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It was sad to see the decline of Nokia from being the most ubiquitous brand of phones to literally nothing today (in the smartphone and feature phone market).

It was sad to see the decline of Nokia from being the most ubiquitous brand of phones to literally nothing today (in the smartphone and feature phone market). If they had adopted Android instead of going with Windows Phone, things could have been a lot better. Even when they made Windows Phone devices, at least the high end devices where critically acclaimed with everyone's only gripe only being Windows Phone (mainly the lack of apps). IIRC Samsung started becoming incredibly popular at around the same time. In some ways Samsung become the new Nokia, especially in developing markets where low end Android devices became very popular. At the time Nokia also had what seemed like technical advantages one of which was the PureView camera technology. I think Nokia's decline was also largely because of very poor management decisions and also to some extent political. Microsoft aggressively pursued a deal with Nokia to adopt Windows Phone and they gave incredible incentives as well, billions of dollars in aid/credit/support (I don't remember the exact nature of the transfer of cash). This probably swayed their decision away from Android towards Windows Phone. I can't help but take a cheap shot: Stephen Elop was a Trojan Horse. As the title says, this is a Nokia branded device, so HMD uses the Nokia brand for it's phones. It's not a real Nokia device from the company itself. PS : Seeing Nokia and Android in the same sentence always triggers a nostalgic/angry rant.

mdasen 10y ago
It is sad, but I don't think it was the Microsoft deal that did Nokia in. Nokia had already been left behind when they finally realized that Symbian wasn't going to cut it against iOS and Android. I think they made a calculated decision: they could try and create an Android device to compete against the likes of Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and LG with basically no differentiation -OR- they could take Microsoft's money and put their hopes on Windows Phone. If they had gone the Android route, it doesn't seem like they would have gotten a better result. Samsung can make its own displays and chips and that advantage has ground a lot of the competition to dust. LG makes its own displays. Facing this, HTC (who had a nice Android business) has really struggled. Motorola struggled and then got bounced around and still doesn't really make money. Nokia would likely have struggled as well. Let's look at the Lumia 800 flagship launched in November 2011. The Galaxy S2 was launched in May 2011 with a dual-core processor (as opposed to the single-core Lumia), 1GB of RAM (rather than 512MB), a 4.3" display (rather than 3.7" - and people want larger screens), a 3-colors-per-pixel AMOLED Plus display (rather than the 2-color-per-pixel PenTile on the Lumia), a microSD card slot (while the Lumia had no expandable storage), a front camera the Lumia lacked entirely, and a larger battery. A Lumia 800 Android phone wouldn't have sold well. It was way worse (hardware wise) than a Samsung phone introduced 6 months prior. Not to go on too much of a tangent, but in a way it was like the Palm Pre. Palm introduced it, but it had a smaller display than the iPhone, underclocked processor, half the storage, 40% thicker, creaky build quality, and the same price tag. Sure, it had the niche feature of the keyboard, but in most ways the hardware was simply inferior. It was easy to write off the Palm Pre as a device that could have been great if not for an OS that wasn't popular enough. If it had run iOS, it would have tanked against an iPhone that was simply superior. It's very easy to critically acclaim something when one sees one specific flaw that's a dealbreaker. In that case, all other flaws tend to go unnoticed or just get attributed to the dealbreaker. If the Lumia 800 ran Android, it would have been crappy compared to Android phones of the day. Nokia did a couple cool things like the 41MP Lumia 1020 (or PureView 808). But a camera just isn't enough, especially when wedded to a bulky, underpowered phone with a crappy display. Nokia's hardware was simply poorly matched against what you could get from competitors. It's always sad to see a brand that once meant so much end up the way it did. But it wasn't Microsoft that did Nokia in. Like many others, they failed to notice how important the iPhone was going to be. Even those that saw the iPhone for what it was (like HTC) weren't spared. Nokia wouldn't have done much better if they'd released their devices as Android phones. They would have been underpowered and overpriced. Sure, some would have bought it for the Nokia name, but not enough. The market was flooded with better hardware. Nokia would have introduced Android phones that would have been mediocre with a premium price. A lot of us remember Nokia fondly and would have rooted for Nokia to introduce something without the dealbreaker of Windows Phone, but we would have been disappointed when we compared a Nokia Android against other options in the market. Maybe it's best that we can just write off Nokia's failure as due to Windows Phone rather than noting that most of their smartphone devices also just weren't great hardware.
- mtgx 10y ago
  Fun fact. When Samsung adopted Android, Nokia still had twice the market share in phones that Samsung did. Adopting Android early would've absolutely helped. Instead they wasted time first with Maemo, which the executive team never took seriously enough to expand across the product lines, then with "touch Symbian", which they should've known it would have never worked, and then with Windows Phone, when it was already too late and it was clear to many at the time that there wouldn't be a "third" large ecosystem for smartphones, because there was no reason for one. Maybe Android would've helped, maybe it wouldn't have, because it was already a little late for such adoption, but Nokia still have relatively strong brand at the time. And there were much fewer chances it would've worked with the "different" Windows Phone, because people were looking for ecosystem, not difference.
  - tunap 10y ago
    "Wasted time first with Maemo"... Damn that hurts my brain to read, and in hindsight, I have to agree. The n900's open platform built on debian, functional resistive touch and a hardware keyboard should have gained traction. Of course, without the monetized ecosystems of app stores and specialized accessories it is no wonder the policymakers didn't want it.
    - jldugger 10y ago
      If you think back to 2009, it was a different era. People were still paying carriers for _ring tones_, and they were loathe to give up that level of profitable device control. For the first year of iPhone's life, there was no app store to speak of. And the n900 did have an App store. It was shitty, and suffered from the typical platform bootstrapping problem. And if I recall, there were some security holes that let people download apps for free. n900's problems were: a) resistive touch sucks b) tiny, tiny hardware keyboard keys c) a pathetic, zero subsidy US launch d) incredibly late to market -- iphone had a 2 year head start e) zero developer credibility f) no support for MMS g) surprisingly flaky USB charging port
      - 10y ago
pjmlp 10y ago
As former employee, I doubt it would made any difference. Symbian was a pain to develop for, went through multiple stack changes that pissed off developers. Then there were the internal fights between the Symbian and Maemo units. Things were already bad before Microsoft joined in.
- zerr 10y ago
  Not sure, if Nokia didn't abandon Qt as mobile SDK and corresponding OS, today it might have been in a totally different shape.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Back when Nokia abandoned Qt, we still needed to write #ifdef Symbian in lots of places. It wasn't as easy as writing GNU/Linux applications.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- lastyearman 10y ago
  I was making software for Nokia phones when the first iPhone came out. As an outsider, it seemed to me that they realised iPhones were going to be the future, went full panic-mode and never recovered. N96 was already dead by the time it came out and N97 seemed like something cobbled together in a hurry. Released version had none of the screen animations/interactions they were hoping and overall was quite laggy in my opinion. After that they were basically just poking around on every possible direction.
gareim 10y ago
HMD is made of ex-Nokia employees. If it's all the good ones, then there's a chance, however slim, that maybe the new phones will be good.
bobajeff 10y ago
I believe they would've been much better off if they abandoned their Meego and Maemo platforms and doubled down in Symbian. Symbian was still going strong and cutting off in favor of Windows phone was obviously bad for their customers. So customers left Nokia. If they'd stuck with Symbian they'd still have the low end of the market today. Who knows down the line some opportunity could've come up to take advantage of its characteristics as a tiny mature non-appstore centric embedded OS.
megablast 10y ago
Sad for Nokia. Sad for BB. Sad for Palm. Sad for Motorola. Except not. All of these companies ignored the future, even when it was presented to them on a silver platter. They all thought it was the hardware that was the most important, even when Microsoft proved decades earlier it was the software.
detaro 10y ago
I still don't really get how Microsoft acts towards mobile. They pushed it a lot and then seemingly dropped it, but on the other hand they still seem to invest quite a bit of engineering effort into windows 10 features for mobile (e.g. the continuum concept). Why work on stuff like that when it is dead, or why "give up" and let the recognition the Lumnias built decay, wait until everybody who had one has switched to something else before attempting the next move? I don't see a new large push succeeding now.

mdasen 10y ago

It is sad, but I don't think it was the Microsoft deal that did Nokia in. Nokia had already been left behind when they finally realized that Symbian wasn't going to cut it against iOS and Android. I think they made a calculated decision: they could try and create an Android device to compete against the likes of Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and LG with basically no differentiation -OR- they could take Microsoft's money and put their hopes on Windows Phone. If they had gone the Android route, it doesn't seem like they would have gotten a better result. Samsung can make its own displays and chips and that advantage has ground a lot of the competition to dust. LG makes its own displays. Facing this, HTC (who had a nice Android business) has really struggled. Motorola struggled and then got bounced around and still doesn't really make money. Nokia would likely have struggled as well. Let's look at the Lumia 800 flagship launched in November 2011. The Galaxy S2 was launched in May 2011 with a dual-core processor (as opposed to the single-core Lumia), 1GB of RAM (rather than 512MB), a 4.3" display (rather than 3.7" - and people want larger screens), a 3-colors-per-pixel AMOLED Plus display (rather than the 2-color-per-pixel PenTile on the Lumia), a microSD card slot (while the Lumia had no expandable storage), a front camera the Lumia lacked entirely, and a larger battery. A Lumia 800 Android phone wouldn't have sold well. It was way worse (hardware wise) than a Samsung phone introduced 6 months prior. Not to go on too much of a tangent, but in a way it was like the Palm Pre. Palm introduced it, but it had a smaller display than the iPhone, underclocked processor, half the storage, 40% thicker, creaky build quality, and the same price tag. Sure, it had the niche feature of the keyboard, but in most ways the hardware was simply inferior. It was easy to write off the Palm Pre as a device that could have been great if not for an OS that wasn't popular enough. If it had run iOS, it would have tanked against an iPhone that was simply superior. It's very easy to critically acclaim something when one sees one specific flaw that's a dealbreaker. In that case, all other flaws tend to go unnoticed or just get attributed to the dealbreaker. If the Lumia 800 ran Android, it would have been crappy compared to Android phones of the day. Nokia did a couple cool things like the 41MP Lumia 1020 (or PureView 808). But a camera just isn't enough, especially when wedded to a bulky, underpowered phone with a crappy display. Nokia's hardware was simply poorly matched against what you could get from competitors. It's always sad to see a brand that once meant so much end up the way it did. But it wasn't Microsoft that did Nokia in. Like many others, they failed to notice how important the iPhone was going to be. Even those that saw the iPhone for what it was (like HTC) weren't spared. Nokia wouldn't have done much better if they'd released their devices as Android phones. They would have been underpowered and overpriced. Sure, some would have bought it for the Nokia name, but not enough. The market was flooded with better hardware. Nokia would have introduced Android phones that would have been mediocre with a premium price. A lot of us remember Nokia fondly and would have rooted for Nokia to introduce something without the dealbreaker of Windows Phone, but we would have been disappointed when we compared a Nokia Android against other options in the market. Maybe it's best that we can just write off Nokia's failure as due to Windows Phone rather than noting that most of their smartphone devices also just weren't great hardware.

mtgx 10y ago
Fun fact. When Samsung adopted Android, Nokia still had twice the market share in phones that Samsung did. Adopting Android early would've absolutely helped. Instead they wasted time first with Maemo, which the executive team never took seriously enough to expand across the product lines, then with "touch Symbian", which they should've known it would have never worked, and then with Windows Phone, when it was already too late and it was clear to many at the time that there wouldn't be a "third" large ecosystem for smartphones, because there was no reason for one. Maybe Android would've helped, maybe it wouldn't have, because it was already a little late for such adoption, but Nokia still have relatively strong brand at the time. And there were much fewer chances it would've worked with the "different" Windows Phone, because people were looking for ecosystem, not difference.
- tunap 10y ago
  "Wasted time first with Maemo"... Damn that hurts my brain to read, and in hindsight, I have to agree. The n900's open platform built on debian, functional resistive touch and a hardware keyboard should have gained traction. Of course, without the monetized ecosystems of app stores and specialized accessories it is no wonder the policymakers didn't want it.
  - jldugger 10y ago
    If you think back to 2009, it was a different era. People were still paying carriers for _ring tones_, and they were loathe to give up that level of profitable device control. For the first year of iPhone's life, there was no app store to speak of. And the n900 did have an App store. It was shitty, and suffered from the typical platform bootstrapping problem. And if I recall, there were some security holes that let people download apps for free. n900's problems were: a) resistive touch sucks b) tiny, tiny hardware keyboard keys c) a pathetic, zero subsidy US launch d) incredibly late to market -- iphone had a 2 year head start e) zero developer credibility f) no support for MMS g) surprisingly flaky USB charging port
    - 10y ago

pjmlp 10y ago

As former employee, I doubt it would made any difference. Symbian was a pain to develop for, went through multiple stack changes that pissed off developers. Then there were the internal fights between the Symbian and Maemo units. Things were already bad before Microsoft joined in.

zerr 10y ago
Not sure, if Nokia didn't abandon Qt as mobile SDK and corresponding OS, today it might have been in a totally different shape.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Back when Nokia abandoned Qt, we still needed to write #ifdef Symbian in lots of places. It wasn't as easy as writing GNU/Linux applications.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
lastyearman 10y ago
I was making software for Nokia phones when the first iPhone came out. As an outsider, it seemed to me that they realised iPhones were going to be the future, went full panic-mode and never recovered. N96 was already dead by the time it came out and N97 seemed like something cobbled together in a hurry. Released version had none of the screen animations/interactions they were hoping and overall was quite laggy in my opinion. After that they were basically just poking around on every possible direction.

gareim 10y ago

HMD is made of ex-Nokia employees. If it's all the good ones, then there's a chance, however slim, that maybe the new phones will be good.

bobajeff 10y ago

I believe they would've been much better off if they abandoned their Meego and Maemo platforms and doubled down in Symbian. Symbian was still going strong and cutting off in favor of Windows phone was obviously bad for their customers. So customers left Nokia. If they'd stuck with Symbian they'd still have the low end of the market today. Who knows down the line some opportunity could've come up to take advantage of its characteristics as a tiny mature non-appstore centric embedded OS.

megablast 10y ago

Sad for Nokia. Sad for BB. Sad for Palm. Sad for Motorola. Except not. All of these companies ignored the future, even when it was presented to them on a silver platter. They all thought it was the hardware that was the most important, even when Microsoft proved decades earlier it was the software.

detaro 10y ago

I still don't really get how Microsoft acts towards mobile. They pushed it a lot and then seemingly dropped it, but on the other hand they still seem to invest quite a bit of engineering effort into windows 10 features for mobile (e.g. the continuum concept). Why work on stuff like that when it is dead, or why "give up" and let the recognition the Lumnias built decay, wait until everybody who had one has switched to something else before attempting the next move? I don't see a new large push succeeding now.