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Where Is Nokia Now?

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Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#21

Post by wwweston »

Sometimes when I'm in the mood for a little self-congratulation, I look back on a blog piece I wrote shortly after the Burning Platform memo and subsequent move towards Windows Phone:

http://weston.canncentral.org/writing/index.php?2011/02/18/0...

I was pretty ignorant of the rest of Nokia's business outside of mobile devices, and there are some particulars that differed a bit, but I think I called basic trajectory they traced in the mobile market from that point pretty well: premier hardware maker loses lead in market shift, turns to Microsoft for software partnership, finds itself still struggling in a competitive market, now working with another failing software platform whose destiny it can't control on top of its other problems, eventually is "married" by Microsoft.

Now divorced, and looking to make a new life, it would seem.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#22

Post by zw123456 »

Nokia bought Alcatel-Lucent who previously bought Timetra which was a silicon valley start up that at one time was meant to compete with Cisco, a pretty bold move for sure. They had some pretty amazing stuff (IMHO) but I think one acquisition after another ruined them, sad I think.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#23

Post by 6stringmerc »

Probably still in Finland.

Source: I went to school with a Son of a Nokia employee who informed me the origin of the name wasn't anything exotic, but a specific town in Finland. Thus, I gather it's still there.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#24

Post by kaybe »

chrisseaton wrote: post #17
Spooky23 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pencils (not the Apple one) that let you etch things on a pad of paper. End of the day, your weight doesn't fluctuate that much... that level of precision doesn't add much value and can make weight loss harder.

Even if you use a pencil you still have one more step that on a smart scale! You said the advantage was it's faster and it isn't.

You'd think, but the setup and configuration on these things can take forever. And nevermind the things that can and occasionally do go wrong and need fixing.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#25

Post by hujun »

zw123456 wrote: post #22

Nokia bought Alcatel-Lucent who previously bought Timetra which was a silicon valley start up that at one time was meant to compete with Cisco, a pretty bold move for sure. They had some pretty amazing stuff (IMHO) but I think one acquisition after another ruined them, sad I think.

The acquisition of Timetra is the most successful one in Alcatel's history; it has grown into one of top 4 carrier routing vendors from a startup; and they still have very amazing stuff: they recently launched FP4, a 2.4Tbs network processor with full routing features: https://networks.nokia.com/solutions/fp4-network-processor

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#26

Post by wolfspider »

My paranoid brain often thought that Microsoft not only acquired their stake in Nokia for Windows phones but also to control some aspects of Qt as it was quickly unloaded from Nokia after Microsoft entered the picture. A sort of power play which we all saw later on with Xamarin without the feel-good outcome that Xamarin eventually had. Qt Creator is a joy to work with for open source software in my opinion for even just non-Qt projects. Back then I was using it on my BSD desktop before switching to XCode for vanilla C++ projects. Anyhow, it was extremely portable I could code with MinGW on Windows and then move the same project to BSD and then move it into XCode with minor changes. I would imagine Nokia at that time would seem extremely unique to Microsoft for just Qt alone. Just some food for thought...I still have Qt built ANGLE libs in my GH repo I think. Yeah, it was also an OpenGL ES 2 emulator that ran on DirectX which you could optionally run Qt Creator on top of and I remember Nokia's name was all over it. It was possible to do cross-platform Windows and Android code this way with just a JNI wrapper. It was a hot mess and I loved it! Here are a couple links that back up this strange tale:

https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_5_on_Windows_ANGLE_and_OpenGL

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software)

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#27

Post by Theodores »

This article confused me on the reality of today's 'Nokia' phones. The recently released and 'back to basics' phones are not legitimate Nokia in my estimation, they are some generic OEM phones with a Nokia label slapped on them.

I am not sure why this badge engineering bugs me, to make me think they are not real Nokia. More generally, why is it that badge engineering sometimes is seen as okay and sometimes not?

To take an automotive analogy, in the VW group there are various high end brands, e.g. Bentley and Bugatti. Both these marques are seen as having heritage even if the engines are 'glorified Golf engines' to a certain extent, even if built in heritage locations (e.g. Crewe, UK) rather than straight out of Wolfsburg. Same with the BMW brands - the Mini and Rolls Royce cars aren't seen as badly styled BMWs, but with heritage intact.

Perhaps the reason that these auto brands are okay is that there really has been innovation, the product line has evolved and the reputation survives. Getting back to the Nokia 'phones', there is no innovation in bringing out a ten-year-old product, OEM made by some randoms. This product makes 'Nokia' one of those fake brands in my estimation and obfuscates the real Nokia that is innovating with the backend hardware.

Imagine if IBM, when they sold their PC hardware, decided to let Lenovo use not just 'ThinkPad' but 'IBM' on the products. You would have no idea as a casual observer that 'IBM were still going'. Nokia just had numbers for their product line, no household name for that, as per 'ThinkPad'.

I am most amazed that Microsoft could not make this work and I think it was the death of the evil Microsoft that cowards used to love and the rest of us used to hate. The once fearsome Microsoft were humbled by it. Even today there is definite scope for being able to carry your office PC around in mini-form in a phone in some seamless way, as hinted at with 'Continuum' and so forth. But whatever happens on the Microsoft Phone platform is negated by things like 'not being able to play YouTube' on it.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#28

Post by nabla9 »

Yellow_Boat wrote: post #10

It seems that Nokia is trying to make up for their missed shot at smartphones by aiming at every emerging, cool market. I know Nokia is a strong brand, but I doubt that is the proper way for them to get back to being loved company.

They are aiming at 5G network markets. Everything else is secondary.

You can see all their consumer products just as a way to ensure that there are products that push 5G to the max in terms of low consumption/latency/bandwidth in the next 5-10 years. Milking and maintaining the strong consumer brand is extra.

Successors of Ozo camera will the bandwidth hog in 5G.

Withings products are the platform they will use to push factor 10 reduction in energy consumption and “sleep modes” for always on network devices that are part of 5G.

Their new deal with HMD Global / Foxconn means that others take the risk and Nokia brand stays relevant in smartphone market. They still own the brand but they don't but significant money into it.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#29

Post by hourislate »

Some of the most talented people I have ever met in my 30 years in IT worked at Nokia (USA and Finland).

There was something about the culture there that just made it an incredible place to work for everyone. An environment where people were treated with dignity and respect and rewarded with generosity.

The Fins are incredibly hard working and talented along with their US counterparts. I imagine any company that hired an ex Nokia employee was rewarded well.

The company has greatness in it, would not surprise me at all if it rose like a phoenix from the ashes.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#30

Post by CharlesW »

Spooky23 wrote: post #15
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't understand how it could possibly be faster to stand on a scale, remember a number, go to your phone, open a spreadsheet and input it... than to just stand on the scale. I mean the manual approach starts with the only step of the automatic approach. You don't have to fumble with bluetooth or apps. It takes the measurement and uploads it to the internet with no help over WiFi after you have configured it once i…

Pencils (not the Apple one) that let you etch things on a pad of paper. End of the day, your weight doesn't fluctuate that much... that level of precision doesn't add much value and can make weight loss harder.

> End of the day, your weight doesn't fluctuate that much...

It does if that's a focus of your health efforts.

> ...that level of precision doesn't add much value and can make weight loss harder.

In fact, that daily feedback is immensely helpful. Very quickly, you begin to understand the connection between your actions of the last day or two and your weight.

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