I told my readers last year, that Stephen Elop's new Nokia Microsoft strategy with Windows Phone has only one chance to get it right. This was because I accurately predicted that the market share will fall from Nokia's 29% market dominating position using Symbian OS, to the 12% it was at year end 2011 when the first Lumia smartphones started shipping.
ELOP NOW SAYS BURNING PLATFORM MEMO HURT NOKIA SMARTPHONE SALES IN 2011
Note that the decline needed not be that intense, Nokia could have held to a far more gradual decline in Symbian sales if it were not for the misguided Elop Effect by the CEO. The Burning Platforms memo (half of the Elop Effect) was a self-inflicted wound similar to the Osborne Effect (the other half of the Elop Effect was calling his own product bad, which was the other colossal mistake by Elop at the same time, repeating the Ratner Effect. I call these two combined the Elop Effect, the most damaging CEO communication of any Fortune 500 sized corporation in the history of business).
Elop himself has now said, when answering a question at the Nokia Annual Shareholders' Meeting in Helsinki a week ago, according to My Nokia Blog who were present to hear him answer this question, NMB writes: "On Symbian and the Burning Platform memo. Asked about did he think it hurt Symbian, Elop said he believes it did hurt Symbian." MNB then reports more on what Elop had said - that Elop had said Nokia Symbian sales were "undeniably on a downward trajectory".
Note that Elop now admits that his Burning Platforms memo did hurt Nokia smartphone sales last year. But he tries to defend his decision as good for Nokia overall, nonetheless. What else would we expect from this CEO who has no credibility in the mobile industry. Elop said Symbian sales were "undeniably on a downward trajectory". And that sounds very reasonable, if we look at the long-term trend, yes Symbian had been falling under previous management of Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. Now lets look at at the facts and expose the EXPLICIT LIES that Elop will use to try to argue his bizarre management positions. Here from Nokia official Quarterly Results:
NOKIA OFFICIAL RESULTS BEFORE AND AFTER BURNING PLATFORMS MEMO
Quarter 3 2010 Symbian based Nokia smartphone sales: 26.5 M units and 3.6 B Euros revenues;
Nokia smartphone Average Sales Price 136 Euros, profits in smarpthone unit 335 M Euros
(last quarter before Elop was in charge)
Quarter 4 2010 Symbian based Nokia smarpthone sales: 28.3 M units and 4.4 B Euros revenues;
Nokia smartphone Average Sales Price 155 Euros, profits in smarpthone unit 548 M Euros
(first quarter Elop in charge, last quarter before Burning Platforms memo)
Burning Platforms memo released February 9, half-way into Q1
Quarter 1 2011 Symbian based Nokia smarpthone sales: 24.2 M units and 3.5 B Euros revenues;
Nokia smartphone Average Sales Price 146 Euros, profits in smarpthone unit 218 M Euros
(quarter where half was before 'Burning Platforms' memo and half after it)
Quarter 2 2011: Symbian based Nokia smarpthone sales: 16.7 M units and 2.4 B Euros revenues;
Nokia smartphone Average Sales Price 142 Euros, first time ever loss in smarpthone unit -147 M Euros
(first full quarter after Burning Platforms memo)
Elop once again uses partial facts to hide the truth and to mislead his audience. Yes, before Elop took over, Nokia Symbian based smartphones had seen declines in unit sales, in revenues, in average prices and profits. But after Elop took over in the first full quarter he was in charge, not one, not two, not even three, but all four of those metrics shot up - Nokia Symbian based smartphone sales grew unit sales, and grew revenues, and grew average sales prices, and grew profits. This was the last quarter before his Burning Platforms memo! So at the VERY LEAST it is untrue when Elop says Nokia Symbian sales were "undeniably on a downward trajectory" - at the very least they had experienced a strong uptick in 2010, thus there is no undeniable downward trajectory - but more likely, Nokia had turned the corner and were in recovery when Elop issued his ridiculous memo and destroyed this comeback.
I have said Elop is the most destructive CEO ever in corporate governance and the numbers bear it out - he caused enormous damage to Nokia and now Elop himself admits that yes, the Burning Platforms memo did damage Nokia smartphone sales. Elop tries to defend himself claiming Symbian sales were in decline - when Nokia official Quarterly Results data show the opposite - but he still tries to defend the indefensible. Nonetheless, he has now admitted 'the Memo' - what I call the costiest management memo of all time - did cause damage to Nokia Symbian smartphone sales. It is more than a year since I called him out on that memo. He now admits yes, it was damaging, while he still tries to argue it was not a mistake. You look at the official Nokia numbers there in the above, and you make the call. Was Nokia Symbian smartphone sales on an 'undeniable' downward trajectory if unit sales, and revenues, and average prices and profits all turned from decline and started to grow again?
ONLY ONE CHANCE TO RECOVER
Well, back to the 101 list. I said when Elop announced his Microsoft strategy, that this was not the smartest thing in my view, but it was the CEO's new strategy and he had the right to make that call. I then said, it was a a risky strategy, but that it might work (world's largest handset maker ends software development, rather partners with world's largest software company). I said it was high risk, but it might work. I then warned, Nokia will have only one chance to get it right. We would see in the Lumia series if CEO Stephen Elop could use this one-time opportunity into a chance to recover now devastatingly collapsing Symbian sales. The Lumia series had one chance to be just right.
At the very least, it had to be very acceptable to existing Nokia users. Why? Because Nokia used to be the biggest selling smartphone maker, so of those customers who walked into a handset store in 2011 or early 2012, the handset or smarpthone brand they most likely were still using, was a Nokia. The customer in 2011 and 2012 would in more cases than any other brand, walk in holding a Nokia phone they would want to replace. Thus, the Lumia line most of all, had to satisfy existing Nokia smartphone (and dumbphone) owners. Secondly, it was an opportunity to steal customers from rival platforms, so it should be in some ways competitive with some of the rivals, if not all of them, ie iPhones, Blackberries, Androids, etc. The Windows Mobile installed base globally was too tiny to care about, for Nokia if they switched their existing 29% market share in Symbian for the Microsoft 3% Windows Mobile Mobile global market share, that would be obvious suicide, losing literally 9 out of every 10 customers they had previously held.
So Nokia had one chance to get it right, because already in February at the Burning Platforms memo, it was obvious to all intelligent watchers of this industry, that Nokia smarpthone sales on Symbian were about to collapse. I was not the only one saying so, it was all over the industry, and now even Elop admits it with hind sight that yes, his memo did explicitly cause bigger decline in Symbian sales than otherwise he feels it would have had. I maintain, the evidence proves Symbian had recovered and was growing strongly when Elop killed the growth and turned into a decline. But regardless, Elop admits his memo made a bad thing worse. He admits his memo hurt Symbian sales. No matter what proportion of Symbian decline you attribute to the Memo, even Elop admits part of the decline was due to it. And no - Tomi is not saying Nokia should go back or that Symbian was perfect. It was not. Symbian was on the way out before Elop was hired and I agreed with that strategy. The replacement should have been MeeGo, not Windows, in my mind.
So in February 2011, any intelligent expert in the mobile industry could see that Nokia's dominating market share position was suddenly torpedoed by the CEO. It started an immediate global collapse ending at 12% at the end of the year. Note, that for explicitly Nokia Symbian market share, that was even worse, collapsing from 29% just before the memo, when Nokia was bigger in smarpthones than Apple and Samsung combined, to just 11% if we only count Symbian sales, what the Memo specifically damaged, as Elop admits. The other Nokia smartphone sales in Q4 were N9 sales powered by Nokia's own new Linux based open-source OS called MeeGo at about 1.75 million units sold and the 600,000 Nokia Windows Phone smarpthone sales (if you remember, Nokia's January 2011 statement of 'over 1 million' Lumia sales was to the end of January, not end of December where Q4 ended). (And yes, you read that correctly: Nokia's N9 using MeeGo outsold all Lumia smarpthones in the same quarter they were released, by 3 to 1).
ELOP SET WORLD RECORD IN MANAGEMENT FAILURE
So the Symbian sales were set to crash. From 29% market share to 11% in less than a year. This is a world record in any industry in any technology or platform for what was at the start of the year the world market share leader. Elop was not just the worst CEO in the smartphone industry or in telecoms. He set the world record for management failure across all industries. Yes, he is the worst CEO ever seen in human history. Its not just me calling Elop incompetent. For example CNBC has now added Elop to their list of worst CEOs currently in office. No industry has ever seen such a sudden and total collapse of the market leader. And now Elop admits his memo contributed to this world record collapse which pushed Nokia's powerful smartphone unit that generated over 40% of Nokia Corporation's total profits into loss-making instantly in the very next quarter. Loss-making that the smartphone unit since has not recovered from, by the way.
If your company is foreseen to experience a world-record collapse now, in this upcoming year, and your 'rescue product' will be coming at the end of the year, it is a one-time shot only to save your company. Nokia's early Lumia smartphones had to be competitive immediately. The whole company's future was resting on the shoulders of this new superstar series of Lumia phones, powered by Windows Phone software.
BUILT TO DISAPPOINT
The eagerly awaited Lumia appeared for the Autumn of 2011. And while it got positive reviews for its outwardly design factors - these were stolen from the N9 so in reality, those were all positive feedback to the N9 and MeeGo team but still - the early reviews were mixed. And then came the user trials and the news started to get worse and worse. By the time we had a couple of Lumia models, the Lumia 800, the Lumia 710 selling and the Lumia 900 was announced, I wrote my opinion on whether Nokia had found its saviour in this Lumia series with Windows Phone. I concluded the series was badly mis-designed and was built to disappoint existing Nokia owners, and totally uncompetitive against main rivals from Apple, Samsung, HTC etc. You may want to read my review of The Real 13 Reasons Why Nokia Lumia Will Fail Not Just in USA but Across the Planet.
That is why Nokia existing owners, if they buy a Nokia Lumia, will soon be severely disappointed. Some will be returning the Lumia - it has been reported to have the biggest return rates of any smartphone in Nokia history. The reviews of Lumia in use are often brutal as the Guardian review said they are returning their Lumia 800 as unfit to live with. Meanwhile the German review by Der Stern of the Nokia rival N9 was so glowing, they told their readers to travel to another country to buy the N9 like Switzerland and Austria, it is that much better than what Nokia sold in Germany (Nokia sold the Lumia series but refused to sell the N9). In fact in the UK, the N9 won the year's best design award by the 'Design Oscars' of the D&AD beating out the iPad 2 and the Lumia 800, while the N9 itself is not even sold in the UK !!! Now we hear that in Russia the exlusive Nokia handset dealership network is ending its Nokia affiliation and switching to sell exlusively .. Samsung brand handsets.
The unprecedented return rates of Lumia result in its second hand retail prices collapsing. The retail channel refuses to sell Lumia. Even when asked by existing Nokia users to be shown a new Nokia Lumia phone, in stores where Lumia signs are prominently promoting the new smarpthones, independent undercover tests by the press have revealed a clear pattern of reluctance to even show Lumia handsets. Retail staff from Finland to France, for USA to China have been caught by the press as refusing to offer Lumia when asked. Again, Nokia knows this. Even Elop has admitted the Lumia series has mixed results, and that they have problems explicitly with retail and that for example in the UK, retailers are not offering Lumia to Elop's satisfaction. This inspite of the enormous marketing push such as giving away free Xbox 360 game consoles to buyers of the Lumia or now, they offer fantastic expensive earphones by Monster (the Purity HD headset) as the sales gimmick and yet the UK retail support according to Elop is bad. And I told you what happens when retail store staff see high return rates? Their sales instinct will of course immediately stop offering those devices with high return rates. Of course. And Elop clearly admitted this problem continues today, when asked about it at the Shareholders' Meeting as I reported on this blog last week. Why does it matter? It matters because if you are totally dependent on the retail channel, as Nokia is - then it is a certain road to death, if you face a sales boycott in the retail channel. A certain road to death.
LIST OF FAULTS IN LUMIA AND WINDOWS PHONE
Why are sales people the world over refusing to sell Lumia? Why are Nokia customers returning Lumia at alarming rates globally. Why are European carriers/operators, traditionally Nokia's strongest market where it faces no entrenched domestic rival makers like it sees in North America and Asia - even in Europe, the operators/carriers are saying Lumia is not fit to sell to their customers. Here in Hong Kong two months ago, Lumia was in all the stores. Now the stores have withdrawn all the promotions and Lumia is nowhere to be found. And news from Russia is even more devastating, the 44 exclusive Nokia stores are about to switch to selling exclusively Samsung. Is this retail sales collapse of the Nokia brand in one of its strongest markets, or what?
When I wrote my list of 13 faults in Nokia Lumia, many came here of course to ridicule me. Others found great merit in that article. And the comments section is full of further faults in the Lumia line. I had thought of trying to collect into one place all the issues that were badly designed in the Lumia, to see in one place, but never got around to that. This is not a Nokia blog or handset blog. I have many other issues I want to cover. But we got the tip from a reader that there is a good listing of the 101 Reasons Not To Buy Windows Phone 7.5 on the My-Symbian forum. It is informative, and at times hilarious and at times sad. In some cases individual Windows Phone manufacturers have created some work-arounds to fix a given problem, but these all apply rather uniformly to the Nokia Lumia line in Windows Phone. The list is magnificient and informative, please go read the full list.
So let me take two sets of 10 items. First, my personal top 10 most annoying failures from that list, across all device owners. And I''m not going to list the ovbvious faults that you might see in the store or on a comparison of features side-by-side in some tech magazine or website. We know these problems already such as no micro-SD support or no Bluetooth file transfer or no multitasking (ie apps crash in background) and no Java support and no Flash player support etc. These are pretty widely reported but consider these real usability headaches you find out, after you bought your Lumia and try to use it
TOP 10 FAULTS IN WINDOWS PHONE TO ANNOY ALL USERS BUT NOT WIDELY KNOWN
OS LIMITATIONS
7. Need Zune to transfer files. Zune will only transfer photos, videos & music. All other files need to email/upload to yourself.
8. Your contact details are automatically uploaded to cloud service whether you like it or not.
13. No VPN support for this “corporate enterprise” phone.
USABILITY ISSUES
39. Cannot close music player, can only pause. Music player on lockscreen will stay until you reboot.
FEATURE LIMITATIONS
59. No call recording or app to do it.
DUMB AND DUMBER
77. Wi-fi disconnects when screen sleeps. Too bad if you are in the middle of a download.
78. If you receive a text message when talking on the phone an audio alert will blast your ear at the full volume set. All other phones will give a soft beep.
84. Phone will wake up and display sms content on lockscreen when locked – a privacy violation.
85. Phone can be rebooted without unlocking to bypass security lock.
FEATURES EVEN DUMB PHONES HAVE BUT WP7.5 DOESN’T
96. No silent option (no vibrate and no ring).
Thats a pretty nasty set of 10 huge surprises for any user who expects a modern smartphone from Nokia or Samsung or HTC or whever made your Windows Phone 7.5 based device. Now lets turn to specifically existing Nokia owners, who have existing Symbian phones. What else will the Nokia Lumia series do, to specifically annoy long-term Nokia owners. How badly is this Windows Phone system designed. How much will it annoy the existing loyal Nokia customer base? Lets take my Top 10 fave list:
TOP 10 FAULTS IN WINDOWS PHONE TO ANNOY NOKIA USERS BUT NOT WIDELY KNOWN
OS LIMITATIONS
20. Alarm clock cannot work when phone is turned off. All Nokia Symbian and Meego phones can do this.
(Tomi comment - a massive annoyance the first time this happens. Your Nokia phone causes you to miss work or an important meeting or date or whatever.)
21. The idle screen is completely blank and cannot display time or notifications.
(Tomi comment - all Nokia phones have understood the power of using the phone as a clock/watch for more than a decade now. A huge regressive step back and big disappointment for all Nokia users. How many times per day do you turn to look at your phone for the time? Dozens of times for the average user - per day. So this new Lumia series disappoints average users dozens of times every single day)
26. Cannot use Bluetooth keyboard.
(Tomi comment - just a year ago Nokia was selling its own branded Bluetooth portable keyboard. I was very critical of why that was discontinued, and argued profit could not have been a motive, that device was so useful for some users of top-end Nokia smarpthones, it would sell at almost any price, so Nokia could guarantee it was profitable. Now we know why. Elop killed the Bluetooth keyboard, because the OS he selected did not support BT keyboards...)
USABILITY ISSUES
44. Cannot save draft sms messages.
(Tomi comment - Nokia has always supported this, the world's first SMS was sent on a Nokia phone and Nokia has always been excemplary in SMS text messaging functionality. This is the very basics of user friendliness, now user un-friendliness)
51. Calendar scheduler has no weekly view and monthly view is non-zoomable.
FEATURE LIMITATIONS
65. FM radio doesn’t work on speaker.
(Nokia introduced FM radios to its handsets and have had this feature for nearly a decade. It may not be relevant to you, most of my readers, but remember, most of Nokia's phones are sold in the Emerging World where for many, their first ever FM radio the person owned - was the one that came on their Nokia phone. Those FM radios are used very often with the speaker playing the radio broadcast such as for example farm and factory workers who can't use earphones for getting the wires caught in the work)
DUMB AND DUMBER
81. Phone cannot be charged when off.
(Tomi comment - duh! This is madness)
FEATURES EVEN DUMB PHONES HAVE BUT WP7.5 DOESN’T
88. Cannot save new contacts from call history.
97. Cannot send/receive contact as a csv file.
98. Cannot backup sms to PC.
(Tomi comment - all these three are staples of Nokia usability and yes, even dumb phones do these things pretty universally now, certainly all Nokia dumbphones have done for years)
GO READ THE FULL LIST OF 101 FAULTS
The list was complied by My-Symbian user SamKB and it is hilarious, informative and also sad. Go read the full list. 101 Reasons Not To Buy a Windows Phone 7.5 smartphone.
So you got it too...
But to be honest, such a list could be done for any OS... and a list of 101 goodies could be done as well.
it all depends on your feelings towards the OS.
It would be more constructive to make a 101 list of reasons why Nokia shouldn't have taken WP as its ONLY OS.
Posted by: vladkr | May 11, 2012 at 03:51 PM
The list with 101 with things that is wrong with Windows Phone is a great overview. As much as this hostile overtake of Nokia by Microsoft puzzles me, Microsoft puzzles me as well. There is absolutely no doubt that Windows Phone is a technological underachievement and still is despite it is almost 2 years old now. I strongly believe the main reason Windows Phone doesn't sell is because people know that the OS is simply immature and very limited.
I really wonder what is going on at Microsoft management as many of these issues are so fundamental and also trivial to implement. For example, one volume setting of everything or not allowing MP3 ringtones. What are they thinking about?
At Microsoft they allow the department responsible for Zune and other market flops to be in charge of developing their next mobile OS. Microsoft have historically been very harsh at departments that under perform and have closed them down. Now instead, they let their golden egg and cash cow namely Windows to be infested by the Zune UI also known as Metro. Metro has been criticized all over the world but Microsoft seems to be determined to destroy their own products by it. The whole situation resembles how politicians believe in failed ideologies.
Now they believe that Nokia can save them but can Microsoft be saved from itself?
Posted by: AtTheBottomOfTheHilton | May 11, 2012 at 03:52 PM
I think apart from the obvious huge failure with regard to the Symbian announcement (i.e. Nokia should have got behind it even more strongly on Feb 11th 2011 knowing a competitive Windows Phone would not be available until the end of 2012/early-2013 earliest with WP8, rather than knifing Symbian in the back) was the other major fault that Tomi alludes to here and has in the past:
EXPECTATION. If a person likes WinPho/Lumia, that's great! Wonderful, I'm all for it. But people who defend it, or Nokia's move to it, on that basis (because some people like it, which is inevitable with anything), are totally missing the point.
The point is, as the 101 List shows (regardless of whether it is 100% accurate on every point) that Windows Phone is RADICALLY different to Symbian, and to MeeGo, and to S40, and also hugely lacking compared to Symbian especially, and also MeeGo (and to varying degrees to iOS and Android). THIS is the problem.
Suppose you'd been having porridge for breakfast for many years, you loved your porridge, you had it with different things at different times - honey, fruit, nuts, etc. You wanted to go on having porridge!
Then, someone comes in, says to you "no more porridige". And gives you bread and cheese instead. Very different. They say "hey everyone, forget your porridge, bread and cheese is the way to go!". Of course, some people will like bread and cheese, but most will long for their porridge with all those tasty extras. They don't want bread and cheese for breakfast! The person who serves breakfast is CRAZY to think you will suddenly stop liking your favourite porridge and start liking bread and cheese all of a sudden.
This is Nokia. And the customer response has been brutal. I have seen sales charts that show that in various major markets, there has been a direct and matching growth in Android sales over the last year that matches the drop in Symbian sales. Android is closest to Symbian. The story is totally obvious.
Nokia is trying to force feed bread and cheese to people who really want tasty porridge with lots of extras.
-------------------------
On a separate note - channel stuffing. When I bring up the issue of the Elop Effect causing the sales drop in Symbian after Feb 11th, some people desperately try to claim that this was purely due to channel stuffing - i.e. inventory is put into the sales channel sometime ahead of when it sells, so any sudden drop in sales must have been decided several months previously, long before the memo came out on Feb 11th. Who is right here, what is the definitive answer? Was the sudden drop in Symbian sales after Feb 11th due to decisions taken months before and the channel allowed to sell what it had, and then run out, or was it an immediate response to Elop's memo as seems perhaps more obvious?
Posted by: Alex Kerr | May 11, 2012 at 04:03 PM
@ AtTheBottomOfTheHilton:
> I really wonder what is going on at Microsoft management as many of these issues are so fundamental and also trivial to implement
Don't underestimate the power of corporate arrogance and bloat. What we may very well be seeing here is Microsoft in the same position as Nokia was prior to Nokia's fall from grace over the last couple of years. Microsoft is huge, bloated, successful and still puffed up from it's years of success in the PC market. Look at almost all previous Microsoft products - they took several iterations at least to get to a decent level of usability and quality etc.
This pattern is probably what they are conforming to with Windows Phone. Maybe by Windows Phone 10 it might be competitive in the marketplace but by that time the world will be mostly Android, and Nokia will be dead and gone unless it has unhitched it's cart from the Windows Phone horse and run with Meltemi instead.
Posted by: Alex Kerr | May 11, 2012 at 04:08 PM
@Alex Kerr
Meltimi is not coming. Elop did kill Meego and started Meltimi from scratch with minimal resources knowing that it will take long to be where Meego was. He was mahbe not able to kill it off but he did push the reset button.
Its all about timing. In a situation like now you do not reset and restart a product at zero if you need to come out with products. Not if you have a product that just needs to be optimized to march the new low hardware rrequirements.
As much as I wish Meltimi would be ready, succeed in the market and Nokia regenerate it will never happen. Not with Elop. Before he gives up his Windows Phone 7 only strategy and admit that it was a failurr he would rather let Nokia die.
Posted by: Spawn | May 11, 2012 at 04:44 PM
Ollila himself has said that Nokia was secretly working on Windows Phone, and that the board did not believe they could have kept this secret until Windows Phone was ready. So, an analysis of Nokia for the last year and a half should take into account what would have happened if Nokia would not tell the world about its plans to abandon Symbian and MeeGo until it would be ready to release a windows phone.
Posted by: Sander van der Wal | May 11, 2012 at 04:45 PM
A personal note: I really like what Tomi writes. His analysis are briliant and so are his forecasts. But one thing I do no agree with. That Nokia can still be rescued. Its to deep into trouble. Only changing the CEO would not solve all the issues Elop and the board produced. Undoing dones takes time and Nokia has not much time left.
We need to accept that Nokia will vanish like Symbian. As long time happy Nokia customer thats not easy but there is no alternatr then switching to Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Bada or Tizen. There is no plan B.
Posted by: Spawn | May 11, 2012 at 04:58 PM
two life and death issues not being listed in the 101 list:
0.1 worst camera experience on Lumia 900
0.2 wifi cannot coexist with 4G LTE/3G data
These two issues are killing lumia 900 cause users are return their lumia 900 phones within first week of try to AT&T store.
warranty cost in Q2 will shoot up to the moon.
the more lumia 900 nokia sells, the more loss nokia will take in Q2.
Posted by: PeterElgin | May 11, 2012 at 04:59 PM
@Sander van der Wal
Admitting that there is also work going on on Windows Phone and killing of your cash-cow Symbian and all other alternates to that work on Windows Phone are not the same things.
There is a huge difference and that difference is killing Nokia now. That is the point.
Posted by: Spawn | May 11, 2012 at 05:05 PM
@Alex:
I completely agree with what you said about porridge and bread+cheese.
I also agree with comparison between MS now and Nokia then:
Microsoft used to be colossal, really huge! But because of mismanagement (Vista, Flight Simulator, Windows Mobile/Windows Phone, EPM...) now it's just very big.
Just one example: try to investigate at firms you know. I made it with firms I really know well in two countries, and of 7 (2 defence, 2 banks, 3 ministries), all the 7 are still using Windows XP and will switch to Windows Seven (not 8!) only when Microsoft will force them to do so. Same with Office versions that companies are reluctant to upgrade.
Many companies are just fed up with troubles they face with Microsoft (unreliable, expensive, bad after-sale service...).
They usually keep Windows because they're to afraid of having to develop again all their existing apps for a new OS, but some will certainly change as many specialized applications for XP doesn't work on 7.
So Microsoft has quite a bad reputation, and as average mobile phone user has choice, (s)he buys the one they trust more:
it can be Apple thanks to their excellent after-sale service, or Samsung because one owns already a Samsung TV, a Samsung washing machine or a Samsung super-tanker and are pleased with it.
Everything that the Nokia-Microsoft joint venture doesn't have.
Posted by: vladkr | May 11, 2012 at 05:17 PM
Spawn,
Plan B to save nokia
1. Remove Elop from BOD.
Let COO take Elop's day to day duty.
Let no body come to nokia CEO's office to take command.
No need to fire Elop, not let him take his dreaming gold parachute. let him take all his duty to handle lawsuit in USA court
2. Remove the deadline on Symbian platform
Remove the no more MeeGo device stick
3. Ramp up the building, marketing and selling N9/n950/808 across the world
4. keep Windows Phone line
5. Restore MeeGo team and Symbian team to improve them
a. Enhance Symbian smartphone by adding support both resolution (360x640 for low sector, 480x858 for medium sector), Port MeeGo browser to Symbian
b. Enhance MeeGo by adding support both resolution (480x858 for medium sector, 720x1280 for high sector)
6. Improve Lumia series and continue working on WP8 (1280x720 dual core high end)
7. Build nokia platform via nokia store and nokia cloud service
Add Qt path to Windows Phone to make OS less matter, Apps/service rule.
8. Start Android phone possibility research
9. make nokia maps/music mix apps available on all platforms for a small price tag US $49.99
Regards,
PeterElgin
Posted by: PeterElgin | May 11, 2012 at 05:23 PM
@Spawn
> Meltimi is not coming.
What evidence do you have for that exactly?
There is plenty of evidence that Meltemi is coming, and coming soon, indeed later this year. There have been multiple leaks and rumours, including Elop mentioning it himself. There is also rumour that MeeGo fed into Meltemi, as did Smarterphone in some way (perhaps just staff if not tech too). Furthermore, Meltemi is not technically limited to the low end either. Also, references to it were spotted in Qt bug reports before they were removed.
Current expectation based on rumours is the low end S40 based 306 with full screen capacitive multi touch will be announced this month, and then Meltemi low end devices with Qt (and I strongly presume Java too) will be announced later in the year, probably Nokia World in the autumn.
Posted by: Alex Kerr | May 11, 2012 at 05:46 PM
mmm... can anyone tell me what was the point for Nokia in acquiring Smarterphone at the beginning of the year ?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-nokia-acquisition-idUSTRE8051OJ20120106
Posted by: vladkr | May 11, 2012 at 05:59 PM
@Spawn
Nokia has said in public and multiple times that Qt would be their way forward, on top of Symbian an MeeGo. So, as soon as they would announce Windws Phone devices, they would have to explain why suddenly Windows Phone, and why Qt would not be on it. That is not explainable. Microsoft will not allow Qt on Windows Phone. Three OS'es means fragmenting their ecosystem, making them all weaker against Android and iOS.
Dumping Symbian and MeeGo when Windows Phone was ready would mean massively screwing their third party developer system, at the time when third party support would have been essential. Nobody in their right mind would want to work with a partner which was lying through their teeth at you.
So, without analysing the alternatives there isn't much one can learn from this.
Posted by: Sander van der Wal | May 11, 2012 at 06:00 PM
Hi Vladkr, At, Alex, Spawn, Sander and Tomifan
Vladkr - haha, thanks yeah. But as I do not own a smartphone using Windows Phone and am not planning to (my current smartphones run Android and Symbian), I think this kind of listing is useful to examine the issues. Some on that list are potentially deal-breakers and I think that list illustrates just how incompetent about mobile, the Microsoft Windows Phone team has been. And it helps explain the enormous return rates, and the carrier rejection of Windows Phone. This is an OS that is designed to disappoint. And when you are disappointed, you go back to the carrier store to return, which then often is after the official return deadlines, and you have an argument with the sales staff (who don't want to lose commissions) and the end-customer becomes upset. This means they project that anger also at the carrier store and thus the operator brand.
At - haha, technological underachievement indeed. And very good observations about how this reflects to the development priorities inside Microsoft (bad omens there obviously)
Alex (welcome back, where have you been my friend!) - excellent analogy porridge vs cheese bread. Excellent, I'll use that when I talk to the media.
About the Windows 10 haha iteration, yes it might take that long to get Microsoft basics right (it took as long to get original Windows right, I remember Windows 1.0 and 2.0 and 3.0, and the first one that was reasonably usable, was Windows 3.1). But Windows Mobile went from 12% to 3% market share by the time Windows Phone launched. Windows Phone has gone from 2% to 1% under Windows Phone 7.x. how microscopic will the Microsoft mobile market share be by the time they get it right, haha. I mean, Moto left after WM, Sony and LG bolted now under Windows Phone, Samsung is shifting to Tizen soon so whose left to carry the load. Nokia's own market share will be down to 3% by year-end and 1% by next year this time...
Spawn - I am afraid you are right, at least all of Elop's actions so far suggest that is his pattern and modus operandi
Sander - yes, I agree. And I attempted that analysis last year if you remember in the summer when I had good time to crunch some numbers. I took the most pessimistic assumptions under the Symbian/MeeGo strategy without the Elop Effect, and compared it to I think it was Q2 or perhaps Q3 numbers and calculated the delta between those. Its on the blog if you want to go see. It was not pretty, Nokia would be a highly profitable company now even without counting how much a fully-supported MeeGo global launch would have added by Christmas haha
Tomifan - cheers! And onbviously, if you are a business, you don't make that choice ever. You offer all of the above, but if you prefer one over the other, you tilt the business so, that you raise the prices of the 'undesirable' part so as it gradually ramps down, it is always profitable for you. That is - ahem - what Nokia should have done with Symbian... (don't want to dwell on it now, on a nice Friday night)
Cheers all, keep the comments coming, will return soon with more
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | May 11, 2012 at 06:06 PM
@Sander
Why on Earth should Nokia have abandoned Symbian and Meego?
A normal CEO would have strenghtened the Symbian / Meego line, and gone *also* WP.
In which case, no harm would have ensued, for the first ecosystem Nokia controlled, by a WP adoption announcement.
Actually, why should have Nokia chosen WP in the first place? Android should have been the choice for a backup strategy. The Samsung way.
Alternatively, Nokia could have chosen WP, but *only* if REAL concessions were made by MS. Not the fake ones publicised by MS propaganda.
Remember, WP was (and remains) the burning platform, not Symbian or Meego.
WP should have been a very low priority choice, and only with many strings attached to it.
Again, why on Earth should have Nokia chosen the last and worst OS out there (with 101 shortcomings and counting... in 2012!!!!) as its ONLY strategy?
It was a totally insane idea, as is now fully evident. Only MS could benefit from such an idiotic move, and probably overdid it anyway.
So, this is why your point is baseless.
Posted by: Earendil Star | May 11, 2012 at 06:19 PM
I LOVE my N8
Posted by: David Niven | May 11, 2012 at 06:20 PM
@PeterElgin
The core issue is that Nokia already destroyed its previous ecosystems successfully.
Lot of those who wrote Symbian applications, learned Qt to bridge to Meego left already. They moved.on to iphone, Android. Nokia can do nothing to bring them back
Lots of the ex-partners invested significant in the Qt Symbian/Meego strategy. They left the moment Elop made clear both platforms are dead, all the investment is lost. The Symbian/Meego/Qt is not more.
Symbian was huge. Lots of users and money. WP7 is nothing. Companies, developers and supporters moved on. Nokia has nothing to offer to bring them back. Only 8% marketshare, no security of investment, no trust.
Posted by: Spawn | May 11, 2012 at 07:24 PM
@Alex Kerr
Evidence? None I could bring to a curt and risc my financial health with when Micronokia sues me.
There are certain hints and I count 1+1 together. Contacts, knowledge, experience.
Posted by: Spawn | May 11, 2012 at 07:25 PM
@Sander van der Wal
> So, as soon as they would announce Windws Phone devices, they would have to explain why suddenly Windows Phone, and why Qt would not be on it.
And where is the problem?
Or asked different: Do you really think killing Symbian/Meego/Qt was the better, easier, saver of those both alternatives?
> That is not explainable
It is. Even very easy. Just tell the truth: We try a theird strategy in parallel to our two strategies we already have (Symbian and Meego).
Remember that just some posts above yours Meltimi was named. Nokia HAS those 3 strategies. They still do Symbian and Meego (maemo->meego->meltimi).
They do that but declared everything non-Windows dead. See how stupid that is? More so when you think that from those 3 platforms only WP7 is burning. But I am surr Elop gets Symbian to burn too soon. And Meltimi is already deadborn under Elop.
> Three OS'es means fragmenting their ecosystem, making them all weaker against Android and iOS.
Focus and choice are not mutable exclusive.
You think that cause I offer A and B I have 5 customers per option whereas if I would only offer B that option would have 10 customers. The market works different. If you xo not offer A a competitor does and you have half your customers lost.
That is exactly the problem Nokia has now. Customers by non-Nokia cause Nomia offers only B-level mobiles.
> Nobody in their right mind would want to work with a partner which was lying through their teeth at you.
Yeah. Also there is the factor that even if Nokia, well Elop, believes in his WP7 strategy partners may not.
As Tomi wrote that strategy is riscy and some of the partners choosed not to take thd risc and moved to saver terain like Android or iPhone.
Posted by: Spawn | May 11, 2012 at 08:03 PM