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> Haven't they spied on Windows 10 users? Do they not engage in patents racketeering? Have they not killed Nokia or ruined Skype? I don't think one can say the

> Haven't they spied on Windows 10 users? Do they not engage in patents racketeering? Have they not killed Nokia or ruined Skype? I don't think one can say they killed Nokia. Nokia's phone business was basically doomed after Android gained traction, and Microsoft just helped the company to pivot by overpaying for that part of the business, while leaving Nokia with everything that actually was making money.

SSLy 8y ago
Nokia engineers wanted to move to Android, but the M̶S̶ ̶M̶o̶l̶e̶ then current CEO made a prikaz to go with Windows Phone.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  > prikaz diktat just for those wondering
- distances 8y ago
  I think this was a better outcome for Nokia. They didn't make their own components like Samsung does, so they'd probably now be in a position similar to HTC and Sony. They would have faced years of painful, expensive downsizing instead of a (retrospectively) good payout that assumed the liabilities too.
- Const-me 8y ago
  > Nokia engineers wanted to move to Android I don’t believe the engineers spent thousands man-years developing in-house Symbian, then significant time working on (mostly) in-house Maemo, then some day they said “screw that, let’s throw away everything we’ve developed and move to Android”.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - distances 8y ago
    Nokia had and released their own version of Android [0] which probably sped up the negotiations with Microsoft. Likely done by a completely different team vs. the Symbian people, though somone else probably knows more of those details. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X_platform https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X_platform
- happosai 8y ago
  Android was really hated by middlemanagers at nokia. Android was eating Nokia's lunch in mid-end phones, and managers lost their sales bonuses. When Nokia went to talk to Google and Microsoft, Google gave the "here's the deal everyone gets" and Microsoft "we'll do anything for you". Finally Nokia managers were full of hubris, and believed Nokias was still the center of mobile, and so important it to change the course of industry by Adopting Windows Phone.
  - bitmapbrother 8y ago
    >When Nokia went to talk to Google and Microsoft, Google gave the "here's the deal everyone gets" and Microsoft "we'll do anything for you". This is a well regurgitated lie that I see posted often. If you would like the truth about what really happened I suggest you read Operation Elop. According to a source present, Google seemed to really want Nokia to join the Android world. The company assured that Android can be customized more than Nokia understood, especially compared with Windows Phone. Even if Google was criticized continuously for having Samsung, HTC and Sony Android phones differ from each other too much, Nokia would be given leeway to create its own user experience. Google saw that Nokia differentiated from these competitors in that it had a global area of operation. Nokia would be able to create better local services and user experiences for network providers and customers, one person present remembers being discussed. The Nokians also noticed that they had been living partially with misinformation. Nokia could continue with Android with its own maps side-by-side with Google’s maps. The same applied with the app store. Nokia’s music service as well as ovi.com could continue, as long as the phone had Google Play. The discussions continued at a fast pace after the first visit. Google seemed to really want Nokia. Some constraints were set by the Open Handset Alliance behind Android, OHA. Unlike Windows Phone, Android is not controlled by one company, rather by an alliance of 84 companies which is led by Google, where the members are able to use Android in an equal manner. Google was in a difficult position. By giving Nokia special privileges, it risked its relationship with other manufacturers. The reactions would be difficult to predict. Creativity was needed. As the negotiations proceeded, a solution was found. Google offered Nokia, among other things, plenty of say in choosing the direction of Android development. By directing Android development to align with its own competitive goals, Nokia would gain some advantage, even if the changes would be available for everyone at the same time. Now Nokia was interested. Android and Nokia had an area where their interests converged in a brilliant way: Developing countries. If Android could be made to work on cheap hardware, Nokia would be best at getting in through in developing markets. The arrangement was enticing. Google would secure the position it was dreaming of in smartphones, and Nokia would become part of virgin Android markets. The precise details remained hidden, but Nokia was able to learn that Google worked Android into clearly cheaper models than Windows Phone. Another flexible point of Android was in its predictability. Nokia wanted to publicize the new software features earlier than when the phones go into sales. The reason was brutal: Nokia was more solid than its Korean competitor and needed more time to build a phone. If the information about the new Android features was available earlier, Nokia would have enough time to get them in the first wave, like the others. Google was willing. It promised to make the publicizing of its plans earlier and to release the source code to its partners. The solution would have been useless for other Android manufacturers in relation to Nokia, but would not have broken the OHA rules. Google made a substantial offer regarding distribution of income. Nokia would have gotten a portion of the income from Google’s search engine, app store, and other services which originate from Nokia phones, and the terms would be in relation to Nokia’s influence in the ecosystem. We don’t have information about precise percentages, but at any rate, Google’s promise was quite exceptional, considering that Nokia would still have been able to keep its own services in its phones. Contrary to what Nokia has claimed, Google was ready for concessions. It was ready to flex as far as it could in the framework of OHA, and even then some more. Then some big money stepped into the game, as well as the mysterious Nokia employee with the name Rahul Mewawalla. https://medium.com/@harrikiljander/operation-elop-6f2b043f52c5 https://medium.com/@harrikiljander/operation-elop-6f2b043f52...
mkirklions 8y ago
I dont like Microsoft, but I'm not sure how they killed skype. Yes there were a few dark years, but I think most IM was struggling years ago. Now skype is pretty good.
- acou_nPlusOne_t 8y ago
  Yes, those where dark years, when they shot people in the streets- but at least we had meat in those years.
- oatmale 8y ago
  Skype is pretty awful for calling phones. The user interface has become a mess and is difficult to use. They are constantly making it more difficult to call phone.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Skype still works for it's main purpose. At least they haven't removed calling, but the UI and menus are an utter mess.
- Exuma 8y ago
  You absolutely can't be serious. The new Skype is an unrelenting abomination... just look on ANY community site and you will see the utter livid rage for "new skype". It's truly horrible in every way, it removed every setting and feature that was good, the UI/UX is one of the worst things ever. https://www.reddit.com/r/skype/search?q=new+skype&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/skype/search?q=new+skype&restrict_s...
seba_dos1 8y ago
Nokia basically held onto Symbian for a bit too long. They had a massive chance with Meego; they weakened it slightly pre-Microsoft due to mismanagement, but killing it in favour of Windows Phone was the actual Nokia's death sentence.
redial 8y ago
They killed Nokia twice! First by forcing them to use Windows Mobile (or Windows Phone, or whatever it was called) when it was clear to all they needed to go with Android, and then by actually buying it and killing it when even Microsoft couldn't refuse Windows Mobile was going nowhere.
- ErnestedCode 8y ago
  > First by forcing them to use Windows Mobile (or Windows Phone, or whatever it was called) when it was clear to all they needed to go with Android There's no way that Microsoft bought Nokia to concentrate on making that tiny hardware subdivision profitable (MSFT's market cap is $700B+ and they bought Nokia for $7.6B). They wanted a hardware platform to promote Windows Phone. For Microsoft, the dying entity in need of a Hail Mary was Windows Phone, not Nokia.
squarefoot 8y ago
Nokia had Maemo/Meego which wasn't on par with Android at that time wrt the software ecosystem, but with some investment in development could have killed it pretty easily: thanks to native code a device could offer the same performance using slower CPUs and less RAM, or be a lot snappier with the same hardware. Given due time, manufacturers and users would have noticed. As probably did Microsoft. You can have a full desktop Linux running in 1GB of RAM, full HD screen etc. but most Android users throw away old cellphones because 1 or even 2 GB RAM aren't enough anymore thanks to Android Java dependency. Maemo/Meego would have eliminated that problem completely.
- distances 8y ago
  I really liked the Maemo and Meego phones that got released, but your scenario would not have happened. Nokia's DNA was not in software development, and they couldn't really compete with Google on that. Furthermore, Nokia wouldn't have shared a successful OS with others like Google did if they had one. That meant all other manufacturers were going to stay with Android, and I greatly doubt that they would've succeeded in building the whole ecosystem alone like Apple did.
  - slrz 8y ago
    > Nokia wouldn't have shared a successful OS with others like Google did if they had one But that was exactly the plan. When they cooperated with Intel to build Meego, the resulting OS was available to all other handset manufacturers and there were test suites in the work for vendors to be able to claim Meego compat, just as with Android. The Meego OS was actually quite solid and very nice to develop for. Its major problem was the unwillingness of most app developers to support additional platforms besides Android and the Iphones. Just as with Windows Phone.
    - distances 8y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Nokia's plan to make Meego open-source but keep their own UI layer closed? I may be misremembering things as it was a while ago, but there was some catch to keep Nokia the main player. As for the adoption among developers, it never had a wide enough release to even start with that. N9 was available in limited countries only, and after Nokia's WP announcement.

SSLy 8y ago

Nokia engineers wanted to move to Android, but the M̶S̶ ̶M̶o̶l̶e̶ then current CEO made a prikaz to go with Windows Phone.

AsyncAwait 8y ago
> prikaz diktat just for those wondering
distances 8y ago
I think this was a better outcome for Nokia. They didn't make their own components like Samsung does, so they'd probably now be in a position similar to HTC and Sony. They would have faced years of painful, expensive downsizing instead of a (retrospectively) good payout that assumed the liabilities too.
Const-me 8y ago
> Nokia engineers wanted to move to Android I don’t believe the engineers spent thousands man-years developing in-house Symbian, then significant time working on (mostly) in-house Maemo, then some day they said “screw that, let’s throw away everything we’ve developed and move to Android”.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- distances 8y ago
  Nokia had and released their own version of Android [0] which probably sped up the negotiations with Microsoft. Likely done by a completely different team vs. the Symbian people, though somone else probably knows more of those details. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X_platform https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X_platform
happosai 8y ago
Android was really hated by middlemanagers at nokia. Android was eating Nokia's lunch in mid-end phones, and managers lost their sales bonuses. When Nokia went to talk to Google and Microsoft, Google gave the "here's the deal everyone gets" and Microsoft "we'll do anything for you". Finally Nokia managers were full of hubris, and believed Nokias was still the center of mobile, and so important it to change the course of industry by Adopting Windows Phone.
- bitmapbrother 8y ago
  >When Nokia went to talk to Google and Microsoft, Google gave the "here's the deal everyone gets" and Microsoft "we'll do anything for you". This is a well regurgitated lie that I see posted often. If you would like the truth about what really happened I suggest you read Operation Elop. According to a source present, Google seemed to really want Nokia to join the Android world. The company assured that Android can be customized more than Nokia understood, especially compared with Windows Phone. Even if Google was criticized continuously for having Samsung, HTC and Sony Android phones differ from each other too much, Nokia would be given leeway to create its own user experience. Google saw that Nokia differentiated from these competitors in that it had a global area of operation. Nokia would be able to create better local services and user experiences for network providers and customers, one person present remembers being discussed. The Nokians also noticed that they had been living partially with misinformation. Nokia could continue with Android with its own maps side-by-side with Google’s maps. The same applied with the app store. Nokia’s music service as well as ovi.com could continue, as long as the phone had Google Play. The discussions continued at a fast pace after the first visit. Google seemed to really want Nokia. Some constraints were set by the Open Handset Alliance behind Android, OHA. Unlike Windows Phone, Android is not controlled by one company, rather by an alliance of 84 companies which is led by Google, where the members are able to use Android in an equal manner. Google was in a difficult position. By giving Nokia special privileges, it risked its relationship with other manufacturers. The reactions would be difficult to predict. Creativity was needed. As the negotiations proceeded, a solution was found. Google offered Nokia, among other things, plenty of say in choosing the direction of Android development. By directing Android development to align with its own competitive goals, Nokia would gain some advantage, even if the changes would be available for everyone at the same time. Now Nokia was interested. Android and Nokia had an area where their interests converged in a brilliant way: Developing countries. If Android could be made to work on cheap hardware, Nokia would be best at getting in through in developing markets. The arrangement was enticing. Google would secure the position it was dreaming of in smartphones, and Nokia would become part of virgin Android markets. The precise details remained hidden, but Nokia was able to learn that Google worked Android into clearly cheaper models than Windows Phone. Another flexible point of Android was in its predictability. Nokia wanted to publicize the new software features earlier than when the phones go into sales. The reason was brutal: Nokia was more solid than its Korean competitor and needed more time to build a phone. If the information about the new Android features was available earlier, Nokia would have enough time to get them in the first wave, like the others. Google was willing. It promised to make the publicizing of its plans earlier and to release the source code to its partners. The solution would have been useless for other Android manufacturers in relation to Nokia, but would not have broken the OHA rules. Google made a substantial offer regarding distribution of income. Nokia would have gotten a portion of the income from Google’s search engine, app store, and other services which originate from Nokia phones, and the terms would be in relation to Nokia’s influence in the ecosystem. We don’t have information about precise percentages, but at any rate, Google’s promise was quite exceptional, considering that Nokia would still have been able to keep its own services in its phones. Contrary to what Nokia has claimed, Google was ready for concessions. It was ready to flex as far as it could in the framework of OHA, and even then some more. Then some big money stepped into the game, as well as the mysterious Nokia employee with the name Rahul Mewawalla. https://medium.com/@harrikiljander/operation-elop-6f2b043f52c5 https://medium.com/@harrikiljander/operation-elop-6f2b043f52...

mkirklions 8y ago

I dont like Microsoft, but I'm not sure how they killed skype. Yes there were a few dark years, but I think most IM was struggling years ago. Now skype is pretty good.

acou_nPlusOne_t 8y ago
Yes, those where dark years, when they shot people in the streets- but at least we had meat in those years.
oatmale 8y ago
Skype is pretty awful for calling phones. The user interface has become a mess and is difficult to use. They are constantly making it more difficult to call phone.
Aeolun 8y ago
Skype still works for it's main purpose. At least they haven't removed calling, but the UI and menus are an utter mess.
Exuma 8y ago
You absolutely can't be serious. The new Skype is an unrelenting abomination... just look on ANY community site and you will see the utter livid rage for "new skype". It's truly horrible in every way, it removed every setting and feature that was good, the UI/UX is one of the worst things ever. https://www.reddit.com/r/skype/search?q=new+skype&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/skype/search?q=new+skype&restrict_s...

seba_dos1 8y ago

Nokia basically held onto Symbian for a bit too long. They had a massive chance with Meego; they weakened it slightly pre-Microsoft due to mismanagement, but killing it in favour of Windows Phone was the actual Nokia's death sentence.

redial 8y ago

They killed Nokia twice! First by forcing them to use Windows Mobile (or Windows Phone, or whatever it was called) when it was clear to all they needed to go with Android, and then by actually buying it and killing it when even Microsoft couldn't refuse Windows Mobile was going nowhere.

ErnestedCode 8y ago
> First by forcing them to use Windows Mobile (or Windows Phone, or whatever it was called) when it was clear to all they needed to go with Android There's no way that Microsoft bought Nokia to concentrate on making that tiny hardware subdivision profitable (MSFT's market cap is $700B+ and they bought Nokia for $7.6B). They wanted a hardware platform to promote Windows Phone. For Microsoft, the dying entity in need of a Hail Mary was Windows Phone, not Nokia.

squarefoot 8y ago

Nokia had Maemo/Meego which wasn't on par with Android at that time wrt the software ecosystem, but with some investment in development could have killed it pretty easily: thanks to native code a device could offer the same performance using slower CPUs and less RAM, or be a lot snappier with the same hardware. Given due time, manufacturers and users would have noticed. As probably did Microsoft. You can have a full desktop Linux running in 1GB of RAM, full HD screen etc. but most Android users throw away old cellphones because 1 or even 2 GB RAM aren't enough anymore thanks to Android Java dependency. Maemo/Meego would have eliminated that problem completely.

distances 8y ago
I really liked the Maemo and Meego phones that got released, but your scenario would not have happened. Nokia's DNA was not in software development, and they couldn't really compete with Google on that. Furthermore, Nokia wouldn't have shared a successful OS with others like Google did if they had one. That meant all other manufacturers were going to stay with Android, and I greatly doubt that they would've succeeded in building the whole ecosystem alone like Apple did.
- slrz 8y ago
  > Nokia wouldn't have shared a successful OS with others like Google did if they had one But that was exactly the plan. When they cooperated with Intel to build Meego, the resulting OS was available to all other handset manufacturers and there were test suites in the work for vendors to be able to claim Meego compat, just as with Android. The Meego OS was actually quite solid and very nice to develop for. Its major problem was the unwillingness of most app developers to support additional platforms besides Android and the Iphones. Just as with Windows Phone.
  - distances 8y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Nokia's plan to make Meego open-source but keep their own UI layer closed? I may be misremembering things as it was a while ago, but there was some catch to keep Nokia the main player. As for the adoption among developers, it never had a wide enough release to even start with that. N9 was available in limited countries only, and after Nokia's WP announcement.