6 ms·

Don't forget that Microsoft('s lackey) took care of lowering their value as much as possible before buying the Devices and Services unit for some spare change.

by Aoyagi 12y ago

dagw 12y ago
Come on. Nokia was doing a fine job of lowering the value of their handset business on their own.
- bitL 12y ago
  He is absolutely right.
  - bitL 12y ago
    For those of you in the downvote mood please search about the hidden bonus given by NOKIA's board to Elop in his original contract for selling off phone division and then carefully evaluate the steps he did. His execution was almost perfect in the light of this "small part" of his contract.
- pavlov 12y ago
  Yeah. It wasn't Elop who created one of the most dysfunctional software development units ever. He was brought in when the damage of previous bad management was just becoming fully apparent. Nokia in 2007-2010 was spending many times more than Apple on R&D. For that money, they got multiple infighting operating system teams each developing their own half-baked thing (Symbian, MeeGo, Qt, S40) and device teams that were building uncompetitive devices on top of 3-year-old software.
  - mikegioia 12y ago
    For anyone interested in this (very good) story, you can read about it here: http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego
  - josh2600 12y ago
    Two words: burning platform. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/06/the-final-reckoning-of-burning-platforms-memo-damaged-nokia-by-wiping-out-13b-in-revenues-and-destro.html http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/06/the-fin... There was just no reason to write a memo like that. It destroyed their business, almost singlehandedly, and no, I'm not exaggerating. The consequences of that memo were insane: Nokia's handset sales died all over the world all at once.
    - pavlov 12y ago
      We don't have more than quarter-level visibility. All we know is that Q1 2011 sales crashed and Elop wrote his memo. Which is the cause and which the consequence? In Q4 2010, Nokia stuffed the channel with outdated products. In a market that was growing accustomed to iPhone and Android, Nokia tried to sell consumers products based on the first touch edition of Symbian S60 -- the same software that was considered outdated when it first shipped in Nokia 5800 years earlier. (Because of the way Nokia's product development pipeline worked, the mid-range phones they released in late 2010 contained software that was several years old.) Isn't it possible that Nokia's Q1 2011 sales crashed simply because the channel was full of Symbian phones that just were not selling? As CEO, Elop would have visibility into that when he wrote his infamous memo. A point against the "evil memo destroyed sales" theory is that purchasers at large operators don't turn on a dime. When they stopped buying Nokia's phones in Q1 2011, the decision was already made earlier.
      - josh2600 12y ago
        The fallout from that memo was instantaneous and widespread. I worked in wireless at the time and everyone I knew at all of the carriers began to pull Nokia inventory. This was not true in many markets. Even if the burning platform concept was correct, releasing it in a companywide email instead of strategically shifting the company and then announcing the change in a measured, considered fashion would've been much better for their cash flows. Purchasers at large operators don't turn on a dime, usually, but I would argue that the CEO of a handset manufacturer declaring their entire existing lineup of products is going to be discontinued in viscerally graphic terms is one of the things that might spur such quick change.
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Qt was bought in part to attempt to bridge Maemo/Meego and Symbian. Problem, in part, was that previous Maemo versions, as well as Intels Moblin project, used GTK. With Maemo5 you had a massive culture clash, that pretty much ripped the community down the middle. Then the CEO was ousted, Elop brought in, and shit really hit the fan. Then again, maybe Maemo should have just died at that point, rather than be resurrected as Mer/Sailfish. The whole thing produced ripples that seems set to yank the larger Linux community apart. While Maemo was Debian in a mobile device, Mer/Sailfish at this point is as close to that as Android is.
    - mikegioia 12y ago
      While Maemo was Debian in a mobile device, Mer/Sailfish at this point is as close to that as Android is. Which is truly tragic. I'm not sure if many have experience using Maemo5 (especially the community build) but it represents the apex of phone operating systems in my opinion. Nothing is as pleasant to use, and to think that devices it was built for max out at 256MB of memory. This is why the Neo900 is so interesting and needed because for the first time, we could get modern hardware in the n900's perfect case, with the community Maemo OS. I just wish it was easier to develop for that operating system >_<
- Aoyagi 12y ago
  Yes, but Symbian development was spinning up again, MeeGo had an amazing potential. WP was absolutely not ready to be sold.
  - dagw 12y ago
    I was working at a place trying to do smartphone type stuff with symbian way before it was cool and have been a MeeGo fan since the days when it was called Maemo so I'm about as a big a fanboy of both as they come. But the truth is that Symbian had simply been stagnant for too long and would never catch up and MeeGo for all its potential was just another platform with even less backing than WP and even less ready to be sold. Had they decided to really go for it with on of Symbian or MeeGo a few years earlier and gotten on the smartphone bandwagon then I might have my MeeGo Lumia device I so wanted, but they didn't and by the time they realized their mistake it was too late. As much as I hate to admit it and as much as it didn't necessarily work out very well, going with WP was probably a good decision at the time
    - Aoyagi 12y ago
      Yeah, it's true that the stagnation was a huge letdown, but when N8 and later 808 came out, I strongly believe the OS was (and still is to a degree) competitive. Incomparably more so than WP7 devices which first came out around the time of 808 as well. Just out of curiosity, what do you mean "smartphone type stuff"? Symbian has been a smartphone OS since its inception.
      - Sammi 12y ago
        The iPhone set a new standard for smartphones. Symbian did not compare.
        digi_owl 12y ago
        A new standard in "feed me entertainment!" perhaps. At launch of iPhone Nokia had featurephones that were more capable.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Every little bit helps!
PopsiclePete 12y ago
Nokia were doing awesome right until then! I fricking loved Symbian, so much better than Android/iOS. Oh. wait, no, it actually was complete garbage. But yes, Elop ruined their kick-ass smartphones. Gimme a break.
- kpil 12y ago
  :-) I think that the truth is that: 1. The Finns got too cocky for their own good. 2. The forget to monitor the other guys. 3. Apple predictably made a smartphone (years after the ipod) and made a silly amount of money, and was dominating the high-end segment after a really short while. 4. Google decided to own the mobile ads market, and basically just not care about the hardware, and was starting to dominate virtually every other segment. 5. Nokia had a few platforms, some apps, and only the dying feature phone market, and they realized this. They would have had a chance (maybe) to go for Android, but judging by for instance Sony (that I think build the best phones. period. ) it is really hard to compete with high-end stuff against Apple.

Don't forget that Microsoft('s lackey) took care of lowering their value as much as possible before buying the Devices and Services unit for some spare change.

by Aoyagi 12y ago

Don't forget that Microsoft('s lackey) took care of lowering their value as much as possible before buying the Devices and Services unit for some spare change.

dagw 12y ago

Come on. Nokia was doing a fine job of lowering the value of their handset business on their own.

bitL 12y ago
He is absolutely right.
- bitL 12y ago
  For those of you in the downvote mood please search about the hidden bonus given by NOKIA's board to Elop in his original contract for selling off phone division and then carefully evaluate the steps he did. His execution was almost perfect in the light of this "small part" of his contract.
pavlov 12y ago
Yeah. It wasn't Elop who created one of the most dysfunctional software development units ever. He was brought in when the damage of previous bad management was just becoming fully apparent. Nokia in 2007-2010 was spending many times more than Apple on R&D. For that money, they got multiple infighting operating system teams each developing their own half-baked thing (Symbian, MeeGo, Qt, S40) and device teams that were building uncompetitive devices on top of 3-year-old software.
- mikegioia 12y ago
  For anyone interested in this (very good) story, you can read about it here: http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego
- josh2600 12y ago
  Two words: burning platform. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/06/the-final-reckoning-of-burning-platforms-memo-damaged-nokia-by-wiping-out-13b-in-revenues-and-destro.html http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/06/the-fin... There was just no reason to write a memo like that. It destroyed their business, almost singlehandedly, and no, I'm not exaggerating. The consequences of that memo were insane: Nokia's handset sales died all over the world all at once.
  - pavlov 12y ago
    We don't have more than quarter-level visibility. All we know is that Q1 2011 sales crashed and Elop wrote his memo. Which is the cause and which the consequence? In Q4 2010, Nokia stuffed the channel with outdated products. In a market that was growing accustomed to iPhone and Android, Nokia tried to sell consumers products based on the first touch edition of Symbian S60 -- the same software that was considered outdated when it first shipped in Nokia 5800 years earlier. (Because of the way Nokia's product development pipeline worked, the mid-range phones they released in late 2010 contained software that was several years old.) Isn't it possible that Nokia's Q1 2011 sales crashed simply because the channel was full of Symbian phones that just were not selling? As CEO, Elop would have visibility into that when he wrote his infamous memo. A point against the "evil memo destroyed sales" theory is that purchasers at large operators don't turn on a dime. When they stopped buying Nokia's phones in Q1 2011, the decision was already made earlier.
    - josh2600 12y ago
      The fallout from that memo was instantaneous and widespread. I worked in wireless at the time and everyone I knew at all of the carriers began to pull Nokia inventory. This was not true in many markets. Even if the burning platform concept was correct, releasing it in a companywide email instead of strategically shifting the company and then announcing the change in a measured, considered fashion would've been much better for their cash flows. Purchasers at large operators don't turn on a dime, usually, but I would argue that the CEO of a handset manufacturer declaring their entire existing lineup of products is going to be discontinued in viscerally graphic terms is one of the things that might spur such quick change.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Qt was bought in part to attempt to bridge Maemo/Meego and Symbian. Problem, in part, was that previous Maemo versions, as well as Intels Moblin project, used GTK. With Maemo5 you had a massive culture clash, that pretty much ripped the community down the middle. Then the CEO was ousted, Elop brought in, and shit really hit the fan. Then again, maybe Maemo should have just died at that point, rather than be resurrected as Mer/Sailfish. The whole thing produced ripples that seems set to yank the larger Linux community apart. While Maemo was Debian in a mobile device, Mer/Sailfish at this point is as close to that as Android is.
  - mikegioia 12y ago
    While Maemo was Debian in a mobile device, Mer/Sailfish at this point is as close to that as Android is. Which is truly tragic. I'm not sure if many have experience using Maemo5 (especially the community build) but it represents the apex of phone operating systems in my opinion. Nothing is as pleasant to use, and to think that devices it was built for max out at 256MB of memory. This is why the Neo900 is so interesting and needed because for the first time, we could get modern hardware in the n900's perfect case, with the community Maemo OS. I just wish it was easier to develop for that operating system >_<
Aoyagi 12y ago
Yes, but Symbian development was spinning up again, MeeGo had an amazing potential. WP was absolutely not ready to be sold.
- dagw 12y ago
  I was working at a place trying to do smartphone type stuff with symbian way before it was cool and have been a MeeGo fan since the days when it was called Maemo so I'm about as a big a fanboy of both as they come. But the truth is that Symbian had simply been stagnant for too long and would never catch up and MeeGo for all its potential was just another platform with even less backing than WP and even less ready to be sold. Had they decided to really go for it with on of Symbian or MeeGo a few years earlier and gotten on the smartphone bandwagon then I might have my MeeGo Lumia device I so wanted, but they didn't and by the time they realized their mistake it was too late. As much as I hate to admit it and as much as it didn't necessarily work out very well, going with WP was probably a good decision at the time
  - Aoyagi 12y ago
    Yeah, it's true that the stagnation was a huge letdown, but when N8 and later 808 came out, I strongly believe the OS was (and still is to a degree) competitive. Incomparably more so than WP7 devices which first came out around the time of 808 as well. Just out of curiosity, what do you mean "smartphone type stuff"? Symbian has been a smartphone OS since its inception.
    - Sammi 12y ago
      The iPhone set a new standard for smartphones. Symbian did not compare.
      - digi_owl 12y ago
        A new standard in "feed me entertainment!" perhaps. At launch of iPhone Nokia had featurephones that were more capable.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Every little bit helps!

PopsiclePete 12y ago

Nokia were doing awesome right until then! I fricking loved Symbian, so much better than Android/iOS. Oh. wait, no, it actually was complete garbage. But yes, Elop ruined their kick-ass smartphones. Gimme a break.

kpil 12y ago
:-) I think that the truth is that: 1. The Finns got too cocky for their own good. 2. The forget to monitor the other guys. 3. Apple predictably made a smartphone (years after the ipod) and made a silly amount of money, and was dominating the high-end segment after a really short while. 4. Google decided to own the mobile ads market, and basically just not care about the hardware, and was starting to dominate virtually every other segment. 5. Nokia had a few platforms, some apps, and only the dying feature phone market, and they realized this. They would have had a chance (maybe) to go for Android, but judging by for instance Sony (that I think build the best phones. period. ) it is really hard to compete with high-end stuff against Apple.