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« Where Next for Microsoft? - As the mercy killing of Lumia and Windows Phone will happen in next year or two, what impacts to Microsoft world domination plans? | Main | Smartphone Wars: Apple results, Microsoft results, Huawei numbers »

July 11, 2015

Comments

Per "wertigon" Ekström

I do think there is much sense in what you're proposing. It all depends though - Microsoft might actually be crazy enough to pass Skype to somewhere else. It'd be extremely hilarious if Google were to buy Skype haha, wonder what carriers would say then...

Not going to happen though, Google is too smart for that. :)

Wayne Borean

There's one huge issue with this. Microsoft has always hated competition. Selling part of the company to a competitor? Not done.

Look at how many times Microsoft has shut down divisions that were under-performing, and how many times Microsoft has sold something to a competitor.

Wayne Borean


You've also got to consider the new competition in SmartPhones...

http://xkcd.com/1549/

winter

After having lost the battle for the cloud and the smartphones, I think MS will now go for the next battle: The Internet of Things.

The IoT is all about cloud data analysis. If they can link this into their Office/Sharepoint business (75% of the economy runs on Excel), they can make another grab for Windows Everywhere.

For this they really need a mobile platform. Anything they can control.

Wayne Borean


Ah, but Microsoft has already lost 'The Internet of Things' and those who chose Linux as a platform won't choose Microsoft for data analysis.

Louis

Jolla seems like it is being wound down.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/07/mobile-maker-jolla-splits-in-two-with-sailfish-os-its-first-order-of-business/

If Nokia wanted, it could just hire the staff without paying a premium for a twice-failed software platform.

But the more realistic scenario, which is not capital intensive and carries no risk is for Nokia to just license out the brand. This is almost certainly what will happen, and it also means you can have a Nokia android today! Just buy some mid-range "other" branded phone from the Chinese or Indian market and put a Nokia sticker on it.

E.Casais

"He even tested that theory in 2014, and saw how rapidly the Nokia X Series took off."

Any evidence for this? Sales figures or otherwise?

"Nokia already launched a tablet running on Android that is very popular in China for example."

Any evidence for this? Sales figures, whatever?

"Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft and Elop was CEO of Nokia -- the two by the way were by then rated the two worst CEOs in corporate governance"

Has anybody forgotten the rampage wrought by Leo Apotheker on HP? In less than a year he managed to squander, what, $10-11 B? Just on writing off Palm and Autonomy. Really, year 2011 was a freak one in the IT area...

Another Ex-Nokian

Sounds like a nice Hollywood ending, but it's not going to happen.

Nokia is already clearly moving away from consumer electronics business. Why would they want to return to the most competitive and least profitable segment of it? Tomi's hero Vanjoki has even publicly said that the time is over, market has saturated, there is no room for Nokia, particularly not with Android. Would become just another Sony or LG at best.

But let's say they have something totally new in the making where theý would require manufacturing, supply chain and sales & marketing capabilities. What would they get from Microsoft? What's left of what used to be Nokia is basically only ONE factory in Vietnam, outsourced logistics operations, 25% of Tomi's highly praised ex-Nokia sales staff (rest have been fired by now) and a ruined consumer brand.

Juan

The decisions are already done. Nadella should think 3 or 4 steps ahead of his current position,
so i guess a couple of new steps are planed including:

* Some sort of partnering with google on Android.
* C# native development for Android

These thing were not possible in the presence of WP, so i'm guessing this
can be part of a agreement of colaboration between them.

We are witnessing this now in a lot of open source related to android projects.

Spawn

@winter

> After having lost the battle for the cloud and the smartphones, I think MS will now go for the next battle: The Internet of Things.

They try but as usual they are waaaay to late. Years to late since Linux took it over already. IBM, Nest, Android M (project Brillo), etc.
Its a very old thing that just made it recently, so e years ago, into mainstream press and years later, win10, to Microsoft. And Windows 11 gives us robotics, Windows 12 realtime, hahaha.

Symbolset

Maybe they could hire a legendary analyst to help run their smartphone strategy. Someone with a good history of foresight, like Tomi Ahonen.

The problem with this strategy, Tomi, is that it makes sense. It obviously would work, be fantastically productive and profitable. Now think about the people who would make this decision: Is there any evidence that they might consider an obviously easy, swiftly profitable and immediately productive choice? No.

Spawn

@Symbolset

Evidence there is but you are correct: As long as we didn't figure out what happened with the Nokia board during Elop it cannot be ruled out that the same never happens again. I also wouldn't rule out that mankind nukes the world away after we got presidents like Bush, two, maybe three times.

E.Casais

"Why would they want to return to the most competitive and least profitable segment of it?"

Is there any example, in any industry, of a corporation completely shedding an entire business segment and then later returning to it? Not just a product line -- say shedding smartphones but continuing with feature phones, or shedding laptops and continuing with desktops. I cannot think of any, but perhaps somebody knows about an example (successful or unsuccessful).

I agree with Louis: if Nokia returns to mobile phones, it will be as a brand, not as a manufacturer, and probably not even as a full-fledged system designer. This would also be perfectly consistent with having a specific division "Nokia Technologies" responsible for "developing and licensing innovations and the Nokia brand" -- and which already was responsible for launching the N1 tablet (actually a Foxconn output).

Another Ex-Nokian

@E.Cascais

"Developing and licensing innovation" - exactly, it's all about commercializing innovation. Nokia is in infrastructure business and they need reference designs for consumer products to kick start commercial developments that will then generate demand for infrastructure. 2G phones -> demand for 2G networks -> 3G phones -> demand for 3G networks and so on. Nokia was able to levarage this for years, having both infrastructure and consumer products in house.

And why Nadella chose to keep parts of what used to be Nokia? Commercial versions of Hololens or whatever consumer hardware product in the making can't become real business without the channels and functions from what used to be Nokia. Phones are kept alive to keep the future opportunities alive.

Tk

We cant dispute - there IS movement in all the three nokia drama player s life atm.
The facts :

M$ is winding sown the phone business.
Jolla is splitting hw and sw to "focus on sw".
Nokia wants back in The game but needs a phone maker.

The theories need to validate to the best win/win solution (win/win/win if you include all three players).

The theories :
Nokia buys r&d back from ms, makes android phones. Jolla males sw only.

Nokia buys jolla for sw, buys r&d for phone manufactoring from ms

Jolla buys phone manufacturing from ms, nokia buys manuf fron third party and goes android

Jolla starts hw business with people fired from ms, nokia goes android and third party phone maker

Jolla starts hw business with fired people for phones with nokia brand


Tk

Ps ofc these are only some theories :)

Per "wertigon" Ekström

@Tk:

Wouldn't it make more sense to buy Jolla HW division than software division? Since Jolla is intent on continuing with Meego (SW side), Nokia buys their phone factories (and promise to keep their phones Meego-compatible).

Of course, that does not allow Nokia to come back with their own manufactured phones because of licensing deal, so until they can do that, well...

Tk

@wertigon :perhaps, but does actually jolla have a hw division per se (ie factory lines )?

Wayne Borean


It seems like most of you are missing something. AssumeTomi is right about Nokia's ability to market to the telecoms as long as Microsoft Windows Mobile is not involved.

Why not release Jolla phones?

The Telecoms would take them. It would give Nokia phones a major marketing differentiation (This is not just another Android phone, this is Sailfish which has been reviewed and was Rated better than IOS and Android!) And it would allow Nokia to control their own destiny, and implement features valuable to their markets as much as a year before Android would be able to.

The purchase cost and ongoing operations costs would be a rounding error.

As to 'branding' that is a REALLY STUPID WAY TO GO. We are talking a loss of control of the product. If a phone was absolutely horrible Nokia gets the blame even if they had only a limited amount of control over the OEM who they licensed the brand too.

It also means that Nokia makes ALMOST NO MONEY.

Licensing is a REALLY BAD WAY TO CONDUCT YOUR BUSINESS.

zlutor

@Tomi: nice options... The question whether Nokia could afford any of them?

Especially after buying ALu and trying to "leverage synergies". That will take significant effort - in terms of money and people. See NSN adventure...

Coming back as real phone manufacturer would need hell of a lots of money to build up everything again. And no, Nokia X devices would not make it. Maybe XL part, maybe - but the lower members of the family - well, they can be improved. Telling the truth they are quite barely usable...

Of course, they targeted budget segment but if Nokia wants to come back they have the sell usable devices...

On the other hand they could just 'blindly' sell all current Lumia models with Android - that would be the fastest solution, I guess...

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