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.
@David Niven
Same here!
Posted by: svensson | May 11, 2012 at 08:19 PM
Hi Guys,
do you really thing that Nokia would be in a better position if it won't switch to another platform and proceed with Symbian and MeeGo?
Nokia's profit margin was steadily going down also before Elop's strategy change in Feb 11. (http://www.gurufocus.com/news/137635/beware-declining-profit-margins-nokia-rearchinmotion) Wasn't it the reason of declining operational profit that Elop was put in place instead of OPK? It was clear that Nokia has to save money to stay in the market. Today Nokia is totally out of time to just return and continue with Symbian and do some other alternatives like WP or Android with low priority. That is too expensive! Nokia would be bankrupt within next half year! My guess is that Nokia has already rejected planned Symbian projects and speed up planned layoffs to save cash and last a bit longer until current and planned projects (WP and new feature phones) take off. At least that is really Nokia's last chance. I agree that now selling N9 in more markets would get Nokia some money but you shouldn't forget that the N9 is build on an old Nokia internally developed hardware platform which might not generate enough earnings. So you shouldn't just count on making much money with the N9. Don't get me wrong. The N9 is gorgeous, really the best Nokia phone ever, but it won't save Nokia. Developing the post-N9 MeeGo hardware platform together with Intel would burn even more money and would be the more risky path IMHO then jumping to WP.
It is a pitty to see so many great engineers moving away from Nokia during that time. But the path to success now would mean to streamline most of Nokia's corporate structure. I guess Nokia will shrink as an organisation. It already has and will redefine its inner workings and operational structures. Maybe Nokia can survive after Symbian and MeeGo departments are gone and only WP smart devices and feature phone departments stays alive. Nokia is in the need since two years to carefully check where it puts its money. Symbian and MeeGo developement is just too expensive to turn things around. Even if Nokia never switched to WP! If you question why Symbian is too expensive than just ask Tomi on how many sides Nokia was developing it's Symbian phones.
Elop is at Nokia to execute the strategy. Nothing more and nothing less. It's business where everyone should stay away with personal feelings. Elop might stay after successful execution or move onwards. That doesn't matter now. But it would give the wrong signal to fire him now. Ok, that's my personal opinion. Tomi, you are free to tell your opinion in your blog and I am following your blog with interest!
Posted by: Marko | May 11, 2012 at 08:49 PM
It's easy to be an big mouth the American way...
Elop trampled into Nokia's HQ like a bull going in a china shop. He didn't have any ideas about the mobile phone industry nor experience as a successful CEO. I can't stress it out enough: He killed Macromedia and sold their software like Dreamweaver or Flash to Adobe. And his job at Microsoft didn't give him the experience to act as a CEO of a global company like Nokia. So what the heck does he do at Nokia?
He's behaving like a raging bull. Yelling out that Nokia is a burning platform although its software, Symbian, was still way more successful at the time when he announced the Windows phone strategy. One year later, after numerous big mouth acts that were nothing but embarrassing and obviously utterly unprofessional (again, American big mouthing), he apologetically admits that everything he did was bad for Nokia. Still, he doesn't leave his throne at Nokia and keeps on racing into the wrong direction with the persisting intention of crashing Nokia into the wall. There's not the slightest sign that Windows phone will be successful sometimes in the future. It obviously failed convincing the customers. It's easy to blame the carriers. But I never met anyone asking for a Windows phone device in a shop. People ask for iPhones and Samsungs. Not the Windows phone Samsungs, but the Android Samsungs. I think the customers have a pretty good idea about what they want and what they don't want.
So, forcing Windows phone is definitely the wrongest of all wrong ways. People don't want it, and they won't forget. When they try something, they have a certain expectation. And apparently, Windows phone doesn't meet those expectations. Mostly, because it is so fucking shut up and doesn't bring the functions Nokia customers were used to. And Nokia customers won't accept a cut down OS with less functionality than they were used to. iPhone customers won't buy a Windows phone device because of the Microsoft brand and Android users don't want either of those because they don't want to lose the freedom they're given.
So MeeGo Harmattan was the one and only alternative to all of these operating systems. Still, Elop doesn't want to accept that in public. He keeps on yelling (yes, American big mouthing) that Lumia sales were better than the N9 sales. So, let us stress it out: Elop is a fucking idiot. A liar. A blighter. What does he do? He's got that paper at home he received from Steve Ballmer in 2010. He does what he was told to do. He's ticking one box after another, keeps big mouthing, tries to fool people and holds down the gas pedal to race Nokia to death. The fastest possible way.
At least, the internet never forgets. Everybody will know what kind of fool Stephen "Burning Platform" Elop is. But in the end, that doesn't help Nokia at all.
N8, N9, No more Nokia.
Posted by: Buttface Elop | May 11, 2012 at 08:57 PM
@Marko ,
Elop was not brought into nokia to save it.
He is a criminal who was brought into nokia to dismantle it for the benefit of Wall Street Short Sellers.
He is not working for nokia,
he is not working for microsoft though pretending to work for microsoft,
He is (has been) working for US Wall Street Bankers.
He has almost 100% accomplished his mission via cheating.
1. burning platform
2. windows Phone as primary OS
3. turning over nokia patents to mosaic
4. back on track is a lie
5. release buggy immature WPs in hash
6. launch on Easter Holiday where no stores open
...
Posted by: PeterElgin | May 11, 2012 at 09:08 PM
I wonder two smallish news-bits: 1: Nok saying two days after the AGM that it is actually just considering tablets, not committed; and 2: the -possibly untrue news that the N9 is now available in the US. Is there some change brewing up?
Posted by: Martin von Willebrand | May 11, 2012 at 09:08 PM
@Spawn ,
nothing is easy to rebuild esp. after such a disaster and the disaster keeps moving forward during our discussion.
but if following my plan B now today, nokia still can be saved on its own only.
part of the team of Symbian and MeeGo still hang on, we've all seen the Bella on 808 PureView and MeeGO PR1.3 on N9. Actual they are excellent when considering how less resources have been allocated to them.
Nokia can allocate more resources to these two teams and bring back key talents at any cost.
Keep the MeeGo name is important, even if it is 100% nokia MaeMo/Meltemi code. MeeGo equals the revolutionary N9, it is the way to keep the coolest factor with nokia.
At the same time, no need to dismantle WP7.5/8 plan but do remove those bad impacts on Symbian and MeeGo. Keep porting good microsft apps (office, exchange, vpn to MeeGo and Symbian).
...
Posted by: PeterElgin | May 11, 2012 at 09:29 PM
@Martin von Willebrand,
it is nokia 808 PureView unlocked. Chris Weber previously declared no 808 for US through AllThingD, then changed his tone recently through cnet). new Chairman might start doing something to hoax in new nokia investors.
n9 with US warranty is still unavailable.
Posted by: PeterElgin | May 11, 2012 at 09:37 PM
@vladkr You made my day with this: It would be more constructive to make a 101 list of reasons why Nokia shouldn't have taken WP as its ONLY OS.
Just to start with the first 10:
#1 WINDOWS phone doesn't sound as tasty as Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich
#2 By Alex Kerr: People who want to eat porridge in the morning don't want to eat bread and cheese
#3 Who wants to buy a used car from Steve Palmer?
#4 Two turkeys don't make an eagle
#5 Windows CE version 1.0 with codename "Alder" was released in 1996. In 2012 when you receive a text message with WP8 when talking on the phone an audio alert will blast your ear at the full volume set
#6 New CEO is coming from Microsoft
#7 More than 99% of the company's employees have never tried Windows Phone before
#8 More than 99% of the company's employees wouldn't buy Windows Phone themselves
#9 Rovio doesn't support Angry Birds for Windows Phone voluntarily
#10 Windows Phone is a lovely victim to be bashed by bloggers
Posted by: PlatformWarrior | May 11, 2012 at 09:59 PM
@PeterElgin
I think it'd be wise to rebrand the N9 OS and simply refert to the N9 and tell people it's based on the N9. I think Nokia PureOS for example would be a better name to promote. I'm not sure if the majority would feel comfortable using MeeGo after using iOS or Android just by the name. Maybe you disagree, but you need to meet people's taste. PureFont, PureView, PureOS... hope you see the point.
Posted by: Buttface Elop | May 11, 2012 at 10:01 PM
Nokia is DEAD
RIP
But Elop is a CRIMINAL, he should die in jail with Madoff
Tchuss
E_lm_70
Posted by: elm70 | May 11, 2012 at 10:02 PM
BY GOD, I never imagined the WinPho 7.5 is that crippled, its mind-blowing considering Microsoft has been doing mobile OS a decade before Apple and Google, and look where iOS and Android are now in a few short years.
Let me reiterate again, Elop must be investigated for collusion of interests and prosecuted.
Posted by: TCB | May 11, 2012 at 10:06 PM
Communities dominate Brands
Nokia customer community will never forget who did kill his brand
Nokia sold over 1 billions mobile phones, Nokia owners, even the owners of a cheap Nokia dumb-phone, all have been proud of their 'gadget'
Today own a Nokia is a sign of shame, thanks mainly to Elop and his mad memo
Yes, face it, Nokia is Dead, nothing and nobody can safe it now
No MeeGo, no N9, nor firing Elop, there is no way for Nokia to survive
Elop forced the all-in over WP, and this clearly is failing, Lumia is a complete failure
Today Nokia is dying, but tomorrow is Microsoft time for die
Over 1 billions of people hate Microsoft also for have killed Nokia via Elop
Smartphones, tablets, netbook, laptop, pc are converging
Apple and Google are the kings
Microsoft is a huge arrogant, totally incapable to produce a decent mobile OS
How to forget how Microsoft build their success: betrayed IBM and use cheap Taiwanese pc production for keep Apple away from the big biznes, Microsoft was never superior in technology never
Now is game over also for Microsoft
Tricky control acquisition of Nokia did not save the WP burning platform
Still Ballmer is #48 richest guy in the world, he will not die poor nor in jail, but Microsoft countdown has been started
Posted by: elm70 | May 11, 2012 at 10:31 PM
@elm70,
do not be fooled by Steven Elop, he was not dispatched by Steve Balmer, nor Olilla Jorma but by Goldman Sucks into nokia to dismantle nokia from inside because outside like apple , blackberry simply can not crush nokia under OPK's sound strategy.
keeping WP7.5/8 and restore Symbian/MeeGo, nokia still can be saved as long as nokia turns in Steven Elop to US court to face nokia investors and Let a new COO to lead nokia.
Posted by: PeterElgin | May 11, 2012 at 10:40 PM
Doesn't matter who send Elop in Nokia
We just know Jorma introduced and blessed him
We also know, the amercan funds Dodge, Capital Group and JP have supported/promoted him
Now is over, the brand image of Nokia has been destroyed
Apple, Samsung and Android are running fast and have left Nokia in the dust since months
Nokia is going to fail now, but Microsoft will also fail, it will take longer since they have lot of cash, but their good days are over
Btw, 11.2.2011, a little man was shouting as loud as possible about the crime just made by Elop
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_N/threadview?m=tm&bn=23441&tid=268491&mid=268491&tof=28&so=E&rt=2&frt=2&off=1
Nobody did want to hear back then
Also Tomi was shouting that day
Still the world let a Criminal to accomplish is plan
50b $ have been stolen to honest investors
Lot of money have bin shifted from Finland/Europe to US
Finnish government is still sleeping
Tchuss
E_lm_70
Ps: what was doing Angela Merkel when somebody did try to tricky acquire Opel?
What has been done for protect Nokia and their employees?
Posted by: elm70 | May 11, 2012 at 11:01 PM
My prediction
nokia new chiarman will announce:
Due to Recent lawsuits against Steven Elop from nokia investors, his CEO responsibility is now taken over to COO XXX, Steven Elop will spend all his time in facing US court. Steven Elop will be back to resume his CEO responsibility 6 months later till his contract expire or his resignation.
PeterElgin
Posted by: PeterElgin | May 11, 2012 at 11:04 PM
@David Niven & @svensson
Same here!
I have MANY phones on most OS's and I CHOOSE to use the N8..
As a side note of amusement, you should see the blank look on people's faces when I say "Why do you think I do that?"
After reading the 101 list [and tweeting it], I shake my head in disbelief. I had no idea WP was THAT bad..
@henrysinn
Posted by: Henry Sinn | May 12, 2012 at 02:31 AM
it should be noted that these are not OS problems (Windows Phone OS). the operating system is able to download files with the screen in sleep-mode etc.
most of the 101 problems look like simple things to fix. they illustrate just how immature the platform is, which is why (as everyone else has stated) it was quite silly of Elop to jump ship on Symbian/MeeGo when he did, since the Windows Phone OS was far from ready for primetime
Posted by: bjarneh | May 12, 2012 at 02:55 AM
What we learn out of this? That there are more factors then guessed that contribute to the Nokia disaster.
We have the operators and Skype problem, we have the resellers and sales problem, there is the partners-problem, the quality-problem and all that results in a customers-problem.
Losing trust is easy, gaining it not. Nokia will have a hard time to repair the damage. Even when Elop wiill be gone today it would not change much. It will take very good products that are customer, operator, salles and partners friendly. They need to come up with something that not only can compete with Android and iphone but that brings something Android and iphone not have. It needs to be.mind-blowing and receive perception like n9 did. I doubt that will happen.
Posted by: Spawn | May 12, 2012 at 05:15 AM
Tomi tweet another interesting detail. Those of competition like Tizen and Blackberry. I think at the moment both of them do everything right. They will sell good and find a place in the market. I cannot predict how big that place will be but certainly believe it can be significant. One of them could indeed form the 3th ecosystem.
thats another problem Nokia faces. There previous 1th ecosystem Symbian is gone. Its not 2th or 3th either. I think it will vanish from the landscape. Nokia does not invest, did outsource the development and lost marketshare and partners and customers trust. Its a dea horse. Elop killed it.
Nokia has nothing that could become a 3th ecosystem. That means they are forced to jump on Android. There are no alternates left.
Posted by: Spawn | May 12, 2012 at 05:25 AM
@Spawn
What's the problem?
Well, if you think that screwing over third party developers is fine, there is indeed no problem. But if you had been investing serious amounts of money in a Qt port of your apps, only to find out that Qt would become obsolete with the introduction of Windows Phone, you would have felt seriously screwed over.
A company like Nokia cannot support multiple competing operating systems. Not because they are incapable, but because developer resources are finite. Which means they will support the os'es that make the most money. Symbian competing with Windows Phone means that either ecosystem is weaker than necessary, making it easier for the competition (iOS) to win.
Elop knows that, as does every other shrinkwrap software developer. Apple and Google know that. Microsoft knows that. Nokia knows it, that's why they bought Qt. it is called the network effect.
Posted by: Sander van der Wal | May 12, 2012 at 07:26 AM