Nokia CEO and Nokia's future directions...

[Pliablemoose]

"The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable."

Seems like Nokia is going to get out of the phone OS business.

Sound like they're going to adopt Android or WM and set up their own market or use an existing market?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/08/elop_burning_platforms/

Next up, RIM...

 

[kaerflog]

Yeah, I think for mobile we will have 3 successful OS, 4 at most.
Developers aren't ging to waste their time making apps for too many OSes.

 

[Fox5]

I wouldn't think Nokia is entirely going to jump out of the phone OS biz, they've invested far too much in it.
I could see them dropping A platform though.
Symbian - Symbian is a freaking money sink based on those R&D articles that came out recently. Not to mention it's a sinking ship that they're only going to have to plug more and more holes on, and they go it alone with Symbian, having to reinvent the wheel for things already accomplish in other operating systems.
However, they have the one benefit of a large user base...but does it matter? Symbian wasn't really a constantly updating platform, the OS was locked to the phone, existing users lose nothing if Nokia stops developing it.

Meego - Tied very heavily to Intel's platform and hardware, which is currently at a competitive disadvantage in the market. Also, does the market really need 3 similar Linux platforms, Meego, Android, and WebOS? Android is the most developed and is well optimized for a variety of ARM processors, but Nokia would still have to strip most of it out to take advantage of their QT framework and their own services, leaving it to be little more than Meego. WebOS is a more stock Linux distribution, in line with Nokia's Meego, than Android, so it would make some sense to hitch their wagon to that, except would HP want to after spending so much on WebOS? Still, shared applications would be very easy to pull off.
On the plus side, any of the 3 mobile Linux distros would be cheap (far cheaper than Symbian) for Nokia to maintain. Intel is doing the bulk of the development on Meego, Google on Android, and HP on WebOS, and all 3 draw very heavily from the very active open source Linux world. Nokia's real baby is QT, the GUI toolkit that will run on all of these platforms anyway.

What I can't see: picking up stock Android or Windows Phone 7 as their operating systems. They compete too directly with too many of Nokia's services, and no way would Microsoft let someone modify their OS significantly. As for stock Android, is Nokia really ready to compete head to head with HTC et al as just another equipment manufacturer? They'd get eaten alive in the specsheet war and time to market.

 

[gsaldivar]

As people expect their phones to do more for them, mobile OS's have become increasingly more complex. Instead of being a commodity - something the manufacturer just patches and loads on new phones without much effort, the OS today is the focal point and the subject of tremendous investment of time and effort.

I think the excellent hardware that made Nokia a success has now become a distraction to them. As a company they are just too hardware-centric, thinking in terms of crafting the next smash hit phone rather than focusing on building tomorrow's next smash platform. Today's market leaders have limited hardware involvement - with Apple limiting themselves to a single flagship phone at a time, and Google quite happy just sticking to the software.

MeeGo probably started off as more of a "we do that too" project, instead of the company-wide focused effort it really needed to be in order to insure Nokia's ability to compete in the future. Whether they underestimated the iPhone and Android, languished under bad management, or were simply too complacent in their past successes is besides the point now. If they don't get MeeGo polished in a hurry, they may have to start manufacturing WP7 and/or Android phones to keep the lights on.

I give Elop alot of credit for his letter though. It shows at least that he is aware of the waterfall ahead and is trying to get all his people rowing in the same direction. I see Microsoft in a somewhat similar situation, but would never expect that kind of honesty from Ballmer.

 

[postmortemIA]

Bottom line is, either they will figure out way to jump android bandwagon, or they will go towards dissolution of business.

Right now, it almost makes no sense to buy non-smartphone anymore. Non-smarphones are less and less available. There are even affordable data plans such as at&t's plan for $15/mo.

Nokia's OS is not of interest for consumers or app developers. It is like trying to sell Linux desktops in BestBuy - good luck with that.

Thus, only logical conclusion is that Nokia will start making android phones. I wouldn't be surprised if they are doing that already in secret. They should start thinking how to port Qt to android NDK.

 

[gsaldivar]

According to FT, European mobile network operators (Vodafone, Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom, etc) are pleading with Nokia to choose WP7 rather than Android - for competition's sake.

An executive at one large operator said if Nokia felt compelled to use a third-party smartphone operating system, the company should consider Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 because such a move could improve competition in the smartphone market.

Search Google for "Operators hoping Nokia will avoid Android" to get the full story, it's behind a paywall but you can click through the first Google hit to read it.

 

[gsaldivar]

nm

 

[cbn]

Meego - Tied very heavily to Intel's platform and hardware, which is currently at a competitive disadvantage in the market.

Can't Meego run on ARM as well?

 

[akugami]

I think if Nokia decides on an outsourced OS for it's new phones, it sure as heck isn't likely to be Android, at least judging from that tweet.

 

[Deeko]

Bottom line is, either they will figure out way to jump android bandwagon, or they will go towards dissolution of business.

Right now, it almost makes no sense to buy non-smartphone anymore. Non-smarphones are less and less available. There are even affordable data plans such as at&t's plan for $15/mo.

Nokia's OS is not of interest for consumers or app developers. It is like trying to sell Linux desktops in BestBuy - good luck with that.

Thus, only logical conclusion is that Nokia will start making android phones. I wouldn't be surprised if they are doing that already in secret. They should start thinking how to port Qt to android NDK.

Android or dossolution? You've gotta be kidding me.

 

[postmortemIA]

You won't have to wait long to see for yourself. There are rumors saying that on Feb 11th Nokia will announce WP7 phones.

 

[theeedude]

Nokia is Finnish(ed)

Their strategy is what, Intel and Microsoft? Yeah, let's get in bed with other companies that missed the mobile computing boat, that's going to work out so well. That's like a sinking ship tying itself to two other sinking ships to stay afloat.

 

[Deeko]

You won't have to wait long to see for yourself. There are rumors saying that on Feb 11th Nokia will announce WP7 phones.

...and you assume that that means dissolution? Windows Phone 7 has been fairly well received around the industry, even if its not breaking sales records. Nokia has made some fantastic hardware in recent times that was paired with lackluster software - its only logical that improving the latter would improve their devices.

Believe it or not - there's more to the world than Android, and making a phone on a platform that's not Android does not mean its doomed to failure.

 

[kaerflog]

Bloomberg reported that the announcement with Microsoft is likely.

Yeah, this is 2 giant companies and they will do their damm best to make it work.
They need each other.
Now if only MS can beautified the UI a bit.
I'm still pissed about the colored tiles.

 

[Fox5]

Can't Meego run on ARM as well?

There's currently two Meego builds.
One is Intel's, which is a pretty slick OS and runs only on x86 and is targeted and heavily optimized for Atom.
The other is a continuation of Nokia's previous linux distros, and it's a buggy slow mess.

They're supposed to merge eventually, but Nokia hasn't really shown it has the ability to lead and develop a Linux project, while Intel has. So with Intel doing the bulk of the technical work, I have doubts that Meego on ARM will ever be competitive, it certainly isn't at the moment.
Additionally, Meego uses an RPM package base, which has almost no ARM software available. Things will need to be compiled from scratch to run on ARM, libraries, entire operating system components, etc, and I don't think Nokia has it in them to create an entirely stand alone Linux distro. Their previous efforts were pretty much just stock Debian ARM builds with a custom GUI thrown on top, and even it borrowed heavily from existing open source technologies.

 

[postmortemIA]

...and you assume that that means dissolution? Windows Phone 7 has been fairly well received around the industry, even if its not breaking sales records. Nokia has made some fantastic hardware in recent times that was paired with lackluster software - its only logical that improving the latter would improve their devices.

Believe it or not - there's more to the world than Android, and making a phone on a platform that's not Android does not mean its doomed to failure.

Dissolution in long run if they keep trying their own OS, rather than betting on Android (or WP7, which is more risky). At this point, it is clear that iOS and Android will dominate smartphone market, with some chances for WP7.

They might have decided to go with WP7 because MS is more interested (read desperate) to get anybody use their platform, so they will get better deal, than joining heavily fragmented Android where they have to compete with dozen of manufacturers.

Either way, they have made bad guess that their platform can compete with Android. Nobody beside Apple can afford today to not have an Android phone.

Nokia might be doing ok at the moment, but it is running out of competitive products as smartphones are overtaking wireless market.

Making just hardware should be significantly less costly than developing whole platform; so they won't spend much resources with WP7 or Android smartphone.

 

[gdansk]

Some sinking boats can resurface, and I believe they're called submarines.

I really Nokia needs to settle to end their involvement in at least one of their OS. It could be both but I don't see anyone yelling that Bada is destroying Samsung, so it can't entirely be the multi-OS strategy. I'd hate to see it be the fetal Meego, but business probably necessitates that it is. I think that any product from HP or Microsoft would make sense. As far as I know there are no rumors pointing to webOS but it would certainly pique my interest.

 

[erwos]

Nokia going to WebOS would definitely be a clever play, but there's no indication that HP is interested in licensing it out (otherwise we'd see a WebOS phone from HTC by now, I should think).

 

[tommo123]

why not just do a htc? make phones for android and winmo7? and of course their own OS as well

 

[preslove]

why not just do a htc? make phones for android and winmo7? and of course their own OS as well

srsly. Picking just one platform would be pretty dumb.

 

[erwos]

A closer (read: exclusive) partnership will give Nokia more leverage in the direction the OS goes. If Nokia wants Microsoft to add a software feature, being the el-primo partner championed by Microsoft management will make that much more likely. "Code it yourself" has limitations.

 

[Pliablemoose]

why not just do a htc? make phones for android and winmo7? and of course their own OS as well

That would be awesome, Nokia has a great reputation for hardware, polish up Android & WM and you've got a great product line.

 

[gsaldivar]

why not just do a htc? make phones for android and winmo7? and of course their own OS as well

Because then they become just another manufacturer, and would have to compete directly against the hundreds of other manufacturers in China.

There is nothing wrong with manufacturing, but its a stopgap for a company like Nokia. If they want to continue as a market leader as they have in the past, then they will also need an ecosystem that consumers actually want to buy into.

Now at long last Nokia coming to the realization that Symbian is not going to cut it. Maybe MeeGo will do, but they will have to start on an emergency effort to polish it up, as they are already years behind the curve now.

 

[Munky]

If I wanted an Apple experience I would have gotten an iphone. But since I own a Nokia, I clearly do not want an Apple experience, and will not buy another Nokia if they make an Apple clone.

 

[SunnyD]

Personally, I think this is an excellent move on Nokia's part. They set the stage with both hardware technology as well as cellphone OS's, however they have clearly gone down the wrong path for the overarching scheme of things, but they have recognized this. Their contributions won't go to waste, I'm sure, as they could easily take Android and/or WP7 and integrate their expertise to come up with something kickass. Let's just hope they understand they need to be consumer-centric though.