10 ms·

I was there as this played out. Nokia had a lot of good software and software engineers but not the management structure to do anything good with that. Nokia w

I was there as this played out. Nokia had a lot of good software and software engineers but not the management structure to do anything good with that. Nokia was huge as an organization and parts of that organization recognized the threat early on. The problem was at the board and executive level. These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business. Lots of people with an electronics and radio background. Not a lot of people with software competence. And they had bought into the notion that Symbian was going to magically fix all their problems. A lot of effort was spent on looking for other solutions. And one of the things that was good (Linux) around 2005 was actually quite close to displacing Symbian as the key future proof replacement for their legacy platforms. Symbian was just rolling out for a few years and they had made a big investment in that. And management (those same people with a huge blind spot for software) backed the wrong horse. Linux never really died in Nokia but it wasn't allowed to prosper either. Devices were cancelled or repurposed for Symbian. This happened to the N8, for example. By the time they switched to windows phone, they actually had two Linux platforms (Meego and Meltemi) and an Android phone in the works as well. Meego had one last product phone launch and the team and platform were killed in the same week. Any devices for that platform were labeled as developer phones. Nokia never marketed them as a consumer phone. Meltemi never saw any product launch at all; it was aimed at feature phones. Both were good ideas but poorly executed. Nokia killed them along with Symbian in order to back windows phone. Classic baby and bathwater situation. And MS ended up killing the one Nokia Android phone that was launched shortly before they acquired the whole phone division. Kind of a desperate/ballsy move. I suspect Nokia did this as a stick to ensure MS followed through with the acquisition. That was their "oh we could just switch from windows phone to Android unless.. " move. Nokia was at point the only OEM that still believed in Windows Phone. MS killed the whole division shortly after Satya Nadella took over and was sorting out the mess left by Steve Ballmer. The iphone was solidly in charge by then and the rest of the market was Android. Courtesy of lots of Linux contributions by the Meego and Maemo team.

masom 2y ago
Nokia also had a ex-Microsoft exec (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop) that had the goal of ensuring Windows Phone would succeed, and tanked Nokia with it. I was on the DVLUP project where Nokia and Microsoft attempted to inject energy into windows phone app development. We could see the tension between the two companies as we were a 3rd party contracted by Nokia to build the platform. The Nokia exec we were in contact with was fantastic, and really tried to make Windows Phone a success. Unfortunately the Nokia IT teams we worked with were not happy and essentially tried to sabotage through inactions (we just needed OAuth / SSO to link accounts and track app installs, it took over 3 months of email chains within Nokia).
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Now I can't find that poem about Elop sinking the Nokia ship or something like that.
  - alain94040 2y ago
    This one, the burning platform memo? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698044
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      No it was more like a song or poem or Ahab kind of thing.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Was this around the time Microsoft kept switching what "windows phone" was? I remember that the one friend who got into it loved it, and then they released something completely incompatible and he abandoned the platform.
  - masom 2y ago
    Yes... If I remember we were aiming for the newly released "Windows 8"-based Phone OS, and the previous version was fully incompatible with it so all apps had to be redone. Tiles were the new thing to build for.
    - jandrese 2y ago
      Microsoft tried to do the same thing on the Desktop side too, but on the desktop they were forced to keep the backwards compatibility in place so it didn't finish off the platform the way it did on the Phone side. Amusingly Microsoft is still trying to make the walled garden happen. Lots of cheap Windows laptops and Desktops ship in what is called "Windows S" mode where only Microsoft Store apps are allowed to run. But again because PC owners don't abide that kind of bullcrap they also have to supply a way to tear down the walls (it's surprisingly easy, albeit permanent: just download and run a free app from the Windows store) if you want to use the machine in a normal way.
jagermo 2y ago
I remember that, too. Nokia even had an "app store" on a lot of their business series devices (the E-series), but it was clunky to use, had no payment options and was not really friendly for 3rd party developers. There was probably a window where, had Nokia pushed to compete with apple on that field, they could have gotten a leg up and kept Symbian and symbian apps in the race for (way) longer. But that invest and speed needed for software was probably not doable in the behemoth that was Nokia at that time.
- zekica 2y ago
  The worst thing with their store was the 3rd party review and signing process. For a time you also had to pay (a lot more than $99) to receive a developer certificate.
- mindtricks 2y ago
  As someone who was there, I recall numerous projects instituted to reduce the number of steps it took to even install an app on the device. It was mind-numbing to see what they were trying to extract themselves from.
jorvi 2y ago
> The iphone was solidly in charge by then Nit: the iPhone was only "in charge" for a brief year or two, and then Android ate its lunch in terms of marketshare. What is very interesting is that Apple has displayed twice over ( MacBooks and iPhones) that a minority marketshare can capture the vast majority of profits in that market. OEMs like HTC and LG made a few bucks profit off of any phone, sometimes even losing money on the cheaper models. And that's with Google footing almost all the cost of developing the OS.
- rdsubhas 2y ago
  ~Thrice. Airpods.~ Edit: Airpods also has a majority market share, so probably it's not the third in this list.
- afavour 2y ago
  I was a day one Android fan (got the Nexus One) but I'd actually debate what "in charge" means... to me it doesn't necessarily mean dominating market share. I think the iPhone defined the touch-based smartphone when it came out and continues to do so. These days Android has a much more cohesive concept (in the form of Material UI and so on) but in the early days it was just a hodgepodge mess of ideas, even if it dominated the market.
  - sleepybrett 2y ago
    it dominated the market because they seized the 'budget' smartphone market. Back in they hayday everyone dreaded a new android app coming into the shop because of all the absolute shit phones (slow cpus, tiny screens) the client wanted us to support because there were so many in the market (overseas). iPhone did and still does run the market, everyone else is a follower.
    - inquirerGeneral 2y ago
      [dead]
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > ...in the early days it was just a hodgepodge mess of ideas, even if it dominated the market. and it was glorious; the intent-system and Notifications drawers were Androids calling card. Intents were a blessing and a curse: being able to replace apps was great, but the variety in design language, not so much. Being able to reach into apps' storage was insecure, but freeing one's data from SQLite files was fantastic.
openrisk 2y ago
This is probably the most important bifurcation point in the history of European tech. Today's malaise and grasping for direction has much to do with the demise of this pioneering enterprise. And the fact that it does not appear to have been pre-ordained adds poignancy.
- spiralpolitik 2y ago
  European tech was doomed in late the 90s when the EU decided to throw in with Microsoft et al instead of supporting building out a homegrown alternative ecosystem based around open source software.
- wbl 2y ago
  No, the national champions model is the problem. If Apple failed the US still has Android and potentially many other startups. Europe just doesn't have the risk capital or ecosystem.
  - openrisk 2y ago
    Yes, but now it doesn't even have national champions. The last one standing with some pretense at being still with the times is probably ASML. One wonders whether at any point anybody will ask any tough questions about where Europe is heading as far as technology goes.
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      Lots of people are. The answer appears to be “down the drain”.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      I would put Novo Nordisk up there too. Not sure how Eli Lilly is doing so much better though, which I presume for both is due to advancing GLP-1s, but I thought Novo was first to market.
    - fire_lake 2y ago
      People forget that for a long time ASML was government backed
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
casenmgreen 2y ago
I worked, briefly, at Symbian. They were mind-bendingly, staggeringly, bureaucratic - like to an extent and in a way you absolutely could not imagine if you had not actually seen it with your own eyes.
- PeterStuer 2y ago
  I love Finland and the Fins. But there is a certain type in that population that is extremely bureaucratic. The only country in Europe that has a contingent that comes near is Switzerland, also a great place to live.
john61 2y ago
The Linux based Nokia N900 was the best phone I ever owned. With a bit of polish, finish and maturity it could have also been the best phone for the masses. RIP.
- badgersnake 2y ago
  The follow up N9 was that. It was great. Elop canned it. I had to import one from Australia. It was totally worth it.
  - jayelbe 2y ago
    I miss my N9 so badly! Without a doubt the best phone I've ever owned.
    - zeroc8 2y ago
      I wanted one, but then Elop killed it. I took quite a long time for Android to become as good.
- Twirrim 2y ago
  I loved my N810, but Maemo had so many little issues all over the place, it was reaching "Death by a thousand papercuts" territory. iPhone did what Apple used to do so well, which was obsess about the user experience.
- numerosix 2y ago
  I second that ! compact, unbreakable screen, real sliding keyboard with backlight, beautiful interface, true debian, a total shame, I regret it everyday. It was almost perfect. Tons of apps, even Waze! Android & iphone are pure shit. Rip n900...
afavour 2y ago
I had a Nokia Symbian phone, the 7610. I loved how 'quirky' it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7610#/media/File:Nokia7610.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7610#/media/File:Nokia76... and I was able to download an NES emulator for it! I remember playing Mario 3 on my way to my first post-university job. I really felt like I was living in the future compared to the phones others had. And then Symbian just... never got better. I was ambivalent about the MS purchase of Nokia but I was still optimistic about a lot of it. Nokia always made top-notch hardware but it was obvious from the outside that they just didn't have the software talent (the N900 was a wonderful device for the tech set but it had no mass market viability). I maintain that when it was released Windows Phone was the best mobile OS going. But Microsoft fumbled hard by reinventing the wheel with Windows Phone 8 and destroying an already emaciated App Store. Arguably they fumbled before they even released Windows Phone, spending $1bn on the Kin and then almost immediately nixing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin Looking back at it all today... iOS is fine. Android is fine. But man do I wish we still had a couple of other viable competitors in there.
- kawsper 2y ago
  The N-series were great too, I loved both my N73 and later a N82, both with Gameboy emulators. I also bought a Garmin license where I could install Garmin on my Symbian phone to do car navigation on my phone, this was at a time where most people had specific hardware for GPS navigation, now we're used to having apps on our phones, but it felt quite special back then!
cbozeman 2y ago
> MS killed the whole division shortly after Satya Nadella took over and was sorting out the mess left by Steve Ballmer. These have always been the real crimes in my mind. Ballmer wasn't an idea guy, he was a top-tier salesman / cheerleader, and he definitely "understood" what actually made Microsoft successful (put out a product, then allow third-party developers and support to extend it / support / learn it inside out and be a VAR). Ballmer made the same mistake a lot of people in that era made, which is that they didn't realize the software was the most important component. The era of "killer hardware" never actually existed in the smartphone space, because you had a limited form factor to begin with. You couldn't cram an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra in your phone, so your software had to be useful and on-point. I think Satya saw the entire Windows Phone debacle as a failed experiment and probably looked at Apple / Google and just threw his hands up in frustration. Getting developers onboard for Windows Phone was critical and not enough time, money, and attention was spent doing that. I think there was a degree of Microsoft arrogance there, along the lines of, "We're Microsoft, of course they're going to develop for our platform..." Meanwhile, in 2024, the Windows App Store is still a barren hellscape compared to even the App Store for OS X and you don't even want to talk about Google Play Store and iOS App Store vs Windows Store. The prophecy was fulfilled - software will eat the world.
- jjfoooo4 2y ago
  Wasn’t it already too late by the time Ballmer left?
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    Yes and no. Too late to take on Apple, but Microsoft could have persisted as a loss leader and finally at least had Enterprise Mobile in its pocket. Just don't actively burn third party developers. It would have been too late for courting hardware OEMs by then I reckon, though.
- dev_daftly 2y ago
  Ballmer, the person who pushed for and created the entire Microsoft Enterprise focus, is not an idea guy that understood what made Microsoft successful? This idea that Ballmer was some goof when he was actually considered a co-founder by Bill Gates which is why he received like 17% of the company when he joined. Also, they put plenty of effort into getting developers to onboard windows phone. They even created multiple platforms that allowed devs to create a single app that worked across all windows devices(pc, phone, xbox) but developers decided, with some very influential devs being extremely vocal, that is was some sort of power grab to force devs to only deliver their software through the windows store.
agumonkey 2y ago
> These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business I believe Sony failed to transition for similar reasons. They really owned the hardware era with its own kind of ui, pattern ... but everything they did in software was lacking.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  So many manufacturing companies fail at software. They think of software like it's any other component on the BOM. As if it's just like a screw or a piece of molded plastic: Build the cheapest "software part" that meets the requirements (or buy it from a "supplier"), and then bolt it onto the product some time during assembly. They don't think of software as a major component of their brand. They don't think of software as the user's interface to (and perception of) the product. They don't think of software as an ecosystem with updates, a changing security landscape, and third party developers and integrators. It's just one of 500 things on the BOM that gets sourced and assembled. I've seen companies where each branch in the software repo is named with a part number, and they're all somewhat similar, copy-pasted around from one another, but with no real concept of what's an earlier or later version or updates, no concept of where the codebase came from or is going, and no real structure other than "This software blob is part 003-2291-54 for product 003-2291-00. The product is shipped and we will never look at the code again."
  - pjc50 2y ago
    This is very visible in places like TVs/set-top-boxes, which are always chronically awful and slow, and now cars are filling up with terrible software. Which they want to charge a subscription for.
    - drdaeman 2y ago
      And the problem is, people buy this. The markets are completely broken. And the worst of it - it's unlikely this will be addressed, most likely it'll only get worse.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
clippy99 2y ago
> Symbian was going to magically fix all their problems. Really? I remember Symbian had the crappiest and most shoestring C++ dev stack ever.
joshmarinacci 2y ago
I was there during the end of the Windows Phone era and can confirm. There were even efforts for additional Linux based OSes post windows phone. Nokia just never had software in their DNA.
asimovfan 2y ago
So Microsoft also killed linux on phones basically. I had a n900. Best phone ever.
- burnte 2y ago
  I had the N800 and then the N810 which was one of my favorite devices ever. Then I got the N900 and what a disappointment it was. I wish I could get an N810 with modern internals.
mindtricks 2y ago
I was also at Nokia during this time and recall OPK (Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo), during a visit to the Beijing office, giving a talk where he talked about the difficulties of pushing new things through the organization. More specifically, he said that even he would push for investment and innovation in one area, but that as the decision made its way through the org, it became something else. It was an odd moment to see a CEO say something like this, and was a clear indicator to me that we didn't have what was necessary to really pivot the way we needed.
teekert 2y ago
I really liked Windows phone. Had a Lumia 800. Nice phone. I still think they should have kept going with it.
qingcharles 2y ago
I was working externally for Nokia around 2004~2006. They were already competing with Apple at this point. Nokia were scared by the iPod and the Rokr. They wanted to secure the mobile and online music market. They were trying to beat Apple at iTunes, to the point where they gobbled up one of Apple's biggest competitors in the music space (OD2-Loudeye). When the iPhone launched it showed Nokia was woefully behind. All their devices instantly felt like they were from a previous age. Delaware State Lost Property says I still have a bunch of Nokia shares to collect apparently lol
dismalaf 2y ago
Ugh, Meego was so good. I still remember watching the presentation, then Nokia tanking when it was announced they were switching to Windows. Imagine a world where Meego, a proper Linux, took over instead of Android. And I like Android as a product, but the software stack is so strange...
rawgabbit 2y ago
The presentation is evidence itself that Nokia was bureaucratic and unlikely to stay competitive. The PPT was supposedly about the iPhone but the (well put together) slides for that don't start until page 14. Credit was given to Timo Partanen, along with contributions from Scott Cooper, Gordon Murray-Smith and Sanna Puha. Pages 3 through 11 were market analysis. Boring and irrelevant. The only message that should have been given is that iPhone will disrupt the market and Nokia desperately needs to create a competitive "cool" product. The presentation said several times the iPhone was "cool" because of its UI and touch interface versus "buttons". But I think they missed the point. The iPhone was a new category i.e. it was more of a computer than a phone with some computing abilities. The "recommended" actions slide is on page 12 & 13. I assume this was created by Peter Bryer as his name was listed on top of the first page. It lists 10 recommendations along with sub recommendations. For a large bureaucratic company, good luck getting one recommendation executed. Besides, all ten recommendations missed the point. This was the automobile replacing the horse and buggy. Nokia wanted to tweak their way through. They eventually tried to partner with a "software" company in Microsoft; but Microsoft at that time was the geriatric helping the geriatric. I would argue Nokia would have given themselves a better chance of success by creating a "skunk works". Assemble their best engineers and designers into one team and free from interference from all the internal politics. Their goal would be to create a POC that could rival the iPhone's "cool factor". And do it in 6 months.
- SSLy 2y ago
  BTW, an actual skunk-works project that delivered is the only way that current nokia hasn't collapsed yet again.
  - axython 2y ago
    Which project?
    - SSLy 2y ago
      SRAN
rcarmo 2y ago
I'm very late to the party here, but as a smartphone product manager at Vodafone I had a front-row seat to the entire arc--which actually started with many telcos being angry at Nokia for their arrogance and near-monopoly, before the iPhone came out. Nokia never really had a chance--the N-series was a mess of patched software, they had no real Linux alternative, and their supply chain was fragmented six ways from Sunday because they churned out dozens of SKUs. Then everyone went into denial because they couldn't believe Apple would be successful by going outside established norms (like refusing to customize the homescreen or packaging for telcos, etc.). A few telcos tried to respond by picking their own champion smartphone (Verizon did that in the US). I ended up having to talk my CMO out of going all out on promoting the Blackberry Storm (which was a dud of epic proportions). I later became the product manager for the iPhone as well, and that was an amazing roller coaster I will eventually write about (it's been around 17 years, so I think I'll get to it sometime soon). But I would recommend folk interested in the intervening years to read Operation Elop: https://asokan.org/operation-elop/ https://asokan.org/operation-elop/ I also had a front row seat to that...
- yabatopia 2y ago
  That’s how I remember Nokia in the first half of the 2000’s: peak arrogance. Even if Steve Jobs himself would have given them the iPhone for free, they would have rejected it.
hilux 2y ago
Something clicked for me when I read your comment: the most amazing thing about Apple is that despite their corporate immensity, they still continue to ship generation after generation of cool products that compete and sell on their own merits. You don't have to be a fanboy to appreciate that. Almost no other tech company that I can think of has been able to resist bureaucratic ossification. (Perhaps Adobe - to an extent?)
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Really? To me, for example iPhones haven't changed at all in a long time, they get spec bumps but are essentially the same product, and people buy replacements mostly because of batteries going bad / apps bloating / fashion. Apple's new products are surprisingly often failures, for their background. Vision Pro anyone?
  - hilux 2y ago
    Consumers always have the choice to buy a different phone. And in the case of buying an iPhone, they have the choice to buy a much cheaper phone. That so many of us continue to buy iPhones is proof that Apple is doing something very right. And that shows, and this is my main point, that they have impressively avoided being bogged down by megacorp bureaucracy.
freetonik 2y ago
>The problem was at the board and executive level. These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business. A very common story in European tech and automobile companies.
b8 2y ago
Why didn't Nokia go bankrupt afterwards? They have Bell Labs, but don't make any interesting products.
- stephen_g 2y ago
  Nokia has a pretty successful business in things like cellular base stations, carrier networking, etc. - for example they brought their joint venture with Siemens (Nokia Siemens Networks) back in-house by buying Siemens' part out, and that does a lot of optical network stuff (DWDM backhaul equipment, etc), already had a cellular base-station business but then also bought competitor Alcatel Lucent, and a lot of provider network stuff came in with that (like FTTH equipment on the provider side). They also got Alcatel's undersea cable laying division. So they still have a bunch of valuable and successful businesses even though their consumer business went to crap.
  - hnuser123456 2y ago
    So they gained a reputation for reliability/durability and pivoted to infra?
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      Nokia had, for example, excellent RF engineering talent. Personal anecdote: back in the day a Nokia phone would get a call through when other brands didn't, on the same telco. That talent found great use in cellular base stations. Nokia has been making them for a long time, no real pivot involved, more like a split of a conglomerate into per-vertical businesses. Fun fact: Nokia started as a pulp mill, they made tires and rubber boots, and so on. Think Mitsubishi or such.
pjmlp 2y ago
Same here, I was in Espoo the week after the Burning Memo, and not a single person I met was happy with it. Especially given how much prevalent the UNIX culture was at Nokia.

masom 2y ago

Nokia also had a ex-Microsoft exec (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop) that had the goal of ensuring Windows Phone would succeed, and tanked Nokia with it. I was on the DVLUP project where Nokia and Microsoft attempted to inject energy into windows phone app development. We could see the tension between the two companies as we were a 3rd party contracted by Nokia to build the platform. The Nokia exec we were in contact with was fantastic, and really tried to make Windows Phone a success. Unfortunately the Nokia IT teams we worked with were not happy and essentially tried to sabotage through inactions (we just needed OAuth / SSO to link accounts and track app installs, it took over 3 months of email chains within Nokia).

actionfromafar 2y ago
Now I can't find that poem about Elop sinking the Nokia ship or something like that.
- alain94040 2y ago
  This one, the burning platform memo? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698044
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    No it was more like a song or poem or Ahab kind of thing.
bombcar 2y ago
Was this around the time Microsoft kept switching what "windows phone" was? I remember that the one friend who got into it loved it, and then they released something completely incompatible and he abandoned the platform.
- masom 2y ago
  Yes... If I remember we were aiming for the newly released "Windows 8"-based Phone OS, and the previous version was fully incompatible with it so all apps had to be redone. Tiles were the new thing to build for.
  - jandrese 2y ago
    Microsoft tried to do the same thing on the Desktop side too, but on the desktop they were forced to keep the backwards compatibility in place so it didn't finish off the platform the way it did on the Phone side. Amusingly Microsoft is still trying to make the walled garden happen. Lots of cheap Windows laptops and Desktops ship in what is called "Windows S" mode where only Microsoft Store apps are allowed to run. But again because PC owners don't abide that kind of bullcrap they also have to supply a way to tear down the walls (it's surprisingly easy, albeit permanent: just download and run a free app from the Windows store) if you want to use the machine in a normal way.

jagermo 2y ago

I remember that, too. Nokia even had an "app store" on a lot of their business series devices (the E-series), but it was clunky to use, had no payment options and was not really friendly for 3rd party developers. There was probably a window where, had Nokia pushed to compete with apple on that field, they could have gotten a leg up and kept Symbian and symbian apps in the race for (way) longer. But that invest and speed needed for software was probably not doable in the behemoth that was Nokia at that time.

zekica 2y ago
The worst thing with their store was the 3rd party review and signing process. For a time you also had to pay (a lot more than $99) to receive a developer certificate.
mindtricks 2y ago
As someone who was there, I recall numerous projects instituted to reduce the number of steps it took to even install an app on the device. It was mind-numbing to see what they were trying to extract themselves from.

jorvi 2y ago

> The iphone was solidly in charge by then Nit: the iPhone was only "in charge" for a brief year or two, and then Android ate its lunch in terms of marketshare. What is very interesting is that Apple has displayed twice over ( MacBooks and iPhones) that a minority marketshare can capture the vast majority of profits in that market. OEMs like HTC and LG made a few bucks profit off of any phone, sometimes even losing money on the cheaper models. And that's with Google footing almost all the cost of developing the OS.

rdsubhas 2y ago
~Thrice. Airpods.~ Edit: Airpods also has a majority market share, so probably it's not the third in this list.
afavour 2y ago
I was a day one Android fan (got the Nexus One) but I'd actually debate what "in charge" means... to me it doesn't necessarily mean dominating market share. I think the iPhone defined the touch-based smartphone when it came out and continues to do so. These days Android has a much more cohesive concept (in the form of Material UI and so on) but in the early days it was just a hodgepodge mess of ideas, even if it dominated the market.
- sleepybrett 2y ago
  it dominated the market because they seized the 'budget' smartphone market. Back in they hayday everyone dreaded a new android app coming into the shop because of all the absolute shit phones (slow cpus, tiny screens) the client wanted us to support because there were so many in the market (overseas). iPhone did and still does run the market, everyone else is a follower.
  - inquirerGeneral 2y ago
    [dead]
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > ...in the early days it was just a hodgepodge mess of ideas, even if it dominated the market. and it was glorious; the intent-system and Notifications drawers were Androids calling card. Intents were a blessing and a curse: being able to replace apps was great, but the variety in design language, not so much. Being able to reach into apps' storage was insecure, but freeing one's data from SQLite files was fantastic.

openrisk 2y ago

This is probably the most important bifurcation point in the history of European tech. Today's malaise and grasping for direction has much to do with the demise of this pioneering enterprise. And the fact that it does not appear to have been pre-ordained adds poignancy.

spiralpolitik 2y ago
European tech was doomed in late the 90s when the EU decided to throw in with Microsoft et al instead of supporting building out a homegrown alternative ecosystem based around open source software.
wbl 2y ago
No, the national champions model is the problem. If Apple failed the US still has Android and potentially many other startups. Europe just doesn't have the risk capital or ecosystem.
- openrisk 2y ago
  Yes, but now it doesn't even have national champions. The last one standing with some pretense at being still with the times is probably ASML. One wonders whether at any point anybody will ask any tough questions about where Europe is heading as far as technology goes.
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    Lots of people are. The answer appears to be “down the drain”.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    I would put Novo Nordisk up there too. Not sure how Eli Lilly is doing so much better though, which I presume for both is due to advancing GLP-1s, but I thought Novo was first to market.
  - fire_lake 2y ago
    People forget that for a long time ASML was government backed

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

casenmgreen 2y ago

I worked, briefly, at Symbian. They were mind-bendingly, staggeringly, bureaucratic - like to an extent and in a way you absolutely could not imagine if you had not actually seen it with your own eyes.

PeterStuer 2y ago
I love Finland and the Fins. But there is a certain type in that population that is extremely bureaucratic. The only country in Europe that has a contingent that comes near is Switzerland, also a great place to live.

john61 2y ago

The Linux based Nokia N900 was the best phone I ever owned. With a bit of polish, finish and maturity it could have also been the best phone for the masses. RIP.

badgersnake 2y ago
The follow up N9 was that. It was great. Elop canned it. I had to import one from Australia. It was totally worth it.
- jayelbe 2y ago
  I miss my N9 so badly! Without a doubt the best phone I've ever owned.
  - zeroc8 2y ago
    I wanted one, but then Elop killed it. I took quite a long time for Android to become as good.
Twirrim 2y ago
I loved my N810, but Maemo had so many little issues all over the place, it was reaching "Death by a thousand papercuts" territory. iPhone did what Apple used to do so well, which was obsess about the user experience.
numerosix 2y ago
I second that ! compact, unbreakable screen, real sliding keyboard with backlight, beautiful interface, true debian, a total shame, I regret it everyday. It was almost perfect. Tons of apps, even Waze! Android & iphone are pure shit. Rip n900...

afavour 2y ago

I had a Nokia Symbian phone, the 7610. I loved how 'quirky' it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7610#/media/File:Nokia7610.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7610#/media/File:Nokia76... and I was able to download an NES emulator for it! I remember playing Mario 3 on my way to my first post-university job. I really felt like I was living in the future compared to the phones others had. And then Symbian just... never got better. I was ambivalent about the MS purchase of Nokia but I was still optimistic about a lot of it. Nokia always made top-notch hardware but it was obvious from the outside that they just didn't have the software talent (the N900 was a wonderful device for the tech set but it had no mass market viability). I maintain that when it was released Windows Phone was the best mobile OS going. But Microsoft fumbled hard by reinventing the wheel with Windows Phone 8 and destroying an already emaciated App Store. Arguably they fumbled before they even released Windows Phone, spending $1bn on the Kin and then almost immediately nixing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin Looking back at it all today... iOS is fine. Android is fine. But man do I wish we still had a couple of other viable competitors in there.

kawsper 2y ago
The N-series were great too, I loved both my N73 and later a N82, both with Gameboy emulators. I also bought a Garmin license where I could install Garmin on my Symbian phone to do car navigation on my phone, this was at a time where most people had specific hardware for GPS navigation, now we're used to having apps on our phones, but it felt quite special back then!

cbozeman 2y ago

> MS killed the whole division shortly after Satya Nadella took over and was sorting out the mess left by Steve Ballmer. These have always been the real crimes in my mind. Ballmer wasn't an idea guy, he was a top-tier salesman / cheerleader, and he definitely "understood" what actually made Microsoft successful (put out a product, then allow third-party developers and support to extend it / support / learn it inside out and be a VAR). Ballmer made the same mistake a lot of people in that era made, which is that they didn't realize the software was the most important component. The era of "killer hardware" never actually existed in the smartphone space, because you had a limited form factor to begin with. You couldn't cram an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra in your phone, so your software had to be useful and on-point. I think Satya saw the entire Windows Phone debacle as a failed experiment and probably looked at Apple / Google and just threw his hands up in frustration. Getting developers onboard for Windows Phone was critical and not enough time, money, and attention was spent doing that. I think there was a degree of Microsoft arrogance there, along the lines of, "We're Microsoft, of course they're going to develop for our platform..." Meanwhile, in 2024, the Windows App Store is still a barren hellscape compared to even the App Store for OS X and you don't even want to talk about Google Play Store and iOS App Store vs Windows Store. The prophecy was fulfilled - software will eat the world.

jjfoooo4 2y ago
Wasn’t it already too late by the time Ballmer left?
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Yes and no. Too late to take on Apple, but Microsoft could have persisted as a loss leader and finally at least had Enterprise Mobile in its pocket. Just don't actively burn third party developers. It would have been too late for courting hardware OEMs by then I reckon, though.
dev_daftly 2y ago
Ballmer, the person who pushed for and created the entire Microsoft Enterprise focus, is not an idea guy that understood what made Microsoft successful? This idea that Ballmer was some goof when he was actually considered a co-founder by Bill Gates which is why he received like 17% of the company when he joined. Also, they put plenty of effort into getting developers to onboard windows phone. They even created multiple platforms that allowed devs to create a single app that worked across all windows devices(pc, phone, xbox) but developers decided, with some very influential devs being extremely vocal, that is was some sort of power grab to force devs to only deliver their software through the windows store.

agumonkey 2y ago

> These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business I believe Sony failed to transition for similar reasons. They really owned the hardware era with its own kind of ui, pattern ... but everything they did in software was lacking.

ryandrake 2y ago
So many manufacturing companies fail at software. They think of software like it's any other component on the BOM. As if it's just like a screw or a piece of molded plastic: Build the cheapest "software part" that meets the requirements (or buy it from a "supplier"), and then bolt it onto the product some time during assembly. They don't think of software as a major component of their brand. They don't think of software as the user's interface to (and perception of) the product. They don't think of software as an ecosystem with updates, a changing security landscape, and third party developers and integrators. It's just one of 500 things on the BOM that gets sourced and assembled. I've seen companies where each branch in the software repo is named with a part number, and they're all somewhat similar, copy-pasted around from one another, but with no real concept of what's an earlier or later version or updates, no concept of where the codebase came from or is going, and no real structure other than "This software blob is part 003-2291-54 for product 003-2291-00. The product is shipped and we will never look at the code again."
- pjc50 2y ago
  This is very visible in places like TVs/set-top-boxes, which are always chronically awful and slow, and now cars are filling up with terrible software. Which they want to charge a subscription for.
  - drdaeman 2y ago
    And the problem is, people buy this. The markets are completely broken. And the worst of it - it's unlikely this will be addressed, most likely it'll only get worse.
  - ryandrake 2y ago

clippy99 2y ago

> Symbian was going to magically fix all their problems. Really? I remember Symbian had the crappiest and most shoestring C++ dev stack ever.

joshmarinacci 2y ago

I was there during the end of the Windows Phone era and can confirm. There were even efforts for additional Linux based OSes post windows phone. Nokia just never had software in their DNA.

asimovfan 2y ago

So Microsoft also killed linux on phones basically. I had a n900. Best phone ever.

burnte 2y ago
I had the N800 and then the N810 which was one of my favorite devices ever. Then I got the N900 and what a disappointment it was. I wish I could get an N810 with modern internals.

mindtricks 2y ago

I was also at Nokia during this time and recall OPK (Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo), during a visit to the Beijing office, giving a talk where he talked about the difficulties of pushing new things through the organization. More specifically, he said that even he would push for investment and innovation in one area, but that as the decision made its way through the org, it became something else. It was an odd moment to see a CEO say something like this, and was a clear indicator to me that we didn't have what was necessary to really pivot the way we needed.

teekert 2y ago

I really liked Windows phone. Had a Lumia 800. Nice phone. I still think they should have kept going with it.

qingcharles 2y ago

I was working externally for Nokia around 2004~2006. They were already competing with Apple at this point. Nokia were scared by the iPod and the Rokr. They wanted to secure the mobile and online music market. They were trying to beat Apple at iTunes, to the point where they gobbled up one of Apple's biggest competitors in the music space (OD2-Loudeye). When the iPhone launched it showed Nokia was woefully behind. All their devices instantly felt like they were from a previous age. Delaware State Lost Property says I still have a bunch of Nokia shares to collect apparently lol

dismalaf 2y ago

Ugh, Meego was so good. I still remember watching the presentation, then Nokia tanking when it was announced they were switching to Windows. Imagine a world where Meego, a proper Linux, took over instead of Android. And I like Android as a product, but the software stack is so strange...

rawgabbit 2y ago

The presentation is evidence itself that Nokia was bureaucratic and unlikely to stay competitive. The PPT was supposedly about the iPhone but the (well put together) slides for that don't start until page 14. Credit was given to Timo Partanen, along with contributions from Scott Cooper, Gordon Murray-Smith and Sanna Puha. Pages 3 through 11 were market analysis. Boring and irrelevant. The only message that should have been given is that iPhone will disrupt the market and Nokia desperately needs to create a competitive "cool" product. The presentation said several times the iPhone was "cool" because of its UI and touch interface versus "buttons". But I think they missed the point. The iPhone was a new category i.e. it was more of a computer than a phone with some computing abilities. The "recommended" actions slide is on page 12 & 13. I assume this was created by Peter Bryer as his name was listed on top of the first page. It lists 10 recommendations along with sub recommendations. For a large bureaucratic company, good luck getting one recommendation executed. Besides, all ten recommendations missed the point. This was the automobile replacing the horse and buggy. Nokia wanted to tweak their way through. They eventually tried to partner with a "software" company in Microsoft; but Microsoft at that time was the geriatric helping the geriatric. I would argue Nokia would have given themselves a better chance of success by creating a "skunk works". Assemble their best engineers and designers into one team and free from interference from all the internal politics. Their goal would be to create a POC that could rival the iPhone's "cool factor". And do it in 6 months.

SSLy 2y ago
BTW, an actual skunk-works project that delivered is the only way that current nokia hasn't collapsed yet again.
- axython 2y ago
  Which project?
  - SSLy 2y ago
    SRAN

rcarmo 2y ago

I'm very late to the party here, but as a smartphone product manager at Vodafone I had a front-row seat to the entire arc--which actually started with many telcos being angry at Nokia for their arrogance and near-monopoly, before the iPhone came out. Nokia never really had a chance--the N-series was a mess of patched software, they had no real Linux alternative, and their supply chain was fragmented six ways from Sunday because they churned out dozens of SKUs. Then everyone went into denial because they couldn't believe Apple would be successful by going outside established norms (like refusing to customize the homescreen or packaging for telcos, etc.). A few telcos tried to respond by picking their own champion smartphone (Verizon did that in the US). I ended up having to talk my CMO out of going all out on promoting the Blackberry Storm (which was a dud of epic proportions). I later became the product manager for the iPhone as well, and that was an amazing roller coaster I will eventually write about (it's been around 17 years, so I think I'll get to it sometime soon). But I would recommend folk interested in the intervening years to read Operation Elop: https://asokan.org/operation-elop/ https://asokan.org/operation-elop/ I also had a front row seat to that...

yabatopia 2y ago
That’s how I remember Nokia in the first half of the 2000’s: peak arrogance. Even if Steve Jobs himself would have given them the iPhone for free, they would have rejected it.

hilux 2y ago

Something clicked for me when I read your comment: the most amazing thing about Apple is that despite their corporate immensity, they still continue to ship generation after generation of cool products that compete and sell on their own merits. You don't have to be a fanboy to appreciate that. Almost no other tech company that I can think of has been able to resist bureaucratic ossification. (Perhaps Adobe - to an extent?)

yencabulator 2y ago
Really? To me, for example iPhones haven't changed at all in a long time, they get spec bumps but are essentially the same product, and people buy replacements mostly because of batteries going bad / apps bloating / fashion. Apple's new products are surprisingly often failures, for their background. Vision Pro anyone?
- hilux 2y ago
  Consumers always have the choice to buy a different phone. And in the case of buying an iPhone, they have the choice to buy a much cheaper phone. That so many of us continue to buy iPhones is proof that Apple is doing something very right. And that shows, and this is my main point, that they have impressively avoided being bogged down by megacorp bureaucracy.

freetonik 2y ago

>The problem was at the board and executive level. These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business. A very common story in European tech and automobile companies.

b8 2y ago

Why didn't Nokia go bankrupt afterwards? They have Bell Labs, but don't make any interesting products.

stephen_g 2y ago
Nokia has a pretty successful business in things like cellular base stations, carrier networking, etc. - for example they brought their joint venture with Siemens (Nokia Siemens Networks) back in-house by buying Siemens' part out, and that does a lot of optical network stuff (DWDM backhaul equipment, etc), already had a cellular base-station business but then also bought competitor Alcatel Lucent, and a lot of provider network stuff came in with that (like FTTH equipment on the provider side). They also got Alcatel's undersea cable laying division. So they still have a bunch of valuable and successful businesses even though their consumer business went to crap.
- hnuser123456 2y ago
  So they gained a reputation for reliability/durability and pivoted to infra?
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    Nokia had, for example, excellent RF engineering talent. Personal anecdote: back in the day a Nokia phone would get a call through when other brands didn't, on the same telco. That talent found great use in cellular base stations. Nokia has been making them for a long time, no real pivot involved, more like a split of a conglomerate into per-vertical businesses. Fun fact: Nokia started as a pulp mill, they made tires and rubber boots, and so on. Think Mitsubishi or such.

pjmlp 2y ago

Same here, I was in Espoo the week after the Burning Memo, and not a single person I met was happy with it. Especially given how much prevalent the UNIX culture was at Nokia.