6 ms·

The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

• Animus7 16y ago
  Yet another validation of the long-standing hypothesis that in the age where a kid with a laptop can come up with technology that takes over the internet, pushing tech as a process in a factory is the path to irrelevance.
• SafdarIqbal 16y ago
  It is more of a "hardware specifications" driven culture, where design of the software experience is secondary. But in "touch phone" devices, just getting the hardware right can't even get you halfway into making a better product.
  • sliverstorm 16y ago
    This is actually why I love Nokia phones. They have fantastic hardware. I'm really hoping that letting someone else do most of the heavy lifting for the software will allow Nokia to focus on what we already know it does best.
    • bad_user 16y ago
      Yeah, but Microsoft? If this partnership succeeds it would be the exception.
      • gaius 16y ago
        Wintel?
      • gojomo 16y ago
        Microsoft's 1997 investment/software-commitment with Apple, then in dire need, worked out pretty well for Apple.
        • danilocampos 16y ago
          They provided capital and ongoing development of existing products, not the heart and soul of the Apple user experience. Thank god.
      • greyman 16y ago
        What is wrong with WP7, except of the lack of apps? Or what is wrong with Microsoft in terms of providing developer tools or marketing support for their products and 3rd party programmers?
        • pilif 16y ago
          IE is what's wrong. Because up until WP7, doing mobile web apps for smart phones meant being able to write standards based code plus some webkit specific CSS for fluff. But now we got to deal with this frustrating piece of crap that is IE on a mobile platform with significant deployment. Gone are the days where at least in the mobile world you were able to write code and have it work in all browsers with spending hours after hours working around bugs in IE.
        • tomjen3 16y ago
          The price. Nokia now has to pay for the license to their mobile software as well as the hardware while everybody else only have to pay for the hardware.
          • aaronbrethorst 16y ago
            Nokia is going to get licenses for WP7 at essentially zero cost from Microsoft.
            • tomjen3 16y ago
              They can't keep doing that forever - Microsoft makes money selling software, they will have to sell it to do so.
        • bad_user 16y ago
          what is wrong with Microsoft in terms of providing developer tools or marketing support Nokia doesn't lack development tools, neither marketing support. They also have all the resources they need to produce an operating system / platform to rival iOS and Android. They lack focus. Android also had lots of flaws when launched, but Google & partners kept iterating. Nokia could have taken the world by storm simply because they can push lots of cheap smartphones all over the world. And the Ovi Store could have been the most popular app store. If only they provided enough consistency across what they are doing. And Microsoft? When choosing a partner you have to take into consideration the company's track record. Microsoft has been caught resting on its laurels several times over the years, with Windows, with IExplorer, with Windows Mobile. It also has been caught screwing several of its partners. Microsoft transformed PC-makers in cheap complementaries to Windows and bloatware. Microsoft also forced PC-makers to only bundle Windows with new PCs. For us (devs and consumers), Android and Windows Mobile may be good things, but for Nokia this will be a disaster.
  • masklinn 16y ago
    > But in "touch phone" devices, just getting the hardware right can't even get you halfway into making a better product. That was true long before touch phones. I had an E70 phone as my second (? I think) smartphone. The software was complete shit and it was a pain to use, and the hardware was solid but way underspecced for the needs, especially RAM-wise (the thing had like 16MB ram, it would slow to a crawl at the slightest whiff of me having an idea of opening a web page)
• aaronbrethorst 16y ago
  "Some Nokia employees continually disparage Apple, internally calling it The California Fruit Company," he said. Classy. Nothing quite like mocking one of the companies that's been ripping you limb from limb for the past three-and-a-half years.
  • sliverstorm 16y ago
    Can you blame them? Have you truly never made a bitter jibe into your beer at someone who has surpassed you?
    • aaronbrethorst 16y ago
      Better to take that energy and redirect it at kicking the crap out of your competitors than to waste it on schoolyard taunts.
      • erikpukinskis 16y ago
        Not everything in life has to be about winning. The taunting can be an art in and of itself.
    • greyman 16y ago
      I am afraid they mean it. I think it's about the perception how the mobile phone should be like. Not everyone considers the iPhone+iOS to be the best concept. I personally know people who think that nokia dumbphones are the best mobiles, or that Win 6.5. is currently the best mobile OS, etc. I don't believe that most of the Nokia people perceive the situation as being surpassed by Apple.
      • wazoox 16y ago
        > I personally know people who think that nokia dumbphones are the best mobiles If voice calling is your main and only application, they win hands down. Good sound, easy to use even with one hand and without looking at it, one week use on a single charge...
  • 16y ago
• teyc 16y ago
  No. It is a corporate turf war. Like MS, the engineering departments have the upper hand and prefers control to continue in engineering hands. They'd rather die than let the design manager get promoted. This is what you get if there is no strong alpha male founder leadership at the top. Ellison, Gates, Brin, Jobs were there to make sure this doesn't happen. When the founders leave, chaos ensues.
  • r0h4n 16y ago
    I cannot picture Gates as the alpha male leader. He is a intelligent leader, but alpha male leader?
    • krig 16y ago
      Here's my theory: I think the key is that he, just like Jobs, is a leader who feels strongly about the product. There are lots of stories about how people would dread presenting ideas to Gates because he'd be brutally honest with how he felt about them. Same thing goes for Jobs - they care deeply that the product is good, so middle management is forced to focus on actually making good product. Whereas most CEOs and management care primarily about the process - we need the perfect process to make perfect product! Thus middle management that focuses solely on process. You never really hear much about the processes used at Apple, and I think it's because they don't really matter that much. What matters is the product and the consumer experience, and that is what Jobs cares about.
      • stcredzero 16y ago
        I've noticed this in a few assistants I've hired. I've had to train them away from CYA thinking and have gone through a few iterations to get them towards goal and value oriented thinking. Example: When asked to "arrange a meeting" with the web consultant, my assistant left all of the choices up to me and didn't try to get any information exchange out of the way ahead of time by email and using our website. I've had to explain that our meeting had certain goals, and that she should think independently to achieve them. Instead, she just took "Cover My Ass" actions by demonstrating that she was taking actions "trying" to move toward those and left all the decisions up to me. I had to explain that the value they produced for me was in minimizing the communications I was involved in and exercising her intelligence and common sense. Basically, a company has real success by creating real value. Employees that focus on process are focusing on covering their ass and not on the goal of producing real value.
• pnathan 16y ago
  I've observed that this can be an issue when you get too many people out of touch with software involved in a company.
• redthrowaway 16y ago
  I can't agree with this conclusion. Good engineers know amazing UX is part of the spec. I can't see engineers actively fighting against design, and if they do, there's larger issues at play.
• rue 16y ago
  I think it's simplistic to discount the effect that the bureaucracy, turf wars, and the split-up of the various units as well as trying to push dozens and dozens of different models would have had on the design ethos in the company. It'd say it's more that all these externalities forced the departments to focus on things other than maturation of design to stick around.
• aphexairlines 16y ago
  Great, another article pushing the viewpoint that hardware and software doesn't matter, that investment in technology is a waste of time, that what really matters is slick marketing and pretty packaging. What do they think makes the iPhone battery last more than 20 minutes or an Android app pop up on your phone when you click install on their pc website -- pixie dust?
  • jujjine 16y ago
    "He said the company’s engineering driven culture is also responsible, explaining that the engineers at the company see the design of the software on a mobile phone as secondary to the guts of the device" The conflict is not between technology and marketing, but between hardware and software. The NYT columnist is using the term engineering in a manufacturing rather than intellectual sense.
  • wsf 16y ago
    >"Because of the hardware similarities, the major differences of these devices appear within the software - specifically, the design, functionally and experience of the software." It's not saying that hardware and software doesn't matter. According to their definition, Nokia lost because design (software) is secondary to hardware (engineering). Actually, the article brought up a very good point: "In comparison to early mobile phones, most smartphones on the market today look identical." And what do they look identical to? The original iphone. Most hardware manufacturer are trying to compete on Apple's turf. The result is that most consumers will naturally compare their design to Apple's. It's going to be extremely difficult to catch up. Remember the original Apple's phone collaboration with Motorola? That's Apple trying to compete on Nokia's turf. Result: Failure. Now the mobile manufacturers are trying to compete on Apple's turf essentially by mimicking iphone. Is it any wonder that they will find a hard time competing?
    • jlouis 16y ago
      I'd like to emphasize the point that in the smartphone market, software is king to hardware. It is the software that ultimately determines what you can do with the device and the hardware is simply there to facilitate the execution of the software. Hence the desperate need for a software ecosystemem.
• deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
• stcredzero 16y ago
  "Engineer-Driven" corporate culture is just another imbalanced over-reliance on one competence while neglecting other areas. It's like being the highly talented genius musician who doesn't have the social skills to market themselves. Stephen Elop should've taken a play from Steve Jobs' playbook. Instead of making such a huge announcement, he should've quietly started a project within Nokia with backing from the highest levels, just like Jobs did with the Macintosh. This might've generated smoldering resentment and jealousy, but it would not have generated a 1000 employee walk-out and enough negative publicity to drop the stock price by 15% in under 24 hours.
  • kiiski 16y ago
    Perhaps he thinks it's better to make sure that everyone is clear of the direction and committed to it rather than (potentially) wasting hundreds of thousands of hours of work on useless platforms.
    • stcredzero 16y ago
      The tricky part is the "committed." Tell me, have you tried to get someone who feels like they've just been slapped in the face by you to follow you? (Outside of discussions on the Internet, of course. Mea culpa!) What if they didn't just have to follow you, but had to apply themselves to something difficult, challenging, and creative? Sometimes a slap in the face is what's needed. Care should be taken to avoid backfire, however. This is why a slap in the face is a method of last resort. (Outside of discussions on the Internet, of course. Must eat own dogfood.) Considering Nokia still has strong sales over the entire world, I don't think a slap in the face was really warranted. WWMD? (What Would Machiavelli Do? Actually, WWMWAD: What would Machiavelli write about doing?) The CEO should've been a lot smarter by being a lot sneakier.
• gorgoroth666 16y ago
  Nokia is very good in the design of usable mobiles. Since they acquired Qt, they are also very good in software design. Apple is not a good example. This article makes no sense.