Nokia: Microsoft Must Evolve To Make Windows Phone a Success 230
DavidGilbert99 writes "Microsoft's priorities are Windows, Office, Xbox, and Surface. Windows Phone is no where near the top and that is the main reason why it has failed to make the impact many hoped for in the three years it has been around. While Microsoft can take the hit and play the long-game, the same cannot be said for Nokia, the other main player in the eco-system. While it has done all it can to evolve the platform, it needs Microsoft to step up and begin innovating. Bryan Biniak, Nokia VP, agrees: 'We are trying to evolve the cultural thinking [at Microsoft] to say 'time is of the essence.' Waiting until the end of your fiscal year when you need to close your targets, doesn't do us any good when I have phones to sell today.'"
Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
If your company future depends on Microsoft innovating on your behalf ... you're already screwed.
I'm hard pressed to think of anything really innovative Microsoft has done in years -- mostly they look at what others are doing and copy it (or buy it).
If they're going to put out the Windows Phone platform and then wait around until people buy it to take it seriously, nobody is ever going to take it seriously.
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Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm hard pressed to think of anything really innovative Microsoft has done in years -- mostly they look at what others are doing and copy it (or buy it).
That made Apple the #1 company on the planet, don't knock it!
True (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but Apple mostly improved upon the things they bought. Microsoft has a history of thinking "hmm, that's not quite right, it needs more cruft!".
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Microsoft buys a lot of ideas too. Except that they them in order to bury them.
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- The XBox line isn't exactly a sidelined product.
- Surface Pro is loved by those who use it, and many (including me) think it is a product whose time is only just arriving. It is the closest we've come yet to being able to go truly paperless, especially as a student.
- OneNote is the best note-taking app on the planet, the only limitation being it's lack of broad device support.
- Office 365 with documents stored on Skydrive ROCKS. It is like GDocs, except with more features and not totally sucking. Full rea
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The difference between OOXML and ODF is that if two programs give different results in 2 different software products, at least one of them is non-compliant[*]. OOXML, on the other hand, was non-compliant with the only software product it was developed for.
Actually, the most innovative thing Microsoft has done in recent years has been the Kinect. Give them credit for that. Also for being kind enough to open it up to non-Windows developers.
Some of the other Microsoft innovations may be wonderful, but anything
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Let's also not forget that even after decades, Excel and Word are light years ahead of anything else that has attempted to challenge them.
Decades ago, everyone was using WordPerfect. Word and Excel bear little to no relation to what they were decades ago, and claiming that current rival word processors and spreadsheets are worse than decades old Microsoft products is disingenuous.
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Besides, most people don't know how to use Word properly. It's become better since 2007, but before that, it actually encouraged bad usage. At least OpenOffice made people use styles simply by having them available. There's nothing particularly good about Word even today, it's just common.
Re: True (Score:3)
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Innovation" is a meaningless buzz word that rarely ever applies.
"Execution" is the important thing. It's the single biggest reason for Apple's huge success the last decade. Harddrive-based MP3 players, touch screen smartphones, tablets... Apple didn't create any of these. They just executed them well, and marketed the crap out of them.
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IMHO:
This is extra sucky because I feel that Windows Phones and Windows Tablets offer, hands down, the best "mobile" experience. Their interface is truly great for tablets/phones, but they arrives too little/too late to the scene. If they hadn't had such a mess internally the first time around in regards to tablets, things might have turned out VERY different.
I absolutely love using their interface in a "touch" environment. If they can somehow figure out how to...yaknow...actually succeed, I will definitely
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a pile of people with Windows phones. They really like them lots and find the interface marvellous.
Every one of them says the big problem is ... no bloody apps.
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Exactly. And the quality of the apps that ARE present is questionable at best.
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Informative)
I dunno. Today I have installed Yelp with an augmented reality mode courtesy of Nokia (called, get this, "monocle"). The app is awesome. My bank has been providing an app since WP7. Even the oft-invoked Instagram has got a bunch of third-party apps that work with it. One is reportedly better than the first-party apps for other platforms, another is officially supported by Nokia. Even the Google PIM services are sort of supported, and I don't care that much about Google+ to need it on the phone (I'm planning to buy the new Nexus tablet to get my Android fix, after the kids broke the old one).
At this point, I'd stand to lose if I switch my phone to Android or iOS. Fully usable offline maps from Nokia are the biggest thing. Google only offers "OK maps" after their latest regressive update. Don't get me started on Apple maps.
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The apps that are present are usually fine, but the ones that are missing are glaring. For instance, their maps - so far - work reasonably well for me. I also have things like a currency converter, a units calculator and some utilities, such as a battery, settings and store. What I am missing currently is the ability to block certain numbers from calling me, which can be easily done in Android: this is a HUGE limitation. Another thing I'm missing is the ability to use the chat features in Gmail, AOL, Li
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Funny)
> I know a pile of people with Windows phones.
Our thoughts and prayers are with their families during this difficult time.
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Microsoft evolve? Wrong metaphor! Repent and rehabilitate... maybe. I shall not hold my breath.
The Microsoft business is largely built on the corpse of DEC, who they slew on its deathbed, before the will could be attested.
Microsoft "conned" QDOS and ripped-off the creator to deal as an unscrupulous OEM to IBM. (BASIC is as BASIC does. I wonder if the source of MS BASIC can be audited for its original derivation?)
Microsoft "stole" Windows from Presentation Manager. (How many .DLLs had Microsoft written
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
mostly they look at what others are doing and copy it (or buy it).
That's not the problem. The Metro UI is fairly innovative, for example, and not really copying or buying something. The problem is, it's bad.
The problem is that Microsoft has put too much focus into pushing their internal business agenda, and not enough on servicing their customers. Microsoft's development model is about deciding which strategic product they'd like you to buy, and then trying to force you to use it by hook or by crook, except they rarely consider the option of getting you to buy it by making it a great product.
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The problem is that Microsoft has put too much focus into pushing their internal business agenda, and not enough on servicing their customers.
This turns out not to be true, which is the real problem for Microsoft. Their major customer has been IT departments. The software is designed to be managed by and for the needs of those departments. They assumed correctly that consumers would buy what was familiar from work: Windows. And they never got feedback that they never really understood the web either: people bought Windows computers and used browsers to do what they want and Microsoft was only peripherally involved.
Nowadays, even ignoring the "
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Their major customer has been IT departments. The software is designed to be managed by and for the needs of those departments.
Yeah, except that don't really service those customers very well either. Even in IT departments, Microsoft's approach is to try to force you to buy products rather than making them easy to deal with.
Yeah reminds me of the small businessman cartoon (Score:5, Informative)
Come on Nokia, are you that dumb (oh wait, you are) that you are actually telling Microsoft that if they don't hurry, you are going to go bust and they can buy what they want of you for loose chance?
The Windows Phone platform turns a lot of otherwise not so smart people into blittering idiots. Take this gem:
You can't compare Windows Phone sales to Android and iOS because it has only been on the market a fraction of the time.
The truth? Windows Phones is now the OLDEST smartphone OS now Symbian has gone the way of the Dodo. MS has been trying for WELL OVER a DECADE. Yes, they keep renaming it in an attempt to wash away the stench of defeat... actually defeat is not the right word, the would imply they stood chance, I can claim I was defeated in the 1 mile race but it sorta looses any meaning if I never made it across the starting line.
Nokia bet its future on an OS from a company that hasn't managed to sell for over ten years. Why would it chance NOW when there are to OSes selling like hotcakes and a bunch of upstarts and re-entries fighting for the scraps. It like betting on the boxer who knocked himself trying to get into the ring in the next round because the next fight is on top of mount everest and everyone is bringing guns so his losing streak is... is there ANYONE who can walk upright who thinks MS was a good bet for Nokia?
Symbian was not dead yet, the N900 and N9 sold faster then Nokia was willing to sell them and Android is available if they wanted it. They HAD OS'es with proven track records. They went for the OS that didn't sell and has never sold. That is beyond risk taking, that is even beyond putting it all on one horse, that is insane. Personally I think Elop is even more a Trojan then most people realize. MS never bet on Nokia, they wanted to ruin them while they experimented and then hope to buy the assests cheaply and make their own phones.
You can't mis-manage a company like this by accident.
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The best description on Slashdot I read about the MS-Nokia deal is:
Microsoft rides Nokia like a cowboy rides a horse untill it dies. Then they hop over to the next horse.
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Starting by the board of directors. Microsoft has been in deep dodo for the last decade, what makes them believe there is any one competent in management there?
Re:Good luck .. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nokia still has some brand recognition left, especially in South-East Asia, but it's vanishing alarmingly fast. Had they introduced the Lumia 808 a year ago with stock Android and we some clever marketing campaign, they would have created some buzz. They could increase that buzz with this new launch. Instead, their are complaining about Microsoft. Big fracking LOL at them and their choice for a CEO.
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It was a stupid decision to tie themselves to Microsoft.
Not really. Did you read the infamous Burning Platform memo [wsj.com]? Elop explained quite well how Nokia had sat on their haunches while Apple and Google and the Chinese all hustled. Apple dominated the smartphones, Android came in a close second, while Symbian had delivered nothing of competitive value for years. And their core profitable product, simple phones, was suddenly taken away by the Chinese who had developed a basic phone design that could be made for about $10 per copy.
The market had forked, and Nok
Re:Good luck .. (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that Nokia could have dominated Android.
At the time of the Burning Platforms memo, Samsung had not established its dominance over Android, Nokia had one of the best brand names, it had the largest market share of smartphones (yes, more than Apple at that time).
Had Elop not Osbourned the Symbian phones, he would have had time to transition to Android and could have leveraged its market share to advantage instead of adopting a platform with a history of failure.
Yes,Elop got some cash from Microsoft, but that money has run out now. Nokia will be paying Microsoft in the coming quarters. Nokia would not have needed the cash if it had not Osbourned Symbian.
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If you trust ANY advertising / marketing company, you're in for a world of hurt.
Yep, Nokia got caught on that one but it's just One More Lie. Why it was only yesterday, I believe, that Google was caught hiding the USB power cord on the Chromedealywhopper thing.
And let's not get started about Apple. Or Microsoft. Or Lotus Notes (god, let's NOT get started on Lotus Notes).
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It's actually a world of difference. Microsoft is a nation of anti-Ballmers, at least down at the level of developers, technical account managers, professional services people, evangelists, and engineers that I know. They're professionals, they're courteous, and they never throw chairs. They almost never slag other OS or app choices, such as Linux or iPhones in public, and generally not even in private. Sure, if you ask they'll talk up the Surface tablet they're carrying around, and they'll trot out the
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's "innovation" has been played out for over a decade. The last several years most of their products has been WORSE and a step back from the previous ones!
Look at Windows 8 and the last couple versions of Office, for example. Their UI's are terrible designs. I will absolutely NEVER deploy a Windows 8 PC for an end user because I don't want the headache of supporting it.
Microsoft pretty much had the UI down when they released Windows 2000 and Office 97. Everything they've DONE to their UI since has been a step backward. Why do they do it? Because to justify the upgrades they have to MAKE IT LOOK DIFFERENT. Which means screwing with UI functionality. Why is that all they can do to differentiate product? Because they have NO IDEAS for actual features or enhancements to make the product any better!
The only product Microsoft has put out in 10 years that was better than it's predecessor was Windows 7. And that only because Vista was so awful that they panicked and actually LISTENED to their customers for once. Which they promptly undid when they decided to force keyboard and mouse based PC users to navigate a tablet touch screen by DEFAULT in Windows 8. My Macbook Pro doesn't force me to see an IOS UI by default...
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Microsoft pretty much had the UI down when they released Windows 2000 and Office 97. Everything they've DONE to their UI since has been a step backward.
What do you know, overpopulated three-level menu clusterfucks and the institutional separation between menus and toolbars were the pinnacle of UI design accordingly to some people.
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It at least had the virtue of making some logical sense. And it's certainly better than the atrocious toolbar "ribbon" scheme of Office 2007/2010/2012 and the clusterfuck of disorganized colored tiles to find your applications arrayed for a TOUCHSCREEN that is Windows 8x...
Microsoft's current program and UI designs aren't even as
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It at least had the virtue of making some logical sense. And it's certainly better than the atrocious toolbar "ribbon" scheme of Office 2007/2010/2012
Odd, I find the ribbon organization more sensible and easier to navigate. But then again, there are plenty of people for whom the perfect way to use a computer is the one they have once learned. If that's the issue, just say it up front and stop mixing common sense and usability into this.
and the clusterfuck of disorganized colored tiles to find your applications arrayed for a TOUCHSCREEN that is Windows 8x...
Forget about the touchscreen, it's completely optional. Just organize the tiles the way you like and drop the ones you don't use. It's really easy, way easier than managing that dumping ground known as the Start menu.
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Hear hear. In MS Office their print preview functionality is worse than it was two product cycles ago. Their excel spreadsheets are no longer WYSIWYG. Something that looks fine on the screen might be mangled in the printout.
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Interestingly, while Windows 7 WAS better than Vista, it still represented a step back in UI design from XP. I'll give you a quick example; the user login. In XP, you changed the username, entered your password, done. In 7, you click on the "Switch User" button, click on the "Other user" button, then enter your username and password.
We just fell over ourselves loving win7 because we had to deal with vista ( which, in truth, wasn't all that horrible after the service packs. Never quite achieved the perfo
Re:Good luck .. (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. Windows 7 was where I started using Classic Shell (which will also make Windows 8 bearable). The last OS UI that, IMHO, could be argued as an improvement over it's predecessor was Windows XP, and the differences between it and Windows 2000's UI were very minor and mostly thematic.
Windows 7 attempted to be a poor copy of the Mac OS UI (encouraging you to dock all your programs to the taskbar) and Windows 8 attempted to be a piss poor copy of an Android/iPad/iPhone touchscreen UI on a mouse and keyboard PC desktop...
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> I'm hard pressed to think of anything really innovative Microsoft has done in years -- mostly they look at what others are doing and copy it (or buy it).
Kinect
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> I'm hard pressed to think of anything really innovative Microsoft has done in years -- mostly they look at what others are doing and copy it (or buy it).
Kinect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PrimeSense [wikipedia.org] Kinect hardware licensed from Primesense
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> I'm hard pressed to think of anything really innovative Microsoft has done in years -- mostly they look at what others are doing and copy it (or buy it).
Kinect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PrimeSense [wikipedia.org] Kinect hardware licensed from Primesense
And how many PrimeSense gaming systems do you have in your house? Exactly.
Remember, Apple didn't invent the portable digital media player with the iPod. They looked at existing hardware like the Diamond Rio, and said "this is a great idea, and we can sell millions of these, but this crap user interface has to go." They looked at existing cell phones and said the same thing, and came out with the iPhone. So when Microsoft looks at a small company and buys their product, you trot out the other double stan
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Nokia is doomed with this mindset. Totally.
Maybe they should have continued on the Symbia route. That at least they had control over. It was something that - for better or worse - made them stand out, made them different from the rest. Windows Phone doesn't - well, actually it does, because no other manufacturers are interested in the system. Which is pretty damning towards Windows Phone in itself.
I also just read the Samsung story about how they're molding Android into something of their own. That's smart:
but but but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wasn't the reason to go with Microsoft that you could customize more(hence not need ms to greenlight api's) than, say, your own OS or android?
in Finland we have this saying ":D".
(Sure, for Nokia developing for windows phone is probably cheaper than the other platforms but that's just because "can't do it" is the line instead of "yes we can!").
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It's hard to imagine how you could customize any more than on Android. So far, every brand of Android has a different front UI. I doubt that is going to happen with Windows Phone.
> in Finland we have this saying
I seem to recall Elop saying that using Android would be like peeing in your pants in the winter to keep warm.
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It's hard to imagine how you could customize any more than on Android. So far, every brand of Android has a different front UI. I doubt that is going to happen with Windows Phone.
I seem to recall Elop saying that using Android would be like peeing in your pants in the winter to keep warm.
well, at that same time amazon and some others were making customized androids already, which is why it was such a joke back then already.
Elop made some crazy ass comments like that peeing comment, since WP is like ordering the pee from overseas, warming it up in a microwave and pouring it on, if you pee your pants at least it's your pee - because anyone and everyone can make windows phones that are essentially the same, with Android at least Samsung owns the Samsung extensions and customizations(so LG can'
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Of course there were many more options than just Windows Phone versus Android. Nokia had some very good solutions nearing completion when those projects were canned. Nokia was doing well in the business phone market whereas iPhone and Android seem to orient more towards consumers.
And you think they care, or even can? (Score:4, Funny)
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Remember, doesn't mean 'getting better' or 'improving' - it only means 'dealing with local conditions most effectively'.
Oh. Wait.
Don't worry Nokia (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if Nokia financial situation becomes unbearable, I am sure microsoft can step up and buy her up, obviously at a discounted price. Which likely was the objective all along.
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Well if Nokia financial situation becomes unbearable, I am sure Microsoft can step up and buy her up, obviously at a discounted price. Which likely was the objective all along.
You know, if that was their plan, I would be quite impressed.
1. Create sucky OS
2. Convince excellent well respected cellular phone company to use said OS
3. Make that cellular phone company look bad, lose profitability
4. Buy that cellular phone company
5. Drop CEO and sucky OS in favour of better OS and flashy new CEO
6. Give CEO huge leaving bonus
7. Convince people it was all the CEO's fault
8. Profit!
But I think that is too many steps for MS...
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MS and Nokia were already in bed talking about marriage. But it seems that MS didn't appreciate the new Nokia its vassal created.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/07/nokia-q2-analysis-this-is-textbook-comprehensively-failed-strategy-in-numbers.html [blogs.com]
Let's see... (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft OS: 90 bucks or whatever they're charging
Smaller ecosystem for apps
Compared to:
Larger ecosystem by orders of magnitude
An OS that doesn't cost a dime (unmodded)
Going with Microsoft on this is corporate suicide and the stock price chart shows it.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=NOK+Basic+Chart&t=5y [yahoo.com]
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 [blogs.com]
--
BMO
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Microsoft OS: 90 bucks or whatever they're charging
Smaller ecosystem for apps
Compared to:
Larger ecosystem by orders of magnitude
An OS that doesn't cost a dime (unmodded)
Microsoft has deals with most phone manufacturers that use Android - a extortion of sorts to avoid patent fights. So, even if it ships with Android, part of the price was paying off Microsoft.
Even if you buy the phone used and load an unmodded copy of Android and get it working, the original purchaser already paid the MS Tax on the original Android OS that was installed.
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Which helps Nokia not one bit.
MS could never make a dime on phones and would be fine, Nokia is not in a good place.
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Maybe Microsoft or Intellectual Ventures will purchase Vringo and sue everybody making mobile phones for <pinky-to-mouth-corner>ONE BILLION DOLLARS</pinky-to-mouth-corner>.
Then, they don't have to actually make any phones or sell any OSes, just extract the d
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Forgot to add made with by a company with deep [yahoo.com] ties [ibtimes.com] with the NSA. At least for most Android phones you can install alternatives like CyanogenMod, not get stuck with just one (and bad) option.
Nokia had some control on their future with Symbian, Maemo/Meego. They should focus in making their platform as free as possible, maybe still bundling Windows Phone on them, but making available drivers, specifications and so on so a version of CyanogenMod, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish or others could be developed as alterna
Who peed their pants to stay warm? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nokia cuts its own throat and now has no one else to blame. Elop will quietly move back the MS once they are done.
Exactly zero people will be surprised.
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Exactly. He'll come back as VP of mobile hardware development (or some such) when MS swoops in to take the boots from Nokia's corpse. Is there anyone left who doesn't see this as a convoluted, shady, long term plan for MS to become a handset maker?
So what you're saying is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, they made a mistake by focusing on Windows, and another mistake by not dumping Symbian far sooner, and another mistake by very slowly dragging out the development of MeeGo, and many, many more mistakes before that.
Can't we just accept that Nokia is a massively dysfunctional company that is unable to EVER make a good decision, and just NEEDS to go away at this point, so it can be replaced with something less awful?
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No. With Symbian, they couldn't get things developed fast enough in their own damned organization.
Putting out fires (Score:5, Interesting)
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The original 'mistake' with the phone the same one they made with IE, trying to use it to tie end users to MS. This is the same thing we are seeing know with MS Office 365 and Azure. Ultimately it does not matter if any phone platform fails, as long as MS Windows and Office still generates revenue and profits.
Xbox is something that could develop because i
better idea (Score:2)
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MS has enough assets to never go bankrupt. Even without any sales they could continue paying all their staff for a considerable amount of time - there aren't many, if any, companies in the world that can do the same.
Smart Companies (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't let MS buy them.
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It wasn't MS buying them.
It was them deciding to buy a certain MS product (Windows Phone doesn't come for free) as part of their own main product.
yeah you liked that short term cash you got (Score:2)
with the "Deal"
now we are on long term consequences, and everybody told you it is not a good idea to stick with !Win phone and nothing else.
Hmmm (Score:2)
Nokia had the opportunity to examine the OS up close I am sure before putting all their eggs in the basket. Saying now that the OS isn't what they wanted is different from Symbian how?
And they dumped Symbian.
Nokia isn't very innovative. I have hosts of their phones. And I have their earlier tablets. Molasses moves faster, and any development or updating was based around an old school of update slow, if at all, and avoid anything dramatic. Riddled by 'buy the next handset' if you want more - no company wrote
I only know 2 people who bought windows phones (Score:4, Interesting)
One is a guy who used to teach MCSE classes. The other a grandma out at the community garden.
The MCSE guy won't say anything bad about MS, but he did ditch the windows phone and get an android one.
The grandma didn't know what she was purchasing, and is very disappointed that none of the things her daughter can do with her phone (iphone) can run on the windows phone.
Tiny sample size, but that is about all there is. Looking at the logs for the captive portal at work (10,000 students), windows phone doesn't even make up 1% of logins.
Its dead MS. Give it up.
As for Nokia, they are moribund too. Terrible management. Not sure anything can prevent Nokia from becoming a zombie patent troll now.
Summary: Microsoft is holding us back (Score:5, Insightful)
So the gist of this article is that Nokia is doing fantastic things with hardware, but Microsoft isn't keeping up and holding Nokia back. If Nokia had control of the OS, they'd be in much better shape. They would have this freedom with Android AND instant access to its software market. And Maemo/Meego was a fine OS (I owned the n800 and n900), which shipped with Android app compatibility. It's clear that Windows Phone was a horrible choice. How could they not see this coming when everyone was yelling at them telling them they were making a mistake?
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Correction: Android compatibility never happened. I thought it shipped on the n9 with MeeGo "Harmattan" (which I did not own), but it did not. Apologies.
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They might have been blinded by the billions of dollars Microsoft gave them, right when Nokia was in serious trouble and desperate for cash...
Nokia was making bad decisions for YEARS at that point, which got them into the trouble they were facing. Is it any wonder they would make yet another bad decision? Particularly when things had gotten so b
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They weren't desperate for cash. They still have a fair amount in the bank now, despite some eye-watering losses in the last couple of years.
(Prior to the 'burning platform' memo they were concerned about a gradual long-term decline in smartphone market share. Quite why their CEO would choose to turn that into a steep short-term decline I don't know, but market share
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By late 2010, Maemo/MeeGo was a once-promising OS ruined by swelling incompetence and lack of focus. I know it because I worked on it.
Android won that battle. But switching to Android would get Nokia squeezed between Samsung and 500 cheap shops in China. They'd probably sell more units than they do now with WP, but the margins would have been atrocious.
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And it isn't now? Nokia sold more units in the last quarter, but the revenue per unit went down. That's because Nokia is selling low end devices (Lumia 520). The market for high-end Lumias has dried up.
What MS must do is become less PROPRIETARY (Score:3, Interesting)
All Microsoft problems really indirectly boil down to one problem. They try to be a licensing company, rather than a technology solution company.
This is why google nailed them in both search and phone and now tablet. Even IBM got the message, and moved toward a Linux datacenter strategy.
I just amazes me to see all their "reforms" all their "restructuring" all their products that have been doomed to fail, and they still don't get it.
I can dream ... (Score:2)
I wish Nokia would just use/buy up Jolla (Sailfish OS).
Beautiful hardware meets beautiful software. They'd make lovely babies. Babies that'd I'd buy in a heartbeat.
Just dreaming out loud.
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Have you already seen the beautiful software, or are you "dreaming out loud" on this too?
Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
No one consciously chooses a Microsoft [product|platform|environment] on it's merits alone. If it is chosen it is largely, if not entirely, because of external factors ,the dominant of which is market dominance. Microsoft have had a terrible history of being slow on the pivot with regard to changing markets. They are in actual peril and in fear of being bypassed by more agile competitors even those with their own problems of inertia.
nokia innovation (Score:2)
Microsoft is missing a key ingredient. (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple and the Android groups have one major advantage over Windows Phone: Each has a stunning amount of control over what they are releasing. HTC, Samsung, et al don't care what the market share of Android itself is so long as people want their phone. Not their OS, their device.
At the same time, the iOS and Android devices pay nothing per unit for the privelege of running their device on that platform. To develop your own flavor of android for your device is cheap and attainable. Drivers may be proprietary, but the chipmakers have nothing to lose by letting you use them. Even for iOS, Apple owns it and can install it as many times as they like without incurring additional cost. Microsoft, you can be sure, takes a different view. In fact, as of March, Nokia disclosed that for the remaining life of their existing Windows Phone contract, they have to pay Microsoft â500 million.I've got to admit that odds are, they'll come out in the black on this proposition in the end. But certainly with their pockets â500 million lighter than if they'd sold the same number of Android phones at the same price point. At â10 a license, that's 50 million units, and at â20 a license, that's 25 million units. If they sell only 10 million units, that's â50 per unit.
You don't get deep pockets by giving away unnecessary slices of your pie.
Sounds Familiar (Score:3)
Android on Nokia Phones? (Score:2)
A couple questions about Windows phones (Score:2)
I fear I already know the answers to this but just to be sure...
1) Can apps be installed from outside the Microsoft's marketplace? I'm talking about a simple download like .apks on Android, not jailbreaking or compling from scratch and uploading using the dev kit.
2) Is there a decent, usable development environment that is free as in beer?
I like Android but I think it would actually benefit from some competition with another mobile OS that can answer yes to both of these questions. In that case then I wou
This makes no sense (Score:2)
Nokia's true blunder was WiMAX (Score:3, Interesting)
Ericsson worked with Verizon [ericssonhistory.com] to create LTE which could operate with Verizon's legacy CDMA network. By working with the telecoms to create LTE, Ericsson is going to benefit from decades of contracts to provide support and equipment to telecoms worldwide in the adoption of LTE.
Nokia chose to anger the telecoms by backing WiMAX in an alliance with Intel, WiMAX being promoted as a technology that could disintermediate the major carriers. Considering 9/11, this was an EXTREMELY bad time to threaten the US telecoms. Think about it. Nokia did not get access to Intel's fabs. Unfortunately for Nokia, in 2008, it became clear that its fab partner, Texas Instruments, was bowing out of its alliance. One can follow the ugly story of the Nokia-Intel alliance here [taskumuro.com]. By backing the wrong technology, WiMAX instead of LTE, Nokia went from owning the IP for the entire wireless stack to selling it all off. So now Nokia has to go to another party for its wireless chips, in particular, for the upcoming LTE.
Only Nokia was at the same time engaged in an IP battle with Qualcomm, its real mortal rival. Qualcomm possesses the IP for interoperability with CDMA, Verizon's network. And Nokia lost that battle, an unprecedented IP settlement [latimes.com] to the tune of a massive instant payment of roughly $2.3 billion USD.
So Nokia by not developing an LTE chipset found itself at the mercy of its mortal enemy, a company that would have been glad to have seen Nokia disappear from the face of the Earth a few years ago, especially as Qualcomm's business of licensing IP could be threatened previously only by the likes of European Nokia. And Nokia made itself into the mortal enemy of the US telecoms by pushing for WiMAX in its alliance with Intel, in the decade following 9/11.
What could have possibly pushed Nokia into making such an alliance with Intel and such a technologically and politically mistaken decision of pursuing WiMAX? I speculate it was all due to a fateful decision by the previous Nokia leadership to (badly) follow the advice of a fellow Finn, none other than Linus Torvalds [theregister.co.uk]. (And yes I get the irony that Torvalds was at one time working for a competitor to Intel, that's why Nokia's leadership clearly followed his advice horrendously.) "But it had a "Plan B", and had been considering it for years. In 2002, I'm told, Linus Torvalds convinced Nokia to create a Linux unit."
Re: (Score:2)
The sad thing is, he probably didn't.
It's often amazing how business decisions get made that everyone else is saying "that sounds bad", but the business is trumpeting it as the most awesome thing ever. It's hard to tell if they genuinely didn't see it coming, or if they just wanted to get their executive bonuses paid before the company went under.
So now they've dumped their own OS, put out 10 (!) different smartphones this year, and are wa
Sartorial Direction (Score:2)
The sad thing is, he probably didn't.
Maybe. Malice and stupidity and all that.
There is this story [wikipedia.org] about a vain leader and his sycophants that they tell to little children as a cautionary tale and a kind of moral primer. The thing is, once they're all grown up and working for a Company, they pretend to forget.
My beard is getting grey and I have yet so encounter a situation where it isn't true, unfortunately.
Re: Duh. (Score:2)
They have already done that with iPhones. We got marvelous FUD a whole back that Apple's Active Sync on iphones wasn't up to Microsoft's standards because it didn't properly access Exchange.... (And yes, I'm fully aware Apple's implementation is built under a decades old cross-license with Microsoft)
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why didn't you buy some 50-80 bucks S40's? what stuff is it exactly that you use the phone to get done, facebook chatting? Nokias non "smartphone"(though still app capable) have done okay.
you don't exactly have to dick around with apps on android either if you don't want - most have stuff like quick access to wifi sharing without "apps"(3rd partly loaded content).
yeah, windows phone is ok if you never wanted a "smartphone" to begin with but then it is utterly pointless.
Oh god... and HERE is the disconnect people (Score:2)
The MS Phone fanboy is an amazing critter, he can come up with a new excuse at the drop of hat.
And now the king of the crazies. People will stop wanting apps and entertainment on their phones any day now so then Windows Phone will sell because their old smartpho
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"Apps" blah blah blah blah. I've got a couple of Windows Phones, and I really don't care about "apps". I use it to get stuff done, and it's much easier to get stuff done than people who have to go through their laundry list of "apps" on the other two devices. Windows Phones will become more popular once the "app" fad is over, and people (growups who aren't geeks), as a whole, decide that they're tired of dicking around with their phones all the time.
Wow. You're a real account. I was really expecting that post to be from some AC troll.
Let me tell you something, in 5 years, those "kids" will be adults and still using apps, and those adults that don't use apps will be that much closer to dying off. Smart phones have been around for at least a decade now, and so far, people just want more functionality, more apps, and more dicking around with their phones. However, let's clear something up that I think you have a hard time understanding. They are no longe