Ok, a Few Words About Microsoft Under Satya Nadella

So congratulations to Satya Nadella, who gets to run one of the very few Fortune Global 500 sized multinationals which enjoys near-monopoly status in most of its core businesses - Windows and the Office Suite. Microsoft is also strong in videogaming consoles and cloud computing. Microsoft is a player in mobile on the software side and just bought the second largest handset manufacturer in the world in its acquisition of the handset division of Nokia. Microsoft is filthy rich with enormous profits only put to shame by those other PC industry pioneers with the logo stolen from the record company that the Beatles started. 

What do I think? I really liked the tone in the memo he released to all Microsoft staff at this link on the official Microsoft site. Very up-beat and optimistic visionary tone. Lets work together, cum-ba-yah. If I was an MS employee I would like this to be the first communication from the new boss, especially after the reputation Ballmer had had for his fierce temper tantrums etc.

THE MOBILE DREAM

So first my professional judgement as the most published author (12 books and counting) in my industry - mobile - and measured by Forbes in 2012 as the most influential expert of my industry. I was the most accurate forecaster for how Nokia would fare in the past few years as its new CEO Stephen Elop attempted a conversion of Nokia's massive and loyal customer base to convert to Windows Phone. The race was not even close. While no forecaster can be perfectly correct (if that happens its an accident) I was so good on both Nokia smartphone and Microsoft Windows Phone forecasts that the next most accurate forecaster was nearly twice as much off as I was. I was almost twice as accurate than the next most accurate forecaster specifically on Nokia smartphone and Windows Phone performances. Bear that in mind on my 'judgement' about Microsoft and its Nokia acquisition.

You may have read recently some optimistic reports that Windows Phone was growing in the past year. That is true. Its about as relevant as if you asked me to talk about the big oceans and I answered talking about the Great Lakes. Lets talk about the reality.

Nokia's market share in 2010 was a massive 35% in smartphones, more than twice that of its nearest rivals, Blackberry and iPhone. That was running 'obsolete' Symbian. Then came Elop who decided to wreck the market by creating his Elop Effect (he badmouthed his own products through his Burning Platforms memo - an idiotic mistake that replicated the Ratner Effect - Elop was reprimanded by Nokia's then-Chairman Jorma Ollila for this; and that Ratner Effect was combined by an Osborne Effect when the CEO announced the new Windows platform far too early, instantly collapsing all current smartphone sales on Symbian. I have coined the term Elop Effect when you do both a Ratner and an Osborne.)  Nokia's market share set a world record fall in the handset industry by falling by more than half in just 12 months to reach 16%. Yes, a world record. This was worse than Palm or Motorola or Blackberry or Siemens or any other sudden fall in the history of handsets.

Then for 2012 we saw the global launch of the promised new Lumia smartphones running the wonderful new Microsoft Windows Phone operating system that was supposedly better than Symbian. Surely the new Lumia smartphones would sell as well - indeed should sell better - than those obsolete Symbian smartphones? Nokia could not sustain a 1-to-1 conversion from Symbian to Windows Phone. Nokia's market share kept sinking reaching 5% when the final numbers were out at the end of the year. Yes you read that correctly. This was a collapse losing two thirds of what you had at the start of the year - Elop actually broke his own world record for failure in the handset industry. Oh, I forgot to tell you, all the Lumia smarpthones were now being sold at a loss. At its worst peak in Q3 of 2012 the Nokia smartphone unit reported a 49% loss per unit sold! 

Then there was the new savior, the Windows Phone version 8 that arrived to the end of the year. Lets see how that fared. Nokia's market share for year 2013 when the Lumia range was migrated to this new Windows Phone 8 system achieved a global market share of how much better than the older Windows 7.x versions? Not better. Worse. Nokia's smartphone market share fell still more in 2013 reaching 3%. It is true yes, that compared to Windows Phone sales one year ago, Nokia did grow the Windiws Phone sales. That was while the smartphone industry grew by 46% according to fresh numbers by Canalys. And what was the cost of this 'success'. Nokia CEO massacred 35% market share on Symbian to deliver 3% on Windows Phone! No wonder they didn't name Elop the new CEO. Even after the first Lumia was launched, just in the last two years, Nokia exchanged 16% of Symbian-based market share for 3% of Windows Phone based market share. All this while posting losses in every single quarter that the Lumia series was ever sold, even after Elop had departed. This is total utter complete market disaster. Not my words. Nokia's past CEO and Chairman when Elop was hired, who chaired the Board that accepted Elop's recommendation to shift to Windows. Ollila admitted to the largest newspaper of Finland, Helsingin Sanomat that yes, Nokia's Windows Phone gamble turned out to be a total flop. A 'big mistake' was how tne newspaper reporter phrased it to which Ollila agreed.

In 2012 when all smartphones sold by Nokia ran only Windows Phone, and most of those were already on Windows Phone version 8. And the ex-Microsoft dude Stephen Elop was in charge. And he had installed hs own Microsoftian buddies to run Nokia's sales etc. That Nokia achieved 3% market share in the industry Nokia invented, and utterly dominated still only three years prior. The only way Windows Phone grew from 2012 was at the expense of the massacre of Nokia's huge customer loyalty worldwide. Yes, before Elop damaged Nokia, it was the most beloved handset brand in all countries except the USA, Japan and South Korea - three markets with many domestic handset brands AND strong local carriers that protect their domestic market. In the rest of the world where 90% of us humans live, where there mostly were no domestic rivals and Nokia competed on even terms, Nokia held over 50% market share in smartphones on every continent! Dont' be misguided by US-market anomalies when you analyze the mobile industry. 

Out of customers not scared off by the Elop Effect during 2011, of the remaining 16% market share, Nokia managed to scare off 13% of that or more than four out of every five attempts to convert to Windows Phone. And remember, those were not iPhone users. They were users on Symbian, the 'obsolete' smartphone platform. Yet somehow Windows was so poisonous that four out of five loyal Nokia customers would rather switch brands than take a Nokia using Windows! That is your 'success'. Or more precisely, the Windows based smartphones had 4% market share in year 2010, just before the Nokia partnership was announced. Now after Nokia sacrificed 32% of its market to the altar of Redmond, where is Microsoft? At 3.5% market share. The Nokia partnership resulted in a net LOSS of one half of one market share point. THAT is not success in any book.

The market has spoken loud and clear. We do not need to revisit tens of thousands of words about the how and why and when (you can read all about that in my shortly to be released 13th book). The facts are obvious. And here is my point. MIcrosoft's new CEO wrote eloquently about mobile in that nice first memo. He even welcomed the Nokia employees shortly joiing Microsoft. There is great hope at Microsoft that they can use the Nokia handset division to propel Microsoft into something akin to Apple who sells its highly profitable iPhones and owns its iOS ecosystem. There is a lot of reason for the new CEO to be optimistic that Microsoft's Nokia will be a success. It will not. Trust me because I was by far the most accurate forecaster of both Nokia smartphones and Windows based smartphones of the recent past. Why will this not work?

CARRIERS, WHAT ARE CARRIERS?

The mobile industry differs from the PC industry and almost every other tech industry in one vital way. The carriers/operators are gatekeepers to their domestic markets that no handset maker can successfully circmvent. Google tried this with the original Nexus and failed. Apple tried for years until it relented to agree to terms with the biggest carrier in the world, China Mobile (about the size of seven AT&Ts). Microsoft ifself felt the wrath of the carrier community after it spent billions buying the Danger handset manufacturer and then releasing its own Kin phones. The Kin series was killed in only 6 weeks from launch (that too is a world record failure in mobile). Why killed. Because the carriers suddenly withdrew the promised support. Yes. Microsoft itself has felt the devastation of how the carriers rule.

Nokia testified to the NY Stock Exchange and the Securities Exchange Commission in filing its Form 20-F in 2011 that the carrier relations of Nokia were the world's strongest, but that if they were damaged, all other Nokia competitie advantages such as its scale, logistics and brand would be damaged too. The carrier relations underpinned Nokia's dominant position. Elop himself said that the biggest lesson he learned out of the Lumia launch failure was how strong the carrier commnity was and he hadn't correctly dealt with them. When the three ratings agencies Moody's, S&P and Fitch each downgraded Nokia numerous times from near perfect to junk status - at every downgrade they mentioned the poisoned carrrier relations or sales channel problems as a cause. Usually the first mentioned cause. Often the ONLY cause why Nokia suffered another downgrade! Nothing was more important to Nokia's dominant position than the massive lead it had built in its carrier relations. Relations that were destroyed under three years of Elop's rule. Relations that had taken decades to build. Relations that have now been snapped up mostly by Samsung by the way so they won't be coming back either.

Nokia's fall was not because handsets were not good enough. Certainly Windows Phone by version 8 was better than the outgoing Symbian. Nokia did not fall because the marketing was bad or the prices too high - come on, every single Lumia was sold at a loss. At its worst, a loss of 49% per handset! Microsoft threw a quarter of a Billion dollars into the Lumia marketng every single quarter to help boost the handset success. Yet dismal failure.

LETS PLAY BAD COP - BAD COP

And here is the kicker. Carriers had loved Nokia (except US carriers - even neighboring Canadian and Mexican carriers loved Nokia but not the US carriers). But carriers had distrusted and disliked Microsoft. That dislike turned into hatered when Microsoft bought Skype. Not because Skype appeared on Windows Phone smartphone - Skype was available on Android smartphones but not on early Windows based smartphones. No. Carriers hated it that Microsoft the rich tech giant could now bankroll the single biggest existential threat to their business. Skype threatens voice calls. Skype threatens messages. Skype threatenes videocalls. While carriers dislike all OTT providers from Whatsapp to Blackberry Messenger, only Skype attracts pure hatered. Again not my words. Stephen Elop told the Nokia annual shareholder meeting in 2012 that carriers were boycotting all brands of Windows smartphones and it was because of Skype.

The boycotts have neen independently verified in secret in-store surveys by journalists from San Francisco to New York to Boston to London to Paris to Helsinki to Beijing and Hong Kong. Its a fact that after Microsoft bought Skype the total carrier commnuity put all Windows based smartphones into boycott. LG and Sony quit the Windows ecosytem completely. HTC and Samsung reduced their involveemnt to a token handset or two. Huawei and ZTE abandoned Windows Phone launches. In all cases that there was a statement why, it was because the carriers said they don't want the Windows based smartphones. They wanted the same manufacturers to give them Android handsets instead. Ex Microsoft executive who was in charge of the Windows smartphone unit at MIcrosoft, Charlie Kindle said that Microsoft's carrier relations were bad before the Skype purchase and then Microsoft made matters even worse essentially giving the middle finger to the carrrier community.

Understand the market now. Nokia were the 'good cop' of the pairing with Microsof the 'bad cop'. That can only work if there is one bad and one good. It cannot work with only the bad cop. Now that Nokia is removed from the equation - with all this history - can Microsoft ever succeed in mobile handsets? No. Literally never. They may stumble on for many years throwing good money after bad attempting to generate modest sales out of the 'Nokia' unit in the low single digits of market share. But the carrier community has spoken, loud and clear, that even with Nokia as the partner they will punish Microsoft. Now with Nokia no longer in the mix, the performance of the handset unit under MIcrosoft's sole management will be worse. Don't believe me? The Christmas quarter from October to December is traditionally Nokia's best quarter of the year in smartphone sales. Nokia traditionally grows 25% from just the quarter before. Most analysts were expecting Nokia to report well beyond 10 million sales in that ballpark. Nokia actual sales fell from 8.8 million to 8.2 million. This while the industry grew 15% from Q3 according to Canalys. And why the sudden totally unanticipated crash now? Bad Nokia phones? No, the brand new Lumia 1020 was shipping with the monster 41 megapixel camera and the new phablets too with screens of gargantuan size. Sprint was added to Nokia's USA sales etc. But sales? Fell. What else happened? Nokia announced the sale of the handset unit to Microsoft. Who is punishing Nokia/Microsoft now? Its the carreirs, stupid!

So mark my words. Nokia smartphones under Microsoft ownership will never pass single digits. I mean never ever ever in this lifetime or the ones to follow. Never ever cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die never. Initially this year Microsoft can report total handset market shares in the low teens as Nokia's dumbphones help it to 15% of hte total handset market. But Nokia's smartphone market share had fallen to 3% last year. That was achieved when Nokia was balancing the evil out of the Evil Empire. When Ballmer played bad cop and Elop played good cop when visiting carrier CEOs together attempting to sell the new Lumia solutions.

The only thing that could reverse the hatered carriers have towards Microsoft is, if Microsoft would soon sell off the Skype asset. I am sure Microsoft investors would revolt on that decision as its about the only strong play Microsoft has going into the internet wars now as Internet Explorer, Hotmail etc are losing market share. So that would be a bombshell of news but I would suggest that is a day they would be making snowballs in hell if that happened in the next year or so.

AND NOKIA'S HANDSET UNIT FATE AT MICROSOFT THEREFORE IS

Ok. I am on record with my dire prediction. Luckily Nadella has no idea who I am and has very little knowlege even of the mobile industry so he can't judge how valid my points are. The issue will further be obfuscated by the disgruntled Elop who hates it that he didn't get the CEO job and certainly won't want to take any credit for the downfall of Nokia's handset empire. He will not tell the truth to the new CEO and those old Nokians who would have been brave enough to tell the truth to power have long since been fired by Elop or resigned in protest or left for personal reasons etc.

The new CEO will probably give Elop a chance at the helm of the Nokia he brings to Microsoft. It will continue to be a disaster and the new CEO very likely sees the history and will fire Elop - no do the Microsoftian amputation by giving Elop a non-job with no staff like say SVP of Mobile Strategy - and then post Elop into some far-away office like Ouagadougou or Antananarivo. But the CEO will give the Nokia unit another boss no doubt a very capable one who will spend another year or two in hell trying to turn the doomed operation around. How much beyond 2016 can Microsoft linger in useless state as a nobody of mobile will primarily depend on how long the profits from desktop Windows and Office Suite sustain the luxuries of loss-making divisions. I think Microsoft will play it like Xbox for many many years but by the end of the decade the writing will be on the wall. All the smart Nokia transfers will quietly migrate to 'any department other than handsets' at Microsoft...

Thats my prognosis on the happy memo talking so nicely about the importance of mobile to Microsoft. I do want to say that I expect Microsoft to continue making obscene profits in its other businesses so please don't read into the above that Microsoft is in trouble in the short run. Only its mobile dream is a nightmare that will never pan out.

CHANGE OR NOT TO CHANGE

(I honestly didn't want to write that part today, this second part is what promted me to end my night at my PC to author this blog)

Here is the real test of Satya Nadella. Microsoft is a bully. It has earned its nickname of being the Evil Empire. It has crushed rivals with illegal means and then armed itself with armies of attorneys so in the end it only paid some penalties that were pocket change out of its deep pockets. Microsoft has definitely been the nastiest player all over the years in tech. This was not just Ballmer, it was the total corporate culture and history. It was against its VARs, it was with its partners (Sendo, anyone?) and now the Nokia crash is also attributed to Microsoftian 'Trojan Horse' behavior by Elop especially after word leaked of his 25 million dollar bonus for wrecking the handset business. The Financial Times calculated that for every 1 Billion dollars that Elop wiped out of Nokia's shareholder value, his bonus clause paid him another 1.5 million dollars. A nice job if you can get it. The FT compared the audacity of Elop's heist to Bernie Madoff. (Incidentially I have explained why Elop could not have been inserted as a Trojan Horse but he may still have been acting in Microsoft's best interest out of misguided loyalties - and should be investigated by the securities industry watchdogs)

Ok so yes, MIcrosoft has earned its reputation as the biggest bully in the tech industry. You know what? That tactic only works if you are a monopoly (or a dictator). In any fair market conditions (or real democracies) the bully is soon ousted and never gets to that kind of behavior at the Fortune 500 sized giant corporation level. Only in monopolistic situations. Microsoft is quite different in the videogaming consoles market and in cloud computing where it doesn't hold monopolistic market power.

So what happens next. The big war for the IT industry was already lost two years ago when more computing devices were sold running Android than Windows. The installed base tips over this year when more total computing devices in use (mainframes, servers, PCs, netbooks, tablets, PDAs and smartphones) on Android will be bigger than those on Windows. So Microsoft has already lost the war while it still keeps on trucking in the lucrative desktop Windows and Office software world that will continue to be big for many years still to come. The future via smartphones is lost (see above) and last year was the first year that traditional PC sales - desktops and laptops - fell.

The gaming consoles have reached their peak as well. So where is Microsoft's futurei if not smartphones? The cloud maybe but in that world the giant is Amazon and there are several strong players. Microsoft's whole history was built on a monopoly or monopolistic market even from the very start when IBM gave MS the DOS license for the operating system on the first IBM PC. MIcrosoft has learned every nasty trick of intimdiation and nasty contract clauses and hostile attorneys to breaking contracts to breaking laws - and it gets away with it - in those markets where it is monopolistic. It isn't behaving like that on the cloud services I am told (I am not an expert on that side of Microsoft).

So my advice and 'test' of Satya Nadella is the Evil test. If he wants to transform Microsoft and bring it as a healthy vibrant major tech company in the 2020s decade 6 years from now, the only way that is possible is if Microsoft is transformed totally into the gentle giant and friend to all. Not the closed garden - my way or the highway - thinking that is Windows and its 'ecosystem'. It is the open source type of thinking best epitomied by Linux (yeah Finnish dude Linus Torvalds can be thanked for that haha) that was also very close to the core of Nokia's culture up to when Elop the cancer arrived in 2010. Android is Linux based by the way (as was Nokia's replacement platform to supercede Symbian, the highly praised but short-lived MeeGo - its succesor, Sailfish by Jolla can run Android apps natively! Imagine that, Nokia could have the full benefit of the 700,000 apps of Android while keeping its own - Linux based open souce operating system today if Elop hadnt' murdered MeeGo in pursuit of his 25 million dollar bonus)

The rot inside Microsoft is deep. I don't mean every person at Microsoft is evil. But the corporate culture is one that takes the nasty option almost whenever it presents itself. I always say 'lawyer up' when you have any dealings with Microsoft as it so often ends in tears (did I mention Sendo, MIcrosofts very first step into mobile destroyed that smartphone pioneer in a prolonged lawsuit that in the end had Microsoft paying Sendo but by then Sendo was destroyed).

HOW SOFT? MICROSOFT AS A LOVELY PUSSYCAT

The memo is a nice first step. Nadella is a young CEO closer in tune to the modern IT tech thinking of sharing - haha Communities Dominate eh, like this blog and the book we wrote with Alan Moore a decade ago. But yes. The young CEO perhaps can guide MIcrosoft into a new era, for the tiger to shed its stripes and the Evil Empire to transform into a lovely pussycat. I am not holding my breath. I think that is far too much to ask of the new CEO while Microsoft still seems so healthy today... It will take a near-death experience perhaps to motivate the then-new CEO to that desperation move. One that starts incidentially by a massive mea culpa by the CEO apologizing for all past mistakes like all lawsuits settled out of court or fines paid to the EU and US regulators 'with Microsoft admitting no fault' haha... that to me is the only way, and yes, It will obviously not happen. So expect Nadella to supervise a continuous slow death spiral from now to maybe 2025 or 2030 but I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now. Its stone dead. The parrot is definitely deceased. He's passed on. This parrot is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet its maker. He's a stiff. Bereft of life he rests in peace. This is an ex-Parrot!
 
but good luck Satya I hope you prove me wrong. The industries (digital and mobile, increasingly converging) really could use a strong Microsoft for another 20 years and if you can somehow revive the Nokia handset business back to growth, I'm sending you a bottle of James Bond's favorite whisky, a nice 25 year old single malt of Macallan. Good luck! 

Comments

[tontridge]

Android Jolly Tizen will win and win big , and Microsoft will die like a dying person dying like an old person dead and dying.
Microsoft is dead and dying dead.
I like to kill Microsoft with death.
I think microsot shoud be killed with death.

does the ballmer die now.

can you get the stats for that please and that would under all situations not concern for me.

regards
ergada ensignior sitchen

[trashin]

Tomi,

the carriers have plenty of options to counter the Skype threat.
The threat boils down to data usage over voice/SMS/MMS use.

In Norway, carrier tiers 2 (Netcom) and 3 (Tele2/Onecall) have made all voice and SMS/MMS messages "free" (as in umlimited) on monthly contracts from 199Nkr (about £20) and up.
Call and text as much as you want, no limits for a fixed cost.
And therein lies the kicker: data usage is limited to 1GB (GigaByte) a month. Not a lot for Skype data there.

The data package can of course be increased but that costs a fair bit.

The carriers here are now competing on data use before anything else!

[RottenApple]

@Gonzo:

As usual far too much ado about nothing is made about Android's version 'fragmentation'.

First, 2.3 is on its way out. It's losing market share very fast, and the holdouts are mostly users not interested in apps requiring the latest technology. It's approximately losing 2% market share per month right now which means in half a year it's more or less irrelevant.

Second, Android apps can be written in a way that lets them gracefully degrade functionality on older versions. So even an app that can make use of Kitkat features can still be done in a manner that doesn't leave 2.3 users out completely.

@trashin:

Yeah, I have to agree. Contracts with unlimited free calls are becoming more commonplace, since it's quite obvious that the balance of use will shift even more towards the data side.
Of course, much of that can be sidestepped by the user with WLAN/WiFi access.

[Gonzo]

@ Winter

I see, you are a bit confused, KitKat's main purpose is to usher in a strategy from Google to get the latest Android version on all Android devices, both premium and low-end. Also your argument is confusing, you imply that every time google releases a new version of Android people must get the newest hardware to run it. I have an iPhone 4s running IOS7 and and BB bold 9930 updated twice, both work well, I did not buy the newest state of the art handset to run the newest state of the art OS.

My point how come that after 3 months KitKat is bellow 2% market share? If we compare the latest IOS releases Android seems to be way behind and their market share is a bit confusing to say the least.

Counting Android 1-2-3 as market share makes no sense, so it's just 4 and kitkat it's not taking off.

Tomis's take on this would be interesting

[RottenApple]

@Gonzo:

How do you think the new version arrives on your phone? It's not just Google releasing it, it normally also means that it has to be adjusted and approved by the manufacturer (and if you got a carrier branded phone, also by the carrier!) before it can be distributed.

Also, most people don't tend to upgrade unless they really need it. As long as 4.1 works fine, why put your phone in danger by making a firmware upgrade?

'Not taking off' is nonsense. It's merely 3 months old, the upgrades for the important models a just arriving or have just recently arrived, It hasn't been much time yet for this to have a major impact.

As for 4.4 supposed to run on old devices, that's a fairy tale. Many 2.3 devices run totally outdated hardware (no FPU, extremely shitty GPU) so running a modern Android on them would be like trying to install Windows 8 on a Pentium 4 system with 512 MB of RAM. It may succeed but you wouldn't be pleased at all. Even the lowest of low end devices today easily outperform this old junk. 4.4 might be able to run on any 4.x device but you'd still need your manufacturer to make a working version of the OS for your phone, and not all will do that (Lesson: Don't buy from such cheapskates!)

[Mao Nixon]

@Tomi

:) I also smile on my nick name :)

Talking about OTT, I think you over-exaggerate skype messaging capability. Skype still lose compared to What's App, Line, WeChat regarding the messaging capability. The person/skype-account must be active in order to receive message, otherwise the message will be gone (not delivered). Google Hangout OTT is the real beast.

@RottenApple

GB (Android 2.3) is loosing %, but not phone unit. It % is shrinking because all the new phone sold is containing newer android such as 4.0/4.1/4.2/4.3/4.4. I think lots of GB (2.3) user were hand-me-down (second hand) user, or maybe a user that don't really care about OS version such as a windows XP user in 2013/2014.

[Mao Nixon]

@Gonzo

I just want to add what @RottenApple said....

In the fruit universe (Apple & BlackBerry), they both the phone manufacture and the OS manufacture. When they create the new OS, they create around their hardware. and DONE.

In android, after google release new version, the CPU, GPU, sensor, etc manufacture need to create a code ('driver'?) for the new OS.

As @RottenApple said, don't buy from cheapskate. Some manufacture (or component manufacture) just don't care, or don't have the resource to do the OS upgrade. For example, if you bought android device with broadcom CPU or MediaTek CPU, you'll be sure that you won't get any upgrade at all. Even Google owned Google Galaxy Nexus can't be upgraded to Android Kit Kat because TI (Texas Instrument) already quit the mobile CPU industry.

[RottenApple]

@Mao Nixon:

"GB (Android 2.3) is loosing %, but not phone unit."

The only metric I got is percentage on Google Play, and more particular, percentage of my company's apps. And that percentage is shrinking a lot faster than the entire market grows.

The oldest number I could find quickly is 11 months old, has 2.x at a market share of signficantly over 50%, the most recent numbers are 21%, but the market only grew by roughly 50% which would result in a 2.x market share of roughly 35% if the # of devices didn't change. So, even considering the change in the metrics last year, we can safely assume that 1/3 of all 2.x devices has been either retired or upgraded.

So, to me it's quite clear how this will play out. 2.3 is on the slow road to oblivion, it may take some months but my personal guess is that by Summer 2014 it won't have much relevance anymore for software developers, because the remaining users are not the target audience of the software being developed. 2.3 phones may still continue to exist, but they'll be mostly zombies, i.e. being used like a dumbphone that won't enter any statistics (like my own secondary phone, for example.)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Dipankar - ok I was being generous to Windows Phone 8 haha but its quite typical of the technology races of new against old. The very best of the older technology is usually seen right before it dies - as all the kinks have been removed and the engineers get to do the last hurrah. So for example when train engines went from steam to diesels and electrics (and diesel-electrics) and the steam engines were being phased out, that was when the fastest-ever steam engine appeard, I think it was the Mallard if I remember correctly. Similarly when DVD players were gathering steam and replacing the VCR as the TV accessory gadget, that was when the best VCRs came out with phenomenal playback abilities across all VCR tape standards etc but that 'train had left the station' haha.. the very best of Symbian is of course its last edition. Now, about WP8 - its far better than WP7.x was which was a big leap ahead from the very buggy early WP6.x but this is typical Microsoft way. They just put out whatever crap they have and then release constantly updates and upgrades. A few may be free, then they start to charge users for newer versions and people often argue Microsoft deliberately leave bugs into their software just to guarantee the sale of upgrades... Obviously I am not a fan of Microsoft as you know haha...

About India and Lumia. Yeah. Nokia's own best designers were the ones who created the Symbian, MeeGo, S40 and Asha devices. But not the Lumia series. As Elop told CNBC, the Lumia line was designed out of Nokia's California-based design offices, and was aimed to suit US customers primarily. That was for example why such lame cameras, no microSD storage, no removable batteries, no QWERTY variants etc. This was all lunacy to Nokia's global design team which knew the different uses and needs of Nokia global customers. But in the USA at the time there was still the debate going on, whether the camera on a phone was even necessary because most US households were affluent enough to have recent digital cameras - and Apple's iPhone back then had still a pretty crummy camera. Similarly most US households had easy access to the internet, often had WiFi routers at home and the Windows cloud storage idea was rather practical vs microSD or Bluetooth file transfer that most of the rest of the world preferred. Etc etc etc.

Now we know what happened with Lumia in the market it was aimed for. Nokia handset sales fell by more than half from the time before Elop Effect to the end when all Nokia phones sold in the USA were only smartphones and only ran Lumia. So it was obviously not even able to win in America. In the rest of the Industrialized World, Europe, advanced Asia, Australia etc - the Lumia was a disaster.

That is before we consider Emerging World issues and needs. The Lumia series was spectacularly poorly suited for those needs. The whole series is far too expensive. There is nothing wrong with a high-prices flagship and some medium priced products but Nokia's Symbian series offered far cheaper smartphones in 2011 than the cheapest Lumia is now (sold at massive losses so its true end-user price should be significantly higher). The limitations of Windows Phone ecosystem and its severe shortfalls vs Symbian/S40/Asha and Nokia's Ovi store - language support, local carrier billing support, Dual SIM is lacking.. all those things - make it a very poor choice in those markets. Then we have the famous 101 faults. Many of those have been corrected but bizarrely many of the faults still remain and ever more nasty Windows surprises are discovered with the newer versions. And two key competitors. Samsung will do almost any 'clone' of a successful Nokia product. Not one-for-one but look, the Galaxy Zoom for example was a pretty nifty quick respose to Nokia's 808 Pureview with the intention of capturing 'the high ground' of camera wars on phones. So in India you walk into the store and the Lumia doesn't quite feel right - there is a wide range of Sammys of every price point and of course designed for the Emerging World markets like having many Dual SIM models in the Galaxy range etc....

And the killer is Asha. They were not premium real smartphones but just like the Mallard steam engine, when Nokia's S40/Asha platform is nearing the end of its life, that is when we see the best it can do, sqeezed out of it. The Asha series seem to normal users very VERY compelling little nice affordable 'smartphones' whether the analysts agree on that defintion or not. Does it have Facebook? Does it run Angry Birds. What more do you need. For the average user, that is a 'smartphone' as it also has the 'modern' touch-screen that the iPhone and Galaxies and Lumias have. This is why Microsoft had to insist on buying all of Nokia's handset business. It was losing the battle to Asha. We know for example for Christmas while Lumia sales were down, the featurephone sales were up (we dont' have the exact number but I estimated Nokia dumbphone unit sales at 67M so up by 19% from Q3). Much of those Christmas-gift Nokia featurephone sales were driven by Asha. I believe this embarrassment is part of why Nokia decided no longer to break out the details of the handset division sales and just lump it all into discontinued business. Let Microsoft deal with that headache..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Jouko Ahvenainen - good points. Yeah, first, obviously as the Nokia smartphone unit has not managed even one quarter of profits since Elop changed its strategy, there will be staff cuts of course. But I would guess that these will be modest where Microsoft has such deep profits elsewhere and they know this is a long game they don't want to 'gut' the Nokia unit and deprive it of the expensive mobile skills it needs. Some of the cuts will be done by convenient headhunting where some current Microsoft departments in need of boosting their mobile competences - especially after that memo from Nadella - will poach some of the perhaps excessively staffed departments from the units that transfer over to Microsoft. And as usual in such cases, there will be some redundancies out of duplicity of tasks and departments.

You also raise a very interesting point about the investor expectations. It could have gone so, that the new Cloud-computing dude came in to run Microsoft and not talked much yet, and the Nokia purchase happened quietly in the background and the new CEO would mostly focus on Microsoft's traditional businesses and the migration to the cloud. Ignoring Mobile. That would allow the CEO to also evaluate the Nokia purcahse and what to do with it - like the new CEO at HP decided coming in noticing that HP had recently bought Palm, that he didn't believe in that tech and ended it. Now Nadella comes out on Day 1 with his memo that several times discusses the importance of mobile - and did you notice - always listed mobile ahead of the cloud - he is 'married' to the Nokia Mobile strategy succeeding. Its a bit like OPK when he started at Nokia and immediately promised he would fix Nokia's USA problem, knowning that was on the minds of many shareholders and Nokia analysts. Now Nadella is kind of setting himself up for big scrutiny of 'so how is the handset division doing' at various press events and conference calls with analysts etc. It will be very interesting to see if Microsoft hide the Nokia numbers (and/or specifically Windows Phone performance ie Lumia numbers) and/or if they try some gimmicks like reporting only 'total smartphones' including Asha - haha - or if Microsoft reports rather in detail how the handset unit and Microsoft's other mobile business is advancing (or not..). Interesting times. I feel bad for him, knowing what I do, that this will end up very badly for what seems like a nice guy. I'd hate it if they then fire this CEO as a failure and bring in a clone of Ballmer, as the next bully - oh no, or worse - give CEO job to Elop haha..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Jouko Ahvenainen]

I think mobile is definitely important. But mobile means so many things, not only mobile phones and to sell mobile phones. As important is, how MS services could be available as many mobile devices as possible, and it can be done in many ways. For example, how their enterprise offering could reach much more users than today. I would say the first answer would be to support Android and iOS too. I think one of their key questions is, whether support mobility thru all systems to their key services, or try to get WP to more people and only support it. It is hard to see the latter could really work.

If I really simplify, I see two options. 1) MS creates a kind of one strategy, what is its whole core offering, and how all parts then deliver that; it can mean ex Nokia division is totally re-organized and people are moved to different parts. 2) MS continues with several product oriented strategies and each of them push their own products, and then they try to make some synergies in the background; in this one ex-Nokia and tablet divisions probably can stay more like they are now. In short them #2 might sound better for ex Nokia teams, but the outcome can be as you described, it looks bad in a couple of years, or a kind of Motorola destiny, i.e. sold to Asia in 2 or 3 years. #1 can mean more cuts, but then people are really moved to places to serve the new core strategy.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

zlutor - haha yeah Project MView ie Mountainview. That Android phone is obviously the port of the MeeGo project to Android which was Elop's secret emergency rush job after it became obvious Lumia can never succeed and I would guess Elop didn't want to develop it but the Board insisted there has to be a backup plan. Had Elop not killed MeeGo and Meltemi, those would have been used instead. The rush Android project could have given us Nokia branded Android right now in 2014 and this threat was the final key to get Microsoft to make Nokia a decent offer for the handset unit. You'll remember the original offer from Microsoft was rejected on sight as ridiculous. But then Nokia worked on the MView for a little while and leaked a bit of rumors about it - and lo and behold, Microsoft came back in a hurry with a much more sweetened offer...

We all wish there would be this. A genuine Nokia on Android would be a killer. Nokia readily beat Samsung when they were on even footing. If Nokia joined Android it would soon also have also beaten Samsung (around 2012-2013 maybe even 2014). But now Samsung keeps buidling its lead and even if Microsoft were to sell the Nokia asset like at the end of this year - do a Google/Motorola thing - then by then all the power Nokia once had in the distribution channel, sourcing, manufacturing design etc will be long gone and Nokia's contributions would be - on par with Motorola today haha..

Now Microsoft - it can never allow Android on its ie Lumia ie Nokia or any other MIcrosoft-owned phones. It would be immediately be seen as 'Microsoft abandons Windows platform - on PCs !!!!' Microsoft would rather terminate all of its $10B cumulative investment in Nokia than let the rumors start that Microsoft is about to end Windows and jump to join a platform by a competitor - Google's Android (and thus become Google's slave..). It would be as moronic as say Nokia when leading the world of smartphones suddenly abandoning its own platform and jumping to become slave of Microsoft.. haha. Oh wouldn't it have been gorgeous to see Elop as CEO of Microsoft and release another Burning Platfoms memo - that Windows was dead and Microsoft had to move on.... oh why oh why oh why haha...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Jussi7 - I removed your comment which had good points because you clearly had not read the blog. I was not talking of Symbian ecosystem market share I was talking very clearly about Nokia-only smartphone unit sales which GREW in 2010 and grew MORE than Apple. That massive GROWTH turned into catastrophic collapse overnight after the Elop Effect. If you read the blog fully, and illustrate in your disagreement that you've read it and then want to bring out some other issue like the global trend of the dozen handset makers that provided Symbian smartphones in 2010 and how that might be relevant, feel free. Please don't bother to quote the already debunked Canalys stats which even the industry laughed about as Canalys clearly had math errors on their very numbers they published.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[JMM]

@Tomi

I read your post "Understanding OTT - Why Carriers dislike BBM, hate iMessage and fear Skype (updated)".

I understand Metcalfe´s law, but I cannot agree that Skype is the only real triple threat (voice/messaging/videocall). May be I´m wrong but Apple does the same (Facetime Audio/Facetime/iMessage)

As I said I understand Metcalfe´s Law, I´m an IT executive working abroad (very large company) with specific communication needs, both for work and family (no kid sexting). I´m an iphone user and my corporation only certifies iPhone/Android (some specific models) to use for our corporation.

With coworkers and family I never relied on Skype, we mostly use iMessage/Facetime and Facetime Audio, the latest proved to be an excellent alternative to international calls (hey, the audio quality is even better than an international call). Outside those I rely on Lync 2013 on my iphone which by the way does audio/video/messaging, you can say that Lync is pretty much Skype, what I can agree, and of course Whatsapp.

Now, as an user (not as an analyst) I think that the big difference between Skype and the Apple´s offer is simplicity, even if Skype is preloaded you need to sign in or sign up for an account with Apple´s services you need to do nothing, it works outside the box. My father (75 years old, leaving in another country) could never use Skype, for his last birthday I bought him an iPhone, magically (Apple words, but really was for him) he found a camera icon near my name in his phone´s address book, pushing this camera icon was the only thing that they need to videocall me.

Accessibility/Availability are (in my opinion) the biggest threats from Apple, way bigger than Skype. You can tell me (coming back to Metcalfe´s) about the installed base, but I´m sure that you know that there are apps for Android that allow to imessage/facetime iphone users.

I also read how Carriers banned Apple virtual SIMs, may be Apple pushed to much, but at the end of the day I think that the simple answer on why Carriers boycott M$ and not Apple is simple, people want iphones, Carriers cannot afford losing the iphone, if a guy want an iphone you cannot sell him other phone, no matter how good it is, if people want a Windows Phone I´m pretty sure that you can sell an equivalent android phone without a lot of trouble.

Regarding this:

"The price for all that free content is that you have to put up with my personal peculiarities including my huge ego, my rants, my arrogant and at times even abrasive style. My weird sense of humor. My silly hobbies like James Bond and Formula 1"

Tomi, I enjoy a lot your peculiarities, rants, abrasive style and weird sense of humor, all of them together packed with very good info is why keep coming, however spending 160 words on my technical question and 817 on your ego speaks a lot about you, sorry dude.

[E.Casais]

@JMM

"May be I´m wrong but Apple does the same (Facetime Audio/Facetime/iMessage)"

The major difference, and the point raised by Tomi about the law of Metcalfe:

Facetime/iMessage only works in the Apple environment.

Skype works on iOS, MacOS, Android, Windows, linux, Blackberry...

Hence, Skype is much more powerful (and therefore threatening) in terms of network effects than the proprietary, insular Apple software. It is that simple.

[Baron--9-5]

LOL - Boycott, Microsoft Has no Clue, blah, blah, bah....

Explain why Lumia/Windows Phone is #2 in Italy and Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico) ahead of Apple. Why does it have 17% market share in Italy? Why is it the only surviving non-Apple, non-Google OS?

Lots and lots of words. But an inability to explain the "facts".

Bada - Tomi's darling #1 - dead. Tizen - Tomi's darling #2 - Still born.

All the operator members of the Tizen consortium - DoCoMo, Orange, Sprint, etc - are on record that they have no plans to launch a Tizen phone.

Keep going. It is so funny.

[Baron--9-5]

Microsoft, once it completes the Nokia acquisition, will be the only viable Phone Maker, other than Apple that controls it's cloud/ecosystem/content stores.

All the others - Samsung, LG, HTC, Lenovo, Huawei - are simply dumb screens funneling traffic to Google et al.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Jussi7

I again deleted your comment but now I know what is the issue. Please read this carefully. I have absolutely no interest or need to delete comments that disagree with me. I delete all comments that are not relevant. Why were your two comments deleted when you clearly think that was relevant. I know from you second comment where you misunderstand what is needed and this may help you in winning arguments the rest of you life. Pay attention...

Let me use a simple example we both undestand instinctively being Finns. If I post a blog here entitled 'Formula 1 2014 Season' and in it I say Kimi will win over Alonso at Ferrari because Kimi is cool under pressure and Alonso explodes under pressure. And then you post a reply saying 'In Rallye championship last year Latvala lost to Ogier at Volkswagen' - that is NOT a 'discussion' - that is two 'monologues' I talk about Formula 1, Kimi and Alonso on Ferrari. You talk about World Rallye, Latvala and Ogier at Volkswagen. Yes, both are cases of Finns in world racing car championships but if my topic was only about F1, and you suddenly out of the blue talk about the temperature at the world Sauna championships or the 1995 ice hockey championships or reindeer racing winners.. WITHOUT LINKING IT to MY TOPIC, you are not relevant. No matter how much you THINK it is relevant. It is YOUR job Jussi7 to link to MY TOPIC. And here is Jussi7 your golden lesson today. This is how easy it is. You will start doing this all the time and be amazed how much people will agree with you from now on without fighting you point. This is how you get you argument about Rallye car racing into Formula 1 topic. You say this:

Yes Tomi, I know you think Kimi will win over Alonso at Ferrari this year, but last year Latvala didn't win ovee Ogier while being on the top team in Rallye racing at Volkswagen... See what happened Jussi7? This is all I need. You illustrate that you listened to me, you read the post, you want to add something new which you think is relevant - even though I never mentioned any of it - and now you can make your point and it won't be rejected as utterly irrelevant....

So you start your next comment 'yes Tomi obviously Nokia grew more in unit sales than Apple's iPhone from 2009 to 2010 but what about (your point with whatever time period you wanted, whatever metric other than unit growth you wanted and whatever competitors not only Apple you wanted to mention).

That is not two monologues anymore, that is real discussion. See how easy it is?

(ala hermostu j-seiska, ma oon tehnyt tata ammatikseni vuosia jenkkilassa missa olin vaittelyvalmentajana eli ma tiedan tarkalleen missa mikakin vaittelyn muoto sopii tai ei sovi ja mitenka kussakin tapauksessa se voidaan yleensa helposti korjata. Tata ei valitettavasti viela opeteta suomen lukioissa, jenkit ja britit tekee tata vakkaristi heh heh)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Gonzo - good point about the versions of Android. There is certainly a lot of merit to counting the various candy-named versions of Android esspecially for the developers and their designers. This is normal fragmentation of a platform that we saw to rather horrid level at Symbian and Java, and to very limited level at iOS while it also has some. Part of the issue is that on smartphones many don't bother to upgrade the OS at all, as the average handset replacement rate globally is about 15 months and in most advanced markets led by Singapore Hong Kong and UAE the smarpthone replacement cycle is well below 12 months. So people just get a new phone instead of upgrading the software on the older one. Then there is the other end - about 5% of the planet uses second hand phones (nearly all old Nokias) in Africa, Latin America and Emerging World parts of Asia - these tend to be old Symbian smartphones still in use and can easily be 6-7-8 years old and they squeeze whatever latest OS is still available and willing to run on those. That population is BTW shifting to Android now obviously as Samsung is the new Nokia also in the second-hand phone market. Plus there are the forked Androids especially most of China with the Android clones.

From Google's point of view its a land-grab. Like when the USA Wild West was populated, people just 'Go West' went to the Western territories that became eventually states, and grabbed land for themselves to have their farms and ranches. So Google wants to grab as much of the future of digital space to Android as they possibly can, rapidly, offering it all for free, with many rapid upgrades and just getting everyone on board, so that the rivals die out (like Palm, LiMo, Symbian, Maemo, MeeGo, Windows Mobile) or find their markets essentially unsustainable (Blackberry, Windows Phone, Tizen, Sailfish, Ubuntu, Firefox) leaving in a perfect world just Android and Apple just like for a long time it seemed to be with Windows and the Mac. Eventually yes, Google will slow down the hectic pace of new releases and the kind of unnecessary fragmentation it produces but right now the rapid product cycle is far faster than rivals and helps Android handsets stay ahead of - or catch up to - rivals helping Google's handset partners succeed better on Android than on Windows or other rivals...

As to the overall fragmentation issue. I think its actually worse than just Android versions. Its also other functionality of devices that is still spreading and more abilities added. NFC and Multi-SIM are now being rolled out rather much. That - apart from Android itself, causes further fragmentation again in the space of what you can and cannot do on a given smartphone model.... Like it was early on with the cameras on some but not most smartphones..

What I mean is that for example NFC will be deployed differently by different handset manufacturers on what it will support and allow to be done on the phone - to what degree it may or may not support mobile payments for example and stuff like that...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

(let me skip ahead and take JMM's new comment as I did promise I'll respond to him after he's read that long OTT blog article first)

Hi JMM welcome back..

Haha yeah you don't need to tell me I have a huge ego but I like it :-)

Lets talk Skype as existential threat. Yeah good point that Skype is not the only triple threat. Totally correct and that Apple does the same. Its part of what made the carrier community fear Apple so much and was part of their 'proof' that Apple wants to do that same Skype murder of their business, that caused them to freak out against the virtual SIM project that Apple tried to ram down their throats. Its incidentially why the iPhone 4 was delayed from May launch to September - an urgent redesign - and that urgent redesign then meant less testing so that Antennagate got also into the mix. Normal Apple quality control would have caught Antennagate long before it went into production.. But yeah Apple definitely has the same risk to carriers only at a smaller level. And remember Apple's reach goes also to the iPads and Macs, beyond the installed base of iPhones. So Metcalf's law (voice, videocalls) and the even more disruptive Reed's Law (messaging) apply to Apple similarly to how they apply to Skype. But therefore also, Skype is far more than 3x bigger as it is numerically by installed base, due to the multiplier effects of those two laws...

On Apple's usability, I have actually personally used any of those now as I don't have either an iPhone a Mac nor an iPad haha.. pretty good for an Apple fan-boy eh - but I am CERTAIN you are right that the usability is better individually and far better as a system ie going from iPhone to Mac user is far better at all levels than Skype on Android calling Skype on desktop on Windows... That usability is Apple's strongest suit and nobody beats Apple at it. But the problem is the ceiling in reach. the Mac has been around for 30 years. It never passed 10% market share any year of sales. There is a natural global ceiling on the market potential if you are a premium brand of high loyalty like Apple is. The iPhone market share is partly an illusion because its reported on smartphones which are a subset of all handsets (the actual market). Its a bit like reporting Porsche's market share only in sports cars not all cars. When the iPhone is measured out of all phone sales in 2013 their market share was 8%. It may reach 10% if Apple is lucky in a few years but I doubt it can grow much about say 12% and most likely won't get into the double digits. That partly depends on how quickly Apple learns that its 5C pricing was too high. A lower priced 5C or its replacement can still pick up market share but as Apple is rumored to launch even more expensive iPhones - their market share is close to its all-time high - in the real total market of handsets.

So yeah your dad - send him my regards, its cool that a 75yo will be still part of the digital community haha - is in the lucky 8% or if we want to call it 10% of the planet who can afford if not themselves then by their kids to have an iProduct and join the iFun. But 90% of the planet can't get in. They will by the end of this decade all have smartphones however. If not iPhones, most will be Androids. A few percent may be Blackberries, Windows, Tizen etc devices. So Skype's potential is far larger again - and obviously you can have Skype on the iPhone..

And I totally agree with you - for most dedicated iPhone users not quite all haha - that you can't take the iPhone away from such a customer. The carrier once they offer the iPhone cannot say next year we won't carry it anymore. Any other device today they can come an dgo. I would argue the Blackberry was in that position a few years ago in many markets so this is not necessarily a forever-type of situation but definitely today the iPhone has fiercest loyalty..

But yeah. About the OTT situation and Skype. Do you think we helped explain the difference why a carrier would see Facebook or Whatsapp or BBM or iMessage yes as a threat but Skype as the biggest threat to their very existence. And because most rival players like Facebook have to 'play fair' ie they have to report some kind of profits, they can't give everything for free, but as Skype is not bound by those rules, Microsoft can easily afford to make Skype a 'loss leader' that doesn't have to make any profit to the hugely profitable software house, Skype is also seen as an 'unfair' competitor to telecoms business. That the hatered of Skype then translates into a rejection of Microsoft in the mobile telecoms space, no matter what Microsoft would offer or pay or do...

Tomi Ahonen the arrogant self-promoter-dude :-)