Submitted by “One of the casualties of Nokia’s latest cuts is Meltemi, the company’s effort to create a new Linux-based operating system for low-end smartphones. The project was aimed at offering smartphones at prices that neither Android or Windows Phone could easily reach, but also would have required Nokia to try to woo developers for yet another operating system.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s Elop’s job to make Nokia as miserable as possible, so that when Microsoft finally makes its move, it can be seen a saviour rather than a predator. Everything that can be cut has to be cut to dive the price down.
The apparently just unveiled http://www.developer.nokia.com/Devices/Device_specifications/Asha_3… (also 306, and 311 http://www.developer.nokia.com/Devices/Device_specifications/?filte… ) are touch-only S40. More or less the kind of “low-end smartphones” or “feature phones” the Meltemi was supposedly aiming at – though it most likely wouldn’t be ready still for quite some time, and if the S40 effort turned out fruitful…
It might also include large part of what Meltemi was to offer; earlier touchscreen Ashas introduced some basic “swipe” UI interaction.
Edited 2012-06-15 22:12 UTC
I somehow hope that when that day comes when Microsoft tries to buy Nokia or it’s assets (patents), this debacle of Nokia destroying it’s own brand is investigated. This had to be the strategy Elop was planning for, as we all predicted this would be the outcome.
Nokia is a handset company. It should have worked harder to compete against iOS and Android. Or just started making handsets with Android (and WP7) on them. Nokia had all to loose, and little to gain with this marriage to WP7. If somehow WP7 penetrated the market as they and MS projected other OEM’s would be whittling away at the Nokia market still.
Edited 2012-06-15 22:26 UTC
The idea that Elop is some kind of trojan horse planted there by Microsoft and not the choice of the board of Nokia is just lame and stupid. They hired Elop because they were going with Microsoft, not the other way around.
His ‘burning platform’ memo was probably the single dumbest action of any CEO of the last decade, though. Way to remove all faith in all they currently had, and any potential plan B.
I think his Burning the Platform memo is what makes people (me included) he’s a trojan horse planted by MS planted. I sure disagreed with his plan (but who cares what I think), and thought that there’s no way this could work.
I’m not disagreeing with you. and you’re probably right.. I’m just saying this has been such a blunder, one would almost expect it was done on purpose.
Even if you are right, the shareholders of Nokia should be very pissed at Elop, unless the strategy now is to sell to MS and get rich.
Don’t attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity 🙂
Also wishing they went with MeeGo instead…
How a platform which has never been confirmed, seen, detailed, or even spoken of outside of Nokia can be defended so adamantly.
What, just because it runs Linux? How the hell does anyone know that it met any kind of deadlines? What kind of roadblocks they ran into? You don’t know that.
All you hear is the disgruntled laid off employees, and I’m sure to them their baby was amazing and revolutionary. If they weren’t delivering, then they had to go. Period.
Besides, have you all seen the Asha Touch line? It’s really impressive.
I’ve not only seen the asha line of phones (and yes, they are quite nice for the price), but I’ve also seen the development tools. It’s _j2me_. That is quite horrible.
On the other hand, I also know that you would develop for the meltemi phones with QML. And that is really, really nice. And I know for sure that the first meltemi phones would have been ready for release in September…
On the other hand you, being very into KDE and hence also Qt, might fall under “their baby was amazing and revolutionary”… together with those who shared with you that info.
Release in 3 months? That tends to be close to the lowest timespan limit for Nokia between announcement and release. So maybe not that ready (as so many upcoming phones from Nokia were supposed to be, that later turned out to be a disappointment), and/or particularly for “offering smartphones at prices that Android could not easily reach” – but bringing even more fragmentation and overlapping efforts.
Some cheaper-than-610 Lumias, supposedly in the works, should be ready in comparable time & price spans (without that pesky additional fragmentation). Within the main Nokia strategy, they make more sense… (if that strategy is a right one is another issue)
Yeah, j2me – but, really, users care only that basics are covered (so decent browser, IM & social networking, games… pretty much it; and checking out http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/asha305/ looks like it comes with a package of decent EA games; and j2me users do get more http://www.opera.com/smw/2012/03/ ). There’s also “Series 40 Web Apps” – I guess conceptually not far from QML (and IIRC Nokia was implementing in the past a W3C-standard way of doing such apps)
Why don’t Microsoft just get on with it and buy Nokia. But of course they’d wait till Nokia is at the crummiest then swallow it whole. I’ve always liked Nokia, my first ever phone was a Nokia back way then. I have moved on to Samsung though. I love my Note. However I also do think Lumias are really great phones. Lumia 900 – WOW. It run smoothly even with just one core. If Microsoft buys Nokia, I’m rather ambivalent. So be it, the world would still keep on spinning. Live as usual… move on.
“Everything that can be cut has to be cut to dive the price down.”
nm. Enough said in the title…
Kochise
If your caviar is not selling, salt your potato fields.
Calling Elop a Trojan horse is wrong. Trojans didn’t surrender and let the Greeks ride into the city on rocking horses.
Elop is like an abusive boyfriend who’s loaded uncle is an mafioso in need of an organ donor. Nokia hoped for commitment and financial aid, but she’s going to find herself in a ditch without her kidneys (patents).
It is amazing that a company as well positioned as Nokia was could be down 60% this year in the midst of a computing revolution to move to mobile phones and tablets.
What has stopped them from building an Android phone? With their size, expertise, and patent portfolio there isn’t any reason they can’t be competitive.
They could have offered something like a nexus phone, they could have offered CyanogenMod on the non-pure phones instead of developing a TouchWiz from scratch since nobody seems to want to sell pure Android. They could have used some of their developers to sell applications in the app store since that is a pretty big growth area.
At the rate they are going they soon won’t exist and what’s left of the husk will be sold off to patent trolls and lawyers to hold back the industry.
Sometimes multimillion dollar a year CEO’s aren’t any better at making strategic decisions than the $10/hr employees. I’m glad I’m not a Nokia stock holder but the rest of the industry is going to suffer from this stupidity anyway.
The real reason Nokia isn’t selling Android is because if Nokia were to sign a licensing agreement to sell Android phones it might hurt the future patent war Apple and Microsoft are planning to launch against Android when they buy out Nokia’s portfolio in the bankruptcy sale.
You can bet the Nokia brass has a golden parachute lined up for when that happens but it’s unfortunate for the lowly Nokia employee and stock holder who don’t.
Nokia wasn’t particularly well positioned… it was and is entrenched in, and depending on many established, old (~obsolete and hard to bring to modern times) product lines. A classic innovator’s dilemma, more or less.
Nokia as an Android shop would be likely squeezed out by the likes of Huawei or ZTE (analogously to the old PC makers giving way to ~Asian manufacturers; BTW, ZTE is already the 4th largest mobile phone maker, soon 3rd), and by Samsung (who actually makes stuff from which mobiles are made; look how that squeezes out some other “western brand” Android makers).
And Nokia knew it, wanted preferential treatment in early Android negotiations – something which wasn’t in the interest of Google. Now, it seems Nokia perhaps found that, in MS.
But if you think Cyanogen even enters the equation WRT the dynamics, the scales here…