature and business phone market. If it works, it will eat into Android/iOS/WP7 marketshare. If it doesn’t, Nokia is not any worse off.
Edited 2011-02-07 11:05 UTC
I don’t quite get why you say they wont be worse off. They’re loosing customers because their phones suck shit compared to the competition these days. Apple saw it, Google saw it, Nokia know it.
The market has shifted and they have to adapt. Sure there’ll be people who don’t want the ‘smart’ phone but I’m betting that’ll be a shrinking market.
Edited 2011-02-07 11:09 UTC
What would cause someone who hasn’t already gotten a smartphone to get one in the near future? If it was about money, they’d have managed by now. They either don’t want/need one, or their money problem is more serious than that. In either case, they won’t purchase one.
Again with the generalization… Each company has its own strategy. You cannot lump them together.
* Apple sells turnkey expensive solutions tied in with their other services and products.
* Google is trying to make sure nobody ever locks-in their cash-cow (the Web) by delivering competitive products for free.
* Nokia is enjoying a stable feature-phone market and has decided it’s time to dip a toe into the smartphone market.
If MeeGo is successful it will steal from Android/iOS/WP7 marketshare, not from featurephones. If not… the featurephone market is not going anywhere.
(And from the way you talk about this I don’t think you have the 1st idea how big the featurephones are on 2/3rds of the planet and just how many people don’t have any use for smartphones. Don’t judge the entire world by your small corner of it.)
Anyway… some companies are secure and stable enough that they don’t feel the need to jump on the latest bandwagon until they feel ready. That’s Nokia and smartphones. That’s HTC and tablets. They held back until they felt confident going in. That’s smart.
Edited 2011-02-07 13:18 UTC
You forget that Smartphone has long annihilated the higher part of feature-phone market. And that this is where margins are high. Nokia doesn’t dip toe on SM market, it has created it.
Edited 2011-02-08 12:21 UTC
Wtf is this based on? I keep hearing this, yet there have been ZERO official figures. Why is everybody assuming it’s not doing well?
And lest we forget – Microsoft has a habit of starting out poorly, only to slowly gain market share over time. Just look at their server business or the Xbox. So, even if WP7 is in fact doing poorly, you only have to look at the company’s past to realise that’s not uncommon for a new Microsoft product.
The figures are out for Q4. WP7 debuted at 2 percent marketshare. If you look at the insane growing rate of both Android and iOS you realise that WP7 is mostly cannibalising WM6. Smartphones may be “Fisher Price toys” but apparently that’s what customers want. :/
Problem is, I’m not sure how much of their recovery is due to underhand arrangements and how much to honest to God public interest. For all their sucessful lines of products they had just as many lines that bombed with a lot of negative publicity. Some of their succesful lines are only starting to break even now after many many years (ie. Xbox).
I think WP7 is an honest effort of making an actually good product… but it’s being held back by a lot of legacy. I wish it went out there and did very well because both Android and iOS need competition to keep them in check. We’ll see.
You do realise both kernel and userland were written from scratch, right?
I meant “legacy” as in business methods. I’m afraid you’re gonna make me launch into a lenghty explanation.
Microsoft approaches a market with a pure copycat mindset. They look at lucrative niches, they see what works, they make a very similar product and attempt to insert it by force using money and leveraging their existing monopolies. Or they aquire an established player in that niche. They reason that “if it’s there and it works, we can just take a chunk of it (or all of it).”
Follow-up tactics include the (in)famous “embrace and extinguish” and violent (buy-out, lawsuits) practices against competition, until the niche is theirs.
This strategy has famously worked at exactly one point in history: namely in taking over the PC market via establishing Windows and Office as the de facto standard for OS desktops and office apps, respectively.
But this strategy has failed to achieve the same results in any other case. They made a beach-head with C# in Java territory but failed to conquer it. They tried to enter the console market with Xbox but Sony and Nintendo held on. They tried to copy Apple in the MP3 player market but failed spectacularly. They never managed to dislodge LAMP for the Web with their own product combos.
(Important note: nowhere in their strategy does customer satisfaction appear to play a crucial role.)
The problem is that their competition nowadays are constantly evolving. They seem to reinvent their markets periodically, relegating Microsoft to playing a game of catch-up. Nintendo sits quietly for several years but then comes out with a complete game-changer. Apple is benefitting from Steve Jobs’ long term planning and arguably genius, and shifting their focus all the time. Google is hard to compete with because most of their products are free and their core business is a de facto monopoly (how do you like them apples?
Microsoft has no long term goals, no corporate philosophy, just a pile of cash, exactly two established monopolies, and a tendency to run after the next shiny thing.
To get back on topic: WP7 may be a technically adept product, but their approach of the market is dated. They saw everybody fawning over “smartphones”, they want in, now. And they’ll get in… to some extent. But they will fail the big break without long terms goals, without an actual understanding of what customers want, without a sincere desire to innovate rather than copy.
WP7 is the “me too” response. Compare it to Android (the phenomenon, the approach, not the technical product itself); it was fashioned by Google in a very precise manner to be a game changer. That’s the kind of insertion you want, the kind that shapes the environment around it. Just getting in is useless if the ground will shift under you again very soon.
PS: On a personal note, I’ve come to change my opinion of you, Thom. I no longer thing you’re biased toward any particular side of the industry (anymore than it’s humanly normal, anyway). And I’ve come to rather enjoy the passion you put in your articles. It might make them more informal and some percieve a bias, but they’re a more interesting read for it.
What Freetard rubbish.
Because no other company ever done this ever at all. There was never online maps before Googlemaps, There was never web mail until gmail, and Myspace never existed … facebook was totally original.
I really don’t know what to make of this.
Except Macintosh was actually out before Windows 1.0 and the first versions of office were actually for the macintosh … Lets forget that.
Windows and the PC did much of what the Macintosh did, not all of it but enough to be “good enough”, that is why Windows became dominant.
9 out of 10 jobs in my Area of the U.K. are either VB/C# with ASP.NET, IIS and SQL Server 2005/2008. Microsoft are doing very well with ASP.NET.
What do you base this one then? Supporting Windows XP for 13 years … apparently they don’t care about their customers at all. On their website you can still find support information for Windows 98 an Operating system that has been long since retired. .NET 1.1 API and documentation is still available even though it was unsupported since 2005 or 2006 (can’t be bothered to look it up).
Heard of the Kinect then? Never heard of Xbox Live? then (which Sony and Nintendo are miles behind on), Xbox Arcade? … Nintendo and Sony copied Microsoft here … Do we live on the same planet?
You obviously haven’t heard of .NET then … Quite a few dev’s absolutely love. I can use .NET for Web, Desktop, Phone, Xbox 360 … So I think there might be a strategy.
The strategy is quite obvious … Get devs working with .NET, get companies using .NET and it will ensure the survival of their platforms.
Like with the Xbox ??? Oh wait it tops the sales charts in the U.K. in 2010 …
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/281937/news/xbox-360-tops-uk-c…
Stop talking utter freetard bollox.
I did not say that Microsoft is the only company that ever copied or aquired something. I said they can’t seem to be able to focus on something else.
Office for the Mac was a completely separate thing from the Windows version. There’s no use comparing the two.
1) The first versions of Office for Mac were part of agreements with Apple. When those agreements fell through the Mac versions were abandoned.
2) The Mac Office team was completely separate from the Windows team. The Mac Office suite was a completely different codebase from the Windows version.
3) MS had issues with Office for Mac being different from the general Mac look and feel, especially in the later versions. It did not go well with Mac users.
Have you ever heard the saying “a sample of one is poor statistics”? You may live in a peculiar area. From my experience over various areas, you’re likely to see at least as many requests for Java, C++, Python, PHP, Perl, Ruby etc. Actual proportions may vary wildly from place to place.
They care about the software makers. It has to do with keeping the mass of software available for Windows working. It has to do with maintaining the monopoly strong.
Software makers are not Microsoft customers, they are developers for the Windows platform. The customers are the ones that buy copies of Windows. Making sure someone buys your product is not the same as taking the extra step of making sure they’re satisfied with it. I don’t believe Microsoft ever cared for that extra step. “Make them buy it” was always enough for them.
Yes. The latest development in human interfaces for gaming consoles. A market invented and established by the Nintendo Wii.
There’s a difference between taking something already invented and making it better, and inventing something ground breaking. It takes genius to take those playing cubes that everyone is polishing but basically stacking in the same old way and make something completely new out of them. It’s not in Microsoft’s core philosophy to go for that spark of genius. It doesn’t cultivate that sort of talent, it never has.
It can be argued that Bill Gates had it when he made the initial moves that established Microsoft for what it is today, but he never cultivated it. Microsoft is not about “make something new”, it’s about “see, want, get, polish” applied to stuff that’s already there.
Not exactly visionary, is it. Living is not just about surviving.
Yes, after a decade of selling the Xbox as loss leader… to a point that stretches the definition of the term. May I point out that Nintendo makes a profit on every Wii sold?
Like I said, Microsoft will hang in there, somehow, even if they have to throw money at it to make it stick. But it’s not their market in any sense. They entered it by force, they are staying in it for as long as they’re willing to lose money, they haven’t managed to eliminate any of the major competitors.
Even assuming your definition of “fail” is cutting them some slack, there’s no way you can call this success.
You’re the only one looking like the retard/fanboy, when resorting to name calling. Stick to making your points and we’ll all be better off.
And in case you forgot what this discussion is about, I’m not attacking Microsoft. I’m trying to explain why Nokia would have little reason to get involved with them.
Uh, not exactly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_Toy
And Dreameye etc. I’m sure there were plenty of previous attempts. There were MP3 players before the iPod, natural interfaces before the Wii etc. Why did they stand out? That’s the question. IMHO, they brought much more than just a cool gadget to the table.
MySpace was well out before Facebook, but Facebook did the social networking thing better, remember those unreadable profiles.
Exactly so you can’t just say that they have totally failed when it is doing well in England, just look at reed.co.uk. It shifts every few years … suddenly loads of PHP, MySQL jobs then Loads of .NET jobs.
You are making assumptions with no basis … yes most of the worlds servers run a LAMP stack or similar … but how many of those are very small scale websites with a shopping cart and a few other bits and pieces I wonder. Statistics are meaningless without any context … as we have both so well pointed out.
If there were jobs at the time using a LAMP stack when I left uni I would probably be doing that now. Thank God I am now because I am currently working on a website in PHP in my spare time and it sucks compared to .NET.
Oh so software makers are not customers now?
You obviously have not used Windows 7, Basically makes everything else look crap (says the man with a iMac on his desk). I am extremely satisfied with Windows 7, growth rate of Windows 7 installs is staggering, obviously at some point they must have pleased quite a few people after the relatively poor sales of Windows Vista, It can’t just all be OEMs.
You making a hell of a lots of assumptions based on nothing, other businesses that have showed if you take a poorly implemented “good idea” and make it better you can make a lot of cash money … things like facebook, iPod, google maps are a few I can just think off the of my head. Innovation isn’t about inventing something new, it is about taking something that is could be awesome and is currently broken in some way and fixing it.
You knew exactly what I meant. That Microsoft are cultivating a rich developer environment where skills can be transferred easily.
Everyone except Nintendo has sold at a loss, they make the money back in selling Games … Sega did this since the days of the master system, it is nothing new.
Sony has been doing it with the playstation for 15 years and I they made a tidy profit with the Playstation and Playstation 2.
I am sure that Microsoft are probably raking the cash back in with the Arcade game, Xbox Live and all the large games that comes out like Halo Reach, Call of Duty Black Ops, Peripherals like the Kinect and the Controllers …. it called a business plan.
Selling more than the competition is apparently failing, right…..
Lets not forget that people buy games, Xbox live accounts, Xbox Arcade Games, Controllers and other peripherals … which I am sure Microsoft make quite a bit of cash on (the controller itself is £50 here while a new console is £215 … they are losing on the console and making money on peripherals).
You used the classic “extend, embrace, extinguish” crap I hear from Linux fanboys soooooo many times, maybe you should keep to the facts instead of rattling off well known phrases that are used by what some of use know as “freetards”
have a look here http://tmrepository.com/trademarks/
What else I am supposed to think when I see warning signs just like these?
Certainly sounded like attacking Microsoft, which is what happens on OSNews pretty much all the time … Which pretty much what you were doing. Had it occured to you that Nokia are developing not only Meego, but also Qt, this is probably expensive. Windows Phone 7 is already built … buying licenses for this may well be a hell of a lot cheaper than running two large software development projects?
I didn’t. I’m saying they play a game of “me too” and that it’s not a recipe for overwhelming success.
No, not in this context. They are developers.
You would still use Windows 7 no matter how it looked. It’s nice that you happen to like it, but irrelevant.
That’s not exactly customer satisfaction at its finest.
Careful, you’re talking about the leaders of their respective fields.
But OK, so you’re saying that absolute game-changers aren’t relevant, that fixing things is good enough. Give me an example involving Microsoft, then. A market where Microsoft took something broken, fixed it, and absolutely owned as a direct result. It cannot be about Windows or Office, and it cannot be a “market” within one of these monopolies (eg. .NET). And I’m afraid I will not accept the gaming console market as proof either.
There’s nothing innovative about keeping your developers happy, it’s common sense.
Then why can’t Microsoft do that too? Have the others needed a decade as well?
Anybody can enter and stay in a market by throwing money at it. The trick is to make useful products at a profit. To do that you need some amount of empathy for your customers. And to absolutely own the market you need to make something outstanding.
When you sell at a loss each item you sell is actually bad for you. You want to offset the loss in some other manner. They haven’t been able to.
No, they’re not. The losses are for the entire Xbox division, they’re overall figures.
I admit I don’t have information more recent than summer 2010. If you do please share.
«”Embrace, extend and extinguish,” also known as “Embrace, extend and exterminate,” is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.»
From here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
Qt for mobile and MeeGo were already well on their way and in their finishing stages when WP7 came out. I don’t see how suddenly doing a fundamental switch late in a project can be good for it. Not unless it’s absolute crap and you decide to cut your losses. How crap is MeeGo remains to be seen.
It’s true that adopting an existing OS saves you from investing into your own R&D. But it puts you at the mercy of the OS maker. All OEMs have learned that the hard way in Windows’ glory days. That’s the angle that Google is exploiting by making Android free and open. That’s why Apple and Samsung and Nokia and RIM etc. are making their own OS.
> I am sure that Microsoft are probably raking the cash back
How can somebody say that he’s sure… when he makes clear that he really doesn’t know?
> freetard
Next time you insult you might get your insult back.
Just two things:
> Windows and Office as the de facto standard
An standard has to be public, known by all, etc. and Windows and Office are privative, closed programs, treated like secrets. They are just dominating programs.
> Google is hard to compete with because most of their products are free and their core business is a de facto monopoly
Let’s say you can use whatever search engine, whenever you want, wherever you want. Also without any added problem you search. So we should not call Google Search a monopoly. It’s good to have several search engines available that can be used at any time.
Let’s compare it to… not using Office (for example). That will bring you problems, most of them created by interested parts (there are more than one).
Last but not least: a good comment, Wirespot!
Edited 2011-02-08 21:07 UTC
MS server business started poorly and drags pretty poorly as well.
I wouldn’t call a 30-35% market share “drags poorly”.
It’s pretty poor considering that’s it’s continuously going down.
What would be riskier for them in a long term?
Nokia still has ambitions to be the king of high end mobile not a second HTC. This is an European company betting on technological prowess, not cost cutting.
The only alliance between N and MS I could possibly see is if MS would produce a completely special branch of Mobile OS for Nokia. But generally that just doesn’t make sense for me.
WP7 is fresh, new, innovative. It makes my iPhone look like an outdated Fisher Price toy.
How bizarre. A high end smart phone is nothing but a fashion accessory to you.
I use my phone to get things done, stay connected, be more productive, and have some fun with games. Apparently you prefer fashionable looks over features, cause Windows Phone certainly can’t hold a candle to either iPhone or Android in terms of actual usefulness.
Mail is better.
SMS is better.
Contact management is better.
Home screen is better.
Keyboard is better.
Zune > iPod.
Diary is better.
Zune windows app >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>iTunes.
Those are the features I care about. Not fart apps or games.
You forgot:
Winphone 7 Developer toolkit > *.
Mail, SMS, contacts, home screen, keyboard, diary.
My 8 year old cell phone could do all those things just fine.
Actual smart phones are so far beyond those basic functions. My phone is a top notch GPS with voice guidance, it finds food, helps me keep fit, integrates with the bug tracker and todo lists for work, can edit pictures and videos, easy access to entertainment like various video sites, banking, thousands of radio stations around the world, an innovative alarm clock to wake me as gently as possible, VLC remote, VNC apps, apps for finding movies nearby with reviews, geocaching, netflix viewer, and yes, some games and even the odd trivial app like a cat piano to confuse our cat.
So yeah, wake me up when a windows phone can do all of that, and get more than 3 words on a screen with their silly oversized UI.
Edited 2011-02-05 01:47 UTC
Android and iPhone have the app advantage but the WP7 UI is really slick and shouldn’t be dismissed. Like Silverlight I think it would get a lot more fawning had it been made by a different company.
Myself, I totally understand Thom. Actually, WP7 is by far the touchscreen-based phone platform which I like most. Because it is a useful phone platform with nice extras, and not a crappy phone platform which tries to pretend that a phone is all about the extras.
And even when we examine those extras you mention…
-All current phones do GPS, AFAIK, wp7 phones included, so that’s a very bad example. And a “top-notch GPS” doesn’t run out of battery after a few hours of continuous use.
-Find food : So, you can’t do it yourself by thinking for half a second ? Wow… Are touchscreen phones for dummies or something ?
-Helps keep me fit : Again, once you start to blindly obey your phone instead of using your brain and a bit of will on such trivial matters, you’re in big trouble.
-Integrates with the bug tracker and to-do list for work : Okay, I admit that this one would actually be useful… If you needed it at times where you’re not already staring a more comfortable desktop or laptop PC.
-Can edit pictures and videos : Considering we’re talking about 4″ touchscreens, I assume you’re talking about trivial stuff like cropping, adjusting brightness, and silly sepia/desaturating effects. WP7 does this out of the box.
-Easy access to entertainment like various video sites : you mean youtube ? Netflix ? Or maybe those which provide HTML5 videos in a mobile-friendly format ? Afaik, WP7 does that too.
-Banking : Doing basic features of ATMs on your phone so that if it’s stolen while you’re using this app the guy will be able to do whatever he wants with your money without having to know about your credit card code… Great !
-Radio stations : Okay, this one is a good point.
-Alarm clock : And you mock WP7 for being good at features which phones have had for ages ?
-VLC remote : Good point.
-VNC apps : Explain to what extent this is useful on a 4″ screen. I don’t understand why you mention it, so I can’t comment on it.
-Apps for finding movies nearby with reviews : If you’re alone, you probably know where the good theaters around are. Generally 4-10′ away by foot or bike, I thought you wanted to keep fit ? If you’re accompanied, wouldn’t it be very impolite to stare at your phone’s screen for 10 minutes, totally ignoring the other person(s), swearing about how crappy mobile internet connections are, before saying “we go there” ?
-Geocaching : ?
-Netflix viewer : Already mentioned above.
-Games and odd trivial apps : All phones have those, you’ll have to be more precise before you can flag it as a distinctive feature of your phone.
PS : All touchscreen UIs are oversized, due to the need to manipulate them with greasy big human fingers without any kind of haptic feedback.
Edited 2011-02-05 08:59 UTC
Ah yes, ye grande ole personal opinion, just like bums, we all have ’em, and they’ve all got at least one crack and one hole in them.
All us iPhone users are not only interested in fart apps or games, there’s also the fart games! Geez get it right will you.
Where did I say it wasn’t an opinion?
The mail client is somewhat broken. It does not display new mail according to IMAP flags but in regard to the last time you opened the mail app. I find that quite confusing. On the other hand, I don’t see any problems with the iOS mail client. It does it’s primary task, being able to check mail on the go, an absolutely painless action. I manage 5 email accounts with my iPhone, one having 75k mails in the INBOX and I have never had any problems.
Elaborate that. I have the same feeling here as the mail client. The SMS client on the iPhone does _exactly_ what I expect an SMS app to do. It’s refreshingly simple and it makes fun to be able to see the whole conversation over several SMS.
Dito. Please elaborate. My iPhone lets me add, search and call contacts very easily. For everything beyond, I edit the contacts on my desktop, that’s way more comfortable and faster anyway. Sync capabilities exist!
That’s your personal opinion. I have no problems with the iPhone home screen. I don’t need no fancy bling-bling there. What I especially don’t like about the WP7 home screen that you will end up with long scrolling after having installed several apps. And they use a tile on the home screen for each mail account, too much clutter IMHO. And for everything else, you have to tap that arrow on the right and scroll through an endless list of apps which doesn’t even allow you to sort it manually.
Dunno, never tested that.
And here it becomes absolutely biassed. What’s people’s problems with iTunes and all the stuff associated with that all the time? No one on this earth forces you to use Apple’s products but still many people do. Because undoubtedly the iPhone and MacOS do provide one of the best user experiences in the market. And that’s the reason why customers are still buying iPhones like crazy, the first batch of Verizon iPhones was sold out within several hours, which can’t be claimed for any WP7 phone. Microsoft didn’t even share any sales numbers yet. All they say is that they have shipped 2 Mio licenses which tells you absolutely nothing about the actual devices being sold.
Microsoft is just way too late with WP7, they will never catch the train and I am very glad they’re really cases where they’re not the dominant force in the market, especially when it’s obvious that they’re not dominating because of technical superiority but because of market influence and unfair competition.
Adrian
They said that with the Xbox … and it not doing too bad at all.
There are some differences in the markets of course. Games are much more unique than most apps. Microsoft was able to pay some top class game dev talent to release solely on the x-box and those games sold the console, you couldn’t’ get Halo anywhere else. While games exist on smartphone they aren’t the main selling point yet, and most successful apps will have a ton of competitors trying to do the same thing. So microsoft lacks a killer you can’t get this on anything but our phone app yet, because most apps will have something equivalent on the different platforms. Games are an exception but still not the sales driver of smartphones yet.
Second, phones have much higher lock-in (in america), so its harder to break in the market. People have no real issue with owning multiple consoles, an early sale for Sony or Nintendo doesn’t mean that Microsoft can’t get a sale from that customer too in a few months. Even in countries where everything isn’t contracted out the wazoo, people aren’t going to own multiple phones at once.
Third, Microsoft was the hardware vendor for the x-box, they didn’t have to convince computer makers to install x-box on the machine instead of playstation or nintendo. Microsoft may be willing to dump piles and piles of cash into a new market until they succeed but thats most difficult and more expensive to do when you have to convince other companies to do so as well.
So I don’t think it will be as easy for microsoft to force their way into the smartphone market as the console market. However they are willing throw a ton of cash into a segment until they are profitable there. I don’t know it their online divisions have ever turned a profit but they are showing no signs of backing down there. And given how much money the company makes overall they could push wp7 for pretty much indefinitely.
What I’ve seen from WP7 so far didn’t impress me much. But admittedly, I haven’t tried it for more than a few minutes a couple of times. And I put some value in your judgement Thom, so perhaps WP7 is better than I think.
Still, you won’t see me buying any Microsoft products. Sure, when Microsoft is pressured they will put some effort in making a decent product (like, from what I hear, WP7, IE9). But when they are not, and they are on top in a certain market, they will shift all that effort to locking in as many people as possible (e.g. with MS Office and back with IE6).
What it boils down to, I don’t trust them. I disagree with people saying Apple is the new Microsoft, or Google is the new Microsoft, I think Microsoft is still Microsoft.
Edited 2011-02-05 13:33 UTC
+1
wp7 not very impressionning and sale are so so
i don’t think for nokia it’s a good partnership to join a compagny who have a bad os…..
android have the wind in one’s sails, not wp7
Yipes, judging by the downvotes I guess I made it sound a bit trollish.
But I hope everyone agrees that IE6 getting 90% market share at one point was really bad for the internet. And MS Office being the most used office suite has been really bad for interoperability when it comes to digital documents.
I do think it’s good WP7 exists, because competition is always good. It’s just that based on past experiences, I’m personally not ready to help Microsoft gain market share in any area.
The cardinal sin of Windows phone 7 is the browser. It brings back flashbacks of Internet explorer 2. When using it, I have to resist the urge to navigate to netscape.com to download a better browser…
It’s behind Mobile Safari for sure, but there is such a thing as exaggeration. It’s perfectly usable.
I was a bit horrified to see some IE7 HTML/CSS bugs pop up in the short test that I did though.
The rest of windows phone does what it advertises: lets you spend more time not using it by making it easy to get the info you need. Most of the info I need, doesn’t have an app, doesn’t come in an email, but exists somewhere embeded in a html page. Moblie ie makes using it a hassle to the point of simply asking other people with other phone Oses to do the look up, or to go without the info. There have been many feature phones that have had web browsers, email, Instant messaging,ect . To me the defining quality that finally made me make the plunge, was the dramatic increase in browser speed and functionality.
Maybe it isn’t that bad as Ie 2. But the rest of windows phone seven is so good, it makes it look so much worse. I’ve also heard that the blackberry’s browser stinks too, but I haven’t used it much. It might very well be just as bad.
How is the integration with the google stack? does it work well with gmail and gmail contacts?
I can make arguments as to why linux or macos is better than windows technically. However facts are facts: microsoft was far too late to the game, they are even losing marketshare, they have nothing for apps out there, (has anyone really even cared enough to write a fart app for wp7?). They missed the boat.
nokia has also, for different reasons. They clearly suffer from problems that hardware companies have, they just think that software *just happens* and they get killed for it. they wasted time jumping from desktop toolkit to desktop toolkit when it should have been clear that some new UI without all the baggage was required.
The one hope nokia has is to leverage their branding. If anything microsoft should be absolutely begging nokia to push wp7 or they should purchase nokia’s phone division.
Edited 2011-02-05 15:41 UTC
Do you know that the whole Qt for Symbian package weights ~10MB and that Qt apps may start faster than “native” Symbian C++ ones when coded properly ? Not to mention that they’re about as snappy.
I used to be similarly skeptical about the idea of porting Qt on mobile platforms but after trying it, I must admit that it just works.
Edited 2011-02-05 15:42 UTC
I compare to fltk and enlightenment.
Okay, then indeed we’re maybe on a different field there. Do you have some QT embedded/EFL performance comparison ? Enlightenment is sure incredibly snappy compared with desktop QT, but desktop QT is also much heavier than what they put on mobile phones…
You’re suggesting the iPhone isn’t a fashion accessory? Most people could get away with the clunkyness of a Nokia, but go with the iPhone due to the coolness factor.
Where I live, the ‘fashion phone that I must totally like must have’… is a Blackberry.
WTF?
Seriously, the number of pink cased BB’s I see in the hands of women on the train into Waterloo every day is huge.
They all can’t be corporate phones.
I use an iPhone4. I bought it just before Christmas. After the Sony Ericcsson POS I had before (where there was no option to reply to an SMS Message? Eh?) it is a breath of fresh air.
That retina display is beautiful & clear.
I looked at a number of Android phones. They were near but really up to the standard of the iPhone. They will get better no doubt.
As for me using a BBerry? Forget it. I have really huge hands. that keyboard is just silly. I did try one and found it personally unusable.
As for WP7 models? Nowhere to be seen apart from in the stores.
No doubt. I think the point I am making is that the phone has become a fashion accessory these days.
Nokia will reveal Windows Phone 7 devices during or right after Summer 2011. Talked to someone working there: it’s 100% sure.
Now $1M question. Should I buy their stocks?
Stocks are a fraud 😉 If I were you, I wouldn’t buy ANY stock 😉 But anyway, it’s clear enough that Nokia couldn’t turn Symbian into de-fact standard so opening up to other OS is good to me.
Nokia, you refuse to embrace the Android platform but choose the go for the Windows Phone?
Something is wrong with you.
Two different target markets. I’m sure that Meego will target early adopters/technical people/hackers, while Windows Phone 7 will target people who just want a slick smartphone. There may be too much overlap with Meego users and Android users. Just wishful thinking, but maybe there’s a deal in this as well where Meego/Qt gets better Office filters, which could trickle down to KOffice.
nokia should break the ice and give users an option to choose whatever os they want. Just like a PC where you can install windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris, even hackintosh, the same should be for phones. On nokia’s website users should have optional os downloads for whatever you want. No rooting required, give users a simple few clicks installer.
I agree totally. AFAIK the Intel Mobile Internet device was meant to allow this.
now that, my friend, I would pay a decent amount of money for. They’d provide drivers for WP, WM, and the latest version of Android, and leave the rest to the community. A wet dream fot sure
If that rumor is true, this could be a big harm for Qt …
Hence a big harm for KDE
Why, if that’s the case nokia will make pretty sure QT is an established DEV plaform on WP7. In fact it will be the *only* sensible native code platform on that.
[q] I’m currently reviewing an HTC HD7 with Windows Phone 7, and I can assure you – the software is great. WP7 is fresh, new, innovative. It makes my iPhone look like an outdated Fisher Price toy.[q/]
Seems the actual customers are not that impressed. 80% return rates!
From the horses mouth at the mini-microsoft blog
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2011/01/microsoft-fy11q2-results.html?…
An anonymous comment on a random blog…
Okay, here’s one.
I just went into a T-Mobile store, and they said the return rate was 0%! I checked with another rep, and he confirmed it. In fact, he told me that 100% of the people who bought a WP7 phone, came back within a week to buy 10 more!
Totally honest you guys!
You do realise that that blog is the unofficial, and very well known, blog for Microsoft employees to vent their feelings about the company and it’s products. The whole comment list is worth reading, I know it’s long but if you want to know how the people at Microsoft actually feel then its very much worth reading.
Note that a lot of it is how the more disgruntled employees feel. And there are a bunch of trolls.
It appears that the consensus is that Nokia will adopt wp7, but some things just don’t make sense. I am skeptical this will be a wholesale adoption. First, wp7 is a very young and immature os as of now. Despite the great reviews, sales have been tepid at best. And the app store is still small at this point. Nokia’s N8 which got rather meh reviews sold more than all wp7 handsets combined. And nokia has their own app store and they are ahead of wp7 for app for the moment as well. So why does Nokia need to rush to switch to a phone that sells less and their phones and has fewer apps than their phones. If we were talking switching to android thing would be different, android does have the great lead in many areas and catching up will be hard. But wp7 doesn’t really get you caught up any faster then a decent meego release would. The only reason I could think of would be if meego was hopelessly behind schedule and wouldn’t even be ready to release this year.
Maybe the wp7 could be a US only deal? They probably aren’t going to make any significant inroads to the US market anytime soon on their own, so they will just sell a phone that they think will sell in the US. But elsewhere every sale of a nokia wp7 phone would just put yet another person into a competing mobile software ecosystem. Or maybe they have given up on software all together and will just do all hardware. In that case, good luck as a commodity hardware maker against the asian oems.
How does it appear to be consensus? Those who produce these rumors have no idea what they are talking about.
Don’t waste you time on this, and don’t spread stupid stuff which was created to attract some traffic to news sites. Be smart.
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Windows Phone 7 on Nokia phones? Yes, please. That would be very nice.
if nokia moves to windows platform i’ll throw my N95 in the trash.
Windows platform is a crap. how is it possible, that nokia cannot notice it ? bollocks.