9 ms·

Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

123 points by haasted 15y ago

pavlov 15y ago
Summary: journalist visits a Nokia software development site in Tampere, where everybody used to work on two mobile operating systems that Nokia is phasing out. Understandably, these people are not particularly willing to admit that the software they spent years on wasn't good enough to keep up with Apple and Google, so the old conspiracy theory plops up: the Nokia CEO must be a "mole" who's intentionally driving the stock price down. The root cause of this myopic idea is neatly summed up near the end of the article: Linus Thorvalds, Linux’s Finnish founder, says that “Microsoft-hatred is a disease” among open source programmers, but in Tampere it’s more of an epidemic.
- Geee 15y ago
  How about MeeGo Harmattan, which is said to be even ahead of iOS in terms of usability, performance and polish. Definitely ahead of Android. Elop stated that they couldn't get it ready until 2014, but surprisingly it's on markets before the WP phones. Nokia store is also way ahead of WP marketplace. It's just huge downplay of Nokia's products, while WP is not at all proven platform. Elop's statements were understandable back then, when nobody had seen the N9.
  - untog 15y ago
    "How about MeeGo Harmattan, which is said to be even ahead of iOS in terms of usability, performance and polish." "which is said"? Who said?
    - daliusd 15y ago
      I agree that it is too optimistic (see my other comment) but I was dissapointed that I can't swype in iPad.
      - daliusd 15y ago
        OK. Maybe I was not clear enough but I wanted to say that swipe (http://swipe.nokia.com/ http://swipe.nokia.com/) function from MeeGo Harmattan grown into me very fast. I have iPad as well - I have tried to swipe program in iPad naturally one day and that has not worked for me because there is no such function in iPad. My point is that Nokia has done something really cool from usability/user experience perspective. Or maybe I'm downvoted only because I insulted all iOS device owners by saying that their device is not coolest gadget anymore...
    - kenjackson 15y ago
      The engineers who worked on it, of course.
    - toyg 15y ago
      It got extremely good reviews on engadget, of all places, so it can't be bad.
  - maratd 15y ago
    It doesn't matter. WebOS was fantastic too. There is no demand. Consumers want iOS or Android. They don't want anything else. The only possible way they might is to introduce something that iOS or Android do not have ... and none of those operating systems introduce anything that would represent a significant innovation in the consumer space. They do the exact same thing, only incrementally better. That is not reason enough for people to switch.
    - barista 15y ago
      Forget webOS even Windows Phone OS itself is way ahead of androind and even iOS in terms of usability. But you are right. People have ignored it so far. All they want is android or iOS.
      - Steko 15y ago
        A growing number of people "want" Android today but your average customer had no idea what Android was when Android beat the pants off WebOS in 2009/2010. WebOS was a great OS stapled onto the biggest laughingstock of marketing and shoddy production quality in memory. WP7 was late and less polished but also suffered from carriers-dont-push-it-itis.
    - Geee 15y ago
      WebOS lacked proper push and more capable hardware. Also, on global markets, Palm was a miniature company. I don't know if they even sold WebOS devices overseas. Android sell well because of multitude of devices and very cheap prices, not because it's good or popular.
      - mobiplayer 15y ago
        They sold some Pre units over here (Spain), I had one.
    - zobzu 15y ago
      meego runs MUCH better than webos on the same hardware tho. also its not proprietary.
  - daliusd 15y ago
    Well it looks like people at Nokia have tried really hard to release N9 even if it has problems. It is far from polished and I have hit some critical functionality that has API but is not working on Harmattan (most probably it works on Symbian). As well there are some functions that do not work from UI. I have reported bugs but that's the best I could do (maybe I can fix some of them). Overall I love how MeeGo Harmattan works and I love this OS - I'm happy owner of N950 (I'm using it as my main phone without problems). Here is another thing that looks suspicious. New feature phones (that will run Meltemi) will have 1Ghz processor and as far as I'm aware N950 must have processor like this (at least I was hinted that it has slower processor than N9). Here I don't get why new OS is written when they have working one. As well it looks illogical to waste experience gained during Harmattan development (having in mind that Meltemi is developed in Germany and not Finland). It looks like not everything is revealed yet from Nokia side.
    - Geee 15y ago
      The first update is almost released with 3500+ improvements. The current software was ready in spring already and they have been working on the first update since. Also, I think the software on N950 is somewhat older/different release. Meltemi is supposed to have different kernel, and it's really targeted at very low-end, in feature phone markets. Although, very low-end is 1Ghz in a couple of years.
      - bergie 15y ago
        N950 got the software version from N9 (I believe, though maybe there are hardware-specific differences) yesterday OTA
        bergie 15y ago
        Release notes: http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/release/N950-39-5/Nokia_N950_PR11_Release_Notes_v39_5_en.txt http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/release/N950-39-5/Nokia_N950_...
  - aurynn 15y ago
    MeeGo Harmattan isn't as polished as iOS - it's got a lot of first-generation performance issues, definitely requires some babysitting to keep it running well, but it's miles ahead of Android. It feels like the Harmattan team at Nokia really understood good UI and good design, and wanted to build a product around those ideals. The N9 is also a really slick piece of hardware. Someone designed and loved this thing, and wanted it to be amazing. It doesn't have any weird bulges or outcroppings like all the Android handsets; the appearance of it is minimalist; even the camera module on the back looks like it fits the style. I always found the Android cameras to be just another annoying outcrop, never fitting with a cohesive design. The N9, and Harmattan, have that cohesive design. It's a royal shame that it's the best phone no one will ever use...
    - somebear 15y ago
      I think the guys at Nokia design will be very happy with that comment. Fortunately most of them are still employed with Nokia and working on exciting stuff. I feel bad for most of the MeeGo devs though. Most of them were laid off or quit in frustration over having their baby flushed down the toilet. Quite a large number of them ended up with Intel to keep working on MeeGo, just to see Intel drop the effort as well. Must be incredibly frustrating. Disclaimer: I work as a software engineer at Nokia in Australia.
      - aurynn 15y ago
        Please pass on my remarks to the design team - I'm very impressed with their work, and I do wish that they continue their excellent designs. I truly wish that Nokia had gone behind the N9 with everything it deserves. I feel it's the first time that Apple has actually been challenged in design, in integrity towards an ideal, in making something that exemplifies that internal drive. After seeing the WP7, even knowing it was coming, I know that their lovely design work was cheapened by that release. It's still good design, but it lost something tangible and wonderful, that sense of being something different and better. By shipping WP7, it became something that exists secondary to another goal, instead of a goal unto itself. Cheapened, as though a device that exists not symbiotically with the software designed to run on it, but any random garbage that can be sold with it. It lost its soul.
  - pavlov 15y ago
    Harmattan was supposed to ship in fall of 2010. It's a year late. Yet, even if the MeeGo mess hadn't happened and Nokia had shipped a Harmattan phone on the original Maemo schedule, would it have made any difference? It would have been hamstrung by Nokia's confusion over Symbian's direction, and steamrolled by iOS and Android just the same. It's not Elop's fault that Nokia's software is in shambles. The damage was done years earlier. Put yourself in Elop's shoes when he arrived a year ago. There's Symbian, an OS that has become extremely expensive to develop. It has been open-sourced and modernized at great effort, but the resulting product (Symbian^3) has critical bugs and a lackluster UI. The people in charge tell him that the big leap forward is just around the corner... But apparently that's exactly what they were saying two years earlier. Then there's MeeGo, a Linux variant that used to be one VP's hobby project. Recently it has been promoted to become the company's new flagship -- except that nobody is quite clear on how it should be positioned alongside Symbian. There's a powerful Symbian lobby inside the company that's determined to see the "eternal upstart" MeeGo fail. The technical state of the OS doesn't inspire much confidence either: the UI framework has been reset several times in the past few years, so although they have a sprawling Linux distribution, there isn't really a phone UI yet. "Don't worry," say the people in charge, "this latest framework is so great that we'll whip up a smartphone experience in no time!" Faced with these options and all their internal political baggage, is it any wonder that Elop went looking for an operating system outside the company?
    - smogzer 15y ago
      I never got to understand all that maemo, symbian, meego operating system differences. Couldn't they just use linux and get some QML frontend in front of it. It seems really a lack of direction/duplication of efforts.
      - Geee 15y ago
        Well, it was their strategy all along with Qt, but it's been slow ride. Everything is Qt on new Symbian, MeeGo and upcoming Meltemi. Qt is natively on the new BBX and will probably be on Android. Qt is also their main strategy besides WP, so we will see how things pan out.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    What makes you say that MeeGo Harmattan is definitely ahead of Android. I do not think so. I also do not think that it's enough for MeeGo to be better in terms of usability, performance and polish. For instance, I hate Android's built-in browser. The UI sucks. But the native apps for the online services I use, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and Flickr -- are kick-ass. This happened slowly and for a looong time people complained how poor the experience is on Android with those apps. Heck, Flickr wasn't even available for Android 4 months ago. But now they are. And I also replaced the browser with Firefox Mobile, which is very resource-hungry, but has a pretty sweet UI and syncs everything with my desktop. I can do that because Android is freaking popular. And even in regards of polish and user-experience, Android 2.3 gets pretty close to my ideal and while iOS is still better, I prefer Android for a whole bunch of other reasons. I AM pretty sad that MeeGo failed to get the traction and resources needed. Competition is good, but Nokia needed to do SOMETHING because they were clearly failing to deliver. I also think picking Windows Mobile was the dumbest move they could make, but whatever.
    - dataminer 15y ago
      Can't agree with you more about Nokia picking up Windows Mobile. They should have gone with Android customized it to their liking (just like what Amazon did with kindle fire), taken advantage of already existing apps and ramp up from there just like what Samsung is doing right now. A big transition to a nascent mobile platform slows them down further, they seem to be heading towards the same fate as Palm.
      - recoiledsnake 15y ago
        Nokia is incomparable to Palm, you'd be more likely to know that if you've spent considerable time in Europe or Asia (apart from Japan). There are millions of people there who will blindly buy a Nokia phone regardless of the software. How do you think Symbian is still pushing so many sales? Palm? It has nothing on Nokia, 'Nokia' is synonymous for 'cell phone' in many countries.
        nl 15y ago
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- thyrsus 15y ago
  I'm curious about the misspelling of Torvalds. Was that a naive transcription of the spoken name, or a naive transliteration from a Finnish character similar to "eth"? ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Eth https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Eth )
  - kiiski 15y ago
    Just a mistake I think. Finnish doesn't really have any "special" characters except ä and ö. (Torvalds is written just the same in Finnish; besides I think it's a Swedish name anyway)
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  This long article does a much better job of explaining matters than the link-bait here. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567... This guy has atleast a plan after Nokia realized it needs a big shake, unlike RIM which is in a similar situation but burning it's hands with 'me-too' tablets that no one wants and handwaving about the awesomeness of QNX instead of pivoting quickly before it's too late. How a QNX based OS will save them is beyond me, because 99.9% of smartphone buyers wouldn't even know what that means. As Elop said, the mobile arena has moved from a battle of devices to a war of ecosystems. If you can't break past the chicken and egg problem of creating an ecosystem and court developers, it's a death sentence. Just see Palm, they had a nice product, but they never had a chance.
  - hristov 15y ago
    So for that reason they decided to go into the rich Windows Mobile ecosystem? What kind of installed base is there for Windows Mobile nowadays? 5.7% and falling steadily. Sorry but if the richness of the ecosystem is the main reason for change, then the obvious answer is Android.
    - ttrashh 15y ago
      Multiple reasons imho: They got a great deal from Microsoft that Google wasn't willing to match, the OS is beautiful, plenty of existing Xaml developers, great platform + language and better tooling than Android or iOS.
      - astrodust 15y ago
        Everyone is under the impression that the waters are poisoned or they'd be flocking to the platform. XNA is actually a decent toolkit, and the Visual Studio environment is way better than the Android Eclipse mish-mash. What's preventing uptake is a complete lack of understanding in their market, an inability to take down even weak competition like RIM, and no clue how to leverage their success from the 360 on to a phone. If they'd just called it the Xbox Phone it would've sold ten times better.
- hristov 15y ago
  It is very suspicious that they jumped on Windows Mobile. All of the other companies that were in their exact situation went Android and are doing very well thus far. Even if we take it for granted that Meego was a non-starter, the question remains "why windows mobile?". It has shown absolutely no success in the marketplace and it is as much of a crapshoot as Meego.
Geee 15y ago
They are waiting for one year before takeover. There is some kind of rule designed to block takeovers that says the sale price must be determined from the maximum price of past year. I'm not sure Elop would walk alive from it though, Finns are pretty passionate about Nokia.
0x12 15y ago
A mole is someone that is there undercover. Nokia's CEO is there in plain sight and has very strong connections to Microsoft, was brought in by the board to guide Nokia away from their homebrew stuff and onto Windows. How could he possibly be a mole?
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  That is what I was thinking, you could ask "is he a colonial governor?" You know, the guy the Colonial power installs as the head of state insuring that the colony will endeavor to make its patron state wealthier at the expense of its own citizens.
  - cpeterso 15y ago
    The Nokia board of directors probably hired Elop because they wanted to transition to Windows Phone. Elop's job was to the bearer of bad news (to employees).
    - robert_nsu 15y ago
      I was under the impression that they wanted to transition to Windows Phone or Android. Anything to help them become/stay competitive in the mobile space.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        That would mean a transition to Android, because WP7 has proven not very competitive. In fact, Microsoft is giving them away for free at their stores.
        majorlazer 15y ago
        In fact, Microsoft is giving them away for free at their stores. Do you have any sources for that?
        15y ago
shareme 15y ago
Better yet is this question: MS value has decreased at least a 3rd since Ballmer got control..is Ballmer a mole ? Same exact logic problems as the article..except mine has more flair and imagination
- cpeterso 15y ago
  Is Ballmer a mole for Procter & Gamble?
  - contextfree 15y ago
    Obviously. P&G is still in phase 2 of their plan, too. They're playing a long game.
patrickgzill 15y ago
Shades of the incompetent Rick Belluzzo who destroyed SGI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Belluzzo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Belluzzo
- fleitz 15y ago
  Rick joined SGI in 1998, by that time Nvidia and Voodoo had put all but the final nails in the coffin of SGI.
  - erd 15y ago
    Voodoo was a brand, 3DFX was the company.
  - mikeryan 15y ago
    But he was considered a "Microsoft Mole" for some things he did at both HP and SGI. Heck there's even an Urban Dictionary term "belluzzo" named for this act after him. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=belluzzo&defid=3861632 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=belluzzo&...
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  How would he be incompetent if he was a MS mole? Sounds like he was pretty competent if he succeeded? That Wiki article seems to be a hit job. A few references: http://www.msboycott.com/news/00_01_17.shtml http://www.msboycott.com/news/00_01_17.shtml http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=rick+belluzzo+%22microsoft+mole%22&oq=rick+belluzzo+%22microsoft+mole%22 http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=rick+belluzzo+%2... And we have someone on HN here quoting the Urban dictionary reference. How long does it take to make a new entry for anyone or anything yourself? Didn't know Google searches can be used as a reference on the Wiki. >This article and talk page must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if there are other concerns about the biography of a living person, please report the issue to the biographies of living persons noticeboard. If you are connected to the subject of this article and need help with issues related to it, please see this page. Anyway, I guess Linus was right, MS hatred is a disease, and one such manifestation is the people who wrote that Wiki article.
kb101 15y ago
It is definitely noteworthy that the N9 and the N8, both examples of excellent hardware running competitive software, have basically been sandbagged by Nokia. Contrast this with RIM, who just released a slew of stop-gap phones until QNX (BBX) is ready... but they still are promoting the hell out of those phones and are getting decent sales, keeping the company viable. And those aren't even world-beating phones. Meantime, the N8 with its pentaband radio and Zeiss camera, and the N9 showing off the best of Meego, get no promotion at all... really does make you wonder. Microsoft-hatred might indeed be a disease, but Nokia threw out Symbian and Meego for an OS that is (for all its positive reviews) unproven. Symbian Belle and Meego are definitely competitive options and offer a lot. Any tech site (engadget etc.) reviewing the N9 basically wound up mourning the premature death of Meego and wondering what might have been. In the case of the N8, the common assessment was it was stellar hardware with an OS that was almost there... well I think Belle pushed it over that line to being something competitive. This is the same madness that Apotheker brought to HP, trashing established businesses just because they weren't sexy enough and then immediately trying to import the business model of the last company he worked at. I don't think Elop is a mole but he definitely has yet to do anything except destroy value at Nokia.
- stevenwei 15y ago
  The N8? Which didn't have a QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode until a year after release? That would randomly lock up when interacting with the UI? That OS was nowhere near the level of its competitors.
  - Geee 15y ago
    Symbian Belle. Basically, it's on Android level now. They did the whole interface from ground up using Qt and GPU acceleration. The earlier versions were really horrible though.
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  Calling RIM viable is a stretch. They were steadily losing marketshare before the new iPhone (the first on all US carriers) and ICS phones were launched. We may easily see iOS 6 and the iPad 3 before BBX sees the light of day - I'm skeptical that a company with a 4 P/E ratio can survive the year they're about to have. Better to be in Nokia's position and have a complete, focused operating system relaunch before the year end. Nokia will have a line of interesting, desirable products before the end of 2011 and RIM will be in serious danger of a buyout/reorganization.
harryf 15y ago
Wasn't there a myth that Microsoft killed Commodore with a mole on the board?
- 0x12 15y ago
  iirc it was the XOR patent, here is one part of that story: http://xcssa.org/pipermail/xcssa/2005-February/002587.html http://xcssa.org/pipermail/xcssa/2005-February/002587.html I'm not sure if that was all there was to it and possibly there is room in there for a 'microsoft mole' somehow, but a single mole on the board of directors would be just a way to get information out, you can't destroy a company in a straightforward way. And such a mole would have to be compensated very well indeed to survive the breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits that would be leveled at him/her if it ever came out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary It's no joke to be accused of stuff like that.
  - pohl 15y ago
    Hypothetically, would being the 8th largest individual shareholder of MSFT be large enough compensation to make a fiduciary suit an acceptable cost of doing business?
    - 0x12 15y ago
      In some places breach of fiduciary duty is a criminal offense. So you may very well end up in jail. I'm not sure there is adequate compensation for a risk like that. Being the 8th largest shareholder of MSFT might do the trick for some individuals but that's just another version of 'every man has his price'. For me I hope I'll never learn mine.
vegai 15y ago
They're just fricking phones, why do we care so much about this?
bauchidgw 15y ago
at a conference i talked with some nokia devs, two funny stories. 1) the N9 (the meego phone) will never be released in an english speaking country as marketing fears the tech blogger will write even more crap about their strategy change - as it is a quiete decent phone 2) even though the code for the N9 they do not get any test devices, the code in a very rudimentary ide only, as there is a no Meego phone for devs anymore policy on the other hamd, he was quiete drunk and frustrated so i do not know how mich of it is true
- somebear 15y ago
  Pretty much nothing. Disclaimer: I work as a software engineer at Nokia. Australia is very much an English speaking country (although we are at the ass-end of the world), and the N9 is getting a lot of active marketing here [1, 2]. I have also been working on the software for the N9, but most of my development has been on device, either on the N950 or the N9. We always grumble that we don't get enough devices, but these guys must have been frustrated about something else to go that far out. There were a lot of problems developing for the N9, don't get me wrong, but they were not endemic to MeeGo over Symbian or S40 where I've also worked. [1] http://press.nokia.com.au/nokia-n9-%E2%80%9Call-screen%E2%80%9D-smartphone-available-through-all-australian-operators-and-major-retailers/ http://press.nokia.com.au/nokia-n9-%E2%80%9Call-screen%E2%80... [2] http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nokia-N9-in-Beautifully-Simple-Marketing-Campaign-in-Australia-225971.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nokia-N9-in-Beautifully-Simpl...
  - majika 15y ago
    Just in case you miss it, I made a comment parallel to yours to the parent. (POV of an Australian on the N9 and Nokia)
- majika 15y ago
  As somebear has said, the N9 is being heavily promoted in Australia at the moment. On my way to university every morning, I see about 2 or 3 bilboards or bus paintjobs advertising the N9. The ad is just a white background, a big blue Nokia logo, a stack of different-coloured N9s, and the text "beautifully simple." It's pretty obvious they're trying to break the perception (here, at least) of Nokia only offering cheap phones. I currently own an N900, so (a) I know what it's like being on an unsupported and unpopular platform (it sucks hard), and (b) I would buy an N9 in a heartbeat if Nokia had decided to stick with Meego. I'm a Linux user and use no Microsoft online services, so Windows Phones aren't attractive for me at all. By dropping Meego/Maemo (hacker types) and moving to WP, Nokia is dumping its last remaining fanbase. It's starting from zero, on an OS that's also starting from zero. My next phone will almost certainly be the Galaxy Nexus. WP will probably earn itself a small niche in the no-man's-land of smartphones between iOS' simplicity and Android's customisability and personalisation (WRT phone choice), but lacking the universality of both. I can't see it achieving wider adoption. Nokia will claim a slice of this small niche, but that's all it will have. WP can't survive on off-the-side interest from HTC and Samsung. Microsoft needs Nokia for WP to survive, so I fully expect Microsoft to purchase Nokia within the next five years. I think Nokia would've been able to survive on its own had it gone with Android (earning a smaller slice of the Android pie, but still much larger overall). I think most technical-oriented people recognise that Nokia's expertise is in hardware - a quality that the Android ecosystem is still lacking. Samsung is getting there, but the N9's build quality is generations ahead of any of the Galaxy phones. Nokia would always be my first choice in choosing an Android phone. It's a real pity. I think there's a strong point to be made that Elop's biases towards Microsoft have impacted Nokia for the worse.
nir 15y ago
As usual in Globalpost, attributing to malice what can be easily explained by stupidity. CEOs make dumb decisions every day without being anyone's mole.
sriramk 15y ago
One thing that all these ridiculous conspiracy theories miss is that Elop spent a very short time at MSFT - around 2 years. He seems to switch companies often, except for one long stint in Macromedia.
fpgeek 15y ago
The decision that never made sense to me was going all-in on WP7 instead of diversifying across MeeGo, WP7 and Android. When push comes to shove, getting Nokia to treat WP7 as a first-tier platform would have bought Microsoft just as big a win as Nokia going all-in. I'd argue it might even have been a bigger win because Nokia would look much less like a rudderless ship about to crash. Maybe Elop didn't negotiate hard enough, maybe he didn't have the vision, or maybe he was too influenced by his time at Microsoft. We'll probably never know.
tamersalama 15y ago
The article's picture is very well picked. It's as if they're talking to each other while covering their mouths.
boundhund 15y ago
Note: the parking lot was probably deserted because there is currently an industry-wide labour union dispute that prohibits working overtime.
- YourAnMoran 15y ago
  Not to mention that during the past six months, a significant amount of Nokia's engineers have either been laid off or found new employers on their own. It was a catchy way to begin the article but nothing more.
lakeeffect 15y ago
yes
moondowner 15y ago
You can argue that Elop isn't a mole, but putting such neglect on the N9 is a true evidence that they don't want any platform built at Nokia (Symbian, MeeGo) to succeed. Here's what the editor of GSMArena wrote in a recent post: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-review-659.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-review-659.php "Not shown much love by its own maker, the Nokia N9 is embraced by the consumers. You won’t see Stephen Elop getting all too fired up about MeeGo and spending hours explaining how it’s the best thing since Santa, sauna and the N95. But if you care to look, you'll notice thousands of people hitting our site each day to just check out the Nokia N9."
kermitthehermit 15y ago
Yes, he is, he's the trojan horse MS sent inside Nokia so they could "control" a large phone manufacturer.

123 points by haasted 15y ago

Summary: journalist visits a Nokia software development site in Tampere, where everybody used to work on two mobile operating systems that Nokia is phasing out. Understandably, these people are not particularly willing to admit that the software they spent years on wasn't good enough to keep up with Apple and Google, so the old conspiracy theory plops up: the Nokia CEO must be a "mole" who's intentionally driving the stock price down. The root cause of this myopic idea is neatly summed up near the end of the article: Linus Thorvalds, Linux’s Finnish founder, says that “Microsoft-hatred is a disease” among open source programmers, but in Tampere it’s more of an epidemic.

Geee 15y ago
How about MeeGo Harmattan, which is said to be even ahead of iOS in terms of usability, performance and polish. Definitely ahead of Android. Elop stated that they couldn't get it ready until 2014, but surprisingly it's on markets before the WP phones. Nokia store is also way ahead of WP marketplace. It's just huge downplay of Nokia's products, while WP is not at all proven platform. Elop's statements were understandable back then, when nobody had seen the N9.
- untog 15y ago
  "How about MeeGo Harmattan, which is said to be even ahead of iOS in terms of usability, performance and polish." "which is said"? Who said?
  - daliusd 15y ago
    I agree that it is too optimistic (see my other comment) but I was dissapointed that I can't swype in iPad.
    - daliusd 15y ago
      OK. Maybe I was not clear enough but I wanted to say that swipe (http://swipe.nokia.com/ http://swipe.nokia.com/) function from MeeGo Harmattan grown into me very fast. I have iPad as well - I have tried to swipe program in iPad naturally one day and that has not worked for me because there is no such function in iPad. My point is that Nokia has done something really cool from usability/user experience perspective. Or maybe I'm downvoted only because I insulted all iOS device owners by saying that their device is not coolest gadget anymore...
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    The engineers who worked on it, of course.
  - toyg 15y ago
    It got extremely good reviews on engadget, of all places, so it can't be bad.
- maratd 15y ago
  It doesn't matter. WebOS was fantastic too. There is no demand. Consumers want iOS or Android. They don't want anything else. The only possible way they might is to introduce something that iOS or Android do not have ... and none of those operating systems introduce anything that would represent a significant innovation in the consumer space. They do the exact same thing, only incrementally better. That is not reason enough for people to switch.
  - barista 15y ago
    Forget webOS even Windows Phone OS itself is way ahead of androind and even iOS in terms of usability. But you are right. People have ignored it so far. All they want is android or iOS.
    - Steko 15y ago
      A growing number of people "want" Android today but your average customer had no idea what Android was when Android beat the pants off WebOS in 2009/2010. WebOS was a great OS stapled onto the biggest laughingstock of marketing and shoddy production quality in memory. WP7 was late and less polished but also suffered from carriers-dont-push-it-itis.
  - Geee 15y ago
    WebOS lacked proper push and more capable hardware. Also, on global markets, Palm was a miniature company. I don't know if they even sold WebOS devices overseas. Android sell well because of multitude of devices and very cheap prices, not because it's good or popular.
    - mobiplayer 15y ago
      They sold some Pre units over here (Spain), I had one.
  - zobzu 15y ago
    meego runs MUCH better than webos on the same hardware tho. also its not proprietary.
- daliusd 15y ago
  Well it looks like people at Nokia have tried really hard to release N9 even if it has problems. It is far from polished and I have hit some critical functionality that has API but is not working on Harmattan (most probably it works on Symbian). As well there are some functions that do not work from UI. I have reported bugs but that's the best I could do (maybe I can fix some of them). Overall I love how MeeGo Harmattan works and I love this OS - I'm happy owner of N950 (I'm using it as my main phone without problems). Here is another thing that looks suspicious. New feature phones (that will run Meltemi) will have 1Ghz processor and as far as I'm aware N950 must have processor like this (at least I was hinted that it has slower processor than N9). Here I don't get why new OS is written when they have working one. As well it looks illogical to waste experience gained during Harmattan development (having in mind that Meltemi is developed in Germany and not Finland). It looks like not everything is revealed yet from Nokia side.
  - Geee 15y ago
    The first update is almost released with 3500+ improvements. The current software was ready in spring already and they have been working on the first update since. Also, I think the software on N950 is somewhat older/different release. Meltemi is supposed to have different kernel, and it's really targeted at very low-end, in feature phone markets. Although, very low-end is 1Ghz in a couple of years.
    - bergie 15y ago
      N950 got the software version from N9 (I believe, though maybe there are hardware-specific differences) yesterday OTA
      - bergie 15y ago
        Release notes: http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/release/N950-39-5/Nokia_N950_PR11_Release_Notes_v39_5_en.txt http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/release/N950-39-5/Nokia_N950_...
- aurynn 15y ago
  MeeGo Harmattan isn't as polished as iOS - it's got a lot of first-generation performance issues, definitely requires some babysitting to keep it running well, but it's miles ahead of Android. It feels like the Harmattan team at Nokia really understood good UI and good design, and wanted to build a product around those ideals. The N9 is also a really slick piece of hardware. Someone designed and loved this thing, and wanted it to be amazing. It doesn't have any weird bulges or outcroppings like all the Android handsets; the appearance of it is minimalist; even the camera module on the back looks like it fits the style. I always found the Android cameras to be just another annoying outcrop, never fitting with a cohesive design. The N9, and Harmattan, have that cohesive design. It's a royal shame that it's the best phone no one will ever use...
  - somebear 15y ago
    I think the guys at Nokia design will be very happy with that comment. Fortunately most of them are still employed with Nokia and working on exciting stuff. I feel bad for most of the MeeGo devs though. Most of them were laid off or quit in frustration over having their baby flushed down the toilet. Quite a large number of them ended up with Intel to keep working on MeeGo, just to see Intel drop the effort as well. Must be incredibly frustrating. Disclaimer: I work as a software engineer at Nokia in Australia.
    - aurynn 15y ago
      Please pass on my remarks to the design team - I'm very impressed with their work, and I do wish that they continue their excellent designs. I truly wish that Nokia had gone behind the N9 with everything it deserves. I feel it's the first time that Apple has actually been challenged in design, in integrity towards an ideal, in making something that exemplifies that internal drive. After seeing the WP7, even knowing it was coming, I know that their lovely design work was cheapened by that release. It's still good design, but it lost something tangible and wonderful, that sense of being something different and better. By shipping WP7, it became something that exists secondary to another goal, instead of a goal unto itself. Cheapened, as though a device that exists not symbiotically with the software designed to run on it, but any random garbage that can be sold with it. It lost its soul.
- pavlov 15y ago
  Harmattan was supposed to ship in fall of 2010. It's a year late. Yet, even if the MeeGo mess hadn't happened and Nokia had shipped a Harmattan phone on the original Maemo schedule, would it have made any difference? It would have been hamstrung by Nokia's confusion over Symbian's direction, and steamrolled by iOS and Android just the same. It's not Elop's fault that Nokia's software is in shambles. The damage was done years earlier. Put yourself in Elop's shoes when he arrived a year ago. There's Symbian, an OS that has become extremely expensive to develop. It has been open-sourced and modernized at great effort, but the resulting product (Symbian^3) has critical bugs and a lackluster UI. The people in charge tell him that the big leap forward is just around the corner... But apparently that's exactly what they were saying two years earlier. Then there's MeeGo, a Linux variant that used to be one VP's hobby project. Recently it has been promoted to become the company's new flagship -- except that nobody is quite clear on how it should be positioned alongside Symbian. There's a powerful Symbian lobby inside the company that's determined to see the "eternal upstart" MeeGo fail. The technical state of the OS doesn't inspire much confidence either: the UI framework has been reset several times in the past few years, so although they have a sprawling Linux distribution, there isn't really a phone UI yet. "Don't worry," say the people in charge, "this latest framework is so great that we'll whip up a smartphone experience in no time!" Faced with these options and all their internal political baggage, is it any wonder that Elop went looking for an operating system outside the company?
  - smogzer 15y ago
    I never got to understand all that maemo, symbian, meego operating system differences. Couldn't they just use linux and get some QML frontend in front of it. It seems really a lack of direction/duplication of efforts.
    - Geee 15y ago
      Well, it was their strategy all along with Qt, but it's been slow ride. Everything is Qt on new Symbian, MeeGo and upcoming Meltemi. Qt is natively on the new BBX and will probably be on Android. Qt is also their main strategy besides WP, so we will see how things pan out.
- bad_user 15y ago
  What makes you say that MeeGo Harmattan is definitely ahead of Android. I do not think so. I also do not think that it's enough for MeeGo to be better in terms of usability, performance and polish. For instance, I hate Android's built-in browser. The UI sucks. But the native apps for the online services I use, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and Flickr -- are kick-ass. This happened slowly and for a looong time people complained how poor the experience is on Android with those apps. Heck, Flickr wasn't even available for Android 4 months ago. But now they are. And I also replaced the browser with Firefox Mobile, which is very resource-hungry, but has a pretty sweet UI and syncs everything with my desktop. I can do that because Android is freaking popular. And even in regards of polish and user-experience, Android 2.3 gets pretty close to my ideal and while iOS is still better, I prefer Android for a whole bunch of other reasons. I AM pretty sad that MeeGo failed to get the traction and resources needed. Competition is good, but Nokia needed to do SOMETHING because they were clearly failing to deliver. I also think picking Windows Mobile was the dumbest move they could make, but whatever.
  - dataminer 15y ago
    Can't agree with you more about Nokia picking up Windows Mobile. They should have gone with Android customized it to their liking (just like what Amazon did with kindle fire), taken advantage of already existing apps and ramp up from there just like what Samsung is doing right now. A big transition to a nascent mobile platform slows them down further, they seem to be heading towards the same fate as Palm.
    - recoiledsnake 15y ago
      Nokia is incomparable to Palm, you'd be more likely to know that if you've spent considerable time in Europe or Asia (apart from Japan). There are millions of people there who will blindly buy a Nokia phone regardless of the software. How do you think Symbian is still pushing so many sales? Palm? It has nothing on Nokia, 'Nokia' is synonymous for 'cell phone' in many countries.
      - nl 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
thyrsus 15y ago
I'm curious about the misspelling of Torvalds. Was that a naive transcription of the spoken name, or a naive transliteration from a Finnish character similar to "eth"? ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Eth https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Eth )
- kiiski 15y ago
  Just a mistake I think. Finnish doesn't really have any "special" characters except ä and ö. (Torvalds is written just the same in Finnish; besides I think it's a Swedish name anyway)
recoiledsnake 15y ago
This long article does a much better job of explaining matters than the link-bait here. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567... This guy has atleast a plan after Nokia realized it needs a big shake, unlike RIM which is in a similar situation but burning it's hands with 'me-too' tablets that no one wants and handwaving about the awesomeness of QNX instead of pivoting quickly before it's too late. How a QNX based OS will save them is beyond me, because 99.9% of smartphone buyers wouldn't even know what that means. As Elop said, the mobile arena has moved from a battle of devices to a war of ecosystems. If you can't break past the chicken and egg problem of creating an ecosystem and court developers, it's a death sentence. Just see Palm, they had a nice product, but they never had a chance.
- hristov 15y ago
  So for that reason they decided to go into the rich Windows Mobile ecosystem? What kind of installed base is there for Windows Mobile nowadays? 5.7% and falling steadily. Sorry but if the richness of the ecosystem is the main reason for change, then the obvious answer is Android.
  - ttrashh 15y ago
    Multiple reasons imho: They got a great deal from Microsoft that Google wasn't willing to match, the OS is beautiful, plenty of existing Xaml developers, great platform + language and better tooling than Android or iOS.
    - astrodust 15y ago
      Everyone is under the impression that the waters are poisoned or they'd be flocking to the platform. XNA is actually a decent toolkit, and the Visual Studio environment is way better than the Android Eclipse mish-mash. What's preventing uptake is a complete lack of understanding in their market, an inability to take down even weak competition like RIM, and no clue how to leverage their success from the 360 on to a phone. If they'd just called it the Xbox Phone it would've sold ten times better.
hristov 15y ago
It is very suspicious that they jumped on Windows Mobile. All of the other companies that were in their exact situation went Android and are doing very well thus far. Even if we take it for granted that Meego was a non-starter, the question remains "why windows mobile?". It has shown absolutely no success in the marketplace and it is as much of a crapshoot as Meego.

Geee 15y ago

They are waiting for one year before takeover. There is some kind of rule designed to block takeovers that says the sale price must be determined from the maximum price of past year. I'm not sure Elop would walk alive from it though, Finns are pretty passionate about Nokia.

0x12 15y ago

A mole is someone that is there undercover. Nokia's CEO is there in plain sight and has very strong connections to Microsoft, was brought in by the board to guide Nokia away from their homebrew stuff and onto Windows. How could he possibly be a mole?

ChuckMcM 15y ago
That is what I was thinking, you could ask "is he a colonial governor?" You know, the guy the Colonial power installs as the head of state insuring that the colony will endeavor to make its patron state wealthier at the expense of its own citizens.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  The Nokia board of directors probably hired Elop because they wanted to transition to Windows Phone. Elop's job was to the bearer of bad news (to employees).
  - robert_nsu 15y ago
    I was under the impression that they wanted to transition to Windows Phone or Android. Anything to help them become/stay competitive in the mobile space.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      That would mean a transition to Android, because WP7 has proven not very competitive. In fact, Microsoft is giving them away for free at their stores.
      - majorlazer 15y ago
        In fact, Microsoft is giving them away for free at their stores. Do you have any sources for that?
        15y ago

shareme 15y ago

Better yet is this question: MS value has decreased at least a 3rd since Ballmer got control..is Ballmer a mole ? Same exact logic problems as the article..except mine has more flair and imagination

cpeterso 15y ago
Is Ballmer a mole for Procter & Gamble?
- contextfree 15y ago
  Obviously. P&G is still in phase 2 of their plan, too. They're playing a long game.

patrickgzill 15y ago

Shades of the incompetent Rick Belluzzo who destroyed SGI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Belluzzo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Belluzzo

fleitz 15y ago
Rick joined SGI in 1998, by that time Nvidia and Voodoo had put all but the final nails in the coffin of SGI.
- erd 15y ago
  Voodoo was a brand, 3DFX was the company.
- mikeryan 15y ago
  But he was considered a "Microsoft Mole" for some things he did at both HP and SGI. Heck there's even an Urban Dictionary term "belluzzo" named for this act after him. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=belluzzo&defid=3861632 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=belluzzo&...
recoiledsnake 15y ago
How would he be incompetent if he was a MS mole? Sounds like he was pretty competent if he succeeded? That Wiki article seems to be a hit job. A few references: http://www.msboycott.com/news/00_01_17.shtml http://www.msboycott.com/news/00_01_17.shtml http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=rick+belluzzo+%22microsoft+mole%22&oq=rick+belluzzo+%22microsoft+mole%22 http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=rick+belluzzo+%2... And we have someone on HN here quoting the Urban dictionary reference. How long does it take to make a new entry for anyone or anything yourself? Didn't know Google searches can be used as a reference on the Wiki. >This article and talk page must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if there are other concerns about the biography of a living person, please report the issue to the biographies of living persons noticeboard. If you are connected to the subject of this article and need help with issues related to it, please see this page. Anyway, I guess Linus was right, MS hatred is a disease, and one such manifestation is the people who wrote that Wiki article.

kb101 15y ago

It is definitely noteworthy that the N9 and the N8, both examples of excellent hardware running competitive software, have basically been sandbagged by Nokia. Contrast this with RIM, who just released a slew of stop-gap phones until QNX (BBX) is ready... but they still are promoting the hell out of those phones and are getting decent sales, keeping the company viable. And those aren't even world-beating phones. Meantime, the N8 with its pentaband radio and Zeiss camera, and the N9 showing off the best of Meego, get no promotion at all... really does make you wonder. Microsoft-hatred might indeed be a disease, but Nokia threw out Symbian and Meego for an OS that is (for all its positive reviews) unproven. Symbian Belle and Meego are definitely competitive options and offer a lot. Any tech site (engadget etc.) reviewing the N9 basically wound up mourning the premature death of Meego and wondering what might have been. In the case of the N8, the common assessment was it was stellar hardware with an OS that was almost there... well I think Belle pushed it over that line to being something competitive. This is the same madness that Apotheker brought to HP, trashing established businesses just because they weren't sexy enough and then immediately trying to import the business model of the last company he worked at. I don't think Elop is a mole but he definitely has yet to do anything except destroy value at Nokia.

stevenwei 15y ago
The N8? Which didn't have a QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode until a year after release? That would randomly lock up when interacting with the UI? That OS was nowhere near the level of its competitors.
- Geee 15y ago
  Symbian Belle. Basically, it's on Android level now. They did the whole interface from ground up using Qt and GPU acceleration. The earlier versions were really horrible though.
saturdaysaint 15y ago
Calling RIM viable is a stretch. They were steadily losing marketshare before the new iPhone (the first on all US carriers) and ICS phones were launched. We may easily see iOS 6 and the iPad 3 before BBX sees the light of day - I'm skeptical that a company with a 4 P/E ratio can survive the year they're about to have. Better to be in Nokia's position and have a complete, focused operating system relaunch before the year end. Nokia will have a line of interesting, desirable products before the end of 2011 and RIM will be in serious danger of a buyout/reorganization.

harryf 15y ago

Wasn't there a myth that Microsoft killed Commodore with a mole on the board?

0x12 15y ago
iirc it was the XOR patent, here is one part of that story: http://xcssa.org/pipermail/xcssa/2005-February/002587.html http://xcssa.org/pipermail/xcssa/2005-February/002587.html I'm not sure if that was all there was to it and possibly there is room in there for a 'microsoft mole' somehow, but a single mole on the board of directors would be just a way to get information out, you can't destroy a company in a straightforward way. And such a mole would have to be compensated very well indeed to survive the breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits that would be leveled at him/her if it ever came out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary It's no joke to be accused of stuff like that.
- pohl 15y ago
  Hypothetically, would being the 8th largest individual shareholder of MSFT be large enough compensation to make a fiduciary suit an acceptable cost of doing business?
  - 0x12 15y ago
    In some places breach of fiduciary duty is a criminal offense. So you may very well end up in jail. I'm not sure there is adequate compensation for a risk like that. Being the 8th largest shareholder of MSFT might do the trick for some individuals but that's just another version of 'every man has his price'. For me I hope I'll never learn mine.

vegai 15y ago

They're just fricking phones, why do we care so much about this?

bauchidgw 15y ago

at a conference i talked with some nokia devs, two funny stories. 1) the N9 (the meego phone) will never be released in an english speaking country as marketing fears the tech blogger will write even more crap about their strategy change - as it is a quiete decent phone 2) even though the code for the N9 they do not get any test devices, the code in a very rudimentary ide only, as there is a no Meego phone for devs anymore policy on the other hamd, he was quiete drunk and frustrated so i do not know how mich of it is true

somebear 15y ago
Pretty much nothing. Disclaimer: I work as a software engineer at Nokia. Australia is very much an English speaking country (although we are at the ass-end of the world), and the N9 is getting a lot of active marketing here [1, 2]. I have also been working on the software for the N9, but most of my development has been on device, either on the N950 or the N9. We always grumble that we don't get enough devices, but these guys must have been frustrated about something else to go that far out. There were a lot of problems developing for the N9, don't get me wrong, but they were not endemic to MeeGo over Symbian or S40 where I've also worked. [1] http://press.nokia.com.au/nokia-n9-%E2%80%9Call-screen%E2%80%9D-smartphone-available-through-all-australian-operators-and-major-retailers/ http://press.nokia.com.au/nokia-n9-%E2%80%9Call-screen%E2%80... [2] http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nokia-N9-in-Beautifully-Simple-Marketing-Campaign-in-Australia-225971.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nokia-N9-in-Beautifully-Simpl...
- majika 15y ago
  Just in case you miss it, I made a comment parallel to yours to the parent. (POV of an Australian on the N9 and Nokia)
majika 15y ago
As somebear has said, the N9 is being heavily promoted in Australia at the moment. On my way to university every morning, I see about 2 or 3 bilboards or bus paintjobs advertising the N9. The ad is just a white background, a big blue Nokia logo, a stack of different-coloured N9s, and the text "beautifully simple." It's pretty obvious they're trying to break the perception (here, at least) of Nokia only offering cheap phones. I currently own an N900, so (a) I know what it's like being on an unsupported and unpopular platform (it sucks hard), and (b) I would buy an N9 in a heartbeat if Nokia had decided to stick with Meego. I'm a Linux user and use no Microsoft online services, so Windows Phones aren't attractive for me at all. By dropping Meego/Maemo (hacker types) and moving to WP, Nokia is dumping its last remaining fanbase. It's starting from zero, on an OS that's also starting from zero. My next phone will almost certainly be the Galaxy Nexus. WP will probably earn itself a small niche in the no-man's-land of smartphones between iOS' simplicity and Android's customisability and personalisation (WRT phone choice), but lacking the universality of both. I can't see it achieving wider adoption. Nokia will claim a slice of this small niche, but that's all it will have. WP can't survive on off-the-side interest from HTC and Samsung. Microsoft needs Nokia for WP to survive, so I fully expect Microsoft to purchase Nokia within the next five years. I think Nokia would've been able to survive on its own had it gone with Android (earning a smaller slice of the Android pie, but still much larger overall). I think most technical-oriented people recognise that Nokia's expertise is in hardware - a quality that the Android ecosystem is still lacking. Samsung is getting there, but the N9's build quality is generations ahead of any of the Galaxy phones. Nokia would always be my first choice in choosing an Android phone. It's a real pity. I think there's a strong point to be made that Elop's biases towards Microsoft have impacted Nokia for the worse.

nir 15y ago

As usual in Globalpost, attributing to malice what can be easily explained by stupidity. CEOs make dumb decisions every day without being anyone's mole.

sriramk 15y ago

One thing that all these ridiculous conspiracy theories miss is that Elop spent a very short time at MSFT - around 2 years. He seems to switch companies often, except for one long stint in Macromedia.

fpgeek 15y ago

The decision that never made sense to me was going all-in on WP7 instead of diversifying across MeeGo, WP7 and Android. When push comes to shove, getting Nokia to treat WP7 as a first-tier platform would have bought Microsoft just as big a win as Nokia going all-in. I'd argue it might even have been a bigger win because Nokia would look much less like a rudderless ship about to crash. Maybe Elop didn't negotiate hard enough, maybe he didn't have the vision, or maybe he was too influenced by his time at Microsoft. We'll probably never know.

tamersalama 15y ago

The article's picture is very well picked. It's as if they're talking to each other while covering their mouths.

boundhund 15y ago

Note: the parking lot was probably deserted because there is currently an industry-wide labour union dispute that prohibits working overtime.

YourAnMoran 15y ago
Not to mention that during the past six months, a significant amount of Nokia's engineers have either been laid off or found new employers on their own. It was a catchy way to begin the article but nothing more.

lakeeffect 15y ago

yes

moondowner 15y ago

You can argue that Elop isn't a mole, but putting such neglect on the N9 is a true evidence that they don't want any platform built at Nokia (Symbian, MeeGo) to succeed. Here's what the editor of GSMArena wrote in a recent post: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-review-659.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-review-659.php "Not shown much love by its own maker, the Nokia N9 is embraced by the consumers. You won’t see Stephen Elop getting all too fired up about MeeGo and spending hours explaining how it’s the best thing since Santa, sauna and the N95. But if you care to look, you'll notice thousands of people hitting our site each day to just check out the Nokia N9."

kermitthehermit 15y ago

Yes, he is, he's the trojan horse MS sent inside Nokia so they could "control" a large phone manufacturer.