10 ms·

Elop running out of time to turn Nokia around

25 points by denzil_correa 14y ago

lawdawg 14y ago
When people ask why Nokia isn't selling a lot of Lumias, most people, correctly, answer "Windows Phone". Going with Android puts them in a much better position than Windows Phone for a lot of reasons, and every negative that can be said about going with Android (minus the OS differences) can be said about Windows Phone. The only difference is that Nokia is pretty much the only OEM that is all-in with Windows Phone, but once WP becomes popular, whats to stop Samsung, etc from making more WPs? Nothing really, and at that point, Nokia will only be able to distinguish itself with its hardware (since there are limited/no OEM/carrier modifications allowed to WP) which is WORSE off than if they were using Android right now.
mtgx 14y ago
The real link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-nokia-strategy-idUSBRE88I0IQ20120919 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-nokia-strategy-... I wonder if they will quickly switch to Android if they will kick Elop out and decide the Microsoft partnership has failed. That would be great news in my book.
- matt4711 14y ago
  there are so many established android players already. I doubt that would help them much. At least the premium W8 strategy differentiates them from samsung and co.
  - tluyben2 14y ago
    That's true, but people are not really buying. And Nokia still is popular in a lot of low wage countries now and they would want to buy Androids at sub $100, while not Windows over $200.
    - untog 14y ago
      Why not Windows at sub $100? It's definitely a market MS are targeting.
      - tluyben2 14y ago
        That would be smart, but seems they are doing high end (tablets + phones) at the moment with WP8.
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    I'm sure Microsoft would be content to continue to allow Nokia to pursue Windows Phone in a non-exclusive relationship. No reason Nokia shouldn't be releasing high-end, high-demand Android units that sell like hot cakes, the same way HTC, Samsung, et al have done several times each since the G1. Maybe it'd keep them out of bankruptcy long enough to allow another couple batches of Windows units.
  - bad_user 14y ago
    It would be pretty easy for Nokia to enter the Android market. All it would need to do is to create 2 phone models, one for the low end, one for the high end, both with good build quality and that come in various colors. And on the software side all they'd need to do would be to install the stock Android distribution, with the logistics and resources necessary to release Android updates over-the-air as soon as possible, while giving the insurance that customers will get updates for 2 years after they've bought the phone. They could also disallow carries from installing crap on these phones. They could further differentiate by bundling those phones with some premium Nokia apps, like an alternative to Google Maps with better offline capabilities. Then they should also build an Android tablet, because there's really no competition to the iPad. Like really, there are lots of Android "players" out there, but (1) Nokia still has resources and a huge distribution network available with lots of partners + (2) Android's true potential has yet to reveal itself and the pie will get a lot bigger + (3) everybody is doing it wrong.
    - se85 14y ago
      It's really no where near as simple as that, not even close. There is lots of politics, and red tape to keep in mind as well that has to be overcome before they can even think about Android, let alone delivering on it. Getting rid of Elop, really doesn't change this painful process of software migration (which is never, ever "pretty easy") or everyone else that thinks Nokia/Android is a terrible idea from a business perspective (it is). Nokia has already had to go through all of this recently to accomodate the Microsoft Plan, and it is just extremely unlikely that a company the size of Nokia could survive a second transition and come out the other end smelling like roses. We are talking at least a year (and thats being very conservative and ignoring all existing and future plans that are currently in place that would need to be dismantled) before there would be a tangible Nokia Android product. There is also the large layoffs and rehires that would need to occur during this transition and this stuff takes time, lots of time when talking about a company at the scale of Nokia. I'd imagine they would lose lots of partners over this transition as well, the list is endless. My bet is it would be another year or two on top of that before Nokia was at its current state as of today on the market with Android instead of Windows, except the market will be much bigger, and Nokia will be much smaller, but hey at least they have an Android phone right? ;-) I'm sure Microsoft has Nokia by the balls as well (contractually speaking), which is just another reason amongst many others not to attempt such a transition from the business perspective. Also, it would be a very tough sell to the stakeholders, and upper management, as well as everyone else on the front lines that such a move would yield anything for Nokia besides a quicker path to hard times ahead and/or bankruptcy. The cards are all on the table, it's too late to make an "effective" transition and they know this. In an ideal world, business wouldn't get in the way of releasing a good product, but in the real world, business almost always mandates what the product is, and in Nokia's case, the business decision was made years ago and it is not something they can pivot on overnight like your typical Sillicon Valley startup.
  - jsight 14y ago
    If they released the Lumia 920 w/ Android 4.1, it would immediately be the second best selling Android phone, IMO.
- forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
  "I wonder if they will quickly switch to Android if they will kick Elop out and decide the Microsoft partnership has failed." That is extremely unlikely. Nokia with Symbian was a Unix shop. They purged all of them for Windows or they just left. It was extremely painful. Now are they going to take the "Windows enviroment devs" and replace it again by Android experts?. Not going to happen. I said it when the MS deal was known and I repeat it today. In all Microsoft partnerships Microsoft always wins, partners are f*cked. It has always been that way. Nokia will burn and Microsoft will buy it cheaply to compete with Apple in tablets. That was the idea from (Nokia)investors from day 1, most of them are American, they want Nokia in Silicon Valley.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    >That is extremely unlikely. Nokia with Symbian was a Unix shop. They purged all of them for Windows or they just left. It was extremely painful. And Nokia was too busy with the infighting among the different Symbian groups(which didn't even share source code!) for almost 4 years to actually develop a coherent answer to the iPhone. Microsoft is paying Nokia a billion dollars a year to tide over difficult times, Elop asked Google for a similar deal to switch to Android instead and Google told them to take a hike. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567... >I said it when the MS deal was known and I repeat it today. In all Microsoft partnerships Microsoft always wins, partners are f*cked. Just because you repeat something doesn't make it true. Just read up on the history and early days of Compaq and Dell, to take just two examples out of very many that have profited in partnership with Microsoft. Nitpicking on a couple of examples doesn't help your case. For example, Apple used Read it Later's open source code in Safari, but then banned the app from the App Store for not paying the 30% toll on subscriptions! >That was the idea from (Nokia)investors from day 1, most of them are American, they want Nokia in Silicon Valley. Any references, or is that just idle speculation?
  - biafra 14y ago
    Nokia with Symbian was never a Unix Shop. The endorsed dev environment was eclipse on windows. Makesis (needed to create signed SIS packages) was windows only. I tried severl times to get a dev enviromnent setup on something else an windows. IIRC this was impossible at least until 2008. Then I started Android development and never looked back. I"d guess it is still impossible to build, package and sign Symbian apps on something different than Windows.
kisstheblade 14y ago
What about companies with outlook calendaring, isn't this a "killer app" where WP8 would shine? Or does exchange sync work flawlessly on android/iphone? Technically the lumia 920 is at least on par with the iphone, in many ways even better and more innovative. The iphone just has such a strong brand with people willing to spend $500+ for a phone, so anything else probably isn't even an option. These people aren't looking for any special features, just an iphone. For poorer people there is android in any price range. So I don't really see where nokia would sit, except maybe as a "corporate phone" / "more serious phone". Maybe some day apple will lose it's shine, you really are rather common nowadays with apple gear. It could just take some "trend setter" type person to start using nokia or some tv series mocking "old fashioned" apple fans. We have already begun to see people mocking "stupid" apple fans who can't even recognise their own phone when being told its the new iphone 5...

25 points by denzil_correa 14y ago

When people ask why Nokia isn't selling a lot of Lumias, most people, correctly, answer "Windows Phone". Going with Android puts them in a much better position than Windows Phone for a lot of reasons, and every negative that can be said about going with Android (minus the OS differences) can be said about Windows Phone. The only difference is that Nokia is pretty much the only OEM that is all-in with Windows Phone, but once WP becomes popular, whats to stop Samsung, etc from making more WPs? Nothing really, and at that point, Nokia will only be able to distinguish itself with its hardware (since there are limited/no OEM/carrier modifications allowed to WP) which is WORSE off than if they were using Android right now.

mtgx 14y ago

The real link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-nokia-strategy-idUSBRE88I0IQ20120919 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-nokia-strategy-... I wonder if they will quickly switch to Android if they will kick Elop out and decide the Microsoft partnership has failed. That would be great news in my book.

matt4711 14y ago
there are so many established android players already. I doubt that would help them much. At least the premium W8 strategy differentiates them from samsung and co.
- tluyben2 14y ago
  That's true, but people are not really buying. And Nokia still is popular in a lot of low wage countries now and they would want to buy Androids at sub $100, while not Windows over $200.
  - untog 14y ago
    Why not Windows at sub $100? It's definitely a market MS are targeting.
    - tluyben2 14y ago
      That would be smart, but seems they are doing high end (tablets + phones) at the moment with WP8.
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  I'm sure Microsoft would be content to continue to allow Nokia to pursue Windows Phone in a non-exclusive relationship. No reason Nokia shouldn't be releasing high-end, high-demand Android units that sell like hot cakes, the same way HTC, Samsung, et al have done several times each since the G1. Maybe it'd keep them out of bankruptcy long enough to allow another couple batches of Windows units.
- bad_user 14y ago
  It would be pretty easy for Nokia to enter the Android market. All it would need to do is to create 2 phone models, one for the low end, one for the high end, both with good build quality and that come in various colors. And on the software side all they'd need to do would be to install the stock Android distribution, with the logistics and resources necessary to release Android updates over-the-air as soon as possible, while giving the insurance that customers will get updates for 2 years after they've bought the phone. They could also disallow carries from installing crap on these phones. They could further differentiate by bundling those phones with some premium Nokia apps, like an alternative to Google Maps with better offline capabilities. Then they should also build an Android tablet, because there's really no competition to the iPad. Like really, there are lots of Android "players" out there, but (1) Nokia still has resources and a huge distribution network available with lots of partners + (2) Android's true potential has yet to reveal itself and the pie will get a lot bigger + (3) everybody is doing it wrong.
  - se85 14y ago
    It's really no where near as simple as that, not even close. There is lots of politics, and red tape to keep in mind as well that has to be overcome before they can even think about Android, let alone delivering on it. Getting rid of Elop, really doesn't change this painful process of software migration (which is never, ever "pretty easy") or everyone else that thinks Nokia/Android is a terrible idea from a business perspective (it is). Nokia has already had to go through all of this recently to accomodate the Microsoft Plan, and it is just extremely unlikely that a company the size of Nokia could survive a second transition and come out the other end smelling like roses. We are talking at least a year (and thats being very conservative and ignoring all existing and future plans that are currently in place that would need to be dismantled) before there would be a tangible Nokia Android product. There is also the large layoffs and rehires that would need to occur during this transition and this stuff takes time, lots of time when talking about a company at the scale of Nokia. I'd imagine they would lose lots of partners over this transition as well, the list is endless. My bet is it would be another year or two on top of that before Nokia was at its current state as of today on the market with Android instead of Windows, except the market will be much bigger, and Nokia will be much smaller, but hey at least they have an Android phone right? ;-) I'm sure Microsoft has Nokia by the balls as well (contractually speaking), which is just another reason amongst many others not to attempt such a transition from the business perspective. Also, it would be a very tough sell to the stakeholders, and upper management, as well as everyone else on the front lines that such a move would yield anything for Nokia besides a quicker path to hard times ahead and/or bankruptcy. The cards are all on the table, it's too late to make an "effective" transition and they know this. In an ideal world, business wouldn't get in the way of releasing a good product, but in the real world, business almost always mandates what the product is, and in Nokia's case, the business decision was made years ago and it is not something they can pivot on overnight like your typical Sillicon Valley startup.
- jsight 14y ago
  If they released the Lumia 920 w/ Android 4.1, it would immediately be the second best selling Android phone, IMO.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
"I wonder if they will quickly switch to Android if they will kick Elop out and decide the Microsoft partnership has failed." That is extremely unlikely. Nokia with Symbian was a Unix shop. They purged all of them for Windows or they just left. It was extremely painful. Now are they going to take the "Windows enviroment devs" and replace it again by Android experts?. Not going to happen. I said it when the MS deal was known and I repeat it today. In all Microsoft partnerships Microsoft always wins, partners are f*cked. It has always been that way. Nokia will burn and Microsoft will buy it cheaply to compete with Apple in tablets. That was the idea from (Nokia)investors from day 1, most of them are American, they want Nokia in Silicon Valley.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  >That is extremely unlikely. Nokia with Symbian was a Unix shop. They purged all of them for Windows or they just left. It was extremely painful. And Nokia was too busy with the infighting among the different Symbian groups(which didn't even share source code!) for almost 4 years to actually develop a coherent answer to the iPhone. Microsoft is paying Nokia a billion dollars a year to tide over difficult times, Elop asked Google for a similar deal to switch to Android instead and Google told them to take a hike. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567... >I said it when the MS deal was known and I repeat it today. In all Microsoft partnerships Microsoft always wins, partners are f*cked. Just because you repeat something doesn't make it true. Just read up on the history and early days of Compaq and Dell, to take just two examples out of very many that have profited in partnership with Microsoft. Nitpicking on a couple of examples doesn't help your case. For example, Apple used Read it Later's open source code in Safari, but then banned the app from the App Store for not paying the 30% toll on subscriptions! >That was the idea from (Nokia)investors from day 1, most of them are American, they want Nokia in Silicon Valley. Any references, or is that just idle speculation?
- biafra 14y ago
  Nokia with Symbian was never a Unix Shop. The endorsed dev environment was eclipse on windows. Makesis (needed to create signed SIS packages) was windows only. I tried severl times to get a dev enviromnent setup on something else an windows. IIRC this was impossible at least until 2008. Then I started Android development and never looked back. I"d guess it is still impossible to build, package and sign Symbian apps on something different than Windows.

kisstheblade 14y ago

What about companies with outlook calendaring, isn't this a "killer app" where WP8 would shine? Or does exchange sync work flawlessly on android/iphone? Technically the lumia 920 is at least on par with the iphone, in many ways even better and more innovative. The iphone just has such a strong brand with people willing to spend $500+ for a phone, so anything else probably isn't even an option. These people aren't looking for any special features, just an iphone. For poorer people there is android in any price range. So I don't really see where nokia would sit, except maybe as a "corporate phone" / "more serious phone". Maybe some day apple will lose it's shine, you really are rather common nowadays with apple gear. It could just take some "trend setter" type person to start using nokia or some tv series mocking "old fashioned" apple fans. We have already begun to see people mocking "stupid" apple fans who can't even recognise their own phone when being told its the new iphone 5...