Why Did Ballmer Throw Nokia Now Under the Bus? Lets Dig Windows Phone & Lumia Insights from Kantar Stats

Kantar Worldpanel releases infrequent updates of its data. We have just seen June 2012 market share data for 7 countries this time, by Kantar, reported at MyNokia blog. The June numbers are compared to a year ago, June 2011. The nice thing about Kantar, is that it is one of very rare houses that reports national market shares of new sales - and splits the Microsoft data apart for Windows Mobile and Windows Phone. So we get some very useful data. Lets explore what facts we find, to try to understand why so suddenly last few weeks, Steve Ballmer CEO of Microsoft has clearly thrown his old buddy Stephen Elop and Nokia's 'strategic partner' Lumia Windows Phone smartphones under the bus? There is an intriguing story in the numbers.

WHEN THEY WERE BEST PALS

The 'logic' in the Nokisoft Microkia partnership was that when you add Nokia handset power with Microsoft software power, you should get the best of both, and in a perfect world, you get "synergy" or 1 + 1 = more than 2. Even as this was not expected by many, there was clearly an assumption that these two should be able to defend their existing shares, when joining. So if we take Microsoft share, and add Nokia share, we should get a 'third ecosystem' haha. So the hope was that at least 1 + 1 = 2.

The industry analysts were not that generous. They took the separate market shares last year February when this 'strategic partnership' was announced by Elop and Ballmer, which had a combined market share of 34% and the major handset industry analysts all felt that for this troublesome alliance, 1 + 1 = less than 2. The best, most optimistic views had this partnership with over 20% market share when combined, the highest I saw by any reputable handset analyst company was 28%. And those numbers have been downgraded again and again and again in the past 16 months. My original 'gut feeling' for this alliance was that they would achieve something 10% by end of 2012. This was said 4 days after the alliance was announced (and I projected on that day that Nokia's end-of-2011 market share would fall to 12% - which it did, and no other analyst dared project such a total collapse of Nokia's share at that time). I said this was my gut feeling and not yet my formal forecast for this partnership after the new Nokia Windows based smartphones would be released.

In July of last year, I made my thorough calculation and forecast for the full year 2012 after the Q2 data was released, and downgraded my market share projections for Nokia and Microsoft. Now based on the catastrophic crash following the Elop Effect, I still believed that Nokia's first Lumia smartphones would be highly desired, and that Nokia would be able to get 1-to-1 conversion during 2012, as it migrated the Nokia smartphone base from Symbian to Windows Phone. I very clearly said, I was confident Nokia can achieve 1-to-1 conversion, but as the industry was growing fast, this would still result in a fall in their combined market share. So exactly a year ago, I had downgraded my Nokisoft Microkia market share projection from the early gut feeling of 10% at the end of 2012, down to 8% combined. That is what I thought a smart, competitive, well managed transition, with a well-designed Lumia portfolio would achieve for Nokia and Microsoft. Note, this means that 1 + 1 = less than 0.5. The separate 34% market share of the two companies would be down to 8% when the Nokia conversion from Symbian to Windows would be essentially complete. Nokia's market share would have taken a huge hit from 29% to 6% in 24 months.

I was accused with that forecast of being too much the pessimist. We saw again silly forecasts by some (paid?) 'experts' who promised a third ecosystem for Microsoft and Nokia+Microsoft combined market shares in anything from 15% to 24% as their target now for 2012. Haha, would that it could be... By the time we got to January and the Nokia horror with Lumia became more obvious, we started to see major analyst houses give far more alarmist views, like Morgan Stanley's projection which translates to 8% for Nokia by end of year 2012. As it transpired, the most 'pessimistic' Nokia forecaster turned out again the most realistic. We are already down to 8% now, in Q1, before Nokia reports next week bad results, and Nokia already warned Q3 will be worse than Q2.

My critical assumption for my forecast for Nokia and Microsoft for this year 2012, when I made it before anyone had seen Lumia smartphones last summer, was that of course Nokia will be able to convert, 1-to-1 the existing Symbian users to the newer 'highly desirable' (haha) Windows Phone OS. I could not imagine Elop to be so incompetent to release the Lumia line with 13 design and marketing defects that it is guaranteed to fail in all markets including the USA. Hey, mom, look at the Lumia with its 101 faults just in its user experience (now with even more Eloppia: 121 faults, get your Lumia here!)

So that is how this 'start of a beautiful friendship' went sour. When Ballmer shook the hand of Elop, to get Nokia onboard the Windows Phone ecosystem - and Ballmer went to his pocket and promised to help Nokia launch Lumia with 1 Billion dollars per year in marketing support ($250 million per quarter) - that was definitely on assumptions that after the Nokia Symbian customer based was fully converted to Symbian, Microsoft would stand on something near 20% market share. As Microsoft at the time was already falling under 4%, this was a big gain for Ballmer. He calculated that even if Elop messed this up, and Nokia only limped in with half, then they'd have a combined market share in the 12% or 15% range. That is what was on Ballmer's mind when he committed the Billions to this venture. And yes, if you were able to take 12% to 15% of smartphones today, you'd have something like the 'third ecosystem'. In Q1 for example, Android had 56% of the world smartphone market, Apple had 24%. Blackberry had fallen to 8%. So yeah, a very fair argument, if you could get to 12% or more, that you are the 'third ecosystem'. If. If you could get to that level. 

NOW THE FACTS

Now lets take Kantar Worldpanel data. This happens to be quite opportune timing. The June 2011 data is after the Elop Effect, so much of the shock crash of Nokia Symbian has already been factored in, and it is before any Lumia launched (which would be November) but just about the time when the first Lumia leaks started - by Elop himself. So the buzz about Lumia is just about starting in June. Lets see what story Kantar tells us of this attempt. What is 1 + 1 = ?

Kantar does not release all of its data, it takes selected countries when it does. This time we have the EU 5 ie UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, plus USA and Australia. This is by coincidence the 'best market' region for Windows Phone potential (Windows was never successful in Japan or South Korea, for example and in the Emerging World, Windows Phone based smartphones are not competitive at the low end). I took the population-weighted average to count the market shares and when we look at this 'strategic partnership' the world picture is quite.. fascinating as Spock would say on the original Star Trek

MARKET SHARES FOR NOKIA-MICROSOFT PARTNERSHIP (in 'West' Advanced market countries)

OS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2011 . . . . June 2012
Symbian . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5% . . . . . . . 3.2%
Windows Mobile  . . . . . . 1.0% . . . . . . . 0.6%
Windows Phone  . . . . . . 1.6% . . . . . . . 2.4%
Total partnerhship  . . . . 16.1% . . . . . . . 6.3%

Total Windows  . . . . . . . 2.6% . . . . . . . 3.0%

Market Share calculation by TomiAhonen Consulting July 12, 2012, from Kantar data
This data may be freely shared

So? Before Lumia launched, Microsoft total market share, in its VERY BEST markets, USA, Western Europe and Australia, was 2.6%. Now Nokia has run the world's most expensive marketing launch of the Lumia series - Elop told us he budgeted 3 times the amount of money of the previous top launch - and Microsoft threw in hundreds of millions more including handing free Xbox 360 gaming systems from the UK to Sweden. And where are we? Microsoft's market share in the best possible markets, gained 0.4% market share over the past 12 months. So Nokia's Lumia which was supposed to bring Microsoft 10% to as high as 24% gain in market share, when run by the 'brilliant' ex-Microsoft dude Stephen Elop, and as close as is humanly possible, with the Lumia launch micro-managed by Ballmer himself from Redmond, he gains 0.4%. Not one half of one percent!

Meanwhile, what was the damage to Nokia? This is after the catastrophic collapse due to Elop Effect from 29%. Now last June when in these markets Nokia's market share had fallen to 13.5% - that Symbian share was sacrificed like a lamb, and Nokia's Symbian share 12 months later is 3.2%. Yes. Elop took 10.3% of the best loyal Nokia customers, to achieve a 0.4% gain in Microsoft's customer base. Hmmm.. I would say this is a poor exchange. The overall math looks like this:

13.5% + 2.6% = not 16.1% but only 6.3%

So what was Nokia shift then? Well, if we say 80% of the Windows Phone sales is Nokia Lumia (we know Windows Mobile is not), and this would be roughly in line with the overall Windows stats (Samsung, HTC and others have been selling Windows Phone based smartphones too) we have this Nokia exchange rate:

13.5% Nokia Symbian share has become combined 5.1% Nokia Lumia and Symbian share now. At 1.9% Nokia Lumia market share in these 7 countries of the West, Nokia went from 13.5% down to 3.2% in Symbian. Nokia exchanged 10.2% market share in Symbian to gain 1.9% in Windows. So yes, Nokia lost 4 customers for every 1 it managed to force to take the Lumia. And this is before they learn that their brand new Lumia is now obsolete, effectively Osborned by Ballmer.

Yes. For every 10.2 customers Nokia forced to change away from Symbian, 1.9 took Lumia/Windows Phone and 8.3 customers went elsewhere - mostly to Android or iPhone. Good move, Mr-call-me-The-General. 

So first, clearly, the Kantar numbers are brutal, in that Nokia's Lumia strategy is failing. Secondly, we have now insights into what drove Ballmer to throw Nokia under the bus. Ballmer can read numbers. He knows Windows Phone is excluded from Japan and South Korea. He knows China's two big carriers/operators refuse to take any Lumia. He knows the cheapest Nokia Lumia smartphones are priced too high to achieve meaningful sales in India or Brazil or Africa. The only chance his boy Stephen Elop had to make Lumia the success it was supposed to be, was in Western Europe, where Nokia was strong, and in North America, where Microsoft was strong. Now we have the evidence.

Last year, in June, when final plans were being made on where and how to launch the early Lumia smartphones, and how much money to throw into that project, Nokia brought to the table 13.5% market share of Symbian to play with - as high as 40% in Spain and 39% in Italy. Now one year later, Nokia's Symbian share has been exploited, it is now down to 6.3% across the 7 countries and only Italy has any meaningful share left that might be still convertible (16%). In Britain Symbian is down to 2%, in Spain 3%, and Australia and France down to 4%. There is nothing more to be gained from this 'partnership' from Microsoft's side. Nokia has been bled dry, there is nothing more to give.

If Ballmer was the man to stand by his word and his 'strategic partner' he would stay and fight. He would give Elop more time. He would push more money to the project - and most of all - of course if Ballmer believed that Nokia can climb out of this with Microsoft, he'd let the Lumia series be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. But no. Ballmer threw Nokia under the bus. And honestly, look at those Kantar numbers. Wouldn't you do the same? Elop has so totally mismanaged even the Lumia launch - remember these numbers were generated before the Osborning of Lumia, now that for example Germany's biggest carrier/operator T-Mobile announced they won't launch Lumia 900 after all.

A year ago, in September when asked about Windows Phone (as it had been on the market for a year), Steve Ballmer said that by his view, Windows Phone sales had been "below expectation." That was at the level of 2% in these best markets for Microsoft. That disappointment had Ballmer removing the top VP in charge of Windows Phone. If Ballmer felt that was disappointing then, and he's now thrown 750 million dollars into Elop's endless marketing void, and Windows has managed to pick up.. 0.4% of total market share - do you think its possible Ballmer feels Elop is incompetent and deserves to be fired. I mean, Elop used almost exact words calling Lumia sales "below expectations" now in May of 2012. And would you know it, suddenly Ballmer doesn't want to hang out with his BFF. We hear that Microsoft was given the chance to buy Nokia in January and Microsoft said no, not worth it. Now we see Lumia can't be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Microsoft suddenly comes out of the blue and announces its tablet (while rumors had it that Nokia would make a tablet for Ballmer) and now when Ballmer is asked will Microsoft make smartphones in the future - Ballmer won't bother to say no.

Ballmer gave Elop the chance to play with Nokia and make it a legitimate handset unit/partner for Microsoft. And then Ballmer looked at the numbers. These Kantar numbers are pretty brutal, the Pretend-Patton has failed. Elop launched such a disasterous line of Lumia phones that out of every 5 existing loyal Nokia smartphone users, when offered the Lumia, four will walk away from the deal and take an Android instead. And this.. even as Lumia 900 smartphones were even offered with 100 dollar rebates etc. (Now you'll find Lumias in the discount bins selling for a penny)

So now we have some of the facts behind the bizarre step that Ballmer took in abandoning its 'strategic partner'. Last year early in the Spring, Nokia did not need Microsoft, it was Microsoft who needed Nokia. The brand new Windows Phone was failing in the market, even according to Ballmer's words, was below expectation. Then came the biggest new smartphone launch ever. And after that, Windows Phone market share has barely moved, gaining less than one half of one percent. This, after Microsoft threw 750 million dollars into this disaster. Now Ballmer has had enough. Elop is incompetent, he is also thrown under the bus. If it were to transpire that Ballmer makes a bid for Nokia as it inevitably will be sold shortly, then watch, within a year of that acquisition, the VP in charge of Microsoft's smartphone unit will no longer be Elop. Ballmer can see Elop is incompetent. He would be shifted to something less harmful.. But seriously, if Nokia now brings 3.2% market share to the table and that would be traded at 4 lost to every 1 gained Windows customer, why would Ballmer even want Nokia? His gain - in the best markets for this partnership mind you, not globally where it would be worse - would be a paltry 0.6%. And Nokia would cost well in excess of 10 Billion dollars to buy in a competitive bidding war, I think. Not worth it. Totally not worth it for Microsoft. Just let the mobile dream die, Ballmer, and focus on the desktop.

Comments

[Louis]

"You may not like it, but it is what it is. Only Android, iOS and Windows Phone are gaining share."

@Baron: Throwing WP in there is a bit silly. It's down with the "other" platforms in its absolute numbers, and would be indistinguishable except for Microsoft's willingness to throw money at developers to keep it relevant in the app space.

The basic problem is that iOS disrupted the market with multi-touch, apps, and high end hardware. Android and Sammy disrupted the market with a modern OS that can be just downloaded and aggressive exploitation of Moore's law to bring it to niches where Apple isn't.

iOS is the profit leader and place where important new ideas and business models get validated. Android is the market share leader and is gulping up dumb phone users.

All the others are basically symmetric---by which I mean copies. That means they get new hardware and software last, and the companies backing them need to spend their own money or time to get required apps.

I don't see any of them catching up in the short term. To draw large numbers of users, they'll need something more distinctive. Different colored phones or slightly different gestures/more megapixels isn't going to be enough.

[doto]

Very good post Mr HCE! I aree with you.

[AtTheBottomOfTheHilton]

I'd say it's already mission accomplished. Their goal was to kill a competitor and they did it. Meego and Symbian are gone, now Microsoft should focus on securing important assets from Nokia. The assets are mainly patents, IPs and Navteq and with Nokia going bankrupt they can easily get, cheaply as well. Microsoft doesn't need Nokia as OEM, statistics show that Nokia is not selling better than Samsung or HTC, also the Lumia phones is not done by Nokia anyway. Basically manufacturing is secured without Nokia.

The partnership between Microsoft and Nokia is going really bad. I've seen that Nokia blames Microsoft for some bugs in the Lumia phones and that is really a bad sign. When the blame game starts, then you know that it will not work out and no company wants to deal with the problems. Microsoft therefore wants to get out and the best would be to see that Nokia goes bankrupt so that the can secure what is valuable from Nokia.

In practice Microsoft can start to create their own phones but that could be a bad move because that might alienate Samsung and HTC or other OEMs. However, it seems like Steve Ballmer and his MS management has snowed in on Apple, wants to become like Apple and that means that they might go on to create their own HW anyway.

[N80 IE]

@Baron: you are totally wrong - the Bada is quite a great system (both from a consumer and developer perspective). The App market might not be big but it offers all possible app that I need. The only complaint I had was it didn't do Skype. I have used Iphone, Symbian and Android phones before. Have u used a Bada phone before to make such an assessment?

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Baron!

(Welcome back). You KNOW the rules. Stick to the topic. That item was NOT ONCE mentioned in this blog article, so of course your comment(s) are removed. Stick to the point, and your comments are welcome. This blog talked about Microsoft Windows Phone, Windows Mobile and Symbian. If you want to discuss other OS's go to the article that deals with those. If you can't play nice, maybe we don't want you here. You've been around this blog for years, you know the rules

Tomi Ahonen

[Flavio]

Tomi!
You've teached history before it happens!!!(you can use it!)
At this time, I think Nokia is unfixable and there is no way out.
As no one bought RIM, I think no one will even try to buy Nokia.
RIM has nice devices,known from everybody, is smaller, easier, cheaper, etc, etc, etc.
Nokia is a very much bigger difficult problem.
At that moment, Nokia is a very danger huge risky bet.
It's a bad place to any money.
I think it is an unstopable alone death dive, hopeless and without brave angels....
Sorry but I dare you to change:
Don't fire Elop !!!
He must be blamed !!!

[Tgee]

The number per os doesn't give a good picture of nokia sales for win and it seems that Samsung.and htc are still above nokia in the us market http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=32494

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Tgee

Just on the duelling stats - Nielsen measures installed base, Kantar measures new sales, so Nielsen's stats will have legacy owners of past Windows Phone and Windows Mobile handsets from 2011, 2010, 2009 even.. And the trends in Nielsen support the Kantar view, the two are not in conflict

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Spawn]

@HCE

> I don't see how this move benefits Microsoft.

They decided to focus all there resources on Windows 8 and not need to care about WP7 any longer.
Nokia has no write-access to WP7 and so they cannot do themselfs. Microsoft has fixed human resources and they put them all on Windows 8 now rather then wasting any to make Nokia customers happy.
Microsoft benefits with focus, with not having to split there resources, with not having to move money, time and resources from W8 to W7.

> no incentive for Lumia customers to stay with the Windows Phone

Its Nokia Lumia and not Microsoft Lumia, not Nokia WinPhone.
Customer bought a Nokia and not a WinPhone. They will remember it was a Nokia and now the know that Nokia arn't the best any longer. Next time the customer will be carefull about Nokia. If it runs Symbian, WP7 or WP8 is not that important.
Microsoft goes on with a whole new product. They do not believe Nokia is going to make it, is surviving long enough, is able to bring anything to the table Microsoft can benefit from. Microsoft has other partners, has its own Surface. Nokia has no alternate, they are doomed.
Customers will try other Microsoft partners. They may not try Nokia again (with the very same productline, Lumia, but WP8) that disappointed them so much.

Not so long there was a famous say here in germany that goes like: Once a Nokia, always a Nokia!
See how its not about S40, not about Symbian, not about WP. Customers do not even know there is a difference beside a different look and feel. It was about Nokia brand. That suffers most. Not WP, not Microsoft. They only stayed where they where before with WP (2-4%) and did not lost, did not destroyed the trust people had in the brand.
> huge negative effect on existing phone sales

> WP phones ... absolutely requires dual core processors to run.

Can you back that statement up with a source? It would be insane to introduce such,a,limitation to Windows 8 and such a limitation would not be cause of technical reasons. Remember that WP8 is using the NT-kernel which never ever had and never ever will get such stupid limitations.
I think it would not take much. Microsoft would just need to spend some resources into making NFC and 2-3 other things optional the Lumia hw does not have and that is all. They do not like to spend any resources to make Nokia's 0.3% customers happy. Microsoft is not going for 0.something percent. They are going for the theird ecosystem, for Android and Apple. Nokia did show they are no help, of not use, are not able to make that happen. Microsoft learns, changed strategy and moves on. Nokia can not. Elop to bind tyem and burned all alternates. Nokia is doomed.

[Spawn]

@AtTheBottomOfTheHilton

You nailed it. There will be a Surface Phone. Either that or they give up the phone-segment.

@spawn (talking with myself)

Tomi wrote about the Nokia brand. The ex Symbian-ex wrote about it. Those who can remember last year and are not living in the US do remember well that Nokia was present everywhere. Go into a phone-shop and >50% of the products where Nokia.
Beside the brand another reason for that is, that Nokia had a huge segment. Low-end, touchscreen, physical keyboards. phones with camera and camera with phones, small, big, robust, sexy, indoor, outdoor, slim, fluid, pink with yellow points and white with black stripes. Whatever crazy taste you have, Nokia was there to fit it.
Others only,had the same boring, black rectangle only different from there competitors by there own logo they printed on there.

That was also the plan for MeeGo. Flood the market with different models for every taste. N9, N950 where only the first two.

Then came Elop, looks at Apple and decides: Lets do different! Only one model, Lumia, for all!
They are not Apple. They where better (in terms of market share). They gave up, tried ti be like Apple (failed of course) and lost on the way what made them strong. And till today there is only the same Lumia. Boring, poor Nokia that once was so hip.

[zlutor]

@Tomi: "if Ballmer believed that Nokia can climb out of this with Microsoft, he'd let the Lumia series be upgraded to Windows Phone 8" - it is not so simple...

Current lumias just simply CANNOT BE updated updated to be fully functioning WP8 phones due to hw limitations. There are missing hw components. HW components not supported by current WP7.x.

So either Nokia silently builds the components into current Lumias (getting activated when WP8 update is received) or no meaningfull update.

Since usable chipsets are _really_ limited in case of WP7.x first option is not viable. Long story in short, they screwed it up... :-(

But it was not Ballmer or Elop who made the decision. It is the consequence of early adaptation of WP7.x... Elop and BOD members must have known it...

They try to save their face with WP7.8 - and we will see what it will be in reality...

On the other hand I do not see it as the real problem (WP7.x->WP7.8, no WP8). It happens in desktop world (too). Even with iOS. All new OSs have minimum hw requirement. It is normal. Everybody accepts it.

When Windows7 was announced they immediately started giving free coupons for the ones buying their computers with the 'obsolete' Vista OS thus consumers did not feel themselves cheated. The big difference is in that case the sold hw was capable of running the coming OS...

The real problem is they announced WP8 several months earlier than first capable device is available. Who made this decision and why?

[Spawn]

@spawn (again, to much voices in my head - haha(c) Tomi)

Another point I need to paint in that discussion:

When Elop commanded others to find matching words to put his mindset into a manifest that became later the burning platform memo, he wrote...
... that by the end of 2011 there will only be one MeeGo phone (typical lie igoring the 950) and made that,one of the arguments why Nokia is burning.

That implies he is going to change that, no? But what happened?
AFTER the N9 came to market the Lumia came too. A exact copy of the N9. And up to 2013 there is only that single model!
Even every of Muenchhausen's stories contained more truth then what Elop makes up.
As Nokia-employee I would have a hard time following such a leader while he jumps of platforms and taies the whole Nokia lemmings with him.
"Lets jump! When we hit ground everything will be better!" Elop, the suicide General.

[denmike]

The Nielsen 2012Q2 US numbers are also out now:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/12/nielsen-has-android-near-52-percent-of-us-smartphone-share-in-q2/

What I find interesting is the minuscule WP7 market share. It's less than half of Windows Mobile - an OS with absolutely no support anymore. It should be very easy to get those users to switch to your new WP7 platform - if it was any good. Even a dead platform such as Palm/WebOS is only outperformed by WP7 with a factor of 2. Absolutely amazing!

Assuming that the Nokia move into WP7 was an attempt to penetrate the US market this can also only be seen as a failure, as they only have 23% of the US WP7 market.

OTOH I'm astonished that a single company can still hold 1/3 of the market with less than a handful of products.

[Spawn]

@zlutor

> Current lumias just simply CANNOT BE updated updated ... due to hw limitations

Disable NFC in Windows 8 and be fine. Remember that the same Windows 8 is running on desktops which have no NFC either. Its already possible to disable certain parts, replacr them with others or plug in new functionality, support different hardware with Windows 8.
Arguing that cannot be done with phones while it can be done with the very same system on tablets and desktops is a pure excuse.

> chipsets

Lumia uses Qualcomm chipsets. Qualcomm was one of thr first who supported Windows 8.
Source: https://developer.qualcomm.com/mobile-development/mobile-platforms/windows-8-rt

> But it was not Ballmer or Elop who made the decision.

It was no Elop who made that decision. That is correct. It was Ballmer. He osborned Nokia.
Seems osborning Nokia's product-lines becomes a trend. Every CEO should have done that at least once in his carrier!

> Elop and BOD members must have known it...

They very likely got the news via mainstream-press same time like all of us.
Ballmer just does not care about his ex-partner, his ex-soldier Elop any longer. He does not need to. Nokia has nothing worth of interest left. Carrion eaters are waiting to pick up what remains (patents).

> They try to save their face with WP7.8

That WP 7.8 comes was in the contract. Microsoft announced early that therr will be at least 2 major updates for WP7, 7.5 and 7.8.

> It happens in desktop world (too).

No, it does not. Every Windows version is compatible to the old one. Win95 to DOS and Win31 ... Windows 8 to Windows 7.
Microsoft is the prime example of backwards-compatibility in our industrie. No other ever did manage to do that so long.

> Even with iOS

No. All iphojes receive at least 2 years long support, get the newest iOS. Same with OSX.

[doto]

@AtTheBottomOfTheHilton you say Nokia will go under, but... I am on the stock market for 20 years, and i know that if tabloid wrote in May: NOKIA goes bankrupt, and the same told me my aunt, the future will be totally different...
NOKIA is the most widely used mobile platform in the world, their asset are too cheap to let everybody stay calm.

[peter]

@tomi,

finland don't care about Nokia's future, but Europe?? I think it's a bad sign for our economy. All smartphones will be supplied by U.S/Asia: Apple, Samsung, HTC, Google etc.
I hope Europe will do something because we'll be foreign's slaves. Sagem/Alcatel/Ericsson/Philips has failed into their strategy. We have to do something (or try) to be independant from Apple, Samsung, HTC, Google etc.

What do you think?

[AI]

In Q2 2012 Nokia WP7 phone has got 0.3% market share in US:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=32494

Is it good or bad?

Both Samsung and HTC got 0.5% market share with their WP7 phones.

[aikoN]

It feels more and more like the right way for Nokia was to push MeeGo for top handsets, polishing it more, adding even more eye-candy. Supporting Symbian for a while (I mean just supporting or downgrading it for low-end handsets)

[Carl]

I must say I have difficulties to call friends and business partners in Finland, because everyone seems to be using this Lumia junk.

[Mad]

I'm already looking forward to watch the horror next Thursday, might even throw Nokia funeral party.