The end of the line for Symbian
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 25th Jan 2013 14:20 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless Buried deep within Nokia's press release about its financial results, there's a line that pretty much signals the end of one of the most popular and successful mobile operating systems in history. With Nokia retiring its use, Symbian is no more.
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Soulbender
Member since:
2005-08-18

Who would've guessed... you shut down your production and research sites in various countries, get rid of your employees, even sell your main headquarters, and you make a little bit of profit! After you've cut thousands of jobs around the world and shut down or sold your properties, suddenly your loss of profit becomes lower: there is no one left to pay and you're left with fewer taxes and property expenses to have to pay.


Maybe it's says something about how the company was managed up until recently...

Reply Parent Score: 2

cdude Member since:
2008-09-21

Up until recently or to be more exact till the quarter Elop issued his burning Nokia memo, destroying there cash-cow a year before they had the new product in markets, Nokia was number 1 for many many years, making huge profits, increasing them quarter by quarter.

Take the real asset Nokia has left as example. There patent portfolio. 50 billion dollar! This was and is the fruit of all the decades of heavy R&D investment done before, of factories producing world-record phones, of talented emplyees, clever management and high-quality producs loved by customers. The patents portfolio, there biggest current asset left, and the years of profits, of cash reserve, market lead and grow. All gone with the burning Nokia memo except the patents. Parts of the patents turned into cash already (eg RIM's recent payments saving Nokia's Q4 numbers, Apple's payments the quarter before, the sell off of a few of that patents to patent-trolls, etc pp).

Today's Nokia ia still living and surviving from all the succesful years before that ARE result of that invesments. Sure, somebody like Elop could have joined Nokia 15 years ago already and save lots of cash by decreasing all investment already back then. Streamline like Nelson named it. Then today there would be no Nokia. That's the facts.

And now after all this "streamlining" we have to ask a question impossible to even think about just some years ago: Will there be a Nokia in 5 years?

Edited 2013-01-27 08:39 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 3

zima Member since:
2005-07-06

Up until recently or to be more exact till the quarter Elop issued his burning Nokia memo, destroying there cash-cow a year before they had the new product in markets, Nokia was number 1 for many many years, making huge profits, increasing them quarter by quarter.

That is revisionist history, Nokia was in deep trouble for some time already when Elop took over.

And Symbian wasn't a cash cow - S40 is what kept (and keeps) Nokia afloat. What Symbian did have: immense R&D costs (more than the entire R&D of Apple!) for not much return.

Reply Parent Score: 2