4 ms·

Nokia tanked well before Elop came around. Basically the refusal to accept the fact that Symbian was going nowhere killed them. If they did the switch sooner (w

by doikor 10y ago

Nokia tanked well before Elop came around. Basically the refusal to accept the fact that Symbian was going nowhere killed them. If they did the switch sooner (while they still had some market share) to pretty much anything else I think they would have had a chance.

bitL 10y ago
That's a common myth, actually at the time Elop got in, Nokia's sales were still growing, though not at the speed of Android. That would have given them a nice cushion for a few years as many people loved the brand and were loyal (EU + India). In the US they weren't basically present as they didn't want to play the ball with cellular carriers. After Elop issued his burning platform memo, Nokia fell off-the-cliff as channels/carriers realized there is no future in selling Symbian phones and stopped ordering/subsidizing them. Mind you, Nokia dwarfed Samsung in market share at the time having way more resources - if they decided to go with Android, they could have been the leader Samsung became. Probably even going with MeeGo would have been way better than with MS.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Sales were growing via the Asha low cost brand, Nokia was in deep trouble and heading in the wrong direction way before Elop. Nokia didn't fail because of the choise of an OS, it failed because they did not embraced the new business model, they were still selling and designing phones when everyone was already selling platforms.
  - riskable 10y ago
    No, just no. Nokia did fail because they chose an OS that failed. They bet everything on Windows Mobile and lost. You can't say with a straight face that if they choose Android instead that they would be in the same situation. Nokia could've had pro quality cameras that happen to be phones out long before any of the other Android phone makers. They blew it. Partnering with Microsoft was a huge mistake.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      If they have went with Android they would've been just another OEM, nothing guarantees that they would have outlived their fate and could be competitive with Samsung or LG today.
      - agumonkey 10y ago
        I wonder; leaving the market surely gave Samsung a huge air gap to breath, but Samsung was seen a new strong player while Nokia, even not choosing MS would have got the "old giant" image. I believe they could have kept a very large chunk of said market, even with Samsung and Apple securing the top two positions.
        dogma1138 10y ago
        Samsung only recently have gotten really strong, early Android days HTC was the king with Motorola being a close second. I'm not sure, while Microsoft didn't sell that well (or well not at all), they did ship quite a few of pretty high end devices, Nokia has probably shipped more high end devices than Samsung prior to the S6/7.
    - chipotle_coyote 10y ago
      While this is probably true, it benefits immensely from hindsight. Even when Nokia decided not to move forward with MeeGo (which was an extremely defensible decision given how behind schedule both the OS and the products to run it on had become), they considered their services--particularly mapping--a major "crown jewel." They went with Windows Phone (n.b.: not Windows Mobile, which was the earlier OS) because Microsoft would partner with them and promote the Nokia products as "premium" Windows Phone devices while letting Nokia use their own services. That deal wouldn't have been possible with Google. While Android is open source, the Android branding is not, and to be able to market their device as Android--and get any support from Google--they would have had abandon their own services and use Google's. If I'd been in charge of things, would I have done that? No. I think Nokia should have gone with AOSP and put not only their own services but their own UX on it, along with Qt. I was at Nokia at 2010 and we were in the process of unifying Symbian and Meego on Qt, with the notion that you'd (mostly) just be able to recompile a Qt-based app to move between OSes; they could have kept that strategy while moving to Android. Then they'd be able to run Android apps natively and have a solid platform to move ahead on, while not leaving Nokia's existing community feeling like they'd been shut out. And, as others have pointed out, Nokia had some fantastic industrial design; the N8/N9, whose design language carried over into the Lumia line, was really the only phone design I've liked as much as the iPhone 4/4s design. But, Nokia's choice wasn't entirely bananas at the time. We all knew Windows Phone was late to the game, but initially it still got a lot of positive attention, a lot of love for its UX design, and it was Microsoft. I was arguably a skeptic, and even I wildly underestimated how hard the platform ended up cratering.
- tigershark 10y ago
  Symbian was simply atrocious compared to the other systems. The problem was not that they tanked it, but that they didn't tank it early enough.
  - bitL 10y ago
    Yes, they were pretty asleep, yet MeeGo was quite nice, even Engadget, traditionally hostile to Symbian, was impressed with N9, and Elop did everything he could to kill it (couldn't be sold in the US/UK/Germany etc.), and it still managed to outsold first Lumias.
  - csours 10y ago
    I haven't experienced Symbian; was it atrocious for devs? users? How was it atrocious?
    - snuxoll 10y ago
      As someone who owned multiple Symbian phones, it was great as a user - developing for it was a different matter entirely with the bastardized C++ variant you had available (no exceptions or a lot of other common features that were left out because the original devices running Symbian had nowhere near enough CPU power to handle them, but once the S60 3rd Edition devices like my N75 started rolling around they should have been pushing hard on modernizing the toolchain - they didn't).
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      It was atrocious to developers. I looked at it just a bit myself, decided not to go there at all; I knew many Symbian developers and they said they'd generally prefer contracting syphilis to contracting Symbian. Symbian was and probably still is the best phone platform, and the usability of most important phone functions (just making phone calls, and also things like what the phone does with alarm clock during call / when phone is switched off, or what it does when you get a text message during a call, etc) was very well designed. But Nokia leadership just wanted to keep doing what was selling so well (keyboard phones) so touchscreen development was ignored. The horrible complexity of Symbian app development was the other big issue.
dogma1138 10y ago
It wasn't that Symbian wasn't going anywhere it was that Nokia failed to embrace the development community properly they continued to work with only corporate developers and didn't give 2 cents about what made the iOS ecosystem shine. When the iPhone came out iPhone didn't had native apps but it did had good support for developers and an easy way to publish. Device per device Nokia devices weren't outdated, even the latest Symbian ones were still ok on the hardware and even software fronts. The overall experience wasn't that different than early iOS (n97 type devices). But still no support no good store no easy publishing. Their solution was to bank hard into nerdland with multiple Linux based projects, and while I still love my n900 it is not a consumer device by any means.
- threeseed 10y ago
  I wasn't aware that the N95/N97 had a capacitive touchscreen, multitouch, fluid scrolling, desktop class web browser and all of the animations, visual design and flourishes that Apple has been renowned for. Many of the early iPhone users were Mac users i.e. very particular about the subtleties of good user experience. The idea that the N95/N97 would have been similar for those users is pretty laughable in its misguidedness.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Have you ever used the N97 and an iPhone 3g? The N97 had a touchscreen with a higher resolution than the iPhone 3g, the camera was considerably better, it had more storage and an SD card, could record and play video, could be easily connected to a TV, had a better browser (w/ flash support which was important 7-8 years ago), heck many of the early apps like Facebook worked considerably better on the N97... The N97 also had things like notifications, widgets and many other things before they came to the iPhone. What it didn't had is a good app store. Browser comparison N97 vs iPhone 3G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9HmJgPRbW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9HmJgPRbW0
    - threeseed 10y ago
      Yes I remember the N97. It didn't have a capacitive touchscreen, multitouch, animations and fluid scrolling. All of the hallmarks of modern day smartphones. The multitouch in particular is what made the browser so different from previous mobile devices. And SD cards and TV connectivity were as irrelevant back then as it is today. They aren't major differentiators. You're comparing specs on a page without understanding that the experience is what made the iPhone so unique.

by doikor 10y ago

bitL 10y ago

That's a common myth, actually at the time Elop got in, Nokia's sales were still growing, though not at the speed of Android. That would have given them a nice cushion for a few years as many people loved the brand and were loyal (EU + India). In the US they weren't basically present as they didn't want to play the ball with cellular carriers. After Elop issued his burning platform memo, Nokia fell off-the-cliff as channels/carriers realized there is no future in selling Symbian phones and stopped ordering/subsidizing them. Mind you, Nokia dwarfed Samsung in market share at the time having way more resources - if they decided to go with Android, they could have been the leader Samsung became. Probably even going with MeeGo would have been way better than with MS.

dogma1138 10y ago
Sales were growing via the Asha low cost brand, Nokia was in deep trouble and heading in the wrong direction way before Elop. Nokia didn't fail because of the choise of an OS, it failed because they did not embraced the new business model, they were still selling and designing phones when everyone was already selling platforms.
- riskable 10y ago
  No, just no. Nokia did fail because they chose an OS that failed. They bet everything on Windows Mobile and lost. You can't say with a straight face that if they choose Android instead that they would be in the same situation. Nokia could've had pro quality cameras that happen to be phones out long before any of the other Android phone makers. They blew it. Partnering with Microsoft was a huge mistake.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    If they have went with Android they would've been just another OEM, nothing guarantees that they would have outlived their fate and could be competitive with Samsung or LG today.
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      I wonder; leaving the market surely gave Samsung a huge air gap to breath, but Samsung was seen a new strong player while Nokia, even not choosing MS would have got the "old giant" image. I believe they could have kept a very large chunk of said market, even with Samsung and Apple securing the top two positions.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        Samsung only recently have gotten really strong, early Android days HTC was the king with Motorola being a close second. I'm not sure, while Microsoft didn't sell that well (or well not at all), they did ship quite a few of pretty high end devices, Nokia has probably shipped more high end devices than Samsung prior to the S6/7.
  - chipotle_coyote 10y ago
    While this is probably true, it benefits immensely from hindsight. Even when Nokia decided not to move forward with MeeGo (which was an extremely defensible decision given how behind schedule both the OS and the products to run it on had become), they considered their services--particularly mapping--a major "crown jewel." They went with Windows Phone (n.b.: not Windows Mobile, which was the earlier OS) because Microsoft would partner with them and promote the Nokia products as "premium" Windows Phone devices while letting Nokia use their own services. That deal wouldn't have been possible with Google. While Android is open source, the Android branding is not, and to be able to market their device as Android--and get any support from Google--they would have had abandon their own services and use Google's. If I'd been in charge of things, would I have done that? No. I think Nokia should have gone with AOSP and put not only their own services but their own UX on it, along with Qt. I was at Nokia at 2010 and we were in the process of unifying Symbian and Meego on Qt, with the notion that you'd (mostly) just be able to recompile a Qt-based app to move between OSes; they could have kept that strategy while moving to Android. Then they'd be able to run Android apps natively and have a solid platform to move ahead on, while not leaving Nokia's existing community feeling like they'd been shut out. And, as others have pointed out, Nokia had some fantastic industrial design; the N8/N9, whose design language carried over into the Lumia line, was really the only phone design I've liked as much as the iPhone 4/4s design. But, Nokia's choice wasn't entirely bananas at the time. We all knew Windows Phone was late to the game, but initially it still got a lot of positive attention, a lot of love for its UX design, and it was Microsoft. I was arguably a skeptic, and even I wildly underestimated how hard the platform ended up cratering.
tigershark 10y ago
Symbian was simply atrocious compared to the other systems. The problem was not that they tanked it, but that they didn't tank it early enough.
- bitL 10y ago
  Yes, they were pretty asleep, yet MeeGo was quite nice, even Engadget, traditionally hostile to Symbian, was impressed with N9, and Elop did everything he could to kill it (couldn't be sold in the US/UK/Germany etc.), and it still managed to outsold first Lumias.
- csours 10y ago
  I haven't experienced Symbian; was it atrocious for devs? users? How was it atrocious?
  - snuxoll 10y ago
    As someone who owned multiple Symbian phones, it was great as a user - developing for it was a different matter entirely with the bastardized C++ variant you had available (no exceptions or a lot of other common features that were left out because the original devices running Symbian had nowhere near enough CPU power to handle them, but once the S60 3rd Edition devices like my N75 started rolling around they should have been pushing hard on modernizing the toolchain - they didn't).
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    It was atrocious to developers. I looked at it just a bit myself, decided not to go there at all; I knew many Symbian developers and they said they'd generally prefer contracting syphilis to contracting Symbian. Symbian was and probably still is the best phone platform, and the usability of most important phone functions (just making phone calls, and also things like what the phone does with alarm clock during call / when phone is switched off, or what it does when you get a text message during a call, etc) was very well designed. But Nokia leadership just wanted to keep doing what was selling so well (keyboard phones) so touchscreen development was ignored. The horrible complexity of Symbian app development was the other big issue.

dogma1138 10y ago

It wasn't that Symbian wasn't going anywhere it was that Nokia failed to embrace the development community properly they continued to work with only corporate developers and didn't give 2 cents about what made the iOS ecosystem shine. When the iPhone came out iPhone didn't had native apps but it did had good support for developers and an easy way to publish. Device per device Nokia devices weren't outdated, even the latest Symbian ones were still ok on the hardware and even software fronts. The overall experience wasn't that different than early iOS (n97 type devices). But still no support no good store no easy publishing. Their solution was to bank hard into nerdland with multiple Linux based projects, and while I still love my n900 it is not a consumer device by any means.

threeseed 10y ago
I wasn't aware that the N95/N97 had a capacitive touchscreen, multitouch, fluid scrolling, desktop class web browser and all of the animations, visual design and flourishes that Apple has been renowned for. Many of the early iPhone users were Mac users i.e. very particular about the subtleties of good user experience. The idea that the N95/N97 would have been similar for those users is pretty laughable in its misguidedness.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Have you ever used the N97 and an iPhone 3g? The N97 had a touchscreen with a higher resolution than the iPhone 3g, the camera was considerably better, it had more storage and an SD card, could record and play video, could be easily connected to a TV, had a better browser (w/ flash support which was important 7-8 years ago), heck many of the early apps like Facebook worked considerably better on the N97... The N97 also had things like notifications, widgets and many other things before they came to the iPhone. What it didn't had is a good app store. Browser comparison N97 vs iPhone 3G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9HmJgPRbW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9HmJgPRbW0
  - threeseed 10y ago
    Yes I remember the N97. It didn't have a capacitive touchscreen, multitouch, animations and fluid scrolling. All of the hallmarks of modern day smartphones. The multitouch in particular is what made the browser so different from previous mobile devices. And SD cards and TV connectivity were as irrelevant back then as it is today. They aren't major differentiators. You're comparing specs on a page without understanding that the experience is what made the iPhone so unique.