Second picture in the Nokia Destruction Saga - Greatest individual Management Mistake Ever Made - Nokia vs Competition in one picture

I launched yesterday a series of short articles about the Nokia collapse where each blog article looks only at one specific aspect of it, and is illustrated by one picture. Both of these are rare for me, usually my blogs are longggggg and comprehensive (and very repetitive) and text-only, like this about the 20 risks Nokia listed in its Form 20-F which now have all turned out to be true and are haunting Nokia. So today in the Nokiasaga, we look at Nokia's two main competitors in smartphones over the past few years, Apple's iPhone and Samsung's smartphones on several platforms but most famously led by the Galaxy series on Android. So lets start with a riddle:

MANAGEMENT RIDDLE - WHICH OF THESE THREE IS ON THE BRINK OF DEATH?




This graph may be freely shared

So yes, in the picture we have Apple, Nokia and Samsung but not necessarily in that order. Which of the three companies is in deep trouble, so hopeless, its CEO destroys the platform and invites employees to jump off the 'burning pltform'?

Blue company has seen growth in smarpthone sales - so strong growth in fact, that it set a company-record in smartphone unit sales in 2010. It also finds its smarphone unit profitable, in fact it sets a new company record for most profits by that unit, ever, in 2010. Blue company considers itself a mobile company and states that smartphones are critical to its success in the mobile industry.

Lets compare to Green company, which totally differently from Blue company, in 2010, sets a company-record in smartphone unit sales in 2010, and its already-profitable smartphone unit sets a company record for most profits in that unit, ever, in that year. But Green company thinks that smartphones are vital to its future in the mobile industry, which it considers is its primary business.

Well, what of Red company, which totally differing from the first two, actually in 2010, sets a company-record in smartphone unit sales and the profitable smartphone unit also sets a company record for biggest smartphone profits in 2010. Red company however, sees mobile as its future and says that smartphones form the critical part of its success in the mobile industry.

This riddle would not trouble any first-year MBA student for any time at all. The three companies are performing in exactly the same way, reporting exactly the same internal performance benchmarks of excellence. There is no difference between the three. If you have a growing, profitable business, and its profits are growing - you have a successful unit, congratulations. Unless there is any other info to the contrary (illegal dealings like some banks did, or perhaps cancer-causing business like cigarette-sales etc or your technology is polluting or something like that) - these are three HEALTHY businesses of excellent condition. Only a pure madman would terminate any of those three.

Especially if 'smartphones' are the stated future of YOUR company main business. It doesn't matter at all whether you are company Blue or company Green or company Red, if you set company record growth and set company record profits in this smartphone business which is the future of your company industry, then you are SUCCEEDING. DO NOT STOP THIS SUCCESS.

Any first year MBA student gets this. Elop did not. Nokia had a highly profitable and growing smartphone business when Elop joined Nokia in the middle of 2010. That smartphone business grew so well, it set a new Nokia record for growth in 2010, and its profits were growing so well, the smartphone  unit not only set a Nokia record for profits for the unit - the profitability itself grew towards the end of the year. It was only getting better.

Only a certifyable idiot would call this growing business success a Burning Platforms problem at Nokia. Which is before we figure out which of the three actually is Nokia? Who do you think? Apple must be company Blue, right, in 2010, iPhone 4 and so forth, the huge runaway global success that was so the darling of all the techie press with Steve Jobs on every magazine cover holding an iPhone. So which is Nokia, company Green or company Red. How was Samsung doing in 2010? When did the Galaxy launch?

Actually Apple is not company Blue. Nokia sold 28.6 million smartphones in Q4 of 2010, thats the blue line. Nokia is company Blue. For the full year 2010, Nokia sold 103.6 million smartphones according to the latest Quarterly data as reported by Nokia. Apple is company Green, the middle line, and as we know, Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones in 2010. So company Red is Samsung which sold 24.0 million smartphones in 2010. Nokia in smartphones was literally more than twice as big as Apple and more than four times as big as Samsung in 2010.

TWICE AS BIG AS NEAREST RIVAL

This is incredibly rare. I have to emphasize this point. Toyota has most of the recent years been the world's biggest car maker. GM ie General Motors of the USA has been in most of the other recent years. When was Toyota last so dominant in its industry, that it was twice as big as GM - or any other rival? Try 'never'. Yes, Toyota the car giant, has NEVER been twice as big as its rivals. How about GM? When was GM last twice as big as its rivals? NEVER HAPPENED. Volkswagen? Never. Fiat? Never. Nissan? Never. Renault? Never. 

What of the PC industry? HP is currenly the world's biggest PC maker by one analyst house and Lenovo is the biggest by another expert's opinion. When was HP last twice as big as its nearest rival? Never. What of Lenovo? Never happened. Dell, surely Dell at one point? Nope. How about Apple? It was once the world's biggest PC maker in the era of the Apple 2, but even then it was not twice as big as its nearest rival. IBM? Never in the PC era. Toshiba? Compaq? Acer? Siemens? Asus? Never never never never and never.

Can you understand how rare - and massively dominating - such a position is, when you have the luxury of being TWICE as big as your nearest rival. Nokia was MORE than twice as big as its nearest rivals. So yes, Nokia is company Blue and not only is it setting Nokia records for new sales per year, and Nokia records for profits in the smartphone unit, Nokia is so utterly towering over its rivals, that almost any major tech company CEO would jump to take that market position in a second. If you TOWER over your rivals, and you are setting records in growth and profits, you are the hero and this is the goose that lays the golden eggs. You do not shoot this goose, in the face, like Dick Cheney.

GREW FASTER THAN RIVALS

Now the most astonishing part. Here is actual sales for year 2009 and 2010 and the absolute growth for Nokia smartphones, Apple iPhones and Samsung smartphones. Look at the amount of growth in 2009-2010

COMPANY . . . SMARTPHONES 2009 . . . SMARTPHONES 2010 . . . GROWTH 2009-2010
Nokia . . . . . . . 67.8 million . . . . . . . . . . . 103.6 million . . . . . . . . . . . 35.8 million
Apple . . . . . . . 25.1 million . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.5 million . . . . . . . . . . . 22.4 million
Samsung . . . . . 7.0 million . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.0 million . . . . . . . . . . . 17.0 million
Source: Company data
This table may be freely shared

The gap between Nokia and its rivals was not closing in 2010, it was GROWING. Nokia grew more than its rivals. Nokia smartphones unit was growing more than Apple iPhone or Samsung's smartphone unit. Remember, these are absolute numbers, don't be fooled by the propaganda and spin-doctors, whether at Apple, Microsoft or Nokia who may talk about 'growth rate' as a percentage. The growth 'rate' measure is mathematically skewed always to show the smallest rival to seem to have the biggest rate, when in absolute terms it might not be so. For real competition, real growth, you have to always compare by absolute numbers.

Let me show by simple example. If you grew your 'number' by 20, and I grew that same 'number' by 10, you grew more. This could be smartphone sales. It could be our bank accounts. It could be Olympic polevault jumping heights or whatever. You grew twice the amount I did. Now lets show how 'growth rate' can distort the reality. If you were the biggest at 200 measures (in smartphone sales or bank account balances or whatever) your addition of 20 was only 10% growth rate. But if I only started from 20, a far smaller starting point, and added only half what you did, ie 10, my growth rate is still 50% - a number 5 times bigger than your growth 'rate'. The growth 'rate' number is misleading when comparing rivals of different size, but the absolute growth number is always correct.

Apple grew in 2010 by 22.4 million smartphones. Samsung grew in 2010 by 17.0 million smartphones. Nokia however, grew by a massive 35.8 million smartphones, ie by far the biggest growth. The gap between Nokia and Apple was not shrinking in 2010, it was growing. NOKIA WAS NOT LOSING TO THE iPHONE - NOKIA WAS WINNING. (I know it sounds so totally 'counter-intuitive' and surely every news article you read at the time suggested Nokia was doing a death-dance, but I don't deal with fantasies and imaginariums here. If you want to believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and any myths that Apple was growing faster than Nokia in 2010, enjoy your delusions up there on whatever planet you live on. Here at the CDB Blog we deal only with the hard facts, not entertaining myths). The reality is - those are actual reported numbers by Nokia and Apple direct from their quarterly results. Like Bill Clinton said, its just math. If you live on Planet Earth, your reality will tell you, Nokia grew 35.8 million in 2010, in smartphones, more than Apple which only grew 22.4 million. And as Nokia already was more than twice as big as Apple, and Nokia already was profitable, and Nokia's profits were growing, this the very definition of winning. Nokia was winning the smartphone wars against Apple's iPhone in 2010. The math is undeniable.

Same is true of Nokia vs Samsung. Nokia was more than twice as big as Apple and more than four times as big as Samsung in smartphones - an the gap was only growing larger, in Nokia's favor. This, while Nokia's smartphone unit was profitable, and producing ever bigger profits.

If you suggest Nokia is somehow on a dying platform, ie 'burning platform' on fire, and it must be terminated as the loser - it is like today, if Apple looked at the massive dominance of the iPad over the Kindle and Galaxy Tab and other tablets, suddenly said, hey, we are losing, lets abandon the iOS platform for the iPad, lets switch to the smallest tablet platform we can find - ironically yes, Windows 8. If Tim Cook suggested that today, he'd be burned on the stake and Steve Jobs would turn in his grave. For Nokia to look at the smartphone wars in 2010, find itself more than twice as big as its nearest rival, growing faster than the competition, in a highly profitable business, setting new Nokia records for profits (with plenty of hot new smartphones coming down the pike too, for early 2011 launch) - only a complete lunatic, a Microsoftian Misguided Muppet could write a memo suggesting the Nokia smartphone platform was 'burning' and Nokia had to jump off it.

ELOP EFFECT

Yet, that is bizarrely, unbelievably, what Nokia's new delusional CEO, Stephen Elop did (and how on earth could he have tricked Nokia's Board to believe this fairy tale, who knows?), in what will go down as the costliest and maddest, most destructive management decision of all time. The Elop Effect. Elop wrote his Burning Platforms memo, which caused what is commonly called the Ratner Effect, and then compounded that with the sudden announcement of the Microsoft partnership while having no phones to sell - but collapsing instantly current Nokia Symbian based smartphone sales due to what is called the Osborne Effect. Nobody has ever tried these two self-destructive management mistakes together - until now. The Osborne Effect bankrupted the Osborne computer company while the Ratner Effect nearly did the same for the Ratner jewelry company (which only survived by firing its CEO and rebranding). Elop Effect combines those two suicidal management actions into this, the worlds' most destructive management mistake ever, called the Elop Effect. Here is what happened to Nokia's record-setting domination and growth, instantly after the Elop Effect. Compare how the rivals did under the same period:




This picture may be freely shared

Yes, this is the full picture of the earlier one we saw, the riddle. Now I have identified Nokia as the blue line, Apple as the green line and Samsung as the red line. You can also see where the Elop Effect happened and what happened to Nokia smartphone sales instantly after that.

Nokia's smartphone unit was instantly plunged into loss-making. Nokia issued a profit warning only weeks after this new strategy was announced and Nokia's smartphone unit has produced an ever-increasing loss ever since that day. In the latest quarter for which we have data, Q3 of 2012, Nokia's smartphone unit was generating a loss of 48% per smartphone it managed to sell. The sales have collapsed so comprehensively, Nokia went from 29% market share to under 3% now for Q4, ie very literally, Nokia has scared away nine out of every ten customers it had just two years ago. This is a world record in market destruction of a market leader, in any globally contested industry in human history. No car company has fallen this much this fast, not Toyota with its brakes problems, not Ford when launching the Edsel, not General Motors when it went through its bankruptcy. BP didn't see this rapid collapse of its business with the oil spill, and neither did Exxon with the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster. New Coke when launched, a textbook marketing disaster, did not cause this much total market loss for Coca Cola, and then - Coke wisely re-introduced its 'old platform' ie Coca Cola Classic, to regain its market. 

We are witnessing the making of the world record in market failure by a global brand leader. Stephen Elop took the most rare 'sure thing' of utterly dominating his industry, holding victory in his hands, and cast it away. He literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Nokia's brand is damaged, Nokia's dumbphones business is damaged, Nokia's credit rating has had a series of downgrades and is now rated junk by all ratings agencies. Nokia's share price which had been growing 11% since Elop started at Nokia and passed 8.20 Euros in value, is now down to about 3 Euros and Nokia is frequently the target of takeover speculation or bankruptcy.

This decision to judge Nokia's market dominating and massively growing, profitable smartphone business as a 'failure' and 'burning platform' which Elop decided to destroy, has to go down as the worst management mistake of all time, and yes, worse than New Coke. As this was Elop's idea, his decision, his communication and his strategy and his execution - this is obviously Stephen Elop's personal management mistake. Thus Elop is the most incompetent CEO that has ever held corporate office. Having set the world record for management failure, Elop is thus, the world's worst CEO of not just technology or of last year but yes, when you set the world record for market self-destruction you are the worst CEO of all time. Stephen Elop, do the right thing and resign, now!

I will return with more analysis of Nokia's plight with more pictures soon. 

Comments

[John Phamlore]

The lesson that should be learned from the Nokia debacle but I am afraid is not being learned is that if one wants to be part of the future, one has to pay for creating the future.

Nokia's fate as I have detailed previously was sealed in 2008, well before Elop joined the company. Observe that in 2008 according to:

http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego

"In October 2008 Texas Instruments announced that they would stop investing in smartphones’ baseband modems and that they were looking for someone to purchase the wireless department ... For Nokia this meant the end of the TI OMAP path for MeeGo, because the company had decided to buy the smartphone chipsets, that is the application processor and the baseband modem from the same vendor."

Okay, no Texas Instruments, what about ST-Ericsson to supply baseband chipsets? After all, supposedly the Jolla / Sailfish project will use their chips:

http://blog.stericsson.com/blog/2012/11/st-ericsson-general/st-ericsson-is-ready-to-support-jolla’s-sailfish-os/

By the way just as I have been saying, everyone is regarding China as the last hope of carving a niche:

http://www.stericsson.com/products/m7400-thor.jsp

Observe the TD-SCDMA capabilities. Only few Western companies are all that optimistic they can hit the jackpot in China, for according to the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NovaThor

"On December 20, 2012, Ericsson announced that they will not buy the remaining 50% stake that STMicroelectronics held. The future for the company therefore remains uncertain."

Nokia did not invest in the right wireless future backing WiMAX instead of LTE, a move I have argued was the true breaking point with the telecoms, for WiMAX was incredibly marketed as disintermediating the carriers leaving them as dumb pipes. Nokia could not have possibly picked a more dangerous and politically connected set of enemies than the United States major telecoms. And this at a time when Nokia knew their 15 year cross-licensing agreement with Qualcomm was about to expire.

When every other company trying to stay in the mobile business such as Intel and Nvidia were buying baseband chipset businesses or developing them such as Samsung and Huawei at tremendous cost, Nokia was dumping theirs before Elop came on board. Though an incredible series of blunders, by 2010 Nokia had left itself both without the internal capability to develop their own LTE baseband chipsets and without suitable partners as an alternative to those of their mortal rivals, Qualcomm.

There's a reason Nokia was a burning platform before Elop took over.

[John Phamlore]

If someone wants to see a scary example of people not learning from history, do a Google search for terms such as Intel, TV, content, partners, Nokia. One finds a never-ending series of stories over the past decade that repeat over and over again, only different. Of course the stories end is never close to what was speculated earlier, such as the latest:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323635504578215692892912404-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwMjEwNDIyWj.html

Let me summarize, Intel, without actually working with incumbents, instead proposes direct to consumer solutions that consumers never requested, angering the incumbents to fight Intel's solutions to the death, killing these solutions. We have seen the same story from WiMAX and other Intel-backed mobile technology angering the telecoms to Intel's unwanted solutions angering the content providers. What lunatic company would want to ally with a partner such as Intel who is busy collecting such powerful enemies?

Unfortunately that company was Nokia in the 2000s, repeatedly allying itself with Intel in one harebrained scheme after another, until Nokia made more enemies that it could handle including the major telecoms it needed to survive as a business. And why would Nokia ally itself with Intel, a company whose chips Nokia could not actually use in its mobile devices until possibly now? Because Nokia wanted to back an OS written by a Finn Linus Torvalds, who went to work for an Intel competitor Transmeta.

The crazy thinking in Finland was occurring way before Elop took over at Nokia.

[cycnus]

@ukd

First of all, I live in Asia. South East Asia (SEA) except Singapore, unlike Europe/USA were a lot of lagging behind in the technology adoption.

If you go to regular (90%) government school, or regular (70%) medium-sized business, the situation is like this:

School:
1. Less than 20% of the student have computer at home.
2. Of those who had computer, might share it with their brother/sister/parents.
3. But 90% of that student have handphone.
4. and around 40%-50% have smartphone.

How do they transfer data between friend??? Bluetooth!!!! Infra-red, PC-LESS.

The situation is roughly the same for medium sized business, although they now each have computer at their desk, this guy already experience the freedom of Symbian and can't go back into zune/itunes land. Most of this guy save their company data/presentation/etc IN THEIR PHONE. and android is the natural migration path REGARDLESS is NOT platform compatible. android is more NATURAL MIGRATION PATH compared to iOS & WP....

Furthermore only around 0.1%-0.3% of these people (mid-class) have credit card. (correct me if I'm wrong) I remember reading that Indonesia only have 3 million credit card for 250 million. So iOS with their Credit Card only iTunes membership is hard to swallow.

When you present them with iOS and WP, they might say "wowww", "cooooll", etc. But when they were given android and wp and iOS platform, most of them will prefer android.

I don't know if the European, African, Middle East person also feel this, but this is what happened in SEA.

and btw,
Meego is also cool, and were also considered the natural progression from symbian.
unfortunately, some lunatic kill it, because he afraid that his favourite OS will lose against it.
(PS: I have N9, and already sold it, and now using the Nexus phone).

[Tester]

>> I don't know if the European, African, Middle East person also feel this, but this is what happened in SEA.

I can't speak for all of Europe, of course, but here in Germany a credit card is not really that useful. The most popular cash free payment method here uses a different kind of card, controlled directly by the banks and is (not surprisingly) a lot cheaper for its users. As a result many stores do not even accept credit cards. Essentially, for store-shopping it's a completely redundant item. So the most popular use for credit cards was online shopping where now PayPal is a much more convenient alternative. I haven't used my credit card in over a year, except for booking some hotels online

I don't know how much all this plays into it but it's probably not a coincidence that the iPhone market share is relatively low here.

Nevertheless, Microsoft made a product that looks like it's tailored to the US market, completely forgetting that much of what they are offering may be an obstacle elsewhere. They slavishly copied all the negatives from Apple but then added several more on top of that.

[Tomasz R]

@John Phamlore - there's a difference between hardware and OS choice. Contemporary proprietary operating systems are used in bad manners by their makers as a tool giving them control over market. Operating systems are technically able to play that role, as they technically control hardware and resource allocation for applications, as well as basic security policies for users. In old days it were administrators on large computers, or users on PCs that controlled operating systems, telling them how to control hardware and applications. Nowadays it looks like the makers of modern proprietary operating systems are control freaks who use these technical capabilities to control the market. For example for Windows Phone 8 Microsoft:

1) Prevents installing applications if it doesn't come from their store.
2) Grants itself a right to reject any application from this store, so in fact it's a right to reject applicationf from running on the platform altogether.
3) Grants itself a right to remotely delete applications from users phones.
4) Prevents any screen resolutions outside of accepted list - 1280x768 max. resolutions allowed.

etc.

The general way to avoid being controlled by control-freaks is to use open source operating systems. Thus the idea to use ether open source Tizen, or semi-open Android or having your own operating system is much better than a proprietary OS like Windows.

Hardware on the other side is just a supplier-choice issue. A company may be less profitable if it buys from Quallcom rather than from others, but it won't result in a huge set of restrictions that proprietary operating systems bring.

[John Phamlore]

It's astonishing the damage that Elop did to Nokia especially considering Elop must have used a time machine to inflict this damage before Elop was hired in September of 2010.

This is where Nokia used to be:

http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2009/02/nokia-st-ericsson-qualcomm-broadcombye-bye-texas-instrument-and-hello-to-the-new-nokia/

"For years Nokia has been relying on Texas Instruments to produce its custom 2G/2.5G/3G chipsets. Nokia was designing the core chipset and letting Texas Instruments finish the integration and physically produce the chips: Nokia has been mastering the whole hardware IP of its phones, and has not been relying on generic chipsets for the vast majority of its production, with all the margins this implies."

Get that? Nokia used to own the "whole hardware IP of its phones" and had resulting margins to show for it. Then Nokia by betting on the wrong horse of WiMAX proceeded to lose both its reliable fab partners and its wireless modem business. Observe that in July 2010 the geniuses running Nokia, not Elop, sold their wireless modem business to Renesas:

http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2010/07/06/nokia-sells-wireless-modem-unit-renesas-200m.htm

Note that article mentions:

"UK-based Icera has been widely tipped to gain significant market share because its software defined modem technology is very advanced, and many larger contenders do not yet have an LTE modem strategy in place."

Whatever happened to Icera? Oh wait, it was acquired by Nvidia:

http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/customrel.do?easyirid=A0D622CE9F579F09&version=live&releasejsp=release_157&xhtml=true&prid=753498

The companies that had serious strategies for staying in the mobile business bought or developed instead of sold wireless modem assets, particularly those involving LTE, such as Intel purchasing Infineon, Samsung and Huawei developing their own LTE chipsets, etc.

Nokia before Elop got there had already cashed out of the business. Nokia before Elop got there had no alternative but to offer its unconditional surrender to Qualcomm and accept whatever terms Qualcomm demanded.

[Tomasz R]

@John Phamlore - Windows Phone 8 hardware requirement explicitly require "Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor". Full capitulation to Quallcom via giving up control of Nokia's products to Microsoft!

http://www.neowin.net/news/here-are-the-windows-phone-8-hardware-requirements

I I've stated - using other's proprietary operating systems is the biggest mistake by far, as it makes you loose control and give up deciding power to the proprietary operating system maker. Hardware decisions importance pale in comparison to that. Especially considering that the screen is the most expansive part of BOM :-) Quallcom itself produces very good hardware, so if Nokia capitulated to it having a good operating system the resulting cooperation might produce great results.

And btw. talking about partnership with Intel. Intel has the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities utilizing 22nm process with 3D transistors. These 22 nm fabs stay 50% idle right now.

http://allthingsd.com/20121016/liveblogging-intels-q3-earnings-conference-call/

Yet Intel still produces it's chips for mobile devices in older 32 nm technology! And these are Atoms - by far the worst core Intel had ever designed. How come Nokia in partnership with Intel haven't teached Intel about the proper priorities in the modern world, told them that the mobile is the future etc., and convinced them to produce chips for Nokia in the most advanced fabs i the world?

[Spawn]

@ ukd

> Qt for Android was not ready

It was ready. From february 2011:
htp://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2011/02/28/necessitas/

Also remind you this was the work done by one guy in a little over a year. Android is Linux, Qt does well on Linux and Nokia had an incredible huge talent pool of Qt devs that time. Most of them are on Linux!

Also lot of the work done on Necessitas would not have been needed. Ministro? Not needed if Qt ships as default. QtCreator integration? Use MeeGo/Maemo (ssh exists on Android too). Mobility/hw integration? Its Nokia's hardware.

[Tomasz R]

Concerning Microsoft dictatorship and control-freakery - consider it's SkyDrive service. This is a cloud based file service, that constantly invigilates (reads and analyzses) it's users files, with both pattern-recognizing programs and by feeding the results to human employees. They search mainly for nudity, porn violence etc. If such stuff is found user can loose his account including his files.

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsofts-ban-of-nudity-on-skydrive-questioned

Why would anyone make deals with a company with such controlling, dictatorship tendencies? Censoring files, censoring applications, remotely deleting applications, telling what hardware has to be used etc.?

[cycnus]

I've read this article and all this writing, and I have something to say for those of you who were doubt of Tomi's 'theory'.

Tomi say
"Especially if 'smartphones' are the stated future of YOUR company main business. It doesn't matter at all whether you are company Blue or company Green or company Red, if you set company record growth and set company record profits in this smartphone business which is the future of your company industry, then you are SUCCEEDING. DO NOT STOP THIS SUCCESS."

Do you feel strange why Elop have TO KILL SYMBIAN PREMATURELY? Why don't he announce on Feb 11th that SYMBIAN IS OUR PAST AND FUTURE, BUT IT WOULD BE IN THE MID-LOW. WP WILL BE IN HIGH-MID.... (NOT KILLING SYMBIAN, BUT SEND IT TO LOWER LEVEL). If he did say that, the symbian sales would not see sudden death. Or in other word, WHY DO HE NEED TO KILL SYMBIAN ASAP? IS THE SUCCESS OF SYMBIAN WILL HURT HIS (REAL) BOSS WP STRATEGY?

I think this is the main proof that ELOP IS A TRAITOR, ELOP IS A CRIMINAL, ELOP IS A TROJAN HORSE.... and I think this is A VERY VALID REASON FROM TOMI THAT CAN'T BE QUESTIONED. WE NEED TO ACCEPT THIS AS FACT #1 THAT WHATEVER THE REASON ELOP WERE NOT DOING HIS BEST FOR NOKIA.

[ukd]

@Spawn

It was alpha. Alpha is not ready. People seem to think that any alpha level software is ready.

And that still doesn't produce Dalvik code.

[Sander van der Wal]

@Spawn

Nokia started showing Qt for Symbian in 2009. It wasn't really ready until 2011. Before that date, Qt apps would fail Symbian Signed tests, which means that your software could not be Symbian Signed and sold in Ovi.

That was one of those things Nokia never got its head around. The engineers would say things were fine and then the Ovi people woild still shoot you down. You cannot write software to be sold for real money if the company running things are that disorganized.

[Kenny]

Elop's greatest crime was not destroying Symbian prematurely (although it also qualifies as a great crime) but killing off MeeGo when it was born. The N9 was declared dead on arrival by Elop who said no more MeeGo phones will be released. Then it was banned from all major markets for fear that it will compete with Lumia. The N9's price was set high to discourage sales.

This was despite the N9 with an innovative swipe UI being highly acclaimed by reviewers all over the world. It was the first Nokia phone in a long time to have excited so much interest. Instead of grabbing this success and running with it Elop just killed it off. This is his greatest crime.

The Symbian based PureView 808 which also garnered worldwide interest was never given a chance. Nokia refused to promote it, restricted supply and sold it under the counter like a bootleg product.

Elop doesn't want any success unless it is a Windows Phone. Period.

[John Phamlore]

Organizationally, the following change completely changed Nokia's culture from one of possible cooperation to divisions relentlessly fighting to the death, regardless of damage to the company:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/10/nokia_ui_saga/
Why Nokia failed: 'Wasted 2,000 man years' on UIs that didn't work

"This kind of internal competition was encouraged within Nokia, and enshrined into the "company constitution" in the 2004 restructure designed by then CEO Jorma Ollila. Perhaps taking Darwinian metaphors too literally, he hoped this would avoid the creation of a bureaucracy."

This is very interesting timing because according to:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/16/nokia_had_choices_but_couldnt_take_them/page2.html

"In 2002, I'm told, Linus Torvalds convinced Nokia to create a Linux unit. The skunkworks bore fruit in 2005, and Nokia backed it strongly, maintaining an high retail profile for it in the United States."

The total change in how Nokia managed its divisions just happened to occur shortly after upper management decided to back Linux as the future and create a competing skunkworks that would be nature be opposed to the rest of the company.

Too many coincidences.

[Amazoogle]

Elop did not bring his family to Finland because he thought he would just destroy nokia and run away laughing like the trololo man.

I dont get it you nokia board, you have neither balls or brains. Shame on you!

[John Phamlore]

This article describes exactly when the rot set in in Nokia:

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Knock+Knock+Nokias+Heavy+Fall+Part+III/1135260623867

"As recently as at the beginning of the century, Nokia had just two business units: Mobile Phones making handsets and Nokia Networks producing cellular network equipment and solutions ... In September 2003, Nokia announced it was comprehensively rearranging the corporate furniture, and Mobile Phones was broken up into three business groups ... In the considered view of the ex-Nokia man, "the key reason" for Nokia's present problems is there: Jorma Ollila's matrix organisation, which came into effect from January 1, 2004."

Odd isn't it that this change, which was orchestrated from the very top by the person regarded as one of the most competent leaders Nokia has ever had, occurred so soon after the alleged decision to create a Linux skunkworks on the urging of Finn Linus Torvalds.

Too many coincidences.

[Dr.Saswat Samant]

Over years you have successfully convinced your readers that Elop is one of the greatest nitwits the world has ever seen in top level managements.But what I wonder is why is he not being fired by the Nokia board.(Unless the controlling stake in NOKIA is held by MICROSOFT !!!) Are they not loosing precious share-value ? Or did they gain something when Elop burned Symbian/MeeGo ?
An unrealistic alternative would be that your analysis is wrong.(But I cant figure out how it would be wrong!)
Somewhere down the line Nokia's smartphone unit will become irretrievable.Then?Would the groups with controlling stake gain anything ?

[elm70]

@ Dr. S.S.

It is not a secret that:
- Nokia shareholders ownership is very fragmented.
- 3 big, huge, American Funds groups alone own over 15% of Nokia shares, and since Elop is there, they have full control of Nokia.

Think ... the big American Funds make money, when Google, Apple, Microsoft are going up. Nokia has been scarified for the good of Microsoft, and the side effect have been that Google and Apple got also advantage of Symbian and MeeGo destruction.

If Elop will give a future to Windows Phone, even if this will cause to destroy Nokia, this will give a huge market value to Microsoft.

Nobody touch Elop, since Nokia is controlled by these American Funds, and even if Nokia is loosing under Elop, the other American company are profiting from Elop actions.

Clearly, it is 100% un-moral ... and possibly also illegal what it is done by Elop ... but nobody bother to fight the titans, especially if the main damage entity is Finland, and the Finland government is doing nothing about it.

Tchuss

e_lm_70

ps: The analysis of Tomi, as in the 99% of cases it is just 100% correct. Tomi mainly see the technical, and telecom aspects, but so far he did not touch much the money power game on the back, that did bring Elop in Nokia, and keep him undisturbed in his destroying activity.

[Spawn]

@ukd

> It was alpha

Only cause QtMobility was. As I wrote: that would not have been needed for Nokia hardware cause QtMobility for Lanku (N9/N950) was there already with MeeGo.

But even if it took Nokia close to ayear to deliver the first Lumia. When Lumia came out Necessitas was ready. Imagine the quality if not only one guy worked onthisin his sparr time but the whole Linux talent they had inhouse. Hundreds of highly skilled Linux devs.

> And that still doesn't produce Dalvik code.

And it never will cause its NATIVE. Performance, portability,etc. Google's Android provides first level support for that with its NDK out of the box.

[Lasko]

Goodbye CN, Hello ukd.