6 ms·

Nokia tries to reinvent itself: Bears at the door

53 points by bensummers 17y ago

davidw 17y ago
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039390 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039390 But I voted it up since the original didn't get any attention. I think Nokia is at an 'interesting' point. Here in Europe, they are way more important than either Apple or any of the various Android things, but they look wobbly. I will be curious to see how things work out for them, if they are indeed able to reinvent themselves.
- bensummers 17y ago
  It's frustrating how so many sites have many different URLs for the same article, confounding the dupe filter. :-(
- felixmar 17y ago
  I was one of the few who voted it up. It's a well written article with good comments.
  - ivankirigin 17y ago
    The economist is the best magazine today. I just got a subscription for christmas, and I'm delighted with the print edition.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
- davidw 17y ago
  [ Deleted comment mentions that they are slowly fading ] Very slowly, and starting from a commanding advantage, if what's available in most stores here in Italy is anything to go by. I recall that Austrian stores were similar: sure there's an iPhone or two, but there are tons of Nokias everywhere. But they are in a bit of a decline and don't seem to really have a clear direction for what to do about it.
  - berntb 17y ago
    >>don't seem to really have a clear direction What don't you like about the Maemo stuff? Debian in a phone -- what can be wrong with that?!
    - davidw 17y ago
      Two questions about it: * Will they really put all their weight behind it? My guess is that there's an internal struggle between that and Symbian. * Will they be able to make it as nice as Android? I care about the fact that it's open source and hackable, but what most people are going to worry about is how well it works, and what the application writing process is like. I doubt there are many Debian apps that are all that useful as-is on a phone - maybe in 5 years, but not right now.
      - beamso 17y ago
        A Nokia rep announced unofficially that Maemo is the future operating system for the Nokia N series phones. Symbian will be kept for the Nokia E series.
      - lallysingh 17y ago
        1) I don't think Nokia has much of a choice if they're going to be in the smartphone market. 2) Programatically, they've got Qt now, which is easily comparable to Cocoa, and doesn't require devs to learn a new programming language. I haven't looked at android's, nor have I heard any commentary, which usually isn't a good indicator. Out of the 3 (or 5, +palm +msft), it's going to come down to device/network/developer relations. This market's still pretty open, and nobody's really doing a great job on #3 yet. Then again, I'm wondering if the portable app market's nearly as important as is commonly thought; perhaps the web really has changed this game permanently.
        davidw 17y ago
        Android uses Java (well, underneath it isn't really Java, but that's mostly besides the point). You get a lot of standard Java stuff, and use Android-specific stuff for the UI. It's a decent environment, is easy to get set up and get going, and works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. The Google guys definitely 'get' how to push their stuff - from day 1, they have had a bunch of guys on #android on Freenode to help people out and answer questions. Qt is supposed to be pretty nice (I've never used it though), and C++ is certainly popular, but both will require some adaptation to the mobile phone world, and that will take time.
sree_nair 17y ago
Us & Europe, Yes, thay are in Trouble . But in Emerging Markets, it's only the top 10 % who can afford/ will want the RIM/Apple/Google phones. So they still have some legs there for the nxt 5 years. It's a fundamental change in the way mobile phoes & their markets work that has caught them. and i guess there'll never be that Nokia Domination again in US & Europe.
fauigerzigerk 17y ago
"While giving Symbian a makeover it is also pushing a new operating system, called Maemo, for the grandest, computer-like smart-phones." I guess that quote shows quite well what's wrong in terms of attracting developers.
- eru 17y ago
  What do you try to hint at? Do you mean they should just go with some form of Unix, a proven way to attract hackers? Actually http://maemo.org/ http://maemo.org/ does not look too bad. (And maemo may actually be close to Linux or so. I haven't checked in depth, yet.)
  - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
    No, what I'm saying is that they should commit themselves to one OS for high end devices. As a developer, how do I know whether Maemo or Symbian has a future? Neither has a significant installed base outside of Nokia. Right now Nokia doesn't exist for me as a developer. I don't believe a word they say. They are confused and I believe they could announce Android support tomorrow.
  - dave_au 17y ago
    Maemo is a Debian based linux.
  - Elepsis 17y ago
    I think the point is that Nokia is splitting developer attention between two incompatible platforms, rather than choosing one and getting it on as many devices as possible.
kenshi 17y ago
I think Nokia's future is really going to be determined by their ability to make great software. There is no question that they can make great hardware, but pretty much in all cases their software is letting them down. Can this hardware engineering dominated company make the shift to an organisation that can make great software? Do the managers and executive team know how to hire, motivate and manage great software people? Beyond that: Can they get their software teams to release quality products that get deployed to end-users? Can they do effective developer support and platform evangelism? I kind of always root for Nokia because they are a successful European tech company. Unfortunately for the past 10 years they haven't failed to let expectations down. Maybe all this increased competition will get them to make all the changes they need - they certainly sounded serious at a developer outreach event I went to last year. The event still didn't leave me convinced they understood hackers though, or how to inspire application developers to write for their platforms.
yason 17y ago
The question "When is Nokia going to announce an Android phone?" and their known response captures pretty much everything that's wrong with Nokia.
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  While I agree that Nokia has a lot of problems and is getting more and more irrelevant these days, to be fair the same question could be asked about Apple and you would get a similar answer and somehow that wouldn't be a bad thing in Apple's context so I think you have to dig deeper to find the real problems of Nokia. I think it can be summarized by "trying too hard".
- blub 17y ago
  The answer is hopefully never. Android is an over-hyped mobile OS in geek circles (The Google Andoid Army), but it is not well known in the market. It is almost unheard of in Europe for instance... Personally I dislike Android from all possible points of view. Both technically (Java, HTC) and philosophically (Ad-OS, cloud).

53 points by bensummers 17y ago

Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039390 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039390 But I voted it up since the original didn't get any attention. I think Nokia is at an 'interesting' point. Here in Europe, they are way more important than either Apple or any of the various Android things, but they look wobbly. I will be curious to see how things work out for them, if they are indeed able to reinvent themselves.

bensummers 17y ago
It's frustrating how so many sites have many different URLs for the same article, confounding the dupe filter. :-(
felixmar 17y ago
I was one of the few who voted it up. It's a well written article with good comments.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  The economist is the best magazine today. I just got a subscription for christmas, and I'm delighted with the print edition.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

davidw 17y ago
[ Deleted comment mentions that they are slowly fading ] Very slowly, and starting from a commanding advantage, if what's available in most stores here in Italy is anything to go by. I recall that Austrian stores were similar: sure there's an iPhone or two, but there are tons of Nokias everywhere. But they are in a bit of a decline and don't seem to really have a clear direction for what to do about it.
- berntb 17y ago
  >>don't seem to really have a clear direction What don't you like about the Maemo stuff? Debian in a phone -- what can be wrong with that?!
  - davidw 17y ago
    Two questions about it: * Will they really put all their weight behind it? My guess is that there's an internal struggle between that and Symbian. * Will they be able to make it as nice as Android? I care about the fact that it's open source and hackable, but what most people are going to worry about is how well it works, and what the application writing process is like. I doubt there are many Debian apps that are all that useful as-is on a phone - maybe in 5 years, but not right now.
    - beamso 17y ago
      A Nokia rep announced unofficially that Maemo is the future operating system for the Nokia N series phones. Symbian will be kept for the Nokia E series.
    - lallysingh 17y ago
      1) I don't think Nokia has much of a choice if they're going to be in the smartphone market. 2) Programatically, they've got Qt now, which is easily comparable to Cocoa, and doesn't require devs to learn a new programming language. I haven't looked at android's, nor have I heard any commentary, which usually isn't a good indicator. Out of the 3 (or 5, +palm +msft), it's going to come down to device/network/developer relations. This market's still pretty open, and nobody's really doing a great job on #3 yet. Then again, I'm wondering if the portable app market's nearly as important as is commonly thought; perhaps the web really has changed this game permanently.
      - davidw 17y ago
        Android uses Java (well, underneath it isn't really Java, but that's mostly besides the point). You get a lot of standard Java stuff, and use Android-specific stuff for the UI. It's a decent environment, is easy to get set up and get going, and works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. The Google guys definitely 'get' how to push their stuff - from day 1, they have had a bunch of guys on #android on Freenode to help people out and answer questions. Qt is supposed to be pretty nice (I've never used it though), and C++ is certainly popular, but both will require some adaptation to the mobile phone world, and that will take time.

sree_nair 17y ago

Us & Europe, Yes, thay are in Trouble . But in Emerging Markets, it's only the top 10 % who can afford/ will want the RIM/Apple/Google phones. So they still have some legs there for the nxt 5 years. It's a fundamental change in the way mobile phoes & their markets work that has caught them. and i guess there'll never be that Nokia Domination again in US & Europe.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago

"While giving Symbian a makeover it is also pushing a new operating system, called Maemo, for the grandest, computer-like smart-phones." I guess that quote shows quite well what's wrong in terms of attracting developers.

eru 17y ago
What do you try to hint at? Do you mean they should just go with some form of Unix, a proven way to attract hackers? Actually http://maemo.org/ http://maemo.org/ does not look too bad. (And maemo may actually be close to Linux or so. I haven't checked in depth, yet.)
- fauigerzigerk 17y ago
  No, what I'm saying is that they should commit themselves to one OS for high end devices. As a developer, how do I know whether Maemo or Symbian has a future? Neither has a significant installed base outside of Nokia. Right now Nokia doesn't exist for me as a developer. I don't believe a word they say. They are confused and I believe they could announce Android support tomorrow.
- dave_au 17y ago
  Maemo is a Debian based linux.
- Elepsis 17y ago
  I think the point is that Nokia is splitting developer attention between two incompatible platforms, rather than choosing one and getting it on as many devices as possible.

kenshi 17y ago

I think Nokia's future is really going to be determined by their ability to make great software. There is no question that they can make great hardware, but pretty much in all cases their software is letting them down. Can this hardware engineering dominated company make the shift to an organisation that can make great software? Do the managers and executive team know how to hire, motivate and manage great software people? Beyond that: Can they get their software teams to release quality products that get deployed to end-users? Can they do effective developer support and platform evangelism? I kind of always root for Nokia because they are a successful European tech company. Unfortunately for the past 10 years they haven't failed to let expectations down. Maybe all this increased competition will get them to make all the changes they need - they certainly sounded serious at a developer outreach event I went to last year. The event still didn't leave me convinced they understood hackers though, or how to inspire application developers to write for their platforms.

yason 17y ago

The question "When is Nokia going to announce an Android phone?" and their known response captures pretty much everything that's wrong with Nokia.

DrJokepu 17y ago
While I agree that Nokia has a lot of problems and is getting more and more irrelevant these days, to be fair the same question could be asked about Apple and you would get a similar answer and somehow that wouldn't be a bad thing in Apple's context so I think you have to dig deeper to find the real problems of Nokia. I think it can be summarized by "trying too hard".
blub 17y ago
The answer is hopefully never. Android is an over-hyped mobile OS in geek circles (The Google Andoid Army), but it is not well known in the market. It is almost unheard of in Europe for instance... Personally I dislike Android from all possible points of view. Both technically (Java, HTC) and philosophically (Ad-OS, cloud).