Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 24th Sep 2010 23:20 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless Well, this certainly isn't particularly surprising. The rising popularity of Android leaves more victims in its wake than just Windows Mobile. Sony Ericsson, one of the major manufacturers of Symbian phones (other than Nokia) has just announced it will pretty much abandon the platform to focus entirely on Android - leaving Nokia as the sole person cheering for team Symbian.
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Fettarme H-Milch
Member since:
2010-02-16

they did NOTHING!

Your statements sadly show that you have no clue about Nokia.
While it's true that Nokia did mistakes and and did not move fast enough, it is completely wrong that Nokia "did NOTHING!"

Nokia is in a difficult position. When you are the underdog, you can throw the latest and greatest on the market and either succeed and be admired by everyone or fail miserably and not be noticed by anyone.
Nokia is still the world wide leader in cell phone sales.
Nokia can't reshuffle their whole platform and lineup in one go without annoying many of its existing customers.

That's why Nokia is walking on a second path since years. Nokia founded the Maemo Linux project in 2005. Nokia bought Trolltech in 2008.
Now you can argue that Nokia should better have spend more resources on both projects but you can't argue that Nokia did nothing. Nokia's mindset is to move carefully. Even two years after the Trolltech buyout, Symbian^3 is still just an immediate step.
Maemo 6 (now called MeeGo but that doesn't change anything about Nokia's roadmap) and Symbian^4 are the final steps in the "Qt-fication" of their lineup, resulting in a modern technological foundation.

When Nokia bought Trolltech, plans about Windows Phone 7 weren't available. Qt still runs on Windows CE/Mobile. With Qt Nokia even had the option to release Win Mobile phones and still have the same stack across all phones. That option was never articulated by Nokia but the continued development of Qt for WinCE/Mobile spoke for itself.

Reply Parent Score: 9

Radio Member since:
2009-06-20

MeeGo is a failure? That might explain why the WeTab is already sold out [/snark]

Reply Parent Score: 3

vivainio Member since:
2008-12-26

Basically everything based on a "typical Linux/XFree86/XOrg" will fail.


Why do you think this is the case? Give us something concrete please, like "this stack can't reach 60fps on average application" - because that stuff can be proven to be false.

I have used MeeGo on my PC, I do not find it amusing at all.


I'm sorry it failed to amuse you.

Google Android on the other hand is a different story - a true example that Linux can be successful among general consumers if done correctly.


Android is proof point for Java. It doesn't say much about Linux since it's hardly Linux at all. Mac OS X is more Linux than Android is.

Creating yet another typical Linux distro to me is NOTHING. Creating something different such as Android IS something.


Companies are here to make business, in whatever collaborative setting is appropriate. They are not here to amuse you.

Reply Parent Score: 4

Sodki Member since:
2005-11-10

the new MeeGo will also fail.

Meego was already chosen to be the standard (with a grain of salt) operating system for cars. It's hardly a failure.

http://www.osnews.com/story/23597/MeeGo_Chosen_by_Automotive_Techno...

Reply Parent Score: 5

werterr Member since:
2006-10-03

I hardly think Maemo was a failure. Technology wise it was actually pretty darn good.

Compared to Android phones it wins hands down. (I have no experience with iPhones but from what I see and hear I'm not impressed)

Mind-share wise yeah, Nokia and thus Maemo has lost there. But technology wise Maemo is not bad and the N900 as a phone proofs that.

After being forced to spend two weeks on a Android (Cupcake) phone it was clear that this platform is technically inferior to the N900 on many levels. (As well as not being very user friendly IMHO)

Now you can argue that cupcake is old, but then again the phone is locked to this version and there is no means to upgrade without voiding all warranty. Also several of the major bugs I found there still open on 2.x so no gain there.

Sure I've got my share of gripes with Nokia; about Maemo's stale userland, slow development of Maemo, more or less letting it bleed to die, the idiotic reasonings of Maemo community about security (they do not want to implement shadow file and strong crypto on passwords because the a phone device is inheritly insecure ? sorry but that's just stupid), and how things went with the hole Meego move.

But Maemo as an OS and Phone is hardly a failure.

Considering the small amount of N900 phones that where made in the beginning and it being targeted to developers/geeks it could actually be called a success.

Reply Parent Score: 5

Bill Shooter of Bul Member since:
2006-07-14


Nokia is in a difficult position. When you are the underdog, you can throw the latest and greatest on the market and either succeed and be admired by everyone or fail miserably and not be noticed by anyone.


I agree. No one would have written an article about a failed apple project to release a phone. Who would read a story Apple? That's a company you can't love or hate. Everyone just seems to accurately gauge their products on their merits.

Reply Parent Score: 2