Intel CEO: Nokia Should Have Gone With Android 246
nk497 writes "Intel CEO Paul Otellini has said Nokia made a mistake choosing Windows Phone 7, and should have gone with Android — but admitted the money on offer may have been too much to ignore. 'I wouldn't have made the decision he made, I would probably have gone to Android if I were him,' he said. 'MeeGo would have been the best strategy but he concluded he couldn't afford it.' Otellini said some closed mobile platforms will 'certainly survive,' but said open systems will 'win' in the end."
Reader c0lo notes a followup to yesterday's news that open source software was banned from Windows Marketplace. It seems even Microsoft's own MS-RL open source license runs afoul of the Application Provider Agreement (PDF). The article suggests that these rules should give Nokia pause about their new partnership.
really intel? (Score:2, Interesting)
Intel should not speak. They are the one's putting drm into their chips....Talk about being open. Ass hats!
http://gigaom.com/video/intel-chip-drm/
Re:really intel? (Score:5, Informative)
They also shouldn't risk biting a major player in the market. WP7 has a lot of big corporate backers, now obviously including Nokia. Whether they will be successful or not depends on a lot of factors, but Intel should be aiming to sell chips to nokia, whether it's for MeeGo, Droid, WP7 or some other OS, not criticising their management choices publicly.
Like it or not, Nokia still sells a LOT of phones, meaning there's a lot of money to be made as a part supplier, and a good chance than the sheer mass of Nokia + WP7 will be able to sustain that ecosystem. I know a lot of people coming over from Europe (I live in canada) regularly laugh at how terrible a lot of our supposedly wonderful iPhones etc. are, when Nokia phones have had better call quality, voice dialling, very good integration with MS office (without extra fees), maps etc. long before Apple or Google started bringing that to market. They still have a lot of brand loyalty, and a strong brand if they call pull it together.
Re:really intel? (Score:5, Informative)
Remember this? [arstechnica.com] Intel lost in this deal already. They are probably quite angry with Nokia for betraying the partnership they had with MeeGo. Intel has a right to criticize their former partner Nokia, and I think it's good that the Intel chief has the balls to do so for what, in the end, will probably turn out to be a terrible decision, one that harmed both Nokia and Intel all just to help Microsoft.
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Oh I don't doubt that they're angry, probably justifiably so. I agree, it's probably a bad decision, (and is almost certainly a bad decision to the /. crowd) but if WP7 gets 20% of the market, RIM 10, and google/apple split the remainder that's still a lot of phones selling that could have an intel inside sticker on them. I'm not sure that much market fragmentation is good, but then I've grown up with MS 90%, apple 9%, Other 1%, so my expectations are probably biasing things badly.
I think for nokia they'r
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They had a lot of brand loyalty, and a strong brand if they call pull it together.
there, fixed that for you. No-one has brand loyalty to a hardware manufacturer, no-one buys a Nokia just because its a Nokia. they buy it becuase they know it'll work the same as other nokias and their last phone was of at lteast reasonable quality.
Now its WP7 on Nokias, people will think twice, evaluate other handsets, and probably go with a HTC/Android or iPhone.
Re:really intel? (Score:4, Insightful)
Making unprovoked personal insults is pretty moronic in my opinion.
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Microsoft, Acer, Samsung, HTC, LG, and Nokia. Those are all big names, although--to be fair--LG may not continue with WP7. With or without LG, that's a fair number to call "a lot."
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Microsoft, Acer, Samsung, HTC, LG, and Nokia. Those are all big names, although--to be fair--LG may not continue with WP7. With or without LG, that's a fair number to call "a lot."
It's not how many manufacturers will put out a WP 7 phone. It's how many manufactures will put out WP 7 phones. With the exception of Nokia which has now committed to WP 7 for their product line, none of the others you list have. They may be big names and they may even release a phone or two for WP 7, but there is no where the emphasis in their product offerings like there is for Android.
Currently, phones are not like PCs, where Microsoft has the market locked in. There are many alternative operating sy
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WP7: the Zune of phone platforms (which, to their credit, is a step above the Kin).
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That's not quite true. Intel chips would simply be running a different OS, most likely IBM's PC-DOS or PC OS/2. Or maybe even a different third party like GEOS.
As for DRM, all of these companies are reacting defensively to protect their business. It makes perfect sense to put-up walls around themselves & their hardware, rather than embrace an open format that turns Hardware into commodities. That's the mistake IBM made with the PC, and Apple almost made with their Mac clones.
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That's not quite true. Intel chips would simply be running a different OS, most likely IBM's PC-DOS or PC OS/2. Or maybe even a different third party like GEOS.
As for DRM, all of these companies are reacting defensively to protect their business. It makes perfect sense to put-up walls around themselves & their hardware, rather than embrace an open format that turns Hardware into commodities. That's the mistake IBM made with the PC, and Apple almost made with their Mac clones.
Of course it was that mistake that IBM made (and Apple with the Apple II) that is why we all use what used to be called pc compatible computers today. It wasn't Intel that benefited from that mistake, it was Microsoft itself.
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>>>Without Windows' market share, and the fact that Windows only runs on x86 hardware, Intel wouldn't be where they are today.
Your historical knowledge is not accurate. Intel-based IBM PC-compatibles were already outselling the competition (Atari, Commodore, Apple) by 10-to-1 before windows became commonplace (i.e. before 1991). Intel was already the dominant platform with 90% share and if windows had flopped, we'd simply be using some other OS on Intel CPUs.
Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatever operating system that IBM chose for the IBM PC and that Compaq would have chosen so they would have been compatible (along with all of the other clones) would have been the dominant operating system. It wasn't MS-DOS that caused the penetration of PCs, it was the penetration of PCs that caused the proliferation of Microsoft operating systems. And, IBM almost went CP/M which would mean there wouldn't be a Microsoft today, at least not the one we know.
As for settling on some other architecture, there wasn't one. The main manufactures pretty much used a 650x or an 808x processor. Sure there were a few z80s but not in the business world which is what drove pc adoption. You have to remember that the IBM PC/XT with it's 10MB hard drive was the price of a good used car. It wasn't until the clone makers drove the price point below $2,000 that the PC took off in other than business markets. The Apple II could be had for around $1,000 at the time, which is why schools sucked them up. But when the Mac came out, it was significantly more expensive.
Saying that Microsoft caused the market penetration is like saying gasoline engines caused the market penetration of the automobile. Henry Ford almost went with a diesel engine on his assembly lines. If he had pioneered relatively inexpensive mass produced diesel powered cars, that is what we would all be driving today. However, Ford standardized on a gasoline engine and so did everybody else to remain competitive.
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>>>The main manufactures pretty much used a 650x or an 808x processor.
Also Motorola's 68000 series, which was the basis for the PC's main competition: Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, and Commodore Amiga. And Sega Genesis. The computers eventually migrated from the 68060 (last in the line) to Motorola/IBM's new PowerPC.
6502 was a bit of a deadend. It had a LOT of use in the 70s and 80s, but never moved higher than 16 bit (in the Super Nintendo and Apple GS). That was a shame.
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>>>The main manufactures pretty much used a 650x or an 808x processor.
Also Motorola's 68000 series, which was the basis for the PC's main competition: Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, and Commodore Amiga. And Sega Genesis. The computers eventually migrated from the 68060 (last in the line) to Motorola/IBM's new PowerPC.
6502 was a bit of a deadend. It had a LOT of use in the 70s and 80s, but never moved higher than 16 bit (in the Super Nintendo and Apple GS). That was a shame.
I agree with that, but those were second generation. Initially, other than the hobbyist computers, it was 650x or 808x (Apple, Commodore Vic20/65 for the 650x and IBM and numerous clones for the 808x).
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Actually, if Microsoft had settled on some other architecture, people would probably be OS/5 (mostly) or Linux and Microsoft would be an obscure software company that died in the early 90s. The personal computer was IBM's baby, Microsoft hijacked the operating system through good luck, ruthlessness and fraud. Microsoft would never have been able to "settle on some other architecture" without destroying the only reason they're still in business. They rely on the network effect of a billion Windows PCs to
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Yeah, no doubt. For Intel to lecture about "open" technology is the pot calling the kettle black. They way they aggressively hold the x86 platform to their chest, a lawsuit always waiting to drop on AMD or NVidia if either company does something they don't like.
Open up the x86 platform to a few other chip makers, then we can talk about "open systems".
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The more it moves towards the CPU the easier it will be to use it for other stuff.
A DRM chip in the video subsystem is useful only for media. A DRM integrated into a processor and chipset can be used for your own data, not just for the data of the media corps.
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Were his comments wrong, or are you just going the "ad hominem" route?
open source software isn't banned (Score:5, Informative)
They aren't prohibiting "Free Software", they are prohibiting software that is under a license that requires the distributor to pass certain rights along to the recipient. Hence GPL like licenses that require distribution of source code, and that you grant redistribution rights to everyone you distribute it to are being explicitly prohibited. (And in fairness I can see why those licenses would cause problems for Microsoft as distributors) On the other hand BSD like licenses that allow you to repackage and distribute without source and without passing rights forward are acceptable.
Re:open source software isn't banned (Score:4, Informative)
No
They are prohibiting neither. They are prohibiting GPLv3, not v2. The significant difference is that GPLv3 has the interesting patent "mutual assured destruction" clause which is in direct contradiction to a number Microsoft agreements with customers and policies. In fact they cannot legally redist v3 without changing the policy they take on IPR.
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To be fair, and I'm no more an MS fan than anyone, the GPL puts an onus on Microsoft to do things that they don't want to be arsed to do. As the owner of the "store" Microsoft becomes the "distributor" of GPL software. That means if you, AC, put a piece of GPLed software on the store, you are effectively obligating MS to host the source code and GPL somewhere as the distributor. You can say, "Well, I'll handle that, they don't have to worry about it.", but they do have to worry about it. If you decided
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This entails some overhead in monitoring, but realistically... the OSS market for windows phone software isn't all that big. I would have hoped they would wait to make such a decision until it actually became burdensome.
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That means if you, AC, put a piece of GPLed software on the store, you are effectively obligating MS to host the source code and GPL somewhere as the distributor.
Even if you're 100% correct on that, what load does that create for MS, really? Let's say they allow GPL apps in their store, and worst case scenario, every app submitted to the store is GPL. So they now have two extra obligations comared to the alternate reality of having 0 GPL apps in their store: 1. They have to host the code, and 2. They have to provide bandwidth to everybody that downloads the code. Storage is cheap, so I can't see #1 being a big issue. Add 1 cent to the price of every GPL app and you'
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I don't think it's a large technical overhead. More a monitoring overhead as the two replies previously to state. They could easily host the data, hell they probably host the GPL *somewhere* already, in our interconnected world I can't believe they don't use and GPLed software anywhere. They could also require devs to host the source code so there'd be no no actual storage or bandwidth hit on them at all. The problem would be making sure that people are following the rules. They'd be responsible for m
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Actually, considering the agreement mentions only GPLv3 and related licenses explicitly, it's not source code. After all, if Best Buy sells Linux (and they do - routers, TiVos, and maybe the odd netbook or even CD est), yet they're not obligated to provide source.
It's probably more about the anti-TiVoization clause - because of the DRM that both Apple and Microsoft put into their app stores. (Android apps have no DRM, which is why pirated marketplaces are rampant and full of malware).
If you read the agreeme
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That's probably part of it as well. I personally read the "and similar licenses" part of the rules as implicitly banning earlier GPL licenses. I'd be curious to see if they accepted a GPL v2 app.
Wrong, wrong, wrong (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, and I'm no more an MS fan than anyone, the GPL puts an onus on Microsoft to do things that they don't want to be arsed to do. As the owner of the "store" Microsoft becomes the "distributor" of GPL software. That means if you, AC, put a piece of GPLed software on the store, you are effectively obligating MS to host the source code and GPL somewhere as the distributor. You can say, "Well, I'll handle that, they don't have to worry about it.", but they do have to worry about it. If you decided next month to stop "handling that" and the software is still on the store, MS is left holding the bag. By forbidding GPL code they are covering their asses.
This will become a problem as time goes on and more of these online "stores" pop up. As "distributors" these stores take on certain obligations that they may not want to deal with. Free software is easy enough to deal with when every computer has a compiler (or can easily get one). With the limited space and processing power on mobile devices "app stoes" make a lot of sense, but the GPL is decidedly unfriendly to the way most of them are setup. Maybe if the GPL put the onus on the developer to redistribute the code and license rather than the distributor? I dunno, I don't see Stallman changing the GPL to accommodate app stores, since he hates most of the companies that own them. It'll be interesting to see how it play out.
I'm not saying that either position is right or wrong, just that there are some intractable issues that may make them unable to work together.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! The store is not the distributor, they are the retailer. You can buy Ubuntu DVDs online, that does not make the person selling it responsible for the gpl, unless they are the ones who also put it together, in which case they are a developer.
If I repackage LibreOffice and call it MyOffice and I sell it to people online or in a retail store, I as the developer are responsible for adhering to the GPL or whatever licensing agreements of the components use, not the retailer.
Open source projects are fond of using "Free as in beer" as their slogan. You can go into the grocery store and by a case of it. If you then go and drink it all and do something stupid or even criminal, the grocery store is not responsible, nor is the brewery. On the other hand, let's say the beer was tainted with something. Again, the grocery store isn't responsible, but this time the brewery is.
GPL software works the same way. It is not the retailer (grocery store in the example above) that is responsible for ensuring the licenses are followed it is the author/developer. At most, if Amazon or anybody else was selling software that turned out to be in violation, they would need to pull it off their shelves (website), but they themself would not be liable or in violation of anything.
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I think a strong argument can be made that the app stores are not distributors, in addition to being retailers. There's no middle man here, the app store is the primary distribution method for the app. It's not like they're just selling a DVD, or a product that comes preinstalled with a piece of software. There's just he developer and the distributor. Since I believe that like iPhones, WP7 phones can *only* install app store apps, there is no other possible means for distribution.
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I think a strong argument can be made that the app stores are not distributors, in addition to being retailers. There's no middle man here, the app store is the primary distribution method for the app. It's not like they're just selling a DVD, or a product that comes preinstalled with a piece of software. There's just he developer and the distributor. Since I believe that like iPhones, WP7 phones can *only* install app store apps, there is no other possible means for distribution.
But, that doesn't change that the app store is the retailer (and yes retailers are distributors). Let's say that I am an indy band and produce my own CD and submit it to Amazon to sell, even as the sole retailer. If it turns out that I infringed on somebody else's copyright in my music. Who is liable? Me or Amazon? If I self-publish a book through Amazon and it turns out that I plagiarised part or even all of it, who is liable? Me or Amazon. In both case, it is me.
Now, if I produce a piece of software
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Wrong, wrong, wrong! The store is not the distributor, they are the retailer. You can buy Ubuntu DVDs online, that does not make the person selling it responsible for the gpl, unless they are the ones who also put it together, in which case they are a developer.
If you're starting a post with "Wrong, wrong, wrong" you should at least be right. Whoever makes copies has to comply with copyright law. The Ubuntu DVDs have already been copied up and the retailer only sells those copies, he does not make them. App stores that lets you download software does make copies and require a valid license for doing so.
I'm sure Microsoft could try all sorts of legal tricks saying they're only executing the copying on behalf of the developer like what a printing press is to a newsp
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The GPL specifically states that it does not over-ride US law. To sell something through the app store you sign a contract. Said contract trumps GPL. You as the developer now have full responsibility for the GPL. Amazon, or Apple, or whomever, do not have to make the source code available. The GPL requires that the source code IS available. Your contract with them dictates that you are responsible for that (although not in those words).
You could only sue Microsoft and win if your software was illegall
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This will become a problem as time goes on and more of these online "stores" pop up.
--- and the "app store" is popping up on more and more devices.
The HDTV set. The video game console --- and each new device is further removed from the PC and from any tradition of "openness."
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I've seen GPL software for sale on Amazon, so why is it so hard for Microsoft and Apple?
No they aren't (Score:2)
Then Amazon is violating the GPL. If Amazon doesn't provide the source code, they will be in hot water for copyright infringement. Can you link the said software here?
It is not a violation of the GPL to sell open source software. Many places do it. If Amazon sells it, they do not have to give you one piece of source code. They are the retailer. It is the manufacturer/developer of the software that is responsible for complying with the license agreements for the code they used, not the retailer.
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The GPL is a copyright license. It only comes into play when you do something that can't be done without potentially violating copyright law. For commercial distribution, that's making the copies.
Therefore, if Amazon sells thousands of copies made by somebody else, it isn't doing anything prohibited by copyright law, and therefore doesn't need a license of any sort, and therefore isn't bound by the GPL in any way. Amazon is merely following the "first sale" principle, and selling what they have receiv
Actually only the GPL, not open source in general (Score:2)
is banned from the Windows market. I'm also curious as to why he thinks open systems will win in the end. Apple's walled garden is doing pretty well and my "open" vibrant is hardly open at all. T-mobile and Samsung do their best to conspire keep it closed.
Unfortunately, writeups like these play to the slashdot crowd but the issue is bigger than "ZOMG OPEN PHONE GOOD!!!" Why is my android phone so locked down that I can't do basic things with it like I could with a PC?
The real issues is that all these compa
No, actually only GPLv3... (Score:2)
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From TFA:
"Excluded Licenses include, but are not limited to the GPLv3 Licenses"
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The GPLv3 is provided as an example. Actually, if you read the license, it's pretty clear which licenses are excluded (if you're curious, only copyleft licenses).
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You can root an iPhone too, that's not the point. Regular people don't do stuff like that, and hackers will find a way to root almost anything no matter how open or closed it is at "base". For regular day to day users of an Android phone there is very little difference in the "openness" vs. and iPhone or WP7 phone. Some of them (not all) allow you to install non-app store apps without rooting, and a very small number allow root access by default (I think, I'm even sure about this), so it's accurate to s
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So? Is the iPhone any more locked down? You can root that too and jailbreak out of the walled garden.
The point is that the step shouldn't even be necessary on Android-based phones - the platform was designed to be open from the beginning, but in reality is not all that different from the iOS ecosystem in many cases, with only a couple of main differences; the ability to sideload apps without using the official market and the existence of some properly open phones like the Nexus One.
Re:Actually only the GPL, not open source in gener (Score:4, Informative)
Pedigree speaks for itself (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy's more comfortable with Microsoft, he's got shares in it, he talks to the people, he knows Microsoft. Now, Google is a totally different beast there - they're doing exactly the same thing, i.e just make an OS, but they're not really Mr Elop's circle.
And oh, yeah ... it is also a very distinct conflict of interest when SEC stops him [yle.fi] from selling all his MS Stock and buying NOK instead. It's like the rules tilted this particular crusade to a windmill.
I love my Nokia phones and I've never bought any other. For the brief period I worked for Ericsson, I was shocked to realize the depth of their patent portfolio, especially when it comes to UX stuff. I can guess those guns will be aimed at Apple first, while it's leaderless without Steve, but eventually the aim's going to turn around and point at Android.
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It's safe to assume that everyone that's developing on Android is already a major Nokia patent licencee. They've got reciprocal agreements with almost everyone that mean they make money and avoid patent suits. Using a patent as a club's nowhere near as profitable as using it as a revenue stream and a white flag, assuming you're an actual product-developing business and not just an IP warehouse.
Almost Everyone Agrees (Score:3)
Re:Almost Everyone Agrees (Score:4, Interesting)
Nokia's stock would've fallen even if they'd announced they were partnering with Jesus to bring an open-source version of iOS with Android's user interface to the market. They've spent absurd amounts of money acquiring and developing Symbian and collaborating on MeeGo as their primary platforms for the next decade, so switching to any alternative is a tacit admission that they'd thrown that money down the drain. A new partnership also involves a big transitional period in which it's very difficult to make much money. Investors do not like that kind of news.
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Consumer choice (Score:4, Interesting)
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Teams of assassins have just been sent from various parts of the world to kill you. This type of thinking must be dealt with. Choices? Freedom? Cease and desist immediately!
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That's an interesting idea, but Nokia was barely coping with putting out bug-free releases and providing customer and developer support on one smartphone OS. I shudder to imagine the state of the handsets they'd be shipping if they had to work on three.
(There's the customer confusion argument, too. Nokia already does about 20 new handsets a year to ensure it's properly fertilising all the niches, make it 60 and it'd be chaotic.)
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They make so many models and have so many OSs on them that they could just smash out phone after phone after phone with no OS and have either the carriers buy them and somehow justify the cost by putting their own Android OS on it or have resellers (even a department of their own) put basic Win/Droid/iOS (ha ha, yeah, whatever)/WebOS/Symbian/MeeGo etc. systems on with or without that carrier branding that is so popular around the wor
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There is a very simple reason the telcos hate it when we install our own stuff: They want to be the sole gatekeeper so they can tax us anytime we do something and they actually feel entitled to that money.
Telcos used to bully phone makers to no end to the point where they would provide the means to disable features that saved the customer money. I still recall hacking my phone to enable basic features like the ability to transfer files over USB instead of having to spent $0.75 a shot emailing *my own* pict
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Can you point to a reference hardware design which runs all OS, or which allows the consumer to pick?
No... that does not exist yet.
So for now at least, phones are tied to the OS or vice-versa.
Someday it will never matter what platform you use, and all your data is stored in open formats, and your data can be opened in competitive software, etc. but that is a LONG way off. The phone companies in the USA spent -millions- of dollars a few years ago, trying to convince everyone why you could not keep your phon
They should go with iOS! (Score:2)
Should've stuck with MeeGo + Qt (Score:3)
Qt could have been the key to retain developers. Also, partnering with MS is a sure-fire way to get fucked in the butt. Finally, firing your in-house developers and outsourcing it to India is a sure-fire way to fuck yourself in the butt.
QT is also incompatible and any other LGPL library (Score:2)
Which also means that applications linking (part) to LGPL licenses are incompatible. So that community port of QT (LGPL) to Windows Phone 7 doesn't matter as applications written in QT will be banned from the store. Don't you love Microsoft and their tricks ?
And this is also one of the many reasons we as an userbase or group of developers should mistrust Nokia in everything...
Did Nokia choose M$ or did M$ choose Nokia? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It takes two to tango...
microsoft is the bad date.
nokia accepted, and is going to the movies at 7.
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I definitely think Microsoft is the driving partner here. All Microsoft really did was shop their OS to a major hardware partner, that's been their plan all along, and doing this deal with Nokia is exactly how they'd want it to be. They provide software and large, respected hardware partner integrates and produces. Nokia on the other hand has completely changed their game plan in order to accommodate. If you had asked people two weeks ago what Nokia road map for the next 3 years looked like, then aske
Re:Did Nokia choose M$ or did M$ choose Nokia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed.
I'm not a Nokia phone user, but I used to be an avid Nokia n800 user and developer. It was an -amazing- tablet OS... but then Nokia threw out the API *twice* (or was it THREE times when they switched Maemo from GTK to Qt?). Nokia pissed off all their developers and users, because they wanted to make it a phone OS. They didn't see that Google had already won the open source phone OS war, and Nokia could never catch up and beat Android in the OS space.
Ironically, Google's been struggling to get Android running on tablets well. Tablets could and should have been a Nokia market...
The n800 was awesome for it's time, 800x480 and awesome video.. it simply needed scaling up in screen size.
Gmapper would download Google Maps while you drive, but this was on maemo YEARS ago.
I would have paid double cost the n800 to get one with a 7" diagonal screen, but Nokia management threw it all away....
Even after Nokia halted development of Maemo, some Nokia engineers continued to help the open source community. On their own time of course, since management didn't seem to understand the opportunity that they blew, or the hostility caused by their constant mission changes...
I think he's right (Score:2)
What differentiation? (Score:2)
People make a big deal about this, but I have yet to see any evidence that OEM modifications cause people to choose one android handset over another. People chose which android phone to get based on what carrier they are with, how well the device performs, what features it has (physical keyboard, camera quality), the price, and how good the manufacturer is at providing updates. I haven't heard a single person say "I'm going to get the CLIQ over the myTouch, because I like Motoblur."
Furthermore, the agreemen
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Here is a better question: Why would anyone prefer to buy a Win7 phone that by MS own pricing must be at least $50 more than the equivalent Android handset?
Android has already forced the prices for phones down to the point where they are now cheaper than the "feature" phones from 5 years ago and the prices will only go down farther. The only companies that will avoid the downward spiral are companies that either manage to be a fashion statement or provide some niche service not covered by the cheaper phon
I will never use Windows Mobile phones again... (Score:2, Insightful)
.. after years of experience with them.
I owned an HTC Mogul, HTC Touch Pro, and HTC Touch Pro 2 up until last December. All three phones ran Windows Mobile (which I kept updated). What I came to learn was that windows mobile is the best way to waste the great hardware that the phones were equipped with. All three of those phones were top notch upon release and could have been mind blowingly close to their advertised usability. Instead, and all because of the OS, they were so clunky and crippled it was
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Probably Not Windows Phone SEVEN (Score:2)
It's repeated in the PCPro article linked to in the OP, that Nokia is migrating to Windows Phone 7. There is a great deal of evidence that this is at least partly misleading. Nokia's new CEO (and former Windows exec) Stephen Elop has been careful to never, not even once, in print or via interview, say they are going to move to Windows Phone "Seven".
There is good evidence to suggest that whatever Windows mobile OS Nokia adopts, it will be different in significant ways than the WP7 available now. Nokia has co
Other Insights... (Score:2)
Today the weirdest boast's "Ick bin kein Trojaner" (Score:2)
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Typical capitalist "strategy"... (Score:2)
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Only because Nokia was overvalued to begin with. If moving to WP7 is the end of the world as they know it, then maintaining Symbian while launching MeeGo as a pathetic alternative the other much better developed ecosystems (actually including WP7) means that their world was already over.
At the end of the day, it does not make a difference whether they managed to jump to WP7, Android, iOS, WebOS or even BlackBerry OS. The key is that they needed to either build yet another competitive ecosystem, which they a
Re:Short Nokia stock (Score:4, Insightful)
Their problem is that the stock market, and the tech press, seems to see USA as the place to observe the future of mobile tech happening...
If one ignore Nokia's inability to get traction in the US market, they where doing fine.
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That's very true, but they were only doing fine in the sense that they were selling things now. I don't believe that they could continue to sell things by pushing Symbian, and MeeGo is a joke at this point.
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Sadly, when Meego got started half its basis (Maemo) was no joke. Nokia fumbled that one badly (first by announcing a new Maemo alongside the N900, then buying Qt and saying all future Maemo would use that rather then GTK, then announcing the partnership with Intel by combining Moblin and Maemo into Meego).
As for the longevity of Symbian, hard to tell. S^3 is so far only found on one device, and have gotten little time to mature. S^4 seems to have gotten nowhere as every Symbian fundation member pulled out
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I really don't think so. Nokia's European marketshare was hurting as much as anywhere else, e.g. http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25353 [hexus.net] The 5800 did very well but was a low-margin handset, while the N97 was popularly perceived as a turkey and nobody bought the damn thing. The trend here, as much as everywhere else, was for touchscreen phones with a lot of popular apps, and Nokia just did not deliver on either. They were still pimping a Blackberry-alike, 320x240 E72 as their premium business ha
Nokia's cost problem (Score:2)
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It's a wasted opportunity since one could envisage a situation where apps were built once and ran on any MeeGo device. Or for that matter any desktop OS provi
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Um, I am just a layman here, but I thought QT worked exactly as you describe, or darn near close to your written spec. And QT spits out Meego apps as well.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/09/nokias-cross-platform-development-strategy-evolves-with-qt-47.ars [arstechnica.com]
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Re:Short Nokia stock (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I've had mine now for over a year and wouldn't give it up for anything. It's not a perfect phone, but it's a great pocket computer with phone capabilities. Perhaps one device and one OS doesn't work for everyone, unlike what Jobs and Ballmer would have us believe.
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One device and one OS? Apple insists you need at least two of each, one for your pocket and another to activate and manage the first...
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the N900 was horrific to use.
Darn, I wish someone had told me. This whole time I thought that I had been loving it!
The programmability in python, the fact that I'm now running my simulations and generating plots in R and matplotlib, the fact that I can reroute the networking anyway I want (e.g. ssh, vpn), all without needing anyone's permission.
For real nerds, there is truly no other option.
It was so bad that after three months i went back to my iPhone 3G (and recently I moved over to a HTC Desire, which I love).
Obviously you're not fickle.
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Talking shit about the N900 on Slashdot is going to get you modded down pretty fast.. But I mean, yea we all love the N900 in that it's extremely flexible and open, but I have to say, from a consumer (non-geek perspective), it is not easy to use. Sorry, that's just the reality, in my opinion.
Re:open systems will 'win' in the end." (Score:4, Insightful)
Pundits like to state this, but I always wonder how Windows is an open system?
Compared to many of the alternatives it was: with Windows on a PC you didn't have to pay thousands of dollars for a development license to get API documentation and build applications as we did with some other hardware. The end result was cheap software on cheap hardware, at least when compared to paying $20,000 for a Sun workstation.
Today though, hardware is so cheap that paying $100 for Windows is starting to be a big problem on a $300 PC. Netbooks would be running Linux if Microsoft hadn't cut deals with OEMs to make Windows free or almost free.
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Pundits like to state this, but I always wonder how Windows is an open system?
Compared to many of the alternatives it was
Linux has been around since 1991. Windows did not really take off until 1995. It's success had little to do with openness, and more to do with cheap hardware, an approachable UI and administration model, software, and compatibility with one's workplace.
The level of "openness" has some effect on a system's success, but the claim that "open systems always win" is pure fantasy.
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You can't always place the blame on corporate developers. Most times when a project comes up and an estimate is provided, management comes back and dictates that it needs to be done it 1/2 or 1/4 of the time. Padding the estimates doesn't help either. Most times going into a project someone else (on the sales side) has already promised the customer what it will cost them, so many times what gets cut out of the projects is sufficient analysis and design.
Sad but true. Welcome to the real "Cledus T. Judd" wor
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You're already up against the wall and MS has a track record of going the extra mile for its partners both financially and technically.
I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.
Microsoft has a track record of going the extra mile to fuck its partners over both financially and technically.
LG, Motorola, Palm, Nortel, Verizon, Ericsson, Sendo, SGI, Novell, and even IBM. All had major difficulties within a few years after partnering with Microsoft directly due to the partnership and Microsoft fucking them all over.
Microsoft partnerships are where companies go to die.
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I agree with most of that but to be completely fair SGI was screwed over by Intel since betting the farm on a chip that was sold as the chip to rule them all turned out to be a dog.
You forgot the Splygass.. The browser maker that was promised a cut of the profits from the derivative browser that was IE but was then told that there weren't any since IE was free.
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I don't want microsoft anywhere near my phone's OS. I've had them on 3 phones and their OS made all three of them annoying to use. People are choosing iOS and Android for good reasons. Not only are they functional and relatively stable, they are also NOT WINDOWS MOBILE. Many people I know are in the same boat with me.
We got burned by MS's crap mobile product and we won't ever look back.
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That's fair and totally your choice. I commend voting with your wallet. I hated the older versions of WinMo so I can relate. I like the new Phone7 OS though over iOS but less than Android. My personal phone is Android but I develop for all 3 platforms and I'm pleased where MS is going, basically copying the good parts. They still have a way to go but we'll see.