6 ms·

Nokia had a fairly successful Mobile operating system, Symbian, which had decent multi-tasking way before even Palm OS or Windows CE attempted such things. Howe

by harikb 6y ago

Nokia had a fairly successful Mobile operating system, Symbian, which had decent multi-tasking way before even Palm OS or Windows CE attempted such things. However there was a huge learning curve and it wasn’t for everyone. I guess abandoning Symbian to switch to Microsoft should be considered a significant misstep, even if motivated by the then financial motives.

scooble 6y ago
I may be misremembering, but I believe that at the time Elop joined, Symbian was still the largest smartphone OS by the number of devices. And (my memory is shaky here), the fact that Symbian and Maemo both used QT meant that there was a path for existing Symbian app developers to transition to the new platform. Maemo was slow coming, but killing it at launch still seems like an odd move.
- jononor 6y ago
  The Qt SDK was released for Symbian just a few months before Elop joined. Symbian applications and developers were not yet using Qt when Elop killed off both Symbian and Meego, just a few months later. It was part of a long-term strategy that did not have any time to play out. Quite possibly it would have been too late anyways.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Killing off Symbian in a speech while shipping more phones than any company on earth was, generously, not part of any strategy but a horrific blunder, less generously, it was sabotage. I've got no love for Symbian, but when you're selling that many phones, you phase it out, you don't announce to the world that there's no reason to buy the phones you're still trying to sell. Porting Symbian UI to Qt meant that they could at least merge surface-level stuff and have core apps that ran on both Maemo/Meego and Symbian, then retire Symbian when no one would care or notice.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      I don't see how people give Elop a pass on that: He very publicly declared that they were End-of-lifing the entire product lineup, but the next OS version (WinMo) wasn't ready. How else did he possibly think customers and developers were going to react? Keep buying then-deprecated phones?
    - jononor 6y ago
      Yeah, as if the Osborne effect was not bad enough (people skipping on existing products when announcing new) - he basically went out and said "all of our products are worthless and we dont have anything new to replace it anytime soon". I mean, even if when it is true, you just don't say anything like that - ever.
- usr1106 6y ago
  > I may be misremembering, but I believe that at the time Elop joined, Symbian was still the largest smartphone OS by the number of devices I think this is correct. It had a traditional market base but was already hopelessly noncompetitive except for old reputation and brand value (see my other comments here) and on a steep decline. Compared to iPhone and Android which were more modern and on a steep growth path.
mjg59 6y ago
Symbian was way behind iOS and Android by 2010, both in terms of functionality and developer experience. Abandoning Symbian to switch to Microsoft was a massive step forward in both respects, although the original plan had been to drop Symbian and move to Meego with Qt available as a developer transition path. (Maemo, the precursor to Meego, was originally a GTK-based platform. The Symbian faction of Nokia acquired Trolltech in order to be able to advocate for Qt to be a shared development platform for both Series 60 and Maemo, which meant throwing out large parts of the existing Maemo codebase and starting again. This delayed Maemo significantly, and somewhat ignored the fact that there were basically 0 apps on Symbian that anyone cared about in the slightest)
- secondcoming 6y ago
  Symbian didn't provide a UI. Mobile phone manufacturers applied their own on top. Series 60 was Nokia's chosen UI, and the API was appalling. But yes, Symbian C++ was a difficult paradigm for newcomers to get their head around.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    In the very old days Symbian did not provide a UI. Around 2003:ish Nokia was the only Symbian licensee left and they had even 3 UIs: Series 60, Series 80 and Series 90. Only Series 60 survived. Series 80 had 2 products and Series 90 one public prototype. Series 90 was the only with touch input originally. Series 60 got touch after the iPhone, but that was too late. Yes, Symbian C++ was too difficult even inside Nokia. Productivity was very low, many products got cancelled before seeing the market and those who did were massively delayed.
    - girvo 6y ago
      I don’t believe that is correct: Sony Ericsson had the UIQ3 interface on top of Symbian — my favourite phone of all time, the M600i ran it. That was 2005, 2006. A few more UIQ3 smartphones were released after that, as well.
      - 6y ago
spaetzleesser 6y ago
Developing for Symbian was a total nightmare. I think if they had published a decent SDK they may caught the app boom that made the iPhone big.

by harikb 6y ago

scooble 6y ago

I may be misremembering, but I believe that at the time Elop joined, Symbian was still the largest smartphone OS by the number of devices. And (my memory is shaky here), the fact that Symbian and Maemo both used QT meant that there was a path for existing Symbian app developers to transition to the new platform. Maemo was slow coming, but killing it at launch still seems like an odd move.

jononor 6y ago
The Qt SDK was released for Symbian just a few months before Elop joined. Symbian applications and developers were not yet using Qt when Elop killed off both Symbian and Meego, just a few months later. It was part of a long-term strategy that did not have any time to play out. Quite possibly it would have been too late anyways.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Killing off Symbian in a speech while shipping more phones than any company on earth was, generously, not part of any strategy but a horrific blunder, less generously, it was sabotage. I've got no love for Symbian, but when you're selling that many phones, you phase it out, you don't announce to the world that there's no reason to buy the phones you're still trying to sell. Porting Symbian UI to Qt meant that they could at least merge surface-level stuff and have core apps that ran on both Maemo/Meego and Symbian, then retire Symbian when no one would care or notice.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    I don't see how people give Elop a pass on that: He very publicly declared that they were End-of-lifing the entire product lineup, but the next OS version (WinMo) wasn't ready. How else did he possibly think customers and developers were going to react? Keep buying then-deprecated phones?
  - jononor 6y ago
    Yeah, as if the Osborne effect was not bad enough (people skipping on existing products when announcing new) - he basically went out and said "all of our products are worthless and we dont have anything new to replace it anytime soon". I mean, even if when it is true, you just don't say anything like that - ever.
usr1106 6y ago
> I may be misremembering, but I believe that at the time Elop joined, Symbian was still the largest smartphone OS by the number of devices I think this is correct. It had a traditional market base but was already hopelessly noncompetitive except for old reputation and brand value (see my other comments here) and on a steep decline. Compared to iPhone and Android which were more modern and on a steep growth path.

mjg59 6y ago

Symbian was way behind iOS and Android by 2010, both in terms of functionality and developer experience. Abandoning Symbian to switch to Microsoft was a massive step forward in both respects, although the original plan had been to drop Symbian and move to Meego with Qt available as a developer transition path. (Maemo, the precursor to Meego, was originally a GTK-based platform. The Symbian faction of Nokia acquired Trolltech in order to be able to advocate for Qt to be a shared development platform for both Series 60 and Maemo, which meant throwing out large parts of the existing Maemo codebase and starting again. This delayed Maemo significantly, and somewhat ignored the fact that there were basically 0 apps on Symbian that anyone cared about in the slightest)

secondcoming 6y ago
Symbian didn't provide a UI. Mobile phone manufacturers applied their own on top. Series 60 was Nokia's chosen UI, and the API was appalling. But yes, Symbian C++ was a difficult paradigm for newcomers to get their head around.
- usr1106 6y ago
  In the very old days Symbian did not provide a UI. Around 2003:ish Nokia was the only Symbian licensee left and they had even 3 UIs: Series 60, Series 80 and Series 90. Only Series 60 survived. Series 80 had 2 products and Series 90 one public prototype. Series 90 was the only with touch input originally. Series 60 got touch after the iPhone, but that was too late. Yes, Symbian C++ was too difficult even inside Nokia. Productivity was very low, many products got cancelled before seeing the market and those who did were massively delayed.
  - girvo 6y ago
    I don’t believe that is correct: Sony Ericsson had the UIQ3 interface on top of Symbian — my favourite phone of all time, the M600i ran it. That was 2005, 2006. A few more UIQ3 smartphones were released after that, as well.
    - 6y ago

spaetzleesser 6y ago

Developing for Symbian was a total nightmare. I think if they had published a decent SDK they may caught the app boom that made the iPhone big.