5 ms·

Can someone explain why Elop did a bad job? No one was buying Nokia phones anymore... they are now.

by jgreen10 13y ago

icefox 13y ago
[citation needed]
- morkbot 13y ago
  WP started to get some traction recently, nothing earth-shattering but still... http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/04/report-windows-phone-overtakes-ios-in-italy-and-makes-progress-in-europe/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/04/report-windows-phon...
  - asveikau 13y ago
    And how does that compare with Symbian sales before Elop? I have not looked at a comparison, but it would not surprise me if Windows Phone has not yet caught up. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Symbian fanboy and I think Nokia held onto it for too long, but the notion that "no one was buying Nokia phones" is not the whole story. It probably resonates with the average HN reader, who is relatively young, lives in the US and carries an iPhone or Android device. It probably also accurately represents where the Symbian market was going long term. But it's not the whole story.
    - pmelendez 13y ago
      "And how does that compare with Symbian sales before Elop? I have not looked at a comparison, but it would not surprise me if Windows Phone has not yet caught up." I can give you a reference that is close to me. Windows phone is 2nd place in latin america (http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/windows-phone-snags-second-place-in-latin-america-validating-the-nokia-microsoft-relationship/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/windows-phone-snags-second-...) where the first is Blackberry and nobody used Symbian.
      - asveikau 13y ago
        I don't think you understood my point. I was saying I would not be surprised if Symbian in 2011 was selling more units than Windows Phone in 2013. For example, just from press reports that I can find on Google, Nokia sold 20 million Symbian phones in Q4 2011, and 4.4 million Windows Phones in Q4 2012.
        pmelendez 13y ago
        "I was saying I would not be surprised if Symbian in 2011 was selling more units than Windows Phone in 2013." Yeah that was what I understood. However, I was just giving an example of a Non-US market where that were not true :) "For example, just from press reports that I can find on Google, Nokia sold 20 million Symbian phones in Q4 2011" That's true, but you have to also considerate the tendency: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/smartphoneshipmentsq211.jpg http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/smartphoneshipmen... At that moment it looks like Symbian was running out of gas.
Noughmad 13y ago
It's more like the other way around. I used to know lots of people with Nokia phones, both feature phones and smartphones. Now there are only iPhones and Androids, I don't think I've seen a phone with Windows except in a store. Besides, Nokia had great reputation as a quality brand. Some of their phones were unbreakable. They've lost their reputation since their deal with MS.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  I'd like to see them continue on the path that the Lumia 1020 set - premium camera smartphone. I think there's a good niche for them there that is very hard for Apple to get into due to asthetics (a Lumia can have a bump on the back for a large fast lens that would be very unusual for an iPhone).
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    Case in point: The Lumia 1020 is using Nokia's relatively old technology. The Nokia 808 PureView was released in Feb 2012, yet received very little recognition. All of a sudden, a year later, the Lumia 1020 seems like a "fresh, new" idea. When in fact, Nokia has been marketing this EXACT SAME IDEA for over a year. For better or for worse, the "Windows Phone" brand turns heads. Lumia1020 is sticking with people a lot more than "PureView 808"
    - freehunter 13y ago
      I remember the press going crazy for the 808, with one exception: it ran Symbian. That was the only thing the press didn't like, and that fact kept anyone from seriously recommending it. It was a tech demo, it was a great camera attached to a phone that cost Nokia nothing to build (unlike the Lumia 1020). The 1020 was the real-world version of the 808, the version Nokia wanted people to buy.
- specialp 13y ago
  They lost their reputation long before they went to MS. Symbian had over 3000 developers yet their interface was very confusing, and full of bugs. The N95 was a decent phone in 2007 besting the iPhone in many ways (fast CPU/GPU, 3.5G, full GPS, good display, 5MP camera with good optics) but it did not have touch. I was fine with it and owned one and loved it. So Nokia then came out with the N97 and it was clear that they did not have the ability anymore to design software or pick a strategy. Their 'app store' switched from MoSH to Ovi and it just simply did not work. All the while Android and iOS were moving very fast. People were very unhappy with the N97 flagship and the rest of the offerings were not very clear. They had dozens of models. E series was supposed to be the business series and N series for "media". It was confusing marketing. From 2009-2012 they were losing double digit marketshare every year. Even strongholds like India and Asia were starting to view Nokia as a company that lost their direction. So yes people did have fond memories of their unbreakable candybar phones but they also associated Nokia with the old days of phones as they could not produce a modern, coherent UI. (until MeeGo where it was too late)
Mikeb85 13y ago
He canned their best phone (N9) and OS (Meego), only to pursue a clearly inferior business strategy, drive the stock price down, and enable a Microsoft takeover...
- killme 13y ago
  >best phone (N9) and OS (Meego) Best phone and OS according to who? The same folks who cheered on the OpenMoko? As Elop said, the market has turned from a battle of devices into a war of ecosystems. Meego would've ended up like BB10 running on QNX(remember how many folks on here salivated about a QNX based mobile OS?), critically appreciated but with no apps and sales. Nokia recently became the fourth largest OEM in the US market. http://pocketnow.com/2013/11/01/nokia-smartphone-sales http://pocketnow.com/2013/11/01/nokia-smartphone-sales I doubt that given Nokia never really had a brand in the US for smartphones, it could've done so without Microsoft's support.
  - Mikeb85 13y ago
    According to everyone who saw it and touched it. I was watching their unveiling of the phone, trading their stock and listening to market opinion, and I remember that very day. Everyone in the market agreed that Meego could have been huge (it was also open-source like Android, and in many ways a better OS), and it was only Elop's allegiance to Microsoft which killed it. Meego was good enough that Jolla picked it up, and Intel spun it into Tizen. At the time of the N9 unveiling, it was better than Android. Speaking of ecosystems, fast forward a few years, if Nokia had indeed attempted to push Meego and failed, Android would have been the logical choice. Now they're settling for scraps with Windows Phone, when they were once THE leader worldwide in smartphones... Edit - by the way, Nokia was the smartphone market share leader as recently as 2011... In fact, it was during Elop's tenure that Nokia lost most of its market share, although they were on the way out for awhile before then. But had Meego had better traction, it could have been very different. Nokia had an ecosystem, and had mindshare...
    - killme 13y ago
      > (it was also open-source like Android, and in many ways a better OS). Open source is not a very big selling point to the masses. WebOS was open source and better than Android at the time, had good reviews, but it flopped miserably. >Speaking of ecosystems, fast forward a few years, if Nokia had indeed attempted to push Meego and failed, Android would have been the logical choice You're assuming that Nokia would not be dead from all the losses in the meantime. Microsoft was pumping $250M into them per quarter to ease the transition. If Nokia went alone, it may not have survived the big transition to Meego. >and it was only Elop's allegiance to Microsoft which killed it. No, it was Nokia's board that hired him in the first place and approved all his big decisions. You do know that a company's board can fire the CEO at any time right? So Elop's allegiance had nothing to do with anything there. Here's a good read. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567...
JeremyNT 13y ago
The long and short of it: he bet everything on Windows Phone. I think you can envision a successful strategy that would have included Windows Phone, potentially even as the only platform they offered, but Elop killed off everything else in a very visible way before WP was really ready. When it became the only offering, they alienated existing customers and left them with no obvious migration path. WP sales have started to recover, but IIRC they're still lagging behind what Symbian was doing at the time Elop took over. Conceptually WP may have been a reasonable long term choice, but there were certainly ways to get there that didn't cost them so many existing customers so quickly.
sirkneeland 13y ago
While both your statement and my response are gross oversimplifications, I would point out that when Elop took over, more people were buying Nokias than they are now. Q3 2010 (when Elop took over): 110.4 million Nokias sold Q3 2013: 64.4 million Nokias sold Parsing your statement, if when you said "no one was buying Nokia phones" you means "no one [in developed economies] was buying [Nokia high end smartphones]" you'd then be correct. Pedantic reply is pedantic :)

Can someone explain why Elop did a bad job? No one was buying Nokia phones anymore... they are now.

icefox 13y ago

[citation needed]

morkbot 13y ago
WP started to get some traction recently, nothing earth-shattering but still... http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/04/report-windows-phone-overtakes-ios-in-italy-and-makes-progress-in-europe/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/04/report-windows-phon...
- asveikau 13y ago
  And how does that compare with Symbian sales before Elop? I have not looked at a comparison, but it would not surprise me if Windows Phone has not yet caught up. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Symbian fanboy and I think Nokia held onto it for too long, but the notion that "no one was buying Nokia phones" is not the whole story. It probably resonates with the average HN reader, who is relatively young, lives in the US and carries an iPhone or Android device. It probably also accurately represents where the Symbian market was going long term. But it's not the whole story.
  - pmelendez 13y ago
    "And how does that compare with Symbian sales before Elop? I have not looked at a comparison, but it would not surprise me if Windows Phone has not yet caught up." I can give you a reference that is close to me. Windows phone is 2nd place in latin america (http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/windows-phone-snags-second-place-in-latin-america-validating-the-nokia-microsoft-relationship/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/windows-phone-snags-second-...) where the first is Blackberry and nobody used Symbian.
    - asveikau 13y ago
      I don't think you understood my point. I was saying I would not be surprised if Symbian in 2011 was selling more units than Windows Phone in 2013. For example, just from press reports that I can find on Google, Nokia sold 20 million Symbian phones in Q4 2011, and 4.4 million Windows Phones in Q4 2012.
      - pmelendez 13y ago
        "I was saying I would not be surprised if Symbian in 2011 was selling more units than Windows Phone in 2013." Yeah that was what I understood. However, I was just giving an example of a Non-US market where that were not true :) "For example, just from press reports that I can find on Google, Nokia sold 20 million Symbian phones in Q4 2011" That's true, but you have to also considerate the tendency: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/smartphoneshipmentsq211.jpg http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/smartphoneshipmen... At that moment it looks like Symbian was running out of gas.

Noughmad 13y ago

It's more like the other way around. I used to know lots of people with Nokia phones, both feature phones and smartphones. Now there are only iPhones and Androids, I don't think I've seen a phone with Windows except in a store. Besides, Nokia had great reputation as a quality brand. Some of their phones were unbreakable. They've lost their reputation since their deal with MS.

bentcorner 13y ago
I'd like to see them continue on the path that the Lumia 1020 set - premium camera smartphone. I think there's a good niche for them there that is very hard for Apple to get into due to asthetics (a Lumia can have a bump on the back for a large fast lens that would be very unusual for an iPhone).
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Case in point: The Lumia 1020 is using Nokia's relatively old technology. The Nokia 808 PureView was released in Feb 2012, yet received very little recognition. All of a sudden, a year later, the Lumia 1020 seems like a "fresh, new" idea. When in fact, Nokia has been marketing this EXACT SAME IDEA for over a year. For better or for worse, the "Windows Phone" brand turns heads. Lumia1020 is sticking with people a lot more than "PureView 808"
  - freehunter 13y ago
    I remember the press going crazy for the 808, with one exception: it ran Symbian. That was the only thing the press didn't like, and that fact kept anyone from seriously recommending it. It was a tech demo, it was a great camera attached to a phone that cost Nokia nothing to build (unlike the Lumia 1020). The 1020 was the real-world version of the 808, the version Nokia wanted people to buy.
specialp 13y ago
They lost their reputation long before they went to MS. Symbian had over 3000 developers yet their interface was very confusing, and full of bugs. The N95 was a decent phone in 2007 besting the iPhone in many ways (fast CPU/GPU, 3.5G, full GPS, good display, 5MP camera with good optics) but it did not have touch. I was fine with it and owned one and loved it. So Nokia then came out with the N97 and it was clear that they did not have the ability anymore to design software or pick a strategy. Their 'app store' switched from MoSH to Ovi and it just simply did not work. All the while Android and iOS were moving very fast. People were very unhappy with the N97 flagship and the rest of the offerings were not very clear. They had dozens of models. E series was supposed to be the business series and N series for "media". It was confusing marketing. From 2009-2012 they were losing double digit marketshare every year. Even strongholds like India and Asia were starting to view Nokia as a company that lost their direction. So yes people did have fond memories of their unbreakable candybar phones but they also associated Nokia with the old days of phones as they could not produce a modern, coherent UI. (until MeeGo where it was too late)

Mikeb85 13y ago

He canned their best phone (N9) and OS (Meego), only to pursue a clearly inferior business strategy, drive the stock price down, and enable a Microsoft takeover...

killme 13y ago
>best phone (N9) and OS (Meego) Best phone and OS according to who? The same folks who cheered on the OpenMoko? As Elop said, the market has turned from a battle of devices into a war of ecosystems. Meego would've ended up like BB10 running on QNX(remember how many folks on here salivated about a QNX based mobile OS?), critically appreciated but with no apps and sales. Nokia recently became the fourth largest OEM in the US market. http://pocketnow.com/2013/11/01/nokia-smartphone-sales http://pocketnow.com/2013/11/01/nokia-smartphone-sales I doubt that given Nokia never really had a brand in the US for smartphones, it could've done so without Microsoft's support.
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  According to everyone who saw it and touched it. I was watching their unveiling of the phone, trading their stock and listening to market opinion, and I remember that very day. Everyone in the market agreed that Meego could have been huge (it was also open-source like Android, and in many ways a better OS), and it was only Elop's allegiance to Microsoft which killed it. Meego was good enough that Jolla picked it up, and Intel spun it into Tizen. At the time of the N9 unveiling, it was better than Android. Speaking of ecosystems, fast forward a few years, if Nokia had indeed attempted to push Meego and failed, Android would have been the logical choice. Now they're settling for scraps with Windows Phone, when they were once THE leader worldwide in smartphones... Edit - by the way, Nokia was the smartphone market share leader as recently as 2011... In fact, it was during Elop's tenure that Nokia lost most of its market share, although they were on the way out for awhile before then. But had Meego had better traction, it could have been very different. Nokia had an ecosystem, and had mindshare...
  - killme 13y ago
    > (it was also open-source like Android, and in many ways a better OS). Open source is not a very big selling point to the masses. WebOS was open source and better than Android at the time, had good reviews, but it flopped miserably. >Speaking of ecosystems, fast forward a few years, if Nokia had indeed attempted to push Meego and failed, Android would have been the logical choice You're assuming that Nokia would not be dead from all the losses in the meantime. Microsoft was pumping $250M into them per quarter to ease the transition. If Nokia went alone, it may not have survived the big transition to Meego. >and it was only Elop's allegiance to Microsoft which killed it. No, it was Nokia's board that hired him in the first place and approved all his big decisions. You do know that a company's board can fire the CEO at any time right? So Elop's allegiance had nothing to do with anything there. Here's a good read. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567...

JeremyNT 13y ago

The long and short of it: he bet everything on Windows Phone. I think you can envision a successful strategy that would have included Windows Phone, potentially even as the only platform they offered, but Elop killed off everything else in a very visible way before WP was really ready. When it became the only offering, they alienated existing customers and left them with no obvious migration path. WP sales have started to recover, but IIRC they're still lagging behind what Symbian was doing at the time Elop took over. Conceptually WP may have been a reasonable long term choice, but there were certainly ways to get there that didn't cost them so many existing customers so quickly.

sirkneeland 13y ago

While both your statement and my response are gross oversimplifications, I would point out that when Elop took over, more people were buying Nokias than they are now. Q3 2010 (when Elop took over): 110.4 million Nokias sold Q3 2013: 64.4 million Nokias sold Parsing your statement, if when you said "no one was buying Nokia phones" you means "no one [in developed economies] was buying [Nokia high end smartphones]" you'd then be correct. Pedantic reply is pedantic :)