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The partnership is still suspicious; any reasonable person would tell you Nokia should have picked Android instead. There's no competitive advantage picking up

by mtw 16y ago

The partnership is still suspicious; any reasonable person would tell you Nokia should have picked Android instead. There's no competitive advantage picking up WP7, unless microsoft wanted to subsidize every nokia handset

saturdaysaint 16y ago
"Any reasonable person" Careful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well There are serious competitive considerations for Nokia not choosing Android. I think Elop outlines them pretty intelligently here - http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-windows-phone-over-android/A9024583-EBC9-4817-AD5E-A2569CA55F4B/ http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-wind...
- rst 16y ago
  It's interesting to see him acknowledge directly that his personal familiarity with Microsoft played a role in the decision (at about 1:00 in). But aside from that, well... opinions differ. At about 3:15, he said that the danger if they went with Android is: 1) The platform would succeed. 2) They'd be one among a crowd of Android phone manufacturers. 3) It would be hard to differentiate from the others. Contrast that to Windows Phone 7, where: 1) The platform is playing catch-up, and may fail entirely. 2) They're already one among a crowd of Windows Phone manufacturers, with LG, Samsung and HTC already shipping, and Dell having devices in the pipeline. 3) The party that controls the platform has chosen not to allow differentiation, requiring all the devices to be lookalikes[1]. On all his supposed drawbacks of Android, WP7 looks even worse. There's some other odd stuff in the video, which begs for explanation. He starts by saying that "Microsoft has placed a large bet on us." But it isn't yet obvious why Microsoft has bet more on Nokia's success than it has on the success of the other WP7 handset manufacturers. And if they have, I can't imagine HTC or Samsung being happy about it. There's also some stuff at about 2:30 about how each party has licensed technology from the other, with an implication (though not an outright statement) that money might be flowing both ways. If that's true, it raises the possibility that the sale of an HTC WP7 handset results in royalty payments to Nokia, for the mapping technology that Microsoft has licensed. That could cause real friction with the other vendors. (To clarify: the mapping technology bit was part of the announcement, though it wasn't clear what it was doing there; the payment structures were not announced, but Elop did seem to imply in that video that money would be going both ways, and I'm not sure what other reason there is that Microsoft would have to write checks to Nokia.) [1] http://mobilementalism.com/2011/02/12/the-photo-the-nokia-fanboys-dreaded/ http://mobilementalism.com/2011/02/12/the-photo-the-nokia-fa... has a photo (second in the post) with a bunch of them. They all really do look alike.
  - jsnell 16y ago
    > I'm not sure what other reason there is that Microsoft would have to write checks to Nokia. Microsoft is already in the habit of paying companies to force their users to use Bing search (see Verizon replacing Google search with Bing on some of their Android phones). Though for Nokia's sake I hope they're not getting paid per use but per device. Bing's quality outside the US is dreadful, so the vast majority of Nokia's customers are either getting a crappy experience or will somehow need to replace the default search engine.
jarek 16y ago
It's funny how people pick on Windows Desktop and Android for setting off a race to the bottom among manufacturers and then say there is no competitive advantage when one manufacturer chooses something else.
rbanffy 16y ago
> unless microsoft wanted to subsidize every nokia handset I wouldn't discard that possibility. Phone makers have to pay to call their Android sets Android and to have the Gmail, Google Maps and other Google properties on their phones. Maybe Microsoft is giving them a boatload of money and saying "spend this money to make WP7 suck less, for we can't to it ourselves" on the condition they sell only WP7 phones. We don't know what's in the package. This could give Nokia time enough so it can be carved into smaller sellable pieces before the whole thing collapses. The whole thing would collapse anyway without an aggressive course correction. MeeGo isn't going anywhere and Symbian is doomed. They could have gone Android, but I guess the board thinks the company is doomed no matter what is done and that WP7 is what brings it more time.
rbanffy 16y ago
> unless microsoft wanted to subsidize every nokia handset I wouldn't discard that possibility. Phone makers have to pay to call their Android sets Android and to have the Gmail, Google Maps and other Google properties on their phones. Maybe Microsoft is giving them a boatload of money and saying "spend this money to make WP7 suck less, for we can't to it ourselves" on the condition they sell only WP7 phones. We don't know what's in the package. This could give Nokia time enough so it can be carved into smaller sellable pieces before the whole thing collapses. The whole thing would collapse anyway without an aggressive course correction. MeeGo isn't going anywhere and Symbian is doomed. They could have gone Android, but I guess the board thinks the company is doomed no matter what is done and that WP7 is what brings it more time.

by mtw 16y ago

saturdaysaint 16y ago

"Any reasonable person" Careful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well There are serious competitive considerations for Nokia not choosing Android. I think Elop outlines them pretty intelligently here - http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-windows-phone-over-android/A9024583-EBC9-4817-AD5E-A2569CA55F4B/ http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-wind...

rst 16y ago
It's interesting to see him acknowledge directly that his personal familiarity with Microsoft played a role in the decision (at about 1:00 in). But aside from that, well... opinions differ. At about 3:15, he said that the danger if they went with Android is: 1) The platform would succeed. 2) They'd be one among a crowd of Android phone manufacturers. 3) It would be hard to differentiate from the others. Contrast that to Windows Phone 7, where: 1) The platform is playing catch-up, and may fail entirely. 2) They're already one among a crowd of Windows Phone manufacturers, with LG, Samsung and HTC already shipping, and Dell having devices in the pipeline. 3) The party that controls the platform has chosen not to allow differentiation, requiring all the devices to be lookalikes[1]. On all his supposed drawbacks of Android, WP7 looks even worse. There's some other odd stuff in the video, which begs for explanation. He starts by saying that "Microsoft has placed a large bet on us." But it isn't yet obvious why Microsoft has bet more on Nokia's success than it has on the success of the other WP7 handset manufacturers. And if they have, I can't imagine HTC or Samsung being happy about it. There's also some stuff at about 2:30 about how each party has licensed technology from the other, with an implication (though not an outright statement) that money might be flowing both ways. If that's true, it raises the possibility that the sale of an HTC WP7 handset results in royalty payments to Nokia, for the mapping technology that Microsoft has licensed. That could cause real friction with the other vendors. (To clarify: the mapping technology bit was part of the announcement, though it wasn't clear what it was doing there; the payment structures were not announced, but Elop did seem to imply in that video that money would be going both ways, and I'm not sure what other reason there is that Microsoft would have to write checks to Nokia.) [1] http://mobilementalism.com/2011/02/12/the-photo-the-nokia-fanboys-dreaded/ http://mobilementalism.com/2011/02/12/the-photo-the-nokia-fa... has a photo (second in the post) with a bunch of them. They all really do look alike.
- jsnell 16y ago
  > I'm not sure what other reason there is that Microsoft would have to write checks to Nokia. Microsoft is already in the habit of paying companies to force their users to use Bing search (see Verizon replacing Google search with Bing on some of their Android phones). Though for Nokia's sake I hope they're not getting paid per use but per device. Bing's quality outside the US is dreadful, so the vast majority of Nokia's customers are either getting a crappy experience or will somehow need to replace the default search engine.

jarek 16y ago

It's funny how people pick on Windows Desktop and Android for setting off a race to the bottom among manufacturers and then say there is no competitive advantage when one manufacturer chooses something else.

rbanffy 16y ago

> unless microsoft wanted to subsidize every nokia handset I wouldn't discard that possibility. Phone makers have to pay to call their Android sets Android and to have the Gmail, Google Maps and other Google properties on their phones. Maybe Microsoft is giving them a boatload of money and saying "spend this money to make WP7 suck less, for we can't to it ourselves" on the condition they sell only WP7 phones. We don't know what's in the package. This could give Nokia time enough so it can be carved into smaller sellable pieces before the whole thing collapses. The whole thing would collapse anyway without an aggressive course correction. MeeGo isn't going anywhere and Symbian is doomed. They could have gone Android, but I guess the board thinks the company is doomed no matter what is done and that WP7 is what brings it more time.

rbanffy 16y ago