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« Microsoft fires 12,500 ex-Nokia mobile people, ends X Series running Android, and Elop authors another moronic memo | Main | iPhone Q2 Results in Smartphone Bloodbath, very bad: Apple barely growing and bleeding market share (while making big profits yes) »

July 21, 2014

Comments

Winter

Suggestion:
" the world's 120th largest corporation in the world "

Remove one "world" (and this comment)

AndThisWillBeToo

...there really hasn't happened anything else than Nokia/Elop since 2011, eh? Move on.

This post is a repeat. You've said this all before.
If someone has not bought it yet, this won't help.
For us that read you, we know this. What's the point?

My 2c.

Winter

@AndThisWillBeToo
"For us that read you, we know this. What's the point?"

When reading the press, you get the impression the Nokia deal is like Google buying Motorola.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2455640/layoffs-raise-questions-about-nadellas-commitment-to-nokia-deal.html

It is good to give a historical perspective: MS drove Nokia in the ground and is rounding up the remainders.

Btw, you do not have to read it if you think it is not worth it.

Gonzo

Tomi,

We all know very very well, because also apple told us in their press release back them, Apple Reinvents the Phone with iPhone, but then why you don't let go the grudge and become a bit more objective?
I never, ever, ever read you saying Samsung DID not invent anything Nokia did it all and Samsung are morons…. or you can keep the same line but then always include Apple and Samsung in any negative comment regarding who invented something and who didn't.

Listen Nokia DID NOT invent the phone either, they made it better… and that's how it works for everyone! so le't do something, let's all agree that Alexander Graham Bell the innovator, who is credited with inventing the first telephone was the really first one and all others including Nokia and Apple improved it, that's called progress, see Samsung DID NOT invent the TV but they made it a lot better.

Also, let's look forward, please it's important for all of us, you have tremendous knowledge of the market and industry

Ahh, why don't you pioneer the use of Pocket PC, or Clever Computer Camera or something else better than smartphone, an archaic term. My " smartphone " is 99% computer and 1% phone, today cheap feature phones can be called smartphones, but you can not call Samsung's s5 or iphone 5s let alone the forthcoming 6 an smartphone, a 64 bit processor in your pocket is not a phone that is smart it is a computer that you can chose to use it to call someone every once in a while.

Huber

@Gonzo:

I think it's not about the first iPhone's revolutionary UI, but about the first iPhone being a SMARTPHONE.

The first iPhone was not a smartphone at all - I remember that I laughed back then when I saw the specs (no installation of programs possible, no 3G, even no copy&paste etc.)

So you have to view the first iPhone twofold:

- For the features it had the UI was very well made (that's why so many people fell in love with it)

- But overall it lacked features

OTOH Nokia invented the smartphone with the communicator...

Winter

@Gonzo
" My " smartphone " is 99% computer and 1% phone, today cheap feature phones can be called smartphones, but you can not call Samsung's s5 or iphone 5s let alone the forthcoming 6 an smartphone, a 64 bit processor in your pocket is not a phone that is smart it is a computer that you can chose to use it to call someone every once in a while."

I think the distinctive feature is that it is in your pocket and ALWAYS connected. The current word for such a device is a smartphone.

Pocket computer might in some respects be "better". But a smartphone is less a "Computer" like a desk-top computer, than a communication device. It's primary uses are email, texting, social networking, banking. And then there is all the other things like (streaming) music, photographs, navigation/maps that are much less useful in a desktop computer.

So, there is no easy replacement available to "Smartphone" yet.

Phil McKerracher

A sad story indeed. I wonder where all the smart guys will go next.

One small thing though - you say "All Elop needed to do was sit and enjoy the ride..." but no CEO can afford to do that and really there were problems at Nokia that had to be solved. In the smartphone area specifically the app store and ecosystem and the phone UI had to be fixed.

Also I'm not sure about the OS. Open-sourcing Symbian was probably the right thing to do (even though it cost me my job there) but it had its problems, as did Meego (and Android and Microsoft, of course).

N9

@KK

I don't know how people inside Nokia felt, but the reasoning does not make sense.
Maybe Meego was delayed, but it was ready before the first Lumia phones. So why jump from a good system which is ready and your own to a failing system which is not ready and controlled by somebody else who is known to abuse its partners? This does not make any sense. This was self-destruction and many knew it from the beginning. The fist comment on Feb 11 on slashdot was "RIP Nokia". It was that obvious.

Earendil Star

Again the uber-heard meme of Meego being late... again a dose of MS propaganda... the stuff trolls are continuously trying to propagate...

Seriously? Late? Even if it the N9 came out ages before the first Nokia Lumia? The Lumia 800, which run WP7 that was a POS as confirmed by MS itself, a flashy UI based on an obsolete Win CE kernel, which had to be ditched after few months of the Lumia 900 (un-upgradable) release? The N9 that came out one full year before WP8 and the Lumia 920 was released? And was released late by whom? Elop the Flop, the guy who was sent there to sabotage the firm?

So, who's the revisionist here? Precisely! So, just stop it. Now!

Tomi T Ahonen

KK

I removed your comment. You were now, in 2014, repeating Elop's MISTAKEN talking points from 2011 including most that Elop HIMSELF retracted from that poisonous memo. If you now in 2014 still believe that, sorry you really drank the cool-aid. But those views were all proven wrong and Elop himself retracted almost all of that what you just wrote. Of course I am not allowing that proven-wrong commentary on this blog where I was correct on all these points. If you KK want to show where I was WRONG, or show another analyst who was MORE CORRECT than me, feel free. Don't come here repeating propaganda that Elop himself reversed in the months after that silly memo.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

Tomi T Ahonen

RWD I removed your comment as non-responsive to the blog. I stated clearly that Nokia had problems before Elop and I had already discussed them on this blog. So you didn't read the blog.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

N9


The two most interesting slashdot comments from that time:

http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1992208&cid=35184470
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1991402&cid=35173182

notzed

I still don't understand ... why?

Was it just a cheap way for microsoft to get patents? And/or remove another competitor? Or just a big CEO joke? (did someone win a $1 bet???)

How was it even legal? Are laws just for poor little-people?

Alex

Some of my tweets about Nokia:
20 Jul 2011:
Nokia and MS: From a platform full of doubts to a complete failure...


23 Nov 2011 (I was wrong about Elop being fired):
Nokia windows phone will not sell as expected, Elop steps out, Nokia choose android (if MS deal allows it), end of the road for this WP7


22 Dec 2011 (me being optimistic about Nokia):
Nokia will learn WP7 was a bad idea. Elop will find his way out. Nokia will find other ways... unlike RIM that will slide downhill just.


30 Jan 2012:
WP7 is failing miserable... Nokia bet on the wrong horse.


15 Jun 2012:
Nokia is about to be buying material by 2013 or earlier. It remains to be seen who wants what devisions. MS and smart-phones... the rest?...


21 Dec 2012:
Everybody is counting on Nokia come back with Lumias 920, 820, ... phones... Not me.
In 2013 a lot will change for Nokia.


The rest is history.

eduardom

You don't lay half the employees in a division if you have any confidence in that division. It seems to me that Nadella thinks Nokia has little chance of succeeding. I bet if Nokia doesn't make a huge turnaround in the next six months or year, Nadella will shut it down or sell if off.

abdul muis

@eduardom

The staff nadella firing is the one that were in WP team. Nadella firing the S30/S40/Asha/Android team. and removing part/some of WP team.

abdul muis

correction...

The Nokia team that were fired by nadella mostly NOT in the WP team.

Andre

Hello Tomi,

First thanks for your blog, which goes conform how I noticed the whole story since 2011. I personally was one of those who really looked forward to get a N9 phone, but then Elop stopped my wish by forbidding to sell this device in Germany.

This was the point where I first noticed Elop. And as I noticed that this dude came from Microsoft, every step he took seemed to be aimed to save Windows-Phone instead of saving Nokia (No plan B etc.).

However, your blog showed clearly to me that I am not some kind of conspirancy buff. It showed clearly until the end that this is really happening.

Thanks to your openess I ofently youse your Blog and graphs for quotation when discussing in forums.

There recently was a discussion partner who simply said it just cannot be one man (Elop) who ran the company over the cliff. He argued with this Blog-Entry which told about the mismanegement issues with the MeeGo/Maemo-System:

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

In his opinion this was the reason why MeeGo-Plans where cut-off. A technical decision.

However, thats of course not my opinion, but it would be great if you could do some writing about the problems with the development of MeeGo and why it (not) co-caused the doom nokia was leading towards. Just to counter those opinions rumouring around the forums.

I am looking forward to buy your Nokia-Story-Book ;) I really even wonder why no mass media is reporting clearly about the wrecking of Europes biggest tech company by an american company just to save their Windows-Phone OS...

Stormwatch

Again, stop saying Nokia invented the smartphone! IBM's Simon came out years before the Communicator.

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