9 ms·
Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership, New Leadership Team
- mbreese 16y agoIs it funny that I now think that HP buying Palm was the best business moves made last year? I one fell swoop HP got exclusive rights to a legit smartphone platform where they wouldn't be beholden to any other company. No longer would HP be reliant on Microsoft in mobile. Now, Nokia is going the opposite direction. Sure, Nokia has some important assets to leverage in this partnership. But make no mistake, this is a deal with the devil. I wonder what this means for Qt?
- xuki 16y agoI wish Nokia bought Palm when they had the chance. However I don't find this deal too bad for Nokia, we don't know the exact terms behind it. Now the smartphone OS market is getting more and more interesting =).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- davidw 16y agoWell... you could see that coming, I suppose. If Nokia doesn't get a chapter in future updates to "X years of high tech marketing disasters", I'll be disappointed. Jumping onto a sinking platform from a burning one isn't a big improvement. With Android, they would have had a lot more freedom and, most likely, some more leverage in terms of innovating and differentiating themselves.
- cloudwalking 16y agoIndeed. A decent version of Android (for example, one without Sense) running on awesome hardware would be nice to have. I've yet to see anybody come even close to Apple in terms of hardware. And at this point, apps are a pretty big differentiator between iOS/Android and everything else. WP7 is going to struggle in that department.
- buster 16y agoAh well. Only a few months back everyone said the same about android ("What? But the appstore has like 1000 times more apps, android is not going to take of"). Keep in mind that you have the two biggest players in the world in operating systems (MS) and mobile phones (Nokia) collaborating. They have money, and as always MS will just throw money at the problem for years to make the products more appealing. I don't know if they will succeed and have my doubts (huge, inflexible companies). But if those two big players won't succeed, then i can't imagine who will. Certainly not RIM, Palm/HP or Samsung.
- davidw 16y agoMS has been throwing money at phones for years and going nowhere. Most of what makes Nokia 'big' in terms of phones are all the commodity ones they sell. They could have worked on slimmer versions of Android to taper their line down into that market, but that won't be possible with WP7. Nokia certainly won't up and die tomorrow, but I think it's not really a winning strategy, long term.
- buster 16y agoNo, MS has been throwing _a lot_ of money at the Xbox for years and i'd say succeeded.
- davidw 16y agoI was talking about mobile phones, not games. It's superfluous to say that there are many differences, many of which do not play to MS's favor in the phone market.
- buster 16y agoAnd you responded to my post where i didn't mention MS throwing money at phones but throwing money in every direction they think to have problems. Maybe, just maybe, they just start to realize the importance of mobile. I think you can't compare Microsofts engagement in the mobile world in the times before WinMob7. Either they realize now to put _a lot_ of effort in it (money/resources) or they will never catch up. Whatever they invested in the years before the iPhone clearly wasn't enough. edit: It is also said that MS offered Nokia several hundred millions of dollars multiple times to make this switch.
- sliverstorm 16y agoAt least a sinking platform is by definition, not on fire.
- arethuza 16y agoI think you mean a sunk platform is not on fire.
- JoachimSchipper 16y agohttp://bash.org/?88551 http://bash.org/?88551: <Pie> I don't play with WD40 anymore. I actually managed to light a fish on fire. while it was underwater
- msbarnett 16y agoAh yes, the old Palm strategy. Once you've let your internal OS completely stagnate, ship Windows Mobile on your phones.
- thematt 16y agoMake that plural in Nokia's case...at least two operating systems. They had little chance of succeeding on their own with such a fragmented ecosystem.
- daliusd 16y agoNokia already has at least two OS: symbian and meego. I'm not sure if mobline shouldn't be counted as well. As well Nokia has Qt.
- msbarnett 16y agoWell, Palm also had that perpetually in-the-works Linux based update that never seemed to materialize in shipping products... Which is another similarity to Nokia, come to think of it.
- stefanoric 16y agoI had worked in Motorola, our own Linux platform had been in the work for years to never see the light (but for some minor products). So Motorola rushed back to Symbian (!) while the market share was already plummeting. Then came the cuts, which closed all software centers in Europe (mine included), when finally someone saw Android as the last ship.
- Tuna-Fish 16y agoAnd once HP bought webos, it's now as the hot new thing in the press. Sometimes it's not about the technology, it's about the company. Meego was just a year away from being an awesome mobile OS. It, and it's predecessor Maemo, have been just a year away from saving Nokia since 2008.
- juiceandjuice 16y agoThis is kind of a bummer. I was hoping to see an N9 with Meego, and I don't think that's going to happen anymore.
- andre3k1 16y agoNo, unfortunately it's not going to happen. A few days ago Reuters reported that Nokia slashed the first MeeGo device before it even hit production. My guess is that dropping the project comes as a result of signing this deal with Microsoft. Nokia seems to have opted for Windows Phone instead of MeeGo. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/09/nokia-meego-idUSLDE7180X420110209 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/09/nokia-meego-idUSLD...
- juiceandjuice 16y agoYeah, I saw this the other day too, but I was hoping it wasn't all true: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-it/2011/02/10/nokia-halts-meego-and-n9-releases-says-report-40091751/ http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-it/2011/02/10/nokia-halts... I was kind of holding out for that to replace my 3GS I guess. I don't really like Symbian, and I was hoping for a solid, well engineered phone with a real keyboard for a change.
- andre3k1 16y agoActually I was wrong. 2 minutes ago Engadget reported that Nokia has not scrapped MeeGo. http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-meego-not-dead-still-shipping-this-year/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-meego-not-dead-stil...
- murrayb 16y agoMy prediction FWIW: more lawsuits. This diagram is about to get some more lines- http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/whos_suing_whom.png http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/whos_suing_whom.png
- thematt 16y agoThis will be interesting in terms of hardware. Windows Phone 7 has some steep system requirements. Will Nokia's existing phones even be able to accommodate it?
- dagw 16y agoThe N8 has a 680MHz ARM, 256 MB Ram and hardware accelerated OpenGL-ES 2.0. If they can write a DirectX driver for the GPU, then that should be good enough. The really interesting question is if they'll do something interesting enough to differentiate themselves from their field. Given how dull the current lineup of Windows 7 phones is, they might have some real opportunities.
- jf 16y agoWindows Phone 7 requires a baseline of 1 GHz for the processor.
- dagw 16y agoFair enough. The N9 will ship with a 1GHz processor, if rumors are to be believed, So I'm guessing that will their first Windows 7 platform, unless they're building something W7 specific from the ground up.
- sliverstorm 16y agoWell, that totally kills any chance of a WP7 update for my E72.
- JonoW 16y agoKeep in mind it's going to be while until the first Nokia WP7 phones are released, so 1Ghz will probably be pretty standard by then
- zmmmmm 16y agoThat and the fact WP7 still doesn't support less than WVGA screens really makes me question how Nokia is going to compete at the low end with WP7. Honestly I think a big part of the threat to them is not even the "smartphone" market but rather that their low to mid range phones where all their volume comes from are going to get knocked out by Android.
- dagw 16y agoHas partnering with Microsoft ever worked out well for a failing tech company? I can think of a few examples where it has failed spectacularly.
- ananthrk 16y agoCan you name some spectacular failures after MS partnership?
- dagw 16y agosgi springs immediately to mind. Didn't work out too great form Palm either.
- thematt 16y agoYes, Apple. It worked out well for them when they partnered with Microsoft in '97, whereby they got Office on the Mac and an injection of cash.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- maxharris 16y agoYes, it has. August 6, 1997: Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple, guaranteeing that they would make Mac Office until 2002. Litigation between the companies was settled, and Apple agreed to make IE the preferred browser on Macs for awhile. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html You might still have some kind of a point because Apple didn't adopt a Microsoft operating system their 1997 deal. But you still need to rephrase your statement if you want to be accurate. Partnerships don't save bad companies. SGI and Palm were running into the ground on their own accord.
- dagw 16y agoYea, I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming MS for the failures of SGI or Palm, just pointing out the symmetry of failing companies grasping at the Microsoft straw and gaining nothing.
- tomaszkubacki 16y agogood bye Meego :(
- tc 16y agoWell, I suppose you don't always do the smartest thing when you're standing on a burning platform.
- barista 16y agoBut he question is: Is this smarter than peeing your pants to stay warm :)
- rbanffy 16y agoIt's more like setting the platform on fire to stay warm. oh... wait...
- wsf 16y agoWhat choice does Nokia has? 1. Choose Android and be delegated to one of the hardware supplier amongst HTC, Samsung etc (not necessary the preferred one). 2. Stick with Symbian, Meego and be slower and further down road (Users don't care about the OS. Just whether it works. I would argue that developing OS internally is just playing catching up with minimal hope of overtaking the others significantly) 3. Try Microsoft and hopes the strengths compliment one another (not-too-bad windows phone 7). I don't envy Nokia. It's a tough choice. Effectively, they are trying to move into a field just disrupted by Apple and competing on a sustaining basis. Doesn't bode well but what other alternatives do they have?
- davidw 16y agoWith MS, they'll be "one hardware supplier amongst many", but with less leverage and freedom to make the platform theirs than with Android.
- bodyfour 16y agoDo we know enough about the terms of the partnership to know that? MS is certainly capable of screwing over their existing hardware partners (see also: PlaysForSure) My hunch is that Nokia wouldn't have gone for the deal if they're just going to be another mere supplier.
- forgottenpaswrd 16y agoBye bye maemo ,meego and qt. You could see that coming from a CEO that comes from MS, Nokia is desperate to not lose their phone position and MS desperate to losing the new desktop as all paradigms sift, losing OS control and people using Office(there was a time everybody used Wordperfect, people started using word as it was ready for windows before Wordperfect). MS could design phones this way to compete with Apple, and Nokia could use the MS experience in OS. I don't think is a good idea to partner with MS, companies that do tend to be screwed sooner or later, MS always winning. Nokia reminds me more and more of SGI,I remember when MS windows NT was their salvation, I wish I'm wrong.
- maxharris 16y agoI don't think is a good idea to partner with MS, companies that do tend to be screwed sooner or later, MS always winning. You do realize that MS stopped "always winning" almost a decade ago? SGI sank because they couldn't or wouldn't follow the market, which didn't need to pay $30,000 for hardware-accelerated 3D anymore once anyone could just drop in a 3D card into their commodity PCs. Lots of people (Mark Kilgard, for example) left SGI directly for Nvidia and other companies. Hindsight is 20/20, but the one thing they could have done to save themselves would have been to ship an awesome 3D card for commodity PCs around the time 3dfx was influential (1997). They could have done hardware geometry acceleration two or three years before Nvidia did it with the first GeForce. Carmack wrote this about SGI's NT workstation in 1999: http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/johnc_plan_1999.html#d19990317 http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/johnc_plan_1999.html... "I placed an order for a loaded system ($11k) from their web site two months ago. It still hasn't arrived (bad impression), but SGI did bring a loaner system by for us to work with. The system tower is better than standard pc fare, but I still think Apple's new G3 has the best designed computer case. ... For single pass, top quality rendering (32 bit framebuffer, 32 bit depth buffer, 32 bit trilinear textures, high res screen), the SGI has a higher fill rate than any other card we have ever tested on a pc, but not by too wide of a margin. If your application can take advantage of multitexture, a TNT or rage128 will deliver slightly greater fill performance. It is likely that the next speed bump of both chips will be just plain faster than the SGI on all fill modes." (emphasis mine) Too little, too late. Edit: It's sad, really. Although I haven't booted it in years, I still have a purple Indigo2 in my closet, so I know exactly what it is that died.
- mkramlich 16y agofrom burning platform to slowly sinking ship. awesome!
- thought_alarm 16y agoTake a moment to think about how low the morale at Nokia is right now.
- forkrulassail 16y agohahaha
- sharjeel 16y agoOn the other hand, take a moment to think about how high at the morale at Microsoft is right now!
- balakk 16y agoWell, as they say, a quick death is better than a slow, painful death..
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- eurohacker 16y agoits a right decision - MS needs Nokia and mobile sucess as much as Nokia needs MS soft, both sides are ready to contribute greatly to increase the tablet market share, hint - creating and editing Excel files and Word files by mobile phones in the future
- Yaggo 16y agoA sinking ship and burning platform, what could possibly go wrong?
- koski 16y agoI hope Nokia and Microsoft are not joining forces like two drowning men, each trying to use the other for support. I was hoping to see an Android phone made by Nokia.
- jpalomaki 16y agoBefore: At least some kind of vision, build around Qt and multiple platforms After: A little bit of dying Symbian, some open source development around Meego, some Windows phones in distant future Guess this won't help in selling those Symbian E7 phones to companies. I have a feeling that Vanjoki knew what was coming and gave his peeing statement in order to have his opinion on the record.
- Garbage 16y agoWouldn't Android a better choice than Windows Phone?
- eftpotrm 16y agoThey're mad. Firstly, tying one company struggling to keep afloat to another struggling to take off (in this domain at least) is hardly the obvious ideal strategy. Secondly, they're about to go onto what, their fourth platform strategy without large-scale wider support? And they expect to retain developer support and internal morale? Thirdly, coming so soon after the news that Dalvik's porting to their previous preferred platform looked to enable broad compatibility with one of the major software bases to their platform, what's the point in this - they're moving to largely unsupported platform that's less compatible with alternatives than where they were. This feels like the move of a new top dog who doesn't fully understand the situation but wants to be seen to be doing something, and so has called his old friends. Bad, bad, bad idea.
- yatsyk 16y agoNot so smart move for Nokia, but this move could be good for WP7. With Nokia MS could get some market share. But for Nokia it's dumb. They are betting on not so feature rich platform with very small market share, with small (comparing to competitors) number of third party applications. And what it worst this is closed platform controlled by other company. Why not fork Android?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rue 16y agoI can't help but feel this was all arranged, with or without the full knowledge of the Nokia board, when Elop moved over. It's a little sad for me, personally. I can't say with confidence that this isn't a good move for Nokia among the general populace but I've, finally, given up on them. Goodbye. We'll always have the 2110 and the summer of 1994!
- henrikschroder 16y agoAww, I bought a 2010 in the summer of 1995, and have been using Nokia phones ever since. Next one is going to be something with Android probably, too bad it couldn't have been a Nokia as well.
- robbiewhittle 16y ago"Nokia Maps will become core to Microsoft’s mapping services" Does this mean that Bing Maps is getting axed?
- aphexairlines 16y agoIt could just mean that bing maps would use nokia imaging data.
- saturdaysaint 16y agoThe line in the announcement about pushing these devices into new pricepoints actually gives me some hope for the marriage. IMO, the next phase of the smartphone race will not be about having the hottest high-end smartphone - I think the winner will be the one that can make a smartphone platform pervasive on entry-level phones. If Nokia and MS get WP7 on every entry level Nokia, they might be able to disrupt the high end players and bring quality to the low end that Chinese competition will haage trouble matching.
- davros 16y agoNokia says they will still run symbian on entry level phones. Increasingly these will compete with cheap android phones like huawei ideos. Nokia's advantage will be battery life, but the android phones will have the features that consumers want.
- tankenmate 16y agoNokia signs a suicide pact with Microsoft? Desperate times lead to desperate measures, but I don't think Nokia jumped from the platform here, instead they have decided to huddle in a corner with MS. This will be the death of both. I am resigning my Nokia Ambassadorship as I type. Of all the players it could team up with this is probably the worst. MS like to control the platform, but they do a very poor job of it (unlike Apple). Nokia would have been far better off by making a deeper commitment with Intel. It is a sad day, the end of an age.
- lucasr 16y agoThis is the definitive proof that leaving Nokia back in 2008—when they pretty much killed Maemo—was the best decision I ever made. They've made two major platform shifts in just a few years. From Maemo to MeeGo and now from MeeGo to Windows Phone. Not something that inspires confidence in the company or attracts talented developers...
- zmmmmm 16y ago> "There are other mobile ecosystems. We will disrupt them. There will be challenges. We will overcome them. Success requires speed. We will be swift. Together, we see the opportunity, and we have the will, the resources and the drive to succeed." This is my main problem with this deal: both parties are hoping that by combining they will achieve something totally uncharacteristic of both of them individually. Neither MS or Nokia have been fast at anything for the last 10 years. Are they really going to suddenly be nimble together? (I guess I'm just spelling out the "two drowning people tied together" analogy).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rbanffy 16y agoMy favorite quote about this is "beause two bricks float better than one". I no longer know where I heard it first.
- whatusername 16y agoWere you thinking of this: http://twitter.com/#!/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664 http://twitter.com/#!/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664 #feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle". From Vic Gundotra. // Although there is prior art for the saying -- he was the one to apply it to Microkia/Nokisoft
- rbanffy 16y agoNo, it's from well before that. Vic's quote is right on spot, btw.
- speleding 16y agoI know that one as "you can't tie two bricks together to make a life boat"
- InclinedPlane 16y agoThis is crazy talk. It's interesting that HP had the same crazy talk for its relaunch of webOS. It's one thing to say "yeah, we can put out a quality product that can hold its own and go toe to toe with any other product in the market", it's another thing entirely to say "absolutely positively we will turn this product into a world beater, we will utterly dominate this industry soon" ... starting from a niche position at the bottom of the crowd. The former is sane, and capable of being fulfilled. The latter is not sane and a recipe for self-sabotage and failure.
- Derbasti 16y agoNokia still makes most of its money with dumbphones. You know, feature phones that are good at telephony and texting but not much else. Many people still heavily use these, especially in poorer countries. Nokia never really had a widely successful smartphone. So partnering with Microsoft for smartphones doesn't look like a bad idea to me. They certainly know how to build hardware, even at large scale, and Microsoft will supply the software.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- borism 16y agois it not a slight conflict of interest when former MSFT exec who just became NOK CEO makes a strategic partnership with his former company?
- rbanffy 16y agoSo... Anyone wants to bet that Elop will be back to Microsoft (or something Microsoft controls) in less than five years?
- ssp 16y agoMaybe Nokia is going to make ARM laptops running Windows 8. A laptop with Windows and seriously great battery life could easily be a hit, especially if they get it out before Apple makes an ARM MacBook. The existing PC manufacturers are all pwned by Intel, so there is room for someone new. (And probably for a startup trying to become the Dell of WARM, for that matter). Note also that both the WARM announcement and this one are big screw-yous to Intel.
- rbanffy 16y ago"As of April 1, Nokia will also boast a new company structure" I am not sure what to read from that.
- ThomPete 16y agoups downvote was not intentional sorry. Stupid small arrows!
- mhw 16y agoI'm trying to work out which of Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases) best describes a CEO abandoning the majority of his company's intellectual property in favour of a partnership with his ex-employer.
- raganwald 16y agoIt’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster. http://www.fakesteve.net/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-of-ideas.html http://www.fakesteve.net/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-o...
- jeswin 16y agoWindows Phone 7 is a solid result for a first iteration product; although I see a lot of negative sentiment here (not sure how many have used it). It is missing some features but I am pretty sure they are being worked upon right now (considering the platform is so critical for Microsoft). Here is what it has going for it: 1. Ease of development - Writing WP7 apps with Visual Studio is very easy; probably easier than any other platform. 2. Games! - The most downloaded apps have always been games. WP7 is a solid platform to write games and MS will _eventually_ bring in their considerable clout in XBox/PC. 3. "Enterprise" Apps - are still unexplored territory. WP7 is the first platform where the countless in-house Windows teams can put out something in languages they already know. And finally the Nokia deal is a breakthrough for MS. Outside the US, Nokia has an exceptional market presence. Around where I live (Bangalore), there are 3 Nokia exclusive shops and all of them are going to showcase their new WP7 phones soon. With a good enough product, you can make up for everything else with marketing. As for Nokia, they now will a product I might consider buying at some point.
- nika 16y agoI'm an iOS developer who has passed on android, but I'm surprisingly (as a longtime microsoft hater) open minded about Phone 7. I sincerely doubt that it is as easy to develop for as iOS... but I am an optimist and hope MSFT has improved this regard enough to not drive me up the wall. What remains to be seen, for me, is whether there is a viable market or not. People like to complain about Apple's AppStore, but it is a good market. I don't worry about whether I'll get paid, I get good info about sales in a timely manner, and the terms are acceptable. And I appreciate the review process (despite having an app rejected once, they were right, I fixed it, no problem.) So, my real concern is how the stores are going to shake out, and if there is a single store for "Phone 7" (what a name! ugh) whether it is as well run as the AppStore.
- steverb 16y agoHaving done both iOS and WP7 development I will tell you that I found WP7 enormously easier to develop for. If you can handle writing a Silverlight app, then you can program for WP7 with no problem. I have not written any games for either platform though, so I can't compare that experience.
- nika 16y agoIf I were CEO of Nokia, here's what I'd do. I'd go to Apple and license iOS. Now is the perfect time, and Nokia missed a critical opportunity by not doing so. I know, "apple doesn't license their OS dummy!". But think about this: 1. Android is selling more phones right now. 2. Apple is unable to manufacture enough phones, and has admitted in conference calls that they have lost sales for this reason. 3. Nokia going to MSFT (with an ex-MFST exec as their CEO) is an obvious move... Apple was surely aware of this alternative, and killing Phone 7 in the crib is in Apple's interest. So, "keep your enemy closer", in a sense. 4. The terms would be sufficient for Apple. (EG: Apple wants platform dominance, and profit on its hardware, not exclusivity.) 5. Nokia probably could have gotten an exclusive for 4-5 years, so that the only suppliers of iPhones would be Apple and Nokia for that period. This benefits both- less distraction for Apple, and Nokia doesn't have to worry about being commoditized like they do with MSFT, which would never grant such an exclusivity period. Why wouldn't Apple agree to this? Here's the objections, and why I think they don't apply: 1. Apple wants control over their OS. Well, this they would get. Apple would dictate to nokia the specs of the hardware, nokia would build it. They would have to cooperate on addtional features (like a second screen that noikia might want to ad, or whatever.) Apple would still be in the drivers seat for the OS like Microsoft is here. 2. Apple wants all the money. This isn't really true. Steve Jobs offered to license Mac OS X to the One Laptop Per Child project for free. Apple would do financial terms with Nokia, probably competitive to MSFT. Apple wants the platform dominance and the consequent %30 of appstore sales more than they want to make $300 on every phone sold. (We'll see this from apple soon with a "feature iphone") 3. Apple doesn't want Nokia taking away sales of iPhones. There might be some risk of this, but nokia can't compete with iphones now hardware wise, and apple's more interested in platform dominance than squeezing every penny out of the phone market. Most nokia phones right now are sold to people who chose them over the iphone for various reasons, probably having to do with not having any taste, or more seriously, nokias distribution and manufacturing capacity. So long as the iPhone isn't threatened, and it wouldn't be by nokia, and the OS is respected, Apple would be happy to have another major manufacturer increasing iPhone market share. In Apple's DNA are two drives: 1. To never again be in a situation where someone can cut off their air supply like Microsoft did. 2. To always produce a high quality product. 3. There is no three. Apple doesn't care about being the most profitable, or having absolute control Everything apple does is really related to 1 & 2. People often like to attribute other drives to Apple because it serves their interests to do so, but if you listen to what Apple's executives say and look at how the act, these are the two drives. Apple licensing iOS to nokia under terms similar to the MSFT deal supports both of these drives and doesn't undermine either. (if Nokia started cutting off apple's air supply, Apple would simply not renew the agreement.) I believe the reason this deal happened with Microsoft is that Elop is an ex-MSFTie. In my experience, people who spend large parts of their career at MSFT start seeing things completely in terms of MSFT's dominance, and I suspect this still happens even though MSFT is no longer dominant. The Nokia board screwed the pooch, as they say.
- Stormbringer 16y agoFrom the article: "To support the planned new partnership with Microsoft, Smart Devices will be responsible for creating a winning Windows Phone portfolio." Ahh... did that Elop guy forget which team he was batting for? Does Balmer still sign his pay-cheques? If I was a Nokia person and got told that now whether Windows Phone was successful or not was my fault, I'd show them where they could put their phones.... Are they victims of Stockholm Syndrome or what?
- koski 16y agoHere is a pretty good summary of all of this (And what Nokia is about to do in the near future): http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=204353 http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=204353
- nice1 16y agopoor nokia is going the way of the dodo (and zune, bing, you get the picture)
- Keyframe 16y agoI was recently hunting for a new phone. I have a plan with my mobile company where I get a new phone (any that I want) for approx. $1.99.. I needed a new phone right away since I accidentally dropped my old phone and it broke, and it was just a right time to get a new one for $1.99... Anyway, there was a waiting period for iPhone 4 and HTC Desire HD (obviously they're popular), and I needed phone right now and I saw a Samsung Omnia 7.. and thought what the hell, just give me the phone - I only use it for talking (a lot) and occasional sms and email... I am really surprised how WP7 is good - it lacks polish, little details, thought lots of them, but it's pretty much all there.. if they focus on those details and pimp up a marketplace a bit and let more countries in, I'm very optimistic about it.