Nokia board chairman Risto Siilasmaa went on a Finnish television show, and stated that while he is confident in Windows Phone 8, the company does have a back-up plan if it doesn’t work out. Speculation aplenty – what is this backup plan? The answer’s pretty easy, if you ask me.
Windows Phone 8 is looking nice, but if current Windows Phone 7 market performance is anything to go by, there’s little reason to assume Windows Phone 8 is going to do any better. Despite Nokia’s involvement in Microsoft’s mobile platform, it doesn’t seem to be making any serious dent in the market; in fact, Windows Phone’s market share has dropped 0.4% to a mere 3.9% since January of this year. Defecting Windows Mobile users probably play a role here, but it’s still incredibly meagre.
For all intents and purposes, we can classify Windows Phone 7 as a market failure, and Nokia has done nothing to turn anything around. I like the platform – but the rest of the world does not, or at least not enough to actually buy it. As evidently nice as Lumias are, again – people aren’t buying them.
This gives very little confidence for the future of Windows Phone 8. A few mitigating factors exist here, such as Windows 8’s possible halo effect, as well as the more modern and competitive hardware WP8 will run on. At the same time, the lack of upgrades for WP7 users will likely be a major turn-off for some.
This raises a very serious question for Finland’s pride, Nokia. The company bet on Windows Phone, and it’s clearly not working out. What if Windows Phone 8 doesn’t change things? Well, the company has a backup plan, according to Siilasmaa, but he declined to offer more detail.
This contingency plan is pretty obvious, though: Android. It’s the only viable option, since the company no longer has the resources or the people to offer up a home-cooked alternative platform. There’s no doubt in my mind that Nokia has Lumias and other devices running Android in their labs, as a backup plan for when WP8 fails like WP7 did.
A white N9 running Jelly Bean? Where can I place my order?
When they’re competing against Samsung, HTC and Motorola using Android as a backup plan is pretty pathetic. Down goes Nokia. Pretty sad.
Well, using another new OS that has zero market share (Tizen, WebOS, Firefox OS) would definitely be worse than using Android. At least they would have a phone that has an ecosystem appealing to the users. Network effects are playing a huge role here.
Can’t say as I agree. The other OS they were working on before WP7 had better sales than the WP7 phones and had a whole lot more potential. Being another Android vendor is a bad idea.
Maybe, but it still beats the alternative. Because in a world where mobile developers code for iOS and Android and ignore WP, they’re certainly not going to bother supporting a new and unproven Nokia-only platform.
I would not name Meego unproven. The N9 sold well and Nokia still has the knowledge inhouse to pick it up again, put it on hardware and sell products within short time.
For network-effects the WP7 experiment did show that this is not the selling point. You can partner with a giant like Microsoft and yet fail (in fact it seems partners of Microsoft failing is more the rule then an exception).
What they should do is to pick what they have, Symbian and Meego, sell products with them and give Android a try too. Do it like Samsung (Android, Bada, Tizen) and be not that stupid to put all eggs again into only one basket.
Edited 2012-07-03 10:32 UTC
From what I hear from my Finnish friends, Nokia no longer has that knowledge. Elop’s cost cutting plans have been very effective at weeding out that knowledge.
But hey, Finnish startups got a very good injection of prime talent.
Edited 2012-07-03 12:15 UTC
> Elop’s cost cutting plans have been very effective
That Elop’s plans are very effective are known. Its just that he usually reaches the opposite effect he planed (and sold) to reach.
I think it does not take much effort to offer a N10 running Meego. Its all there. Build up on it and from here on evolution rather then revolution.
Android indeed will take more. Also cause they need to be better or different enough to competition to sell well.
Actually, most of the Meego employees are no longer working at Nokia.
The product is there and ready for the market.
Edited 2012-07-03 18:16 UTC
Just a small clarification. Did they fire all those people, or did they outsource the development of Meego (like the outsourced Qt to Digia)?
Now that the platform is “not burning any longer” and “is facing a new era of growth” [1] they fire 1 out of 5 employees to “get the burning platform smaller” [2].
[1] http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=164732
[2] http://247wallst.com/2012/06/14/nokia-fires-10000-as-its-burning-pl…
Edited 2012-07-04 14:38 UTC
Yes but it’s the backup plan. Spending loads of money on something like Tizen or WebOs would have been a good primary plan but it would be an awful backup.
I’m not so sure about that. We recently switched the GSM provider at the office and had the opportunity to buy subsidized phones and the Lumia 800 was offered at 49€, but we still went for HTC Androids and iPhone at much higher prices. Would it have been running Android the situation certainly would have been different.
I agree with you. In my country, Nokia was supplanted by Samsung. And almost all Samsung had the Android name on it, that is, people will buy Samsung if it runs Android. If Nokia is to provide an Android powered device, those Samsung and Sony Android buyers will prefer Nokia, because Nokia is still the best in terms of hardware quality. Nokia is tested in almost two decades of hardware quality.
Well, its not the hardware that sells but the complete product what includes hardware, software and everthing around to bring it to the customers.
Samsung is doing so well cause there complete products are so good. Its not like they only take Android and build hardware around but they put lots of efforts into extending Android and making software and hardware into a finished product that beats all its competition like just happened with the S3.
Nokia will have a hard time to hire skilled Android people to offer something similar. I mean who likes to work for a dying company that is changing strategy every few months and fires its developers when doing so? They need to put lots of money into that to convince high talented people to join them.
But Nokia does not have the money. When WP8 hits market till proven that it failed too Nokia burned most of its cash. Nokia is rated junk so they will have a hard time to get new cash.
I doubt they already have something in there labs. I doubt they can get a competing Android device done in time before running out of cash. I doubt they have the talent left to make that work. I doubt plan B is going to work. Its to late and to much was burned to still turn around successfully.
Edited 2012-07-03 10:45 UTC
I can tell you’re lucky the office didn’t go for Windows phone, unless you do absolutely nothing with email on the phone.
Tried to configure the Exchange account for one of our customers on those Lumias in a reasonable way. Nothing worked to get it to accept the local domain certificate other than mailing it to the Live account (having to enable that for email sync temporarily) and installing it from there.
So unless the Exchange server has an official (paid for) certificate you’re screwed.
Long live Android and iPhone with the ability to accept custom certificates.
It’s so funny you mentioned the Exchange integration issues, it reminded me how things are tied together when you look at the big picture. We used to run our own email server (it was Sendmail on Solaris) until I got my first Android. Then I looked at the great Gmail app and then the email app on the phone. It also happened that I had some problems with the anti-spam software setup and I decided that I should give Google Apps a try. We are happy Google Apps users since then and I’ve also converted a few others.
I don’t know. Nokia still has a very good reputation (and well deserved from my consumer experience) of making solid and long-lasting hardware. So maybe they have a card to play.
I would definitely buy a N9 running Android.
Now, sure, by going to Android, they would become “just” another Android phone maker, but that’s not worst than the Windows Phone situation.
Logically, they would become not “just” another Android phone maker, but a solid and long-lasting hardware Android phone maker.
And there is a place for such maker.
Add to this a solid long-term firmware upgrade policy, and there is definitively a good place to take eventually.
Indeed. I’d really like a good Nokia android phone – they made, and as far as I know still make, really good hardware. They also seem to be quite supportive of OSS and linux internally, so it would make sense on several levels. (I wonder if they’d put Qt on it, if they ever made one?)
They lost it with N95’s long list of issues.
They lost it as well by totally fumbling Maemo. Totally. There was no single Maemo/Meego device released by Nokia that wasn’t buggy as heck and had support dropped in exactly the same way as WP7 in a similar timeframe (give or take 6 months.) This is just how Nokia works.
The N9 just got another firmware-update over the air. That makes it at least 2 years support for the N9. To bad they official do not support it else it would be good supported and prove you wrong 🙂
Nokia running Android would do very well in india one of their biggest markets.
It’s the only option they have. They knew they had to do something with Symbian for about ten years. Nothing happened. They had the Meego/Moblin option with Qt for development and they sat around and did nothing while Android built up an application base. Their response was to switch to an even more obscure platform in Windows Phone they had no say in rather than actually do some work and control their platform. At least with Android they can ‘semi’ control their platform.
If they stick with Windows Phone as they are they go down. If they switch to a platform providers want to sell and people want to buy, with all the applications there are on Android, they just might survive as a shadow of their former selves. That’s about it though. The final nails have already been driven home by Elop.
They bought Symbian, open sourced it, formed an alliance and heavily invested into it. I would not name that nothing. Do not forget that Symbian was number #1 OS having even more sales then its two closed competition together and Symbian did grow when Elop took over!
They came up with an amazing strategy. Combining the ecosystem of its leading Symbian – but in terms of technical features outdated as in hard to maintain and adjust for new scenarios – with it’s new Linux-based platform using Qt.
It’s not only a upgrade-path as some would believe but it’s a way to transition the eco-system between different platforms (Qt is not limited to Symbian and MeeGo but also does well on Android for example). Its a way to decouple the #1 ecosystem they had with Symbian to whatever other platform they may need to support or can chose to select next. Think of combining the Symbian-world with the S40-world (Qt on S40), with the MeeGo-world with the Android, Windows, OSX, etc worlds.
A great strategy especially once you realized that a) your current platform of choice may not stay competitive and b) you may need to switch to another platform and c) maybe even to more then one.
Elop was correct. Its all about the ecosystem. He just did not realize that Symbian was the mobile ecosystem #1 when he took over. He did not see the value in decoupling your ecosystem from the underlying platform. He did not understand the value of that. He rather decided to kill of the whole strategy, all the ecosystems Nokia had and start something completely new. Heck, he came into Nokia, killed everything that made Nokia huge and turned it into a WP-only reseller while burning 80% of the company’s value in a little over a year!
The value of being independent from others and controlling the foundations your whole company is build up on is something Elop and the board heavily underestimated.
Now that the Lumia upgrade-disaster hit the news and resulted in future decline of Lumia sales (adjusted Q2/Q3 expectations) they maybe see the connection. But only maybe.
What makes me wonder is the timing. Just shortly before the news that the Lumia strategy got more hits and shortly before the Q2/Q3 quartely results where adjusted (to be more worse then worst expectations) they killed off plan B: Meltimi.
Why would you kill of an alternate strategy to your current strategy when your realize that your current strategy is failing? Why short before announcing that it is failing? That makes only sense if you need to make sure there is no alternate left to switch from the failing strategy to another.
News after the announcement was that they focus even more on WP. Its expected Nokia has end of this year a marketshare of 3%. Close to the marketshare there Lumia have.
They are already a shadow of there former self. ALL of the previous management that made Nokia a success left meanwhile. The most talented Unix-people are gone. They will need that talent when picking up Linux again with Android. They will need good management to make the strategy a success. They have neither of both left and it will take them time and money to restore that and execute the new strategy. I fear neither are the talents, nor the knowledge, nor the cash, nor the time left for that. It’s to late.
Edited 2012-07-04 14:29 UTC
You’re right. It’s less than nothing. Software generally gets open sourced because a company doesn’t know what to do with it and consortia and alliances are where platforms go to die.
That’s what lots of people were saying a few years ago when many, including me, were predicting the writing on the wall that we see now.
Elop wasn’t correct and wasn’t going to recognise anything. He was there to put Windows on phones.
Some companies do. Others have other reasons. In Nokia’s case I think they bought and opensourced Symbian for the same reason they changed the license of Qt from GPL to LGPL. The idea was to accelerate development, to make the technology more attractive, to improve adoption and investment and hence profit from it cause that’s what they build up there strategy on.
There are a few examples where software got opensourced to make the software more attractive and accelerate development and adoption adn where it worked out well. OpenOffice.org, Netscape which was the base for Mozilla which became Firefox, Bender, Apache and so on.
You saw that Elop was about to kill Nokia? You saw the Symbian/MeeGo end coming and that Elop would put all its eggs on WinPhone7? When you predicted that can you provide a source where you did predict all that to happen when Elop took over?
You need to differ. When Elop did that he made a few points to argue why its needed. Its the arguments why Nokia’s current platforms where all burning that I question. I do not think there is anybody left who agrees that the conclusion made out of that arguments what needs to be done, WinPhone7 only and kill everything else, where all wrong. Even Nokia itself realized that what is why they “leak” details about there new, after WinPhone7, strategy. The plan B which according to Nokia from some weeks ago does not exist and now does exist.
So, let’s look at the arguments he made why everything that made Nokia big and the whole Qt-strategy and the whole Symbian/MeeGo platforms where under fire. So bad under fire that the whole Nokia was sitting on burning platforms and only jumping away from them would save the Nokia. I do question this arguments. I do question that Nokia would be where it is today when they keeped course and completed the Qt Symbian/MeeGo strategy.
Netscape and StarOffice (aka Mozilla and OpenOffice.org) are the only commercial software in your list that were successfully open-sourced to improve the code.
Apache started out as open-source (in fact, it started out as just a bunch of patches to an existing web server, hence the name “a patchy web server”).
Don’t know about Blender.
What is the point.
They can leverage their rubber (tire) business and make condoms.
“Nokia – connecting people” 🙂
Hate to think what Plan C will entail…not that I think Nokia will survive Plan B, Plan A saw to that.
There is no Plan B. The fact that marketshare has held steady (its actually up 0.1% for a net drop of 0.3% since January) seems to indicate that at the very least, Windows Phone sales are keeping up with Windows Mobile departures.
This should be seen as encouraging news. In key markets around the world when viewed in isolation (Without the skewering from markets they don’t yet have a developed launch in), there is actually growth for Windows Phone.
I am still bullish on Windows Phone, and despite my disagreement (because let’s call a spade a spade) with Microsoft’s ridiculous, stupid, and shameful handling of WP8 OS updates, it will probably have greater traction than WP7 did.
> there is actually growth for Windows Phone.
From 1.4% to 2% thanks to Lumia (2 million sold devices what is what Android does in 2 days!). Source: http://wmpoweruser.com/npd-find-windows-phone-has-2-us-market-share…
For Microsoft that indeed are good news. For Nokia, which did make that happen, its the all time low that is killing them off.
But you are correct. If all the other mobile companies do what Nokia did and survive long enough then WP7 could reach a marketshare of 10% (with Apple taking the other 90% and all other mobile companies are going to die in 1-2 years like it happens with Nokia atm what means in 1-2 years Apple has 100%)!
Edited 2012-07-03 10:56 UTC
You have zero idea what you’re saying.
ROTFL.
There’s no plan be bc Elop has had long fired it.
Nokia is now just a place of few casing designers and WP developers.
At this rate I’ll never have a WP8 phone. Microsoft is betting the farm on Nokia, and Nokia pretends CDMA never even existed, so the chance of seeing a WP8 device on Sprint at this point seems to be nonexistent.
And yes, I’ve heard the rumors of a CDMA Nokia device being tested in Asian markets, but that’s been over a year ago and was a flimsy two-paragraph “report” to begin with.
Even assuming that every current WP7 user is dedicated to upgrading devices with the WP8 release, that’s still only 4% of the smartphone market. Here in the U.S., that number is spread among two major Windows Phone carriers, both GSM based. I just don’t see that as a sustainable base. maybe it will fare better in global markets where GSM is the standard.
VZW has stated they’ll carry Windows Phone 8 devices, which indicates (unless they go pure VoLTE) that there will be CDMA devices. Sprint has previously said they’re up on WP8 too, so if you hold them at their word, then there’s reason for hope.
Also the Lumia 800C and 610C are CDMA Nokia handsets for China.
Well I rarely try to hold the cellular companies to their word, that’s an exercise in futility. But I do know that Sprint is all about iPhones these days, and they do have a good Nexus phone available. So, there are options, but I’d almost rather go back to a dumbphone than give Apple money.
And did those CDMA Nokia phones ever materialize? I tried to find out if they really exist but all I came up with were links to that year-old rumor article or someone’s reblog of it. Regardless, they were supposedly only for the Asian market anyway (not that that has ever stopped me from buying a gadget).
Chinese doesn’t use pure CDMA, but a variant of it not compatible with anything else. I guess with the sole reason of bypassing Quallcomm.
You’re confused, China Telecom uses the CDMA2000 standard (basically, each of their major networks uses different 3G standard – BTW all of them largely based on CDMA radio method – China Mobile being the one with domestic TD-SCDMA)
To be fair, it doesn’t exist in Europe at all. My cousin brought his Droid to the UK and is was a glorified WiFi Skype phone for 2 weeks. There is zero CDMA coverage in the majority of Western Europe. So, Nokia, a European company, doesn’t have a lot of reason to have rushed in to CDMA. They used to sell enough GSM. Okay – so now they shouldn’t be as picky, and now they should probably be making CDMA devices. Est Nokia culpam.
Looks like more than a rumour, very much existing, to me… http://www.nokia.com/cn-zh/products/phone/800c/
http://www.developer.nokia.com/Devices/Device_specifications/800C/
And Nokia had some CDMA2000 phones in the past (search on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nokia_products ). Yeah, not too many… but among the few countries where that standard really sees some significant adoption, you have one place firmly in the grips of carriers (dictating / castrating phones in the past, they didn’t seem to go along well with Nokia; oh, and the manufacturer of the standard had long-standing hostilities with Nokia), plus some more or less US colonies (so I suppose the trends in adoption of handsets might also partly spill over), including two which have few very strong mobile phone manufacturers of their own – and one of the manufacturers is the very same chaebol responsible for local CDMA2k network, LG U+.
Meanwhile & unusually, Nokia didn’t have much presence, in more or less just those places, even when it comes to GSM phones and carriers.
Well, then there’s China… I suppose it might be about them pragmatically desiring to gain experience with all the tech from throughout the world – each of the Chinese three major networks is based on different standard: one network with pure GSM family, one with domestic experiment, and one with CDMA2k (fairly standard one, contrary to what one poster nearby claims, probably confusing it with the 2nd; but I guess handset portability might still be a problem if you’d import it, SIM cards didn’t become universal in CDMA2k networks so you’re at the mercy of a carrier to enable the phone in their network…)
And you know, ultimately iPhones have one-digit percentage of adoption… (when it comes to phones in use, among worldwide 5+ billion mobile subscribers)
Edited 2012-07-09 23:29 UTC
Nokia should be smart enough to know that simply joining in the Android fray, when Samsung is the only one doing well there, wouldn’t really help. I’d put my money on either a WebOS phone (which would make a lot of sense, if HP’s first Open WebOS edition is decent) or Tizen with the beautiful skin the N8 version of Meego enjoyed.
Why would they use lesser unknown mobile OS? Nokia Windows phones don’t sell. It is not because people hate the Windows Phone OS and it’s not because they hate the hardware. They are do not sell because the phones are not Android and they’re not iOS. People don’t want to buy into small, unknown and poorly supported ecosystems, in 2012 the established markets are too entrenched. Switching to another alternative OS would just place Nokia in exact the same position as they were before the switch to Windows Mobile.
I think there’s room for one more ecosystem. iOS was doing great even when it was very small compared to today. The problem with WP7 is that even though it by all accounts has a good UI, the OS underneath it is shit, and depends on various limitations to run well. Although it has loud fans on the internet, anyone with half an eye can see that neither software nor hardware is nearly as capable as the competition (even the cameras of the WP7 phones are distinctly third-tier): you simply get much, much less for the money. Add in the dependency on Zune to sync with a computer, and it just doesn’t seem very tempting.
WP8 should do away with most of the limitations. The developer base is there (with good tools), and developing for smartphones is a bit like playing a lottery anyway: it’s low investment, low return, unless you get a winning number. It might become a success.
Then again, what do I know, I own an N9. Perhaps all the consumer wants is 600 000 fart apps and Words With Friends.
On the contrary – multiple ecosystems might be good for competition, but from a developer point of view, two target platforms is already one more than ideal.
The failure of WP7 isn’t entirely because of bad tools – it’s also because many developers can’t be bothered even checking out what those tools might be like, because they’ve no interest in supporting a platform that nobody uses.
Yes, but so what? There’s no shortage of developers. Consider that all iOS developers use Macs, which is a tiny, tiny platform compared to Windows. You don’t need them to switch, as there are far more on the other side. No, WP8 will depend on Windows developers choosing to develop for WP8 as well. Since the developer tools are the same, they will look at them whether the platform is used or not.
Most top-applications are not done by “hobby-developers” in the spare time (FLOSS excluded which does not apply to our WP scenario anyways). Most top-applications are done by professional software-developers or companies. It’s a business for them. Write software, earn money, pay invoices.
Such developers are not developing software for the iphone cause they happen to use and like OSX. They develop software for the iphone cause that is what brings in the money. When iphone would not exist and Windows CE or Symbian would be where the money is those developers and companies would write CE or Symbian software. That is what they did some years ago before iphone and Android came along!
Now the situation is that WP is irrelevant. It is so tiny that it makes even more sense to develop Bada or BB applications before even looking at WP. Cause of the WinDesktop and WinARM differences I described below in another thread already, Windows8 is not going to change that. WP8 will stay an irrelevant market and hence stay unattractive for commercial developers. Compared to Android it also never was attractive for non-commercial developers.
What will happen is that Microsoft has to invest A DAMN LOT of money into the ecosystem to keep it alive. But even then they will have a hard time. The situation for Microsoft now the same it was the past 20 years for all not-Windows operating systems. I doubt Microsoft can master such a situation. I doubt Microsoft is hungry enough and I think Microsoft was to long monopolist to handle a situation where they are not. They are like Nokia that, once not the market-leader and even de facto monopolist any longer, can only fall down to earth. Usually even below till they got slim and hungry enough again.
Edited 2012-07-04 12:59 UTC
> I think there’s room for one more ecosystem.
We have Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Bada, Symbian. All of them are doing much better then WP.
Soon we have Tizen and Firefox OS. I would assume they will do better too.
How much more ecosystems you need?
> WP8 should do away with most of the limitations. The developer base is there
Looking at the WP7 store indicates that the developers are not there, They are ignoring WP. That ecosystem is so irrelevant that not even Angry Birds would exist for it if Microsoft did not have payed lots of money for it.
Looking at the partners that announced WP8 devices it seems the industry does not believe that Microsoft is going to make it. That is why Microsoft did Surface themself. No partner was willing to make that for them and burn cash once more.
Edited 2012-07-03 11:02 UTC
Well, if Samsung is essentially the only OEM making money off of Android, which is the current state of things, why would Nokia want to move more phones without profit? It is something akin to selling standard Windows PCs… a race to the bottom. Dell and HP move a lot of volume, but their PC businesses aren’t what is keeping them afloat.
Striking a different course, something less commoditized is the key to making money, unless Nokia is certain it can out Samsung Samsung… and I doubt that they can. Frankly, the fact that Nokia has continually labeled its MeeGo project as an experiment may yield credence to this too… they know they have something there that everyone was in awe over. Nokia could be quietly lining up major names to support a mass market push, not unlike how Samsung viewed bada before merging it into Tizen.
> if Samsung is essentially the only OEM making money off of Android
What is not the case. See e.g. Amazon Kindle or LG which make profit with Android too: http://www.thenewstribe.com/2012/04/27/lg-announces-first-quarter-2…
Samsung is the king but since competition has full access to the Software-stack too that can change just any time. Competition just needs to be better. See http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s3-vs-best-android-p… and http://androidandme.com/2012/01/news/samsung-goes-candid-on-their-c…
> why would Nokia want to move
Because with WP they do not have any competition and it does not sell. The reason is WP and not Nokia so they cannot easily change that by e.g. be better then other WP competitors. WP is 100% Microsoft and so only Microsoft can change while Nokia is doomed to read-/view-/use-only the result.
Android on the opposite does sell like hot cake. Consumers demand Android, they buy Android. That they buy mostly Samsung Android is cause Samsung Android is received to be better then the Android devices competitors offer.
Nokia CAN compete against competitions by making a better product. They cannot compete with the dead WP7 ecosystem against the number #1 Android ecosystem. They tried and failed. But they can compete against Samsung. Even Elop himself admit it when he formulated that its all about the ecosystem in his burning platform memo. He killed of the Symbian/MeeGo ecosystems, the WP ecosystem is essential dead, they cannot go with iPhone so what stays are Bada (which is 100% controlled by Samsung, its competitor), BB (which is 100% controlled by RIM, its competitor), one of the not done yet systems like Firefox OS or Tizen (what means the time to market may to long and so is a possible success with the system) or Android (which already is a success, not 100% controlled by a competitor and has already the ecosystem they tried to prevent build up themselfs with MeeGo, continued to use with Symbian or join with WP).
Android is the most logical option left for Nokia after they burned or gave all the other options a try and failed.
Edited 2012-07-04 09:25 UTC
While Android would probably make the most business sense, I think another Android device on the market is just that…another android device.
I think what will grow the Windows Phone 8 market is when Surface, Windows 8, XBox, and Windows Phone 8 are all out and about. I think once people start to see a complete eco system out there, Windows Phone 8 will be more attractive. Right now it seems that Windows Phone just sticks out like a sore thumb in the line up of other things. Plus I think once it gets to a point to where I can install a metro app on my desktop and the mobile version gets installed on my phone at the same time…that would attract people. Assuming the necessary apps get ported to Win8/WP8 of course.
> just that…another android device.
Cause Android is what sells well and brings money in. WP not as you can see in Nokias Q1/2012 numbers.
> I think once people start to see a complete eco system out there, Windows Phone 8 will be more attractive.
I think too that WP8 will be more attractive then WP7. But I do not think they can catch up with iPhone and Android any time soon.
For xbox and WP: As proven by Sony the Android Sony Playstation ecosystem is not a killer. Gamers are not going to buy a phone to play the latest Unreal Tournament on a 3×3 pixel screen.
For Windows 8 you need to differ between the ARM and the Desktop version. They are NOT compatible! Desktop-Software like Adobe Photoshop that runs on Windows 8 Desktop does NOT run on Windows 8 ARM thanks to the new and 100% incompatible Metro-only API on Windows 8 ARM. Windows Phone 8 is using Windows 8 ARM and not Windows 8 Desktop. No ecosystem but fragmentation by design.
Edited 2012-07-03 11:14 UTC
I dont think Sony Android and Playstation is a fair comparison. There is a big disconnect in terms of UI and other things between PSN or the OS on the Playstation and Android on Sony devices. Aside from the fact that Sony brand is placed on both products, I am not sure one could definitively tell at a first glance that both products are related. Whereas Windows 8,Windows Phone 8, and Xbox all have concurrency and similar UI’s. It is very clear they are apart of the same eco-system.
Regarding Win8RT (Windows 8 ARM) and Win8, I am still not sure this is a problem because most iPad, and other tablet owners, are not running full desktop apps on their tablets. It is very clear that Win8RT is going to be primarily for tablet use. So I don’t think people are going to be bothered by this. Will it be confusing that Windows 8 on their desktop acts a little different than their Win8RT Tablet? Yes, but I think people will quickly equate it with how apps are between iOS and OS X and move on.
> a big disconnect in terms of UI
In playstation games running on Android?
You mean you like to have the same tiles you are using on your WP also in Unreal Tournament during a dead-match?
Come on.
No, I am just talking about the device overall. When you turn on your PS3 you get a different UI then when you unlock your Sony Android Phone. So I don’t believe there is a consistency between these two devices.
When you turn on your Xbox, Windows 8 PC and unlock your Windows Phone 8 device they (will) have very similar and consistent UIs.
Well, ever used a iPhone for a longer time? Consistency is not what sells them. I found it by myself one of the most inconsistent products ever. Not only the UI but the whole handling. Just compare where the applications are placing the “back” button to get an idea how worse that is. And yet it sells well. Consistency is not everything and that alone gives you nothing. Remember that WP7 was rather consistent unlike Win CE and yet sold far more worse the CE.
For WinARM vs WinDesktop: The difference is in the eco-system. You cannot run a classic WinDesktop application on WinARM. That means the whole existing Windows ecosystem is not there for there new WinARM productline.
It even becomes more worse in terms of UI and consistency between WinARM and WinDesktop. Remember that Metro is a whole NEW UI concept. Its so different from the classic Windows and all existing applications (that still continue to run on WinDesktop) that you can hardly speak of any consistency here. You may have that if you are using only the Microsoft applications like IE and … (is there something else?). But you definitively do not have it when using a Windows8 Desktop with 3th party applications and WinARM. The consistency is just not there. Think MSOffice 2007 Ribbon vs IE Metro vs WinAmp vs Photoshop. That is even more the case for games which usually are by design different to other games (I do not only speak of look and feel but also of e.g. in-game options, widgets and handling).
Consistency? Only as long as you use 100% metro-only applications. That will take years and maybe never happen for most of the power-software for WinDesktop and even if it does, I doubt 3th party vendors are investing into porting from win32 to Metro APIs to reach the WinARM market which is, in its current form, below 2% marketshare and hence absolute uninteresting. Without the big vendors doing the expensive ports WinARM and with it WindowsPhone will continue to suffer from high-quality applications, will continue to sell “below expectations” and will continue to be an uninteresting target to invest into.
3th party vendors are more going into porting there products AWAY from WinDesktop-only. They like to offer Android, i-phone AND WinARM versions. So, when investing into the WinARM-port (which is so different to WinDesktop that its basically like porting to another platform – well, it is another platform!) then they are not going to stick with Windows only. Why should they?
That situation, where the own ecosystem forces its partners to port to competing ecosystems, is hand-made by Microsoft. The Metro vs win32 API differences are the biggest mistake they ever did. In all those years Microsoft keeping API- (and even ABI-!!!)compatibility was one of the major forces that protected the Microsoft ecosystem, that prevented vendors from doing any expensive ports. Now that Android and iPhone are such interesting markets (lots of money in there) and now that the API-compatibility is not more (well, you continue to have it if you stay with WinDesktop only ignoring WinARM, Andfroid, iPhone) Microsoft is killing of its ecosystem. They will suffer from this. Only a matter of time.
Edited 2012-07-04 09:57 UTC
I’m afraid those devices have very different use cases with very different screen sizes and interaction and you’re going to be hard pushed to find anyone who wants or expects them to look the same.
If Microsoft believes as you do that this is a feather in their cap then they’re going to be very disappointed – all over again. They have already been through many years of total failure where they vainly believed that having the start menu on a phone would have desktop users flocking to have Windows on their phones. I don’t see anything that will change that.
Am I the only one that still has some hope that Meego and, don’t now a N9++ device could be still being cooked?
Nokia is still investing in Qt and with all the Meego stuff they have, they could still have something to compete with.
Edited 2012-07-03 00:36 UTC
I would buy one in a heartbeat, if Nokia actually showed the modest interest they showed in Maemo – but as long as Elop is at the helm, I’m sure the tiller will stay firmly set toward the biggest iceberg in sight. So sad.
No one has mentioned the boycott by the carriers, they do not want to be turkeys voting for christmas. MS brings SKYPE, integrated into WP8, to the forefront and there is no reason why the carriers should co-operate, any MS phone OS however good will never succeed without the carriers pushing it and they will not as they do not trust MS.
I would love to see another meego phone, and I would buy it, but I think that’s unlikely.
Elop already got rid of the symbian developers when he outsourced symbian development to Accenture and the meego team was laid off recently. So the question is if Nokia still has the competence to build and maintain its’ own OS after Elop? I doubt it.
There is no contigency plan beyond claiming there is a contigency plan in the hopes of keeping someone still confident in them. In 6 months without a major turnaround, they are where RIMM is now. No plan C would amount to much of a contigency.
I agree, this is just a cheap talk to tame the stock depreciation before it hits psychological barrier <$2. Elop has long made sure it’s MS way or highway.
What about Nokia joining with Rim as Plan B?
If Nokia puts Android on their phones (and don’t screw it up completely), my next phone will be a Nokia. If they don’t, I’ll go somewhere else. Simple as that, and I hardly think I’m alone in this thinking.
Yes, I want another Linux-based phone OS to succeed, like MeeGo, Tizen or WebOS.
But right now, none of them have any marketshare, and before they do, they will lack severely in content, which puts me and a lot of other people off.
Just like WP7/8 has and will do.
Catch 22? Yes, but it’s the reality.
You could add Firefox Mobile OS to that list.
Of those Tizen has the best chance, because Bada is pretty populair in the Azian market. And it seems Bada applications can be ported pretty easily to Tizen.
That way you have a new platform, but with applications available for it.
The advantage of Tizen and Firefox Mobile OS is that they run can be sold on low-end smartphones.
Which means in 2013 when Firefox Mobile OS and Tizen comes out they’ll have a price point of US $100.
Edited 2012-07-03 12:27 UTC
True, but it’s very difficult to break into the market with a new OS. Android succeeded in breaking into the iOS monopoly, but no other smartphone OS has even come close to mainstream acceptance. Sure Bada has some marketshare in Asia, but globally it’s tiny.
WP7 is bigger than Bada globally and it’s still tiny.
I’d like WebOS to succeed, as I think it’s a well-designed OS, but it’s not very likely, nor is it very likely that Tizen or Firefox OS gain any significant marketshare. Just look at Maemo, Moblin and MeeGo.. All of them pretty much dead in the water. Why would Tizen do any better?
This is why Android, despite it’s faults, is the only realistic option. It has the marketshare, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
Because Bada is from Samsung and Tizen is just the new Bada on Linux which can run most of the same applications.
Bada isn’t even in the same market segment as Android, geographically wise and maybe not even price wise.
Yeah, I know..
But noone (read: the global general public) knows what Tizen, or even Bada, is. If even Windows Phone won’t sell, despite having a very very familiar name and logo, how do you expect Tizen would stand a chance?
There aren’t more apps for Bada then there are for WP7, so beeing able to run Bada apps is not good enough for Tizen to be able to succeed.. Hell, even if Tizen ran Android apps it wouldn’t be enough. Joe User simply doesn’t care about some new OS he’s never heard of. iPhone or Android, that’s what Joe User knows and wants. Without Joe User, there simply won’t be any significant marketshare.
Don’t get me wrong, I really want Tizen to succeed, but I highly doubt it will.
On the name issue:
Tizen will probably marketed as Bada 3.0, which means it is will be a name people recognize.
I have no idea how Tizen will do in the market though.
But why do you think Mozilla called their Boot2Gecko project: Firefox OS
(almost ?) 500 million already are Firefox users, that is why. That is a lot more than Windows Phone users.
By some numbers Windows Phone’s on Nokia Lumia sold even less than the Nokia N9 with MeeGo. Which is mostly the same phone.
Windows Phone has also been sold less than Bada:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/2018219341_wind…
Anyway, my real point was. Windows Phone does not sell on cheap smart phones. An alternative can probably only get a good market share if they start at the bottom. You can only start at the top (like Apple did with they introduced the iPhone) if you have something which people consider new. Like smartphones with touchscreen, which was pretty much new then.
It seems the feature phone market of Nokia isn’t completely dead either, but it will be dead on a little over a year. Judging by the numbers above.
Yea, I know MeeGo on N9 sold relatively well..
It’s a damn shame they put a bullet in it’s back.
I’m not sure what I think about all these new mobile OS’s with a webrenderer as frontend, might be a good idea, might not.
I don’t really get why the devs can’t seem to decide where they want to go with their mobile Linux-based OS. Tizen is the fourth attempt in a short amount of time.
With Maemo, Moblin and MeeGo, the selling points included beeing able to run some desktop Linux applications, as they used GTK or QT.
With using a webrenderer for the frontend, like Gecko or WebKit, that goes away. Or atleast that’s my understanding.
Time will tell if it turns out to be a good idea or not, but I’m sceptical.
Hopefully you’re right about Bada beeing the end-product from the Tizen project and it turns out well.
Samsung might pull that off. We’ll see.
Its not the devs who decide, its the management.
Forth of whom? Its from Samsung and to my knowledge its there first try to make an own Smartphone-OS. Bada is for low-end, Android not there’s (controlled and developed by someone else).
Even google does not put all its eggs into the Android basket. They are doing those ChromeOS. Another web-based (means Javascript driven) OS. Why? Because a) one does not fit all and b) it’s good to have options since when you have all your eggs in only one basket you may end like Nokia.
Speaking of Nokia. I think with 4th attempt you refer to them? They are not into Tizen. Or what do you mean?
How is that different from Android?
The thing here is that its completely another concept. A system which runs in a browser (only) may close some doors but it opens others. That’s what our whole industry is about: invent and try something new. be ahead of your competition and push something to the market that opens new doors and sells well.
It already is a good idea independent of the result. To stay into the market you need to continue to invent and try something new. The moment you do not any longer will be when competition wins.
Tizen is already a good idea cause there is a clear trend towards a browser-based system. If they all fail then nothing is lost. But if one of them succeeds Samsung could risk to lose it’s current position as number #1 mobile device seller. But if they have already something that can compete with a browserOS product from somebody else then they at least can try to fight.
What happens when you stop inventing is currently demonstrated by Nokia.
True
This is how I saw it:
1. Maemo, 2. Moblin, 3. MeeGo, 4. Tizen..
Ok, I know that’s a bit unfair, since Moblin and Maemo were completely independent from each other, but it _would_ be correct to say Tizen is the third attempt:
1. Moblin, 2. MeeGo, 3 Tizen..
Since Intel was the main, or one of the main, companies involved in all three of those, and the Linux Foundation hosted all three.
Moblin was Intel + later Linux Foundation.
MeeGo was Intel + Nokia + Linux Foundation.
Tizen is Intel + Samsung + Linux Foundation.
It isn’t, that’s my point.
That’s why so many Linux people wanted Maemo/Moblin/MeeGo.
With Tizen, it’s no different than Android.
No argument there..
Too bad HP decided to dump WebOS, but on the other hand, very nice that they decided to open source it.
Hopefully it gets used on some devices, since it’s pretty much a finished, working product. Would be a shame to let it go to waste.
[q]This is how I saw it:
1. Maemo, 2. Moblin, 3. MeeGo, 4. Tizen..
Ok, I know that’s a bit unfair, since Moblin and Maemo were completely independent from each other, but it _would_ be correct to say Tizen is the third attempt:
1. Moblin, 2. MeeGo, 3 Tizen..
Since Intel was the main, or one of the main, companies involved in all three of those, and the Linux Foundation hosted all three.
Moblin was Intel + later Linux Foundation.
MeeGo was Intel + Nokia + Linux Foundation.
Tizen is Intel + Samsung + Linux Foundation.
That makes it 3, excluding Maemo, where Intel was participating at. The thing is as I wrote a company should never stop to try something new else the company is dead. That is true for all companies. Even Microsoft which comes up with new strategies to develop for there platform every iteration (C/C++, Silverlight, .NET, HTML5).
In the ideal case you are able to turn all your researches into products and hit the market like a bomb with them while competition has no matching research products they could turn fast into a product to compete again. But the reality is different and that is what we see in the case of Intel with there 3 different platforms. None of them made it into a product yet (well, Moblin became MeeGo, MeeGo was killed by Intels partner beforehand and Tizen is not there yet). Its not a success story, that is true. But it may become a success story some day in which case all the tries before would have been payed out. Sure it would have been better if they went on to make the successful product right from the beginning but hey, not everybody is Apple
> WP7 is bigger than Bada globally and it’s still tiny.
Not the case. Bada runs on more phones, has a higher marketshare then WP and unlike WP bada is growing!
http://omgbada.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/bada-market-share-soaring/
> I’d like WebOS to succeed, as I think it’s a well-designed OS, but it’s not very likely, nor is it very likely that Tizen or Firefox OS gain any significant marketshare.
Why not?
> Just look at Maemo, Moblin and MeeGo.. All of them pretty much dead in the water.
Cause Nokia killed them before they hit the market.
> Why would Tizen do any better?
Tizen is Samsung and 2 of its 3 platforms are a success already. Why should the 3th be different?
Edited 2012-07-03 22:51 UTC
I stand corrected.
Because neither Maemo, Moblin nor MeeGo had any significant marketshare and they all were killed off.
History has a tendency to repeat itself.
Call me pessimist, but that’s my opinion.
We’ll see how it goes, but I’m not holding my breath.
Not entirely true, Maemo was sold on the Nokia N series up until MeeGo on the N9.
So Maemo hit the market, but it was before the smartphone “boom”.
Yes, MeeGo is Maemo and Moblin merged which Nokia withdrew from, thereby killing MeeGo.
But why start off fresh with Tizen? Why not continue MeeGo with another partner? Or why not continue Moblin with another partner?
It just seems like a stupid decision to start all over again. It’s like that community project (Maemo, Moblin, MeeGo, Tizen) is stuck in development/reinvent-the-wheel/not-invented-here-syndrome hell.
Time will tell.. I hope it succeeds, I really do, but I can’t help beeing sceptical considering the history of that particular community effort.
Anyways, even if Tizen, Firefox OS, WebOS or even Mer gets successful, I still think Android would be a better choice for Nokia in the short term, as it already has a huge marketshare and it would surely save the company unless they seriously screw it up badly.
It would be a mistake to use an OS that has little to no current marketshare as their plan B.
It also would make no sense for Nokia to use their competitors system (Bada/Tizen) instead of just rolling the dice with their own (Maemo/MeeGo) or go Android and become “just another Android OEM” for the moment.
Maemo and Moblin which became MeeGo where killed BEFORE hitting the market. They where not even sold in most of the larger markets. There was no marketing and no support from Nokia. And yet it sold better then there one and only non burning platform Windows Phone which had the biggest amount of marketing-$, support from Microsoft and Nokia and reentered the US market.
Not entirely true, Maemo was sold on the Nokia N series up until MeeGo on the N9.
[/q]
Which was not a consumer device for the mass-market but explicit targeted developers. The N9 was the very first consumer device for the mass-market and it got killed by its parent before it hit the consumer mass-market.
There I could not agree more. The NIH-syndrom in action. You even saw that in Nokia when they made Meltimi. It did not build up on MeeGo but was done from scratch and yet people wonder why it took them so/to long to finish.
Edited 2012-07-04 11:15 UTC
Not entirely true, Maemo was sold on the Nokia N series up until MeeGo on the N9.
[/q]
Which was not a consumer device for the mass-market but explicit targeted developers. The N9 was the very first consumer device for the mass-market and it got killed by its parent before it hit the consumer mass-market. [/q]
I disagree there. The N900 with Maemo was available for the general public, although in a somewhat limited capacity. But it was available in stores here on the tiny island in Sweden where I live.
But how does that differ from how the N9 turned out?
I don’t even think the N9 was available here at all to be honest.
I know the N9 was _intended_ for the consumer mass-market before beeing killed off, but the N900 probably would have been aswell if the smartphone market had been what it was when the N9 was designed. Back then, it was still just a select few who actually had a smartphone. It was starting to change with iPhone and Android devices, but they were still considered premium devices, as was the N900. So one could argue that the reason the N900 wasn’t _intended_ for the consumer mass-market, was beacuse hardly any smartphone was at the time.
Anyways, it’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Aaah the stupidity of company executives, gotta love it.. /sarcasm
A bit of history. From the beginning the plan to bring a Nokia device with a new software-stack was split into 6 steps, 6 milestones. That was Maemo1-6. At the very end, that is with Maemo6 Harmattan, was the final product which would become the official new Nokia platform for the mass-market.
That you where able to sell pre Maemo6 devices is fine. I had a N900 before it even was in the shops that did offer them. Yes, you could buy a N900 and the other Maemo milestones btw too. BUT they where never devices for the mass-market. They where developer-devices, proto-types if you like. That is why Nokia did not bother to proper protect the system, why e.g. the N900 got so less love and support once it was out and why you never saw an add, a big marketing-splash anywhere. It was not the final product. A milestone but not the final product Nokia would introduce to the consumer mass-market.
Yes, how it turned out. The plan was different but the plan changed before release.
But some essential things are different. That Nokia did offer updates 2 years long. That Nokia made a store and connected its services and payment-systems. That Nokia had a bugtracker, support-engineers and dedicated cash to keep the line running and supported so Elop was not able to kill it completely off. But Elop was able to prevent that the product hits as many stores and countries as possible, that no marketing was done and the by far most worse action, he did announce the dead of the platform before release burning the new product.
Not to the roadmap that was done and followed till Elop came on board. The roadmap was split into 6 phases, milestones, maemo-releases. Maemo5 was never supposed to be the final mass-market product. That is why they did not bother to optimize battery-life for example.
When N900 was introduced in 2008 the iPhone was already over a year available.
In fact the very first SMARTPHONE was released 10 years before already by Nokia in 1996. Later a bunch of Symbian Smartphones followed. N900 was by far not the first and neither was the market not ready as was proven by iPhone. The N900 was just not ready yet and Nokia did not saw any pressure to accelerate the process.
Try to look at the N900 as non-geek, as a non-techy, as Joe User. It was not ready for Joe User. It was also not ready to compete with the iphone.
The reason why it was not ready was cause Nokia had the Maemo 6-step plan and they believed they will have enough time to turn that reseach-project from a prototype into a product without any iphone or Android or Elop coming along.
Edited 2012-07-04 17:40 UTC
Alright, fair enough..
Some carriers did, however, put out ads for the N900, as seen here for example:
http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/01/nokia_n900_is_now_a_con…
A hardware company or a software company? Got to decide. Focus, then work it out.
If they pose as a hardware company, no problem adopting Android. As the opposite, MeeGo and a solid QT framework is the answer.
Trying to get where they were back 5 years ago is almost impossible today. There is a genaration that buy iPhones and simply don’t care if there is any alternative to that. That is The Phone. Someone else buys Android (Samsung). And that’s it.
They are firing developers and closing factories to become a sticker company. Not much different from Philips.
Edited 2012-07-03 06:01 UTC
Or how about an open hardware platform, which is capable of running several different systems…
Android, Meego and WebOS are all based on the Linux kernel, so once you have one of the three running getting the others is relatively easy, especially if you aren’t relying on binary drivers.
Such a phone could be offered with a choice of the 3 platforms, or even a multi boot capability… Nokia’s Meego phone sold very well despite their attempts to stifle distribution, and Android handsets with the Nokia brand (who still have a reputation for quality and reliability) could sell well.
So many good opportunities wasted. Nokia could innovate in the mobile Linux. And now they’ll become just another Android vendor. Nothing prevents them from joining Tizen effort though.
Edited 2012-07-03 03:31 UTC
If you ask me, Microsoft killed killed the platform by announcing that the current phones won’t be supported by the upcoming Windows Phone 8. Who in his right mind, will want to buy a current Windows Phone like the Lumia only to be limited to version 7.x?
At least, Microsoft needs to support the current phone. Why will it be so hard to do so? Is the NT kernel system demanding for the current Windows Phones? We will never know unfortunately.
Edited 2012-07-03 05:08 UTC
Consumers are not well informed and it is quite likely that they wouldn’t even know that their shiny new WP7 phone will not be upgraded to WP8, which they probably never even heard of anyway.
Consumers are sheep and they will buy what they desire, not what is best.
Anyway, it’s a big leap to assume that microsoft ‘killed’ windows phone by not upgrading current handsets. Very few people will care.
It is not the news that poisons the missing upgrade-path, its the consequences following them.
WP is not downwards-compatible. All new apps will not work on WP7. The already silent WP7 app-store becomes a ghost-town. No updated applications, no new features, nothing.
The big splash of marketing-fuse Microsoft does around WP8 will hit Lumia users. They will learn (through friends, support, shops, etc) that the multiple hundred $ device is, while only some months old, outdated, old, unsupported.
Of course they will find this out AFTER they own the device. Like I said, consumers are ill-informed.
I doubt that this will lead to ‘the demise of windows phone’ gloom and doom BS. This upgrade path fiasco is not the fatal blow that some think it is.
Did the lack of general upgrade-ability kill android? Phone hardware is really only ‘current’ for one to three months. “Designed obsolescence” is what it’s called.
And they will remember who did that to them. Consumers – especially the target-group of teenagers who while having limited money spend lots of them on such status-symbols – learn and will not repeat the mistake by buying the next generation Lumia running WinPhone8.
Lots of those who bought an outdated (and hence overpriced) Lumia with WP7 will not buy a Lumia with WP8. That hits foremost Nokia and Microsoft only indirect.
First newer Android applications do run on older Android versions. Most of the applications you find in google play DO WORK on Android 2.2 and newer. That means those 80% which STILL USE Android 2.2 or newer do not have outdated, unsupported phones.
Second even when lots of the vendors do not offer updates to the newest shiny Android ICS 3th party projects do and it takes no nerd to flash such an image yourself or find someone who does for you. But then, as I wrote and as statistics show, a huge majority still is on Android 2.2 or newer. They do not need to upgrade since the target-group is large enough that software-vendors make there applications compatible with Android 2.2 or newer. Heck, there are even still devices sold which come with Android 2.3!
All that is not the case with WP7 vs WP8.
[/q]Phone hardware is really only ‘current’ for one to three months. “Designed obsolescence” is what it’s called. [/q]
YOU maybe upgrade your phones every 1-3 months. The clear majority does not. They upgrade only each 2 years what is usually the period a telco-contract bundled with a phone runs.
Remember that most Lumia where sold with a AT&T contract and the contract is 2 years. Now those who signed the contract will find out 1-3 months later that there shiny new phone is already outdated and unsupported. AT&T will not provide support for the WP7 ecosystem (they only sell services)[1], Microsoft will not support the WP7 ecosystem (they concentrate on WP8). Leaving Nokia alone with its limited access to WP7, its cash-problems and it’s desire to bring out a new WP8 based Lumia more sooner then later in the hope everything changes. Under that conditions I doubt Nokia will put lot of efforts into maintaining support for its already outdated and failed WP7 Lumia series.
The customer is left with a phone that has no support. Cause of the 2% marketshare also nobody will bother. Neither to make there WP8 apps compatible with WP7 nor writing articles, tutorials, producing artwork or provide support in case of questions or problems.
While now the situation is that you, as Lumia owner, will have a hard time to find other WP7 users soon it will be near to impossible cause people upgrade to other devices. A spiral-effect obsoleting Lumia even faster and increasing the frustration for those who are stuck in that situation (means all who sold products from Nokia).
Consumers remember and they have choice.
[1] But even for AT&T the situation is not good cause THERE customers are unhappy with what AT&T/Nokia/Microsoft sold them. That is exactly the reason multiple telco’s like the T-Online now canceled there plan to offer Lumia’s. They need happy customers so the customers stay even once the contract finished. That is of huge value. That is the problem AT&T, Nokia and Microsoft have now: Unhappy customers. Its most worse for Nokia cause its there only product. AT&T also offers Android, Microsoft has other partners but Nokia does not offer any alternate.
Edited 2012-07-04 11:54 UTC
Like the parent said, it’s about the consequences. Even if consumers aren’t aware providers are not going to push a platform on devices they know to be DOA.
[quote]Did the lack of general upgrade-ability kill android? [/q]
It’s more the lack of application compatibility.
Remember, these sheep do have computer/technology proficient friends who can recommend them a good phone platform and they heed their friend’s advice for the most part. And these sheep are more intelligent than you give them credit for.
I myself recommended some people to stay away from Lumia and instead bought an Android or an iPhone.
Edited 2012-07-04 00:30 UTC
Sad to see this happening as an ex-Nokia employee, but it seems the contingency plan is to follow Apple’s footsteps and start suing Android OEMs.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2188489/googles-nexus-tabl…
Man, that’s just sad. “When your badly conceived business plan fail, sue everyone else”.
Didn’t know Nokia had WiFi patents though.
Edited 2012-07-03 05:16 UTC
They aren’t doing anything yet, accept a polite request for them to obtain a license.
FFS.
If it does happen, bring out the shitty comments.
Edited 2012-07-04 19:04 UTC
As far as I know they haven’t actually requested anything at all, it was all speculation on Florian Mueller’s blog.
They are not suing, yet. They just reminded Google/Asus that they need a license. Nokia is very respectful of its FRAND patents, and everybody usually get a license for the same price. The only company that got sued by Nokia was Apple, but only because Apple thought they could try to lower the price.
Nokia has literally spend billions on R&D over wireless technology and be a major innovation force in that area, it is only fair that they get compensated for their work (most of their patents have required way more work than “slide to unlock”).
Wrong. Nokia’s contingency plan is to license their patents. At least that’s what some Nokia executive said so when pressed by a Finnish reporter.
I think the most likely backup plan would be to put Nokia on sale. It seems with this do or die WP strategy, that MS would be the most likely buyer.
They’re becoming a vehicle for Microsoft to sue with, in other words.
I think so too. In Q1/2012 Nokia made more money with iphone/Android through patents then with own products like Lumia.
If they finally start to focus on what brings in the money, after killing of what did bring in money before, then they would focus on patents.
Lots of comments about WP failing because it can’t compete with Android and iOS for developers of applications. – poorly developed ecosystem etc.
Surely that’s the point of WP8 and Metro? Metro Apps that are made for the desktop and Windows 8 will be easily convertible to WP8 on a Windows smart phone. The phone will then be able to leverage its position using MS dominant position on the desktop.
I don’t know what is the plan, but what I know is that it is something incredibly stupid. Come on people, this is Nokia, they can’t make any clever move or hell would freeze.
Here are the alternatives:
1 – Sell smartphone division to Microsoft.
2 – Sell their network division and invest all the money on Windows phones
3 – Give away their Windows phone (send one for free to everybody on the planet) in order to increase WP8 market share.
4 – Sell their patents to Microsoft.
5 – Merge with Microsoft.
6 – Fire Elop and take Ballmer.
7 – Change business model, stop phones all together and start coding for Windows.
just get some bargain on white N9 on ebay and leave the rest for XDA Ninjas. They are getting there…
Right now Samsung rules the roost on Android, but I remember when their phones were a joke compared to the HTCs in Europe or Droids in the US. Right now I can’t even find a single RAZR or RAZR Maxx in Orange/Vodafone/o2/Carphone Warehouse. However many have a dedicated Samsung section like their Apple section. That turn around was in less than two years.
That’s the key people, we have seen the tide change against the old OSs in around the same two year period.
The standard mobile phone contract is around 2 years, thats the cycle. It could happen for Nokia’s Plan A or their Plan B.
The question is though: Do they have two years?
If they stick with Microsoft, yes. Microsoft isn’t about to let them go under.
Only as long as Nokia has in return something to offer to Microsoft. When the WP-deal was made back then Nokia had lots to offer. They where the market-leader, they had a huge base of customers, they where present and leading in all the interesting markets and they where the best if not last possibility Microsoft could beat on to turn around the situation and make WinPhone more relevant.
Today the situation is very different. Nokia failed. They failed to make any significant difference in the WinPhone-strategy. They are not leading anything anymore. They are dying.
In reality Microsoft already changed strategy. They do not believe that Nokia can change the situation. They do not believe that Nokia Lumia is going to be a success, neither now with WP7 nor later with WP8. Nokia is of very little strategic relevance for Microsoft any longer.
You can see that most recently in 3 actions done by Microsoft:
1. Lumia WP7 upgrade-path to WP8 and early announcement (timing) of the missing upgrade-path. That in fact burned the current Nokia Lumia strategy. Osborned it. Now Nokia will have even a harder time to sell WP7-based Lumia till they are able to sell WP8-based Lumia. It is expected that Nokia can offer WP8-based Lumia earliest in Q1/2013 in larger contingents. That means they have at least 2 more quarters ahead (after upcoming Q2) which are even more worse. In Q1 they lost 1.5 billion (plus the 500 million they made in profit before) and Q2+Q3 are expected to eb even more worse (and now even more then more worse after the Lumia osborning). They have 5 billion in cash left. The latest 10k layoffs are expected to cost 1 billion and pay out earliest mid 2013. Calculate yourself what that means… There is no way around selling patents but there patents are bringing in atm way more money then there products(!) what means they are going against there last big source of money to trade long-term healthy against short-term cash to survive till WP8-based Lumia can be sold. Dark, darker, darkest.
2. Surface. Remember that just some weeks ago Nokia announced a plan to bring out a WP8 tablet? That plan died (means they will not) when Microsoft announced Surface. Nokia is not going to compete against Microsoft with Microsofts own software. That would be silly.
3. Microsofts recent offer to RIM that they could have a similar “exclusive” deal Nokia got but with WP8 rather then WP7.
Let’s face it. Nokia was the exclusive WinPhone7 partner. But they are not going to be any kind of exclusive or special WinPhone8 partner. They will have to regular compete against Samsung, HTC and other WP8 partners. Even more worse now that Nokia Maps is in WP8 and can be used freely by its competitors and now that Nokia is in such deep cash-problems without Microsoft investing (or buying) them off, Nokia has very little possibilities left to differentiate against other WP8 resellers. Hardware, you think? No, not even that cause Lumia are not done in Nokia factories but by a (cheaper?) chinese factories. That is why there are so much N9/Lumia hardware clones on the chinese market currently.
Nokia has not much to offer to Microsoft any longer and NOW they are from very little strategic value for Microsoft. Do not expect that Microsoft is saving them just because they are nice guys. Nortel, Novell, Nokia. The 3th No* Microsoft-partner to die within just some years.
Edited 2012-07-06 08:18 UTC
If Nokia wants to survive they need to adopt Android ASAP. They make quality hardware, but nobody is buying Windows phones ffs.
If they license and release an Android phone it could invalidate future lawsuits against Android using Nokia patents.
It is the same as SCO releasing a Linux distro and later deciding to sue Linux after willingly releasing the same code under GPL.
It doesn’t apply to hardware patents but it would still make their patent portfolio worth less since the main reason someone would want to buy it would likely be to sue Android phones out of existence.
Android is not licensed under GPLv3. They can offer Android AND sue competitors without any problem.
SCO never lost its rights to ship GPL software. Afaik they even did on there Unix till they became a pure suing-company.
It doesn’t apply at all.
It´s called “suicide”.
That’s not the backup plan B but plan A, the WP7 suicide mission.
Plan B is like plan A but with more marketing and teaching of the sells-personal cause according to Elop that is the problem why Lumia is selling “below expectations”. When Nokia released 1/5 of its employees Elop was clear in that Nokia will focus MORE on its WP-strategy now that its failing!
Edited 2012-07-04 12:10 UTC
If it’s running Android, it can never be a N9. Period.
Wouldn’t it have been smarter to release a series of phones with the same design and hardware and provide users the choice of running Windows Phone, Meego, or Android? This would have allowed them to hedge their bets and they could let the market decide which OS users preferred. Instead, they put all of their eggs into a single basket and it certainly doesn’t appear to be paying off.
http://www.itproportal.com/2012/07/03/mozilla-officially-launch-fir…
So why is Symbian not the backup plan? It has an ecosystem, though it’s failing due to Nokia chasing off developers. Surely this could be rectified with a big enough carrot.
Screw android, there are enough OEMs already producing handsets for that bloated pig. Nokia needs to stand out to survive, even if standing out kills them in the end.
Because of the last 1-2 years. Remember that the Nokia BOD agreed with Elop that Symbian is not more. They produced facts, outsourced to Accenture, fired all there skilled people. Partners left, developers left. That is why Symbian is failing *that* fast now. The platform is dead cause Nokia declared it dead. It cannot just recover to where it was before Elop set it burning. But it could start to grow again from where it is now rather then continue to fall faster and faster.
Doing that means the Nokia BOD made a mistake. An expensive mistake that ruined Nokia. The board will never admit that. They will prevent Symbian or Meego from recovering while selecting whatever else. I would not wonder if they do not even select Android.
Edited 2012-07-03 23:20 UTC
Since this was not mentioned by anyone else, why not Ubuntu as their B plan?
http://gadgetandmobileinfo.blogspot.fi/2012/06/ubuntu-mobile-phone-…
…but I still won’t ever buy a Nokia phone. They’ve already done shot themselves in the foot. Damage done. I won’t automatically forgive them and go out to buy one of their phones just because they switch to Android (their only real choice now–they themselves have helped to kill off all other options).
And with my first impressions of Android in the form of the LG Optimus V, it’s beginning to look like Android will definitely be running my next primary cell phone. I’m very impressed so far with it. I’m impressed with the Google Voice service and Android’s integration with it, Android’s syncing with my contacts on their Gmail site, e-mail integration (okay, sure, other OSes no doubt do this too), the shitloads of clever and functional programs available to it.
Admittedly, it’s my first phone that does more than just the basics, and I never did talk much of the phone anyway. I was always more into desktop machines.
It does not make any sense to go with Windows 8, which will be a failure. Markets have room for only two players, proven time and again in history, so one player is iOS and the other is Android.
Nokia could have spent its time optimizing and polishing Android so much that it could be equally attractive to iOS.
I dont believe that Nokia can claim much success on Android. However Android is the middle step, in my point of view.
What Nokia has lost is credibility. When they embraced WP, they did one huge mistake: they abandoned everything else, not silently but quite vocally. They were making a lot of money on Symbian phones and suddenly they said that the platform is a dead end and fired so many people. Why would anyone go and buy a dead platform? They released the N9, *after* they said that they stopped Meego. However everyone liked it (I have never seen so many positive feedback on a product that is known to be dead).
And they invested to something unproven and without marketshare. Now MS announces that it wont upgrade WP7.x phones to WP8 and Nokia is facing so many financial problems that people are simply asking: why stick with Nokia?
If Nokia goes down, then they have nothing.
Android is something that is way beyond Nokia, has so much support and a huge ecosystem out there.
Nokia may not make money by releasing an Android handset, however for a consumer that likes Nokia devices (and still they do have a good reputation) is a safer harbor. Because he knows that even if Nokia dies, his phone can be supported, he will be able to find new apps, he will be able to do whatever.
So using Android as a safe harbor to regain sales (not profits maybe) and market credibility, I think Nokia can go back to its roots in R&D and work on a solution of its own.
I think Meego is the key. Make it elegant, make it fast and give it the proper hardware (like the N9). Use the open source communities and above all craft a strategy to be able to run other OSes software. I dont believe it is that difficult to make it run Android software and on the other hand (without being an app developer), I believe that there is a significant advantage to Nokia now that HTML5 is becoming a more widespread way to develop mobile apps. I believe that it wont be that difficult to run HTML5 applications on a different OS!
My gorgeous Nokia N9, just received a new firmware update: PR1.3
Maybe Nokia’s B plan is MeeGo? I strongly hope that this awesome handset will be supported.
The user experience is silk smooth, instant messaging, skype calls, sip calls, facebook and dropbox are smoothly integrated in the native applications (i.e. the phone application prompts you to call via sip, gsm or skype). The gallery includes fast sharing via twitter, facebook and dropbox at once. No home button, only three main screens: apps, notifications and running applications. The multitasking is real!
I suggest everybody to try it live. When Nokia sold is soul to micro$oft, I was very sad!
😉
http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2188976/nokia-elop-board-jean-l…
Is the answer burn the place down and collect the insurance money?
I’m sure Google would be happy to cash out that insurance policy for Nokia’s patents.
an android on the name nokia would be awesome!
plan nr. 1: iOS and Android developed, let’s do nothing
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plan nr. 101: iOS & Android success, let’s do something
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plan nr. 11268: use Symbian
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plan 12326: let’s scratch our nose
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plan nr. 16727: let’s develop our own os, call it Maemo
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plan nr. 18325: develop os with Intel, call it Meego
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plan nr.22031: use Windows Mobile
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plan nr. 25211: let’s scratch our head
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plan nr. 31237A: let’s develop our own os, call it FailUX