12 ms·

Today was the last day of Nokia as we knew it

294 points by sirkneeland 13y ago

devx 13y ago
How the mighty fall.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  There are so many beautifully worded encapsulations of this idea, in so many languages, from so many ages. As close as one can get to proof that it is a universal fact of the human condition that nothing lasts forever
  - Moru 13y ago
    Except a nokia 3210. I still have mine and it works fine even if it is repurposed as a cheap GSM alarm for a summer cottage out in the nowhere. All you need is a bit of wire, soldering iron and a magnet circuit breaker
- wololo_ 13y ago
  It's not about being first. It's about being the last.
  - Springtime 13y ago
    Even with Nokia's recent shortcomings I still enjoyed reading the piece. It's worthwhile remembering the good a company has brought every so often.
- rplnt 13y ago
  It gives me hope actually. There are more I'd like to see fall. Not out of spite, but to reduce their (near) monopoly.
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    As Steve Jobs said (possibly ironically, depending on which companies are on your hit-list): Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. And, as was often the case, Steve Jobs was right.
    - emocakes 13y ago
      yeah wow, so deep, steve jobs was amazing, I wish he was still alive today, I light candles for him everyday at my altar.
metafunctor 13y ago
In the minds of most Finns, Nokia ceased to exist a long time ago. Not saying that this was not personally significant for sirkneeland, and it's a nicely written piece. For myself, for the past few years, Nokia has ceased to exist a little bit more every day. This is just one more of those days. Somehow, I feel this is appropriate here: The computer center is empty, Silent except for the whine of the cooling fans. I walk the rows of CPUs, My skin prickling with magnetic flux. I open a door, cold and hard, And watch the lights dancing on the panels. A machine without soul, men call it, But its soul is the sweat of my comrades, Within it lie the years of our lives, Disappointment, friendship, sadness, joy, The algorithmic exultations, The long nights filled with thankless toil, I hear the echoes of sighs and laughter, And in the darkened offices The terminals shine like stars. – Geoffrey James, The Zen of Programming (1988)
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Thank you for the kind words. Yes, my Finnish friends (and thanks to Nokia I have many) have expressed similar sentiments about when Nokia "died" to them. But for me it hit me today, when as I walked out the doors of the office I realized that while I would walk out of the same doors ~24 hours later, I would never walk out the doors of Nokia ever again.
  - nyrina 13y ago
    What really struck me, was that for the first time, even though I've read it a thousand times before, was the fact that Nokia had one of those impossible goals. Connecting people, is somewhat like the Microsoft vision of giving everyone a personal computer. And while there are people in certain parts of the 3rd world that doesn't have mobile phones, I would say Nokia did an amazing job to get a mobile phone into everyone's hands. My dad worked for Ericsson, so I've never owned a Nokia phone, you were the "evil rivals" after all, but I bow my head to Nokia for what they did, for how many people they connected with mobile phones. Nokia might not have been the company that profited from SmartPhones, but they were the company that created the market for SmartPhones.
    - 13y ago
whizzkid 13y ago
Huge respect! This company once built a mobile phone that everyone could buy. Cheap, works forever, does the job. It is really surprising, and awesome to see that they built their products to last, not for a year like most companies today.
- edgarvm 13y ago
  Indeed, their cellphones were solid as rock, even the cheapest ones had a huge usability, I still miss my first Nokia 1112.
ajkumar25 13y ago
Long Live Nokia.
woogle 13y ago
Melancholia, an ode to Nokia. Playing Snake until the death. While some create ringtones. It was an unbreakable phone. I'll remember 'til my last breath.
pradeep89 13y ago
Wow, One of the amazing product (Nokia 1100) I experienced first. Thank you Nokia. You really transformed communication industry for developing countries where most of the people never saw/used apple devices as they saw/used yours.
001sky 13y ago
Even Nokia's mobile phones business was on the chopping block for a time. Boston Consulting Group did a thorough assessment of Nokia's business in 1991 and came to the conclusion that the company wouldn't be able to compete with Motorola and the Japanese mobile makers. > From the cross-linked article, on "what could not be done" Amazing...
- tormeh 13y ago
  Nobody could have competed with the Japanese manufacturers, if they had only started selling their phones outside of Japan. The BCG guys simply lacked the cultural sensitivity required to understand the extent of Japan's navel-gazing. Americans often act and think as if the rest of the world don't exist, but the Japanese are far, far worse. Navel-gazing = size x ethnocentricity. What Japan lacks in size compared to the US, it more than makes up for in ethnocentricity. I remember seeing an XKCD comic which featured a fact about "there only being [x amount] of [x type] lighthouses in the nation". "In the nation". So typical.
nivla 13y ago
Man, as someone who loves Windows Phone, I am sad to see this merger go through. I wished if Nokia remained separate from Microsoft. Nokia as a company and culture gave Windows Phone a standing chance where most had already declared the market a duopoly. They had great products, amazing ads, exceptional customer service and most of all, a good sense of future. Heck even when MS failed to deliver decent apps, Nokia stepped in to fill the gap: Nokia Music/Radio, Nokia Maps, City Lens, Transit... all with offline support! If it wasn't for them, I would have never switched to a Windows Phone. I wonder how its going to play out from here. Given the MS culture, are things going to get slow and bureaucratic? Whatever happens Nokia is always going to hold a special place in my heart especially the 3310 [1], my first phone. :) [1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nokia_3310_blue.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nokia_331...
- HenryMc 13y ago
  > Given the MS culture, are things going to get slow and bureaucratic? This is my worry. Nokia moves so quick on everything, and delivers great products. While Microsoft is always slow, and the the products are always missing features. Hopefully all those Nokia employees will have an effect on Microsoft's culture. Microsoft makes products I like. Nokia make products I love.
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    Given that MS managed to do a Trojan takeover of Nokia, I'm gonna say yes, it's probably gonna end as a Pyrrhic victory for MS. I mean MS has a track record of screwing up mergers, on par with Yahoo's.
  - Touche 13y ago
    Did Nokia really move quickly? As I recall, it took them a year (from announcing they were going WP) before they released their first phone, the N9 running WP.
    - HenryMc 13y ago
      It was about 8 months. Deal with Microsoft was announced in February 2011 and Lumia 800 (I have one) and 710 were announced in October.
nabla9 13y ago
Nokia as phone manufacturer is gone. Nokia the company still exists. It owns the Nokia brand and has massive mobile patent portfolio (only licensed to Microsoft). Nokia is made of NSN (Nokia Solutions and Networks), maps and The Nokia Research Center. Nokia is prohibited from using the brand to sell mobile phones for few years (ending 2018). It's completely possible that they come up with new gadgets or even phones with Nokia name.
- yitchelle 13y ago
  Nokia is like one of the Japanese/Korean conglomerate where it touches everything[1]. Looking back at its stories, it got involve in power generation, TV manufacture, even forestry. I am sure that this is only part of its evolution. [1] - http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/about-us/the-nokia-story/ http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/about-us/the-nokia-s...
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    This is true. For over a century Nokia has bounced from one industry to another. As I like to tell people, "Nokia was pivoting before pivoting was cool" :) We will do more great things at Nokia.
  - nabla9 13y ago
    Not any more. Those parts of Nokia Keiretsu that once was exist today as independent companies. http://www.nokiantyres.com/ http://www.nokiantyres.com/ http://www.nokiantires.com/ http://www.nokiantires.com/ http://nokianjalkineet.fi/en/ http://nokianjalkineet.fi/en/ http://www.nokianfootwear.com/ http://www.nokianfootwear.com/ Nokia Cable is now http://www.nkcommunications.com http://www.nkcommunications.com
    - wodenokoto 13y ago
      Conglomerate is not a Keiretsu and a keiretsu is not a conglomerate. Keiretsu is cross-ownership of shares centered around a bank. If you absolutely must use a Japanese term, go with Zaibatsu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu
VSpike 13y ago
The radios in Nokia phones were always superb. I live in an area of poor mobile coverage [known as "the UK" ;)] and Nokia phones were amazing at operating reliably in marginal signal conditions. The last Nokia I had was an N95 which was a pretty good phone. The 6310i was probably the best of them all (up till quite recently there were people in the UK, usually travelling salespeople, who were hoarding these and buying them up on eBay for when theirs broke). Although the phones I've had since are smarter and shinier, none of them have a radio of quality remotely close to the Nokias. They won't operate in places I know the Nokias worked fine. And they often seem to lose mobile signal completely, requiring a restart (or switch to flight mode and back). Many things get better over time, and I love the features of my Android phones, but I do miss that quality RF design. RF is hard ... just look how long it took Apple to get it right! [1] [1] Although that did mean that the first iPhones had amazing engineering debug screens for the mobile network side as a side effect of the problems they had.
neurobro 13y ago
I'm still waiting for the "iCandybar" form factor fad to fade so we can get the modern-day evolution of the N93, with 41 megapixels and real depth of field, etc. I won't stop holding my breath.
frik 13y ago
The Nokia fate will be remembered as hostile takeover. Everything worked out in the favor of Microsoft in the end. Though Windows Phone/Tablet have low market share, a lot lower than expected. * Stephen Elop the former Microsoft employee (head of the Business Division) and later Nokia CEO with his infamous "Burning Platform" memo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia * Some former Nokia employees called it "Elop = hostile takeover of a company for a minimum price through CEO infiltration": http://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-microsoft-takeo-1243832372 http://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-m...
- tinco 13y ago
  Lower than expected? Whose expectance? Given Microsofts track record in mobile devices I think no one expected Microsoft to really be able to compete. And given Nokia's track record in smart phones, nobody expected Nokia to be able to push Microsoft up either. But as it is now, it seems they've actually been able to. They've managed to punch a small but significant hole in the Android market, against all odds, by building some truly excellent products. Who'd have thought Microsoft would some day produce an integrated mobile product that you could prefer over an Apple product without being made out a fool?
  - waps 13y ago
    From the wikipedia page. > During Elop's tenure, Nokia annual revenues fell 40% from 41.7 Billion Euros per year to 25.3 Billion Euros per year. Nokia profits fell 92% from 2.4 Billion Euros per year to 188 Million Euros per year. Nokia handset sales fell 40% from 456 million units per year to 274 million units per year. Nokia share price which was at 7.12 Euros on the day Elop was hired, had fallen to 81% to a bottom level of 1.44 Euros two years later, after which it began trading at 4.14 Euros, up 36% on the day. Elop's success in negotiating the sale of Nokia's struggling mobile device business to Microsoft has been described by many securities analysts as a significant victory for NOK shareholders, particularly when viewed in context of failed efforts by Blackberry or HP to secure value for handset business owned by those companies. I had to reread it 5 times. I am still not convinced. Yes, that last sentence gives me the impression it has the words "significant victory" and "success", but my brain is simply unwilling to accept that as a valid conclusion. Maybe I should start working in business ...
bws99 13y ago
Sad times - although I look forward to what's next. More competition is always a good thing.
- throwawayaway 13y ago
  glad to see this competitor go, only more competition can result.
MatthewWilkes 13y ago
The St. Crispin's Day speech? REALLY?
- 205guy 13y ago
  On the one hand, I'd agree with you that it's a gross exaggeration. On the other hand, I've always felt that corporate middle management was the new (and less bloody) realm for what used to be tribal chiefs, lords of manors, and dukes of minor duchies, and their associated battles for control of land.
- mturmon 13y ago
  It is heartfelt, but using it does feel a bit overcooked in this context. Perhaps the author has the blessing of youth, and must suffer its one or two disadvantages as well.
HenryMc 13y ago
I still think it's a mistake for Microsoft to not buy the Nokia brand. Why not go the Motorola route (Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions)?
- oblio 13y ago
  I doubt Nokia would sell the brand. Nokia has been a Finnish company for 150 years. They made several mistakes - including bringing Elop in - and they probably wanted to get rid of the part of the company that was no longer sustainable. But I doubt they ever wanted to give up the brand, based on the details I read these days about the deal with Microsoft (only sold the mobile division, licensed the Nokia brand for several years, banned from producing mobiles only until 2018, etc).
davidgerard 13y ago
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-with-broken-screen-is-best-phone-of-all-time-2013040464681 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-...
Spearchucker 13y ago
I'm optimistic about the buyout. Nokia's dev site is clearly transitioning - the place holder is cool https://www.dvlup.com/ https://www.dvlup.com/. The people will mostly stay the same, even though ownership has changed. I'd still work there if I wasn't tied geographically to where I am now.
- dictum 13y ago
  >DVLUP has joined Microsoft! We're serving virtual fruit punch and setting off celebratory pretend fireworks on the DVLUP Blog. Head on over to learn more and enjoy your extra-special Day One Badge. Things are about to get awesome. I can smell the Pointy-Haired Boss from here.
sidcool 13y ago
I do remember the small Nokia phones. They enabled to make me custom ringtones from sounds of the keypad. It was great. But everything passes, so did Nokia. It isn't literally ceasing to exist, but close enough. Long live Nokia.
shmerl 13y ago
Mer (former Meego) is one good thing which came out of Nokia and doesn't depend on it anymore luckily. The rest will be wasted.
moron4hire 13y ago
Reading things like this always causes me to reflect on myself and my own relationship to work. I'm envious of people who can work a job. My wife, for example, has been at the same place for almost 10 years. My father has worked the same place for over 30. They have their complaints, but they get up every morning and they go. The longest I ever lasted anywhere was 2 and a half years. It was my second job out of college. I've had 5 jobs over the course of 7 years. One of those jobs only lasted 3 months. One was only 10 months. Both were a race to see if I would quit or get fired first. I won on the 3-month job, I lost on the 10-month one. They never gave an official reason, but I think they would say it was because I wouldn't show up on time. Really, it's because I had no respect for management. I've been freelancing for the last 2.5 years. Excuse me, let me correct that, I was unemployed for 6 months after the 10-month deal. I thought I hated programming. After getting fired, I didn't want to do it again. A friend got me an interview at the place he worked, a small manufacturing firm. We started as a 3 month contract-to-hire, they wanted to hire me after the first month, and I stuck to wanting to contract. It scared the crap out of me. We were doing good work and being hired as an employee just felt like trying to ruin it. We worked out a consulting arrangement that, honestly, by most accounts is consulting in name only. I work so much for them that I don't have time to pick up other projects. After 6 months, told them I was going to primarily work from home. After another 6 months, I moved to a completely different city and just kept working. They didn't even know I wasn't in the area anymore for 3 months until we did a video chat session and they saw my new apartment. I don't know what any of it means. If my client doesn't add any new tasks and I finish out the list I have, I'll have worked for them longer than I've worked for anyone. Them not adding any new tasks is highly unlikely. At the same time, I would see working for them for another 1 to be encroaching on "failure" and another 2 years to definitely be "bad". Not in the sense that I wouldn't be making good money (I'm making more now than any two previous years combined), but in that I have this emotional snag that sees staying in one place to be stagnating. I don't think I hate programming anymore, especially now that I've gotten back into running my own side projects. But I certainly hate common corporate organizational structure. I just can't stand going into an office when I'm told, wearing what I'm told, thinking what I'm told (which seems to be the point of most employee handbooks). Every Joe Shmo with an MBA thinks he can start a consulting firm and hire a bunch of cheap programmers and turn it into a printing press for money. And they bring with them this cargo cult of Fortune 500 practices that ultimately feel dehumanizing. It turns my stomach even thinking about going to work as an employee. But none of my family gets that about me. They just think I'm being difficult. Maybe I am, but I make more than all of them, so what is their problem? Just because I'm not clean shaven or put on pants most days means I can't support a family? That's probably an aspect of why I want to stick to not being an employee, out of spite for all of the people who have told me, "just get a job already, just get out of bed on time and go to work already." It's very stressful. I'm constantly thinking about work and wanting to do something else. I don't get to just turn work off at the end of the day and play a video game. And that's not because I'm freelancing--as I said, my current client isn't going anywhere. That's my itchy feet, my knowledge of my past, and this haunting specter of some compulsion to find a new job.
reactor 13y ago
My relationship with Nokia started with 3310, long live Nokia as we know it. Can you believe that the mighty was once reached the highest market value of any European company: 203 Billion Euros ($281 Billion as of today's exchange rate)? I'm sure many have learned more than one lesson already.
general_failure 13y ago
The Nokia story will always remind us of how quickly even large companies can die in today's world. They didn't even see it coming.
ravin 13y ago
It's a moment like "and then"
peterwwillis 13y ago
Can anyone tell me what's happening with the Nokia Berlin mobile/maps group? I had interviewed for a position there and was on the verge of taking it, when something more opportune and local popped up. I'm curious where I would have ended up had I taken that job. edit: now I have to hop on the poem bandwagon! here's my ode to Nokia: Star pupil of texts in cyberspace, taking his time, with each Pound of the keys pushing farther towards hidden powers. Seven days a week, fascinations with secret menus Seven times more interesting than COCOTs and DATUs. Eight friends, huddled around the brightly lit screen, Zero in on the hidden treasures of information obscured. Pounded into their brains, codes impregnate future hackers. One, two, three, four, five digits bring them into an obscure and secret world.
- tellarin 13y ago
  HERE Maps is still part of Nokia. It's not part of the new Microsoft Mobile.
debacle 13y ago
Nokia is dead, long live Nokia?
niix 13y ago
I wish all phones were as indestructible as the Nokia "brick".
- namenotrequired 13y ago
  Yes... Nokia may be dead, my Nokia phone that I got for my 16th birthday is still alive and well. :)
yason 13y ago
This is how things come to an end but they had started slowing down a lot earlier. For any practical purpose, Nokia was dead around 2005-2006 at the latest and dwindling at least couple of years before that. Sure they sold lots of phones of good quality even after those years, but they weren't riding the first wave anymore during those years. They were riding on a dead horse, unwilling to notice it's not the 90's anymore.
badman_ting 13y ago
I like that this person talks about connecting people and people having their lives touched by Nokia. Nowadays we are very distrusting and dismissive of such talk. There is a good reason why of course, but still there is something reductive about the attitude of "it's just a fucking app/website/phone/whatever".
croisillon 13y ago
You mean Nokia is no longer a wood pulp mill? That's really the end of Nokia as we knew it!
- tellarin 13y ago
  For those downvoting, Nokia did start as a wood pulp mill in 1871.
  - croisillon 13y ago
    Thanks for getting it :) I don't think I've been downvoted on this one, just sunk below the upvoted ones ;)
gojomo 13y ago
There's some weird fine print in the deal which could mean the revival of the Nokia brand, from an offshoot of the original company, after January 1, 2016: http://followingjolla.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-small-print-three-ways-nokia-can.html http://followingjolla.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-small-print-t... I wonder if that could work out like the weird 'sold Skype but not the key technology' clause of the Skype-eBay deal...
nirnira 13y ago
I understand the nostalgia, but I don't understand the melancholy. Why should you feel sad for a company that was so inept? We should be celebrating the fact that a company that failed to adapt and produce products that people really wanted was trampled by more nimble competition. After all, if you look at the phones Nokia put out over the last ten years, it's clear they had no clue what they were doing. Instead of really focussing on a few good ideas, they just kept throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick, adding bizarre features and more buttons and releasing phone after awkward useless phone after phone. All the while the big innovation was just turning the phone into a simple frame for the canvas, a big screen on which to run a flexible, updateable OS - then supporting and building a community around a single phone line. And when that innovation came, they scrambled to cover their asses, but it just wasn't in their company DNA to show that level of focus. Instead you could sense that they were upset at having to buckle down and "get serious" - like someone took away their toys. They were the consummate manufacturers of Homer Car phones. Their phones were pre-Cambrian experimental bodyforms. Well guess what, 99% of those random bodyforms were junk.
kisitu 13y ago
Personally I've been saddened by Nokia's downfall. I still remember the time I wrote Python code for both S60 and N900 series phones, taught a class about this too... Nokia had some really cool funky tools to work with.. Perhaps W8 will do some wonders; I guess its nostalgia :-(

294 points by sirkneeland 13y ago

devx 13y ago

How the mighty fall.

sirkneeland 13y ago
There are so many beautifully worded encapsulations of this idea, in so many languages, from so many ages. As close as one can get to proof that it is a universal fact of the human condition that nothing lasts forever
- Moru 13y ago
  Except a nokia 3210. I still have mine and it works fine even if it is repurposed as a cheap GSM alarm for a summer cottage out in the nowhere. All you need is a bit of wire, soldering iron and a magnet circuit breaker
wololo_ 13y ago
It's not about being first. It's about being the last.
- Springtime 13y ago
  Even with Nokia's recent shortcomings I still enjoyed reading the piece. It's worthwhile remembering the good a company has brought every so often.
rplnt 13y ago
It gives me hope actually. There are more I'd like to see fall. Not out of spite, but to reduce their (near) monopoly.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  As Steve Jobs said (possibly ironically, depending on which companies are on your hit-list): Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. And, as was often the case, Steve Jobs was right.
  - emocakes 13y ago
    yeah wow, so deep, steve jobs was amazing, I wish he was still alive today, I light candles for him everyday at my altar.

metafunctor 13y ago

In the minds of most Finns, Nokia ceased to exist a long time ago. Not saying that this was not personally significant for sirkneeland, and it's a nicely written piece. For myself, for the past few years, Nokia has ceased to exist a little bit more every day. This is just one more of those days. Somehow, I feel this is appropriate here: The computer center is empty, Silent except for the whine of the cooling fans. I walk the rows of CPUs, My skin prickling with magnetic flux. I open a door, cold and hard, And watch the lights dancing on the panels. A machine without soul, men call it, But its soul is the sweat of my comrades, Within it lie the years of our lives, Disappointment, friendship, sadness, joy, The algorithmic exultations, The long nights filled with thankless toil, I hear the echoes of sighs and laughter, And in the darkened offices The terminals shine like stars. – Geoffrey James, The Zen of Programming (1988)

sirkneeland 13y ago
Thank you for the kind words. Yes, my Finnish friends (and thanks to Nokia I have many) have expressed similar sentiments about when Nokia "died" to them. But for me it hit me today, when as I walked out the doors of the office I realized that while I would walk out of the same doors ~24 hours later, I would never walk out the doors of Nokia ever again.
- nyrina 13y ago
  What really struck me, was that for the first time, even though I've read it a thousand times before, was the fact that Nokia had one of those impossible goals. Connecting people, is somewhat like the Microsoft vision of giving everyone a personal computer. And while there are people in certain parts of the 3rd world that doesn't have mobile phones, I would say Nokia did an amazing job to get a mobile phone into everyone's hands. My dad worked for Ericsson, so I've never owned a Nokia phone, you were the "evil rivals" after all, but I bow my head to Nokia for what they did, for how many people they connected with mobile phones. Nokia might not have been the company that profited from SmartPhones, but they were the company that created the market for SmartPhones.
  - 13y ago

whizzkid 13y ago

Huge respect! This company once built a mobile phone that everyone could buy. Cheap, works forever, does the job. It is really surprising, and awesome to see that they built their products to last, not for a year like most companies today.

edgarvm 13y ago
Indeed, their cellphones were solid as rock, even the cheapest ones had a huge usability, I still miss my first Nokia 1112.

ajkumar25 13y ago

Long Live Nokia.

woogle 13y ago

Melancholia, an ode to Nokia. Playing Snake until the death. While some create ringtones. It was an unbreakable phone. I'll remember 'til my last breath.

pradeep89 13y ago

Wow, One of the amazing product (Nokia 1100) I experienced first. Thank you Nokia. You really transformed communication industry for developing countries where most of the people never saw/used apple devices as they saw/used yours.

001sky 13y ago

Even Nokia's mobile phones business was on the chopping block for a time. Boston Consulting Group did a thorough assessment of Nokia's business in 1991 and came to the conclusion that the company wouldn't be able to compete with Motorola and the Japanese mobile makers. > From the cross-linked article, on "what could not be done" Amazing...

tormeh 13y ago
Nobody could have competed with the Japanese manufacturers, if they had only started selling their phones outside of Japan. The BCG guys simply lacked the cultural sensitivity required to understand the extent of Japan's navel-gazing. Americans often act and think as if the rest of the world don't exist, but the Japanese are far, far worse. Navel-gazing = size x ethnocentricity. What Japan lacks in size compared to the US, it more than makes up for in ethnocentricity. I remember seeing an XKCD comic which featured a fact about "there only being [x amount] of [x type] lighthouses in the nation". "In the nation". So typical.

nivla 13y ago

Man, as someone who loves Windows Phone, I am sad to see this merger go through. I wished if Nokia remained separate from Microsoft. Nokia as a company and culture gave Windows Phone a standing chance where most had already declared the market a duopoly. They had great products, amazing ads, exceptional customer service and most of all, a good sense of future. Heck even when MS failed to deliver decent apps, Nokia stepped in to fill the gap: Nokia Music/Radio, Nokia Maps, City Lens, Transit... all with offline support! If it wasn't for them, I would have never switched to a Windows Phone. I wonder how its going to play out from here. Given the MS culture, are things going to get slow and bureaucratic? Whatever happens Nokia is always going to hold a special place in my heart especially the 3310 [1], my first phone. :) [1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nokia_3310_blue.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nokia_331...

HenryMc 13y ago
> Given the MS culture, are things going to get slow and bureaucratic? This is my worry. Nokia moves so quick on everything, and delivers great products. While Microsoft is always slow, and the the products are always missing features. Hopefully all those Nokia employees will have an effect on Microsoft's culture. Microsoft makes products I like. Nokia make products I love.
- Ygg2 13y ago
  Given that MS managed to do a Trojan takeover of Nokia, I'm gonna say yes, it's probably gonna end as a Pyrrhic victory for MS. I mean MS has a track record of screwing up mergers, on par with Yahoo's.
- Touche 13y ago
  Did Nokia really move quickly? As I recall, it took them a year (from announcing they were going WP) before they released their first phone, the N9 running WP.
  - HenryMc 13y ago
    It was about 8 months. Deal with Microsoft was announced in February 2011 and Lumia 800 (I have one) and 710 were announced in October.

nabla9 13y ago

Nokia as phone manufacturer is gone. Nokia the company still exists. It owns the Nokia brand and has massive mobile patent portfolio (only licensed to Microsoft). Nokia is made of NSN (Nokia Solutions and Networks), maps and The Nokia Research Center. Nokia is prohibited from using the brand to sell mobile phones for few years (ending 2018). It's completely possible that they come up with new gadgets or even phones with Nokia name.

yitchelle 13y ago
Nokia is like one of the Japanese/Korean conglomerate where it touches everything[1]. Looking back at its stories, it got involve in power generation, TV manufacture, even forestry. I am sure that this is only part of its evolution. [1] - http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/about-us/the-nokia-story/ http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/about-us/the-nokia-s...
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  This is true. For over a century Nokia has bounced from one industry to another. As I like to tell people, "Nokia was pivoting before pivoting was cool" :) We will do more great things at Nokia.
- nabla9 13y ago
  Not any more. Those parts of Nokia Keiretsu that once was exist today as independent companies. http://www.nokiantyres.com/ http://www.nokiantyres.com/ http://www.nokiantires.com/ http://www.nokiantires.com/ http://nokianjalkineet.fi/en/ http://nokianjalkineet.fi/en/ http://www.nokianfootwear.com/ http://www.nokianfootwear.com/ Nokia Cable is now http://www.nkcommunications.com http://www.nkcommunications.com
  - wodenokoto 13y ago
    Conglomerate is not a Keiretsu and a keiretsu is not a conglomerate. Keiretsu is cross-ownership of shares centered around a bank. If you absolutely must use a Japanese term, go with Zaibatsu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu

VSpike 13y ago

The radios in Nokia phones were always superb. I live in an area of poor mobile coverage [known as "the UK" ;)] and Nokia phones were amazing at operating reliably in marginal signal conditions. The last Nokia I had was an N95 which was a pretty good phone. The 6310i was probably the best of them all (up till quite recently there were people in the UK, usually travelling salespeople, who were hoarding these and buying them up on eBay for when theirs broke). Although the phones I've had since are smarter and shinier, none of them have a radio of quality remotely close to the Nokias. They won't operate in places I know the Nokias worked fine. And they often seem to lose mobile signal completely, requiring a restart (or switch to flight mode and back). Many things get better over time, and I love the features of my Android phones, but I do miss that quality RF design. RF is hard ... just look how long it took Apple to get it right! [1] [1] Although that did mean that the first iPhones had amazing engineering debug screens for the mobile network side as a side effect of the problems they had.

neurobro 13y ago

I'm still waiting for the "iCandybar" form factor fad to fade so we can get the modern-day evolution of the N93, with 41 megapixels and real depth of field, etc. I won't stop holding my breath.

frik 13y ago

The Nokia fate will be remembered as hostile takeover. Everything worked out in the favor of Microsoft in the end. Though Windows Phone/Tablet have low market share, a lot lower than expected. * Stephen Elop the former Microsoft employee (head of the Business Division) and later Nokia CEO with his infamous "Burning Platform" memo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia * Some former Nokia employees called it "Elop = hostile takeover of a company for a minimum price through CEO infiltration": http://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-microsoft-takeo-1243832372 http://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-m...

tinco 13y ago
Lower than expected? Whose expectance? Given Microsofts track record in mobile devices I think no one expected Microsoft to really be able to compete. And given Nokia's track record in smart phones, nobody expected Nokia to be able to push Microsoft up either. But as it is now, it seems they've actually been able to. They've managed to punch a small but significant hole in the Android market, against all odds, by building some truly excellent products. Who'd have thought Microsoft would some day produce an integrated mobile product that you could prefer over an Apple product without being made out a fool?
- waps 13y ago
  From the wikipedia page. > During Elop's tenure, Nokia annual revenues fell 40% from 41.7 Billion Euros per year to 25.3 Billion Euros per year. Nokia profits fell 92% from 2.4 Billion Euros per year to 188 Million Euros per year. Nokia handset sales fell 40% from 456 million units per year to 274 million units per year. Nokia share price which was at 7.12 Euros on the day Elop was hired, had fallen to 81% to a bottom level of 1.44 Euros two years later, after which it began trading at 4.14 Euros, up 36% on the day. Elop's success in negotiating the sale of Nokia's struggling mobile device business to Microsoft has been described by many securities analysts as a significant victory for NOK shareholders, particularly when viewed in context of failed efforts by Blackberry or HP to secure value for handset business owned by those companies. I had to reread it 5 times. I am still not convinced. Yes, that last sentence gives me the impression it has the words "significant victory" and "success", but my brain is simply unwilling to accept that as a valid conclusion. Maybe I should start working in business ...

bws99 13y ago

Sad times - although I look forward to what's next. More competition is always a good thing.

throwawayaway 13y ago
glad to see this competitor go, only more competition can result.

MatthewWilkes 13y ago

The St. Crispin's Day speech? REALLY?

205guy 13y ago
On the one hand, I'd agree with you that it's a gross exaggeration. On the other hand, I've always felt that corporate middle management was the new (and less bloody) realm for what used to be tribal chiefs, lords of manors, and dukes of minor duchies, and their associated battles for control of land.
mturmon 13y ago
It is heartfelt, but using it does feel a bit overcooked in this context. Perhaps the author has the blessing of youth, and must suffer its one or two disadvantages as well.

HenryMc 13y ago

I still think it's a mistake for Microsoft to not buy the Nokia brand. Why not go the Motorola route (Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions)?

oblio 13y ago
I doubt Nokia would sell the brand. Nokia has been a Finnish company for 150 years. They made several mistakes - including bringing Elop in - and they probably wanted to get rid of the part of the company that was no longer sustainable. But I doubt they ever wanted to give up the brand, based on the details I read these days about the deal with Microsoft (only sold the mobile division, licensed the Nokia brand for several years, banned from producing mobiles only until 2018, etc).

davidgerard 13y ago

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-with-broken-screen-is-best-phone-of-all-time-2013040464681 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-...

Spearchucker 13y ago

I'm optimistic about the buyout. Nokia's dev site is clearly transitioning - the place holder is cool https://www.dvlup.com/ https://www.dvlup.com/. The people will mostly stay the same, even though ownership has changed. I'd still work there if I wasn't tied geographically to where I am now.

dictum 13y ago
>DVLUP has joined Microsoft! We're serving virtual fruit punch and setting off celebratory pretend fireworks on the DVLUP Blog. Head on over to learn more and enjoy your extra-special Day One Badge. Things are about to get awesome. I can smell the Pointy-Haired Boss from here.

sidcool 13y ago

I do remember the small Nokia phones. They enabled to make me custom ringtones from sounds of the keypad. It was great. But everything passes, so did Nokia. It isn't literally ceasing to exist, but close enough. Long live Nokia.

shmerl 13y ago

Mer (former Meego) is one good thing which came out of Nokia and doesn't depend on it anymore luckily. The rest will be wasted.

moron4hire 13y ago

Reading things like this always causes me to reflect on myself and my own relationship to work. I'm envious of people who can work a job. My wife, for example, has been at the same place for almost 10 years. My father has worked the same place for over 30. They have their complaints, but they get up every morning and they go. The longest I ever lasted anywhere was 2 and a half years. It was my second job out of college. I've had 5 jobs over the course of 7 years. One of those jobs only lasted 3 months. One was only 10 months. Both were a race to see if I would quit or get fired first. I won on the 3-month job, I lost on the 10-month one. They never gave an official reason, but I think they would say it was because I wouldn't show up on time. Really, it's because I had no respect for management. I've been freelancing for the last 2.5 years. Excuse me, let me correct that, I was unemployed for 6 months after the 10-month deal. I thought I hated programming. After getting fired, I didn't want to do it again. A friend got me an interview at the place he worked, a small manufacturing firm. We started as a 3 month contract-to-hire, they wanted to hire me after the first month, and I stuck to wanting to contract. It scared the crap out of me. We were doing good work and being hired as an employee just felt like trying to ruin it. We worked out a consulting arrangement that, honestly, by most accounts is consulting in name only. I work so much for them that I don't have time to pick up other projects. After 6 months, told them I was going to primarily work from home. After another 6 months, I moved to a completely different city and just kept working. They didn't even know I wasn't in the area anymore for 3 months until we did a video chat session and they saw my new apartment. I don't know what any of it means. If my client doesn't add any new tasks and I finish out the list I have, I'll have worked for them longer than I've worked for anyone. Them not adding any new tasks is highly unlikely. At the same time, I would see working for them for another 1 to be encroaching on "failure" and another 2 years to definitely be "bad". Not in the sense that I wouldn't be making good money (I'm making more now than any two previous years combined), but in that I have this emotional snag that sees staying in one place to be stagnating. I don't think I hate programming anymore, especially now that I've gotten back into running my own side projects. But I certainly hate common corporate organizational structure. I just can't stand going into an office when I'm told, wearing what I'm told, thinking what I'm told (which seems to be the point of most employee handbooks). Every Joe Shmo with an MBA thinks he can start a consulting firm and hire a bunch of cheap programmers and turn it into a printing press for money. And they bring with them this cargo cult of Fortune 500 practices that ultimately feel dehumanizing. It turns my stomach even thinking about going to work as an employee. But none of my family gets that about me. They just think I'm being difficult. Maybe I am, but I make more than all of them, so what is their problem? Just because I'm not clean shaven or put on pants most days means I can't support a family? That's probably an aspect of why I want to stick to not being an employee, out of spite for all of the people who have told me, "just get a job already, just get out of bed on time and go to work already." It's very stressful. I'm constantly thinking about work and wanting to do something else. I don't get to just turn work off at the end of the day and play a video game. And that's not because I'm freelancing--as I said, my current client isn't going anywhere. That's my itchy feet, my knowledge of my past, and this haunting specter of some compulsion to find a new job.

reactor 13y ago

My relationship with Nokia started with 3310, long live Nokia as we know it. Can you believe that the mighty was once reached the highest market value of any European company: 203 Billion Euros ($281 Billion as of today's exchange rate)? I'm sure many have learned more than one lesson already.

general_failure 13y ago

The Nokia story will always remind us of how quickly even large companies can die in today's world. They didn't even see it coming.

ravin 13y ago

It's a moment like "and then"

peterwwillis 13y ago

Can anyone tell me what's happening with the Nokia Berlin mobile/maps group? I had interviewed for a position there and was on the verge of taking it, when something more opportune and local popped up. I'm curious where I would have ended up had I taken that job. edit: now I have to hop on the poem bandwagon! here's my ode to Nokia: Star pupil of texts in cyberspace, taking his time, with each Pound of the keys pushing farther towards hidden powers. Seven days a week, fascinations with secret menus Seven times more interesting than COCOTs and DATUs. Eight friends, huddled around the brightly lit screen, Zero in on the hidden treasures of information obscured. Pounded into their brains, codes impregnate future hackers. One, two, three, four, five digits bring them into an obscure and secret world.

tellarin 13y ago
HERE Maps is still part of Nokia. It's not part of the new Microsoft Mobile.

debacle 13y ago

Nokia is dead, long live Nokia?

niix 13y ago

I wish all phones were as indestructible as the Nokia "brick".

namenotrequired 13y ago
Yes... Nokia may be dead, my Nokia phone that I got for my 16th birthday is still alive and well. :)

yason 13y ago

This is how things come to an end but they had started slowing down a lot earlier. For any practical purpose, Nokia was dead around 2005-2006 at the latest and dwindling at least couple of years before that. Sure they sold lots of phones of good quality even after those years, but they weren't riding the first wave anymore during those years. They were riding on a dead horse, unwilling to notice it's not the 90's anymore.

badman_ting 13y ago

I like that this person talks about connecting people and people having their lives touched by Nokia. Nowadays we are very distrusting and dismissive of such talk. There is a good reason why of course, but still there is something reductive about the attitude of "it's just a fucking app/website/phone/whatever".

croisillon 13y ago

You mean Nokia is no longer a wood pulp mill? That's really the end of Nokia as we knew it!

tellarin 13y ago
For those downvoting, Nokia did start as a wood pulp mill in 1871.
- croisillon 13y ago
  Thanks for getting it :) I don't think I've been downvoted on this one, just sunk below the upvoted ones ;)

gojomo 13y ago

There's some weird fine print in the deal which could mean the revival of the Nokia brand, from an offshoot of the original company, after January 1, 2016: http://followingjolla.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-small-print-three-ways-nokia-can.html http://followingjolla.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-small-print-t... I wonder if that could work out like the weird 'sold Skype but not the key technology' clause of the Skype-eBay deal...

nirnira 13y ago

I understand the nostalgia, but I don't understand the melancholy. Why should you feel sad for a company that was so inept? We should be celebrating the fact that a company that failed to adapt and produce products that people really wanted was trampled by more nimble competition. After all, if you look at the phones Nokia put out over the last ten years, it's clear they had no clue what they were doing. Instead of really focussing on a few good ideas, they just kept throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick, adding bizarre features and more buttons and releasing phone after awkward useless phone after phone. All the while the big innovation was just turning the phone into a simple frame for the canvas, a big screen on which to run a flexible, updateable OS - then supporting and building a community around a single phone line. And when that innovation came, they scrambled to cover their asses, but it just wasn't in their company DNA to show that level of focus. Instead you could sense that they were upset at having to buckle down and "get serious" - like someone took away their toys. They were the consummate manufacturers of Homer Car phones. Their phones were pre-Cambrian experimental bodyforms. Well guess what, 99% of those random bodyforms were junk.

kisitu 13y ago

Personally I've been saddened by Nokia's downfall. I still remember the time I wrote Python code for both S60 and N900 series phones, taught a class about this too... Nokia had some really cool funky tools to work with.. Perhaps W8 will do some wonders; I guess its nostalgia :-(