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Where Is Nokia Now?

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Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#91

Post by oblio »

5_minutes wrote: post #65

I can't help but thinking that Nokia is horribly managed. The amount of inferior products they sold to their loyal audience over and over again, until we were all so fed up with it: different proprietary cables on same-years' devices, stagnant software development and replacing durable with cheap plastics and materials. Much of the nostalgia connected with this brand is from its early phone days, it's been an utter m…

It depends on what you mean the early days. Nokia cheap phones were targetting a specific market, that did not want something more expensive. Bashing them for those phones makes no sense, since there were targetting markets that couldn't afford something else.

However, top of the line Nokia phones were had great hardware and construction quality. Look up Nokia E51 or Nokia N9.

What hobbled them was Symbian. Nokia N9 was close to "escape velocity" since the OS was really cool. But by then Nokia pivoted to Microsoft and...

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#92

Post by rbanffy »

jpalomaki wrote: post #68
wwweston wrote: post #21

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 t…

Can't help thinking that selling the phones to Microsoft was the plan-B all along and one of the reasons why they brought in Elop and decided to go with Windows. Selling to Microsoft when things went bad was a pretty big thing. If they had not been able to sell the mobile phone business for decent price, it might have taken down the whole company. Considering what happened, the outcome for Nokia was (IMHO) pretty spe…

I have the feeling it was plan-A for Microsoft all the time. Shuttling someone loyal to your company to the top job of a struggling acquisition target is a genius move.

Nokia was struggling to differentiate itself by making their own OS, which is, in retrospect, a huge mistake. Had they gone with Android, they'd leverage all their knowledge of the Linux kernel on their own hardware. Getting Android to run on the N9 would probably have been trivial and they would have a compelling product in no time.

The whole model of the handset market changed - instead of courting telcos, they needed to court end-users and they totally blew that up.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#93

Post by UncleSlacky »

flyovercow wrote: post #34
hourislate wrote: post #29

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 hire…

That feeling is called socialism.

ITYM "social democracy". Not at all the same thing.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#94

Post by kernelbandwidth »

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.

This is my neo-Luddite response to a lot of "there should be an app for that" kind of comments: "Have you tried using a pencil?"

There's lot of reasons to use computers, but there's also a large problem space where it's really hard to beat pencil and paper. They even usually come pre-installed in most offices and homes.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#95

Post by rjsw »

Theodores wrote: post #27

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 ta…

I have one of the new feature phones, it feels just like a gentle update on a 'real' Nokia phone from 10 years ago and is exactly what I wanted.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#96

Post by wodenokoto »

agumonkey wrote: post #40

Funny just yesterday I was discussing Nokia history. As a simple westerner I only new Nokia telco, early GSM glory and recent demise. But Nokia was founded in the 19th century, dealing with wood and rubber. Later they moved into military equipment and telco. They also did consumer electronics (VHS, TV) and PCs (desktop and laptops) using sub brands though.

I had a Nokia tv throughout all my teenage years. It was really good (for the price). Good picture, decent sound and a responsive remote.

During the netbook fad, Nokia also release a high-end one under the Nokia brand.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#97

Post by wvenable »

reitanqild wrote: post #52
wvenable wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've built a such a scale using a raspberry Pi 3 and a Wii balance board. Step on the scale and it sends to my phone where an app records it in Samsung health. It's still a work in progress but it's functional.

Nice! Have you shared it somewhere? (No judgement if not, but awesome if you have : )

I haven't shared yet but I'm planning on it. I used a lot of code and information available online but some of it is out of date and/or wrong now.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#98

Post by hajile »

rbanffy wrote: post #92
jpalomaki wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't help thinking that selling the phones to Microsoft was the plan-B all along and one of the reasons why they brought in Elop and decided to go with Windows. Selling to Microsoft when things went bad was a pretty big thing. If they had not been able to sell the mobile phone business for decent price, it might have taken down the whole company. Considering what happened, the outcome for Nokia was (IMHO) pretty spe…

I have the feeling it was plan-A for Microsoft all the time. Shuttling someone loyal to your company to the top job of a struggling acquisition target is a genius move. Nokia was struggling to differentiate itself by making their own OS, which is, in retrospect, a huge mistake. Had they gone with Android, they'd leverage all their knowledge of the Linux kernel on their own hardware. Getting Android to run on the N9 w…

The N9 was probably the most successful unmarketed and unavailable (not in any primary markets that could afford it) phone in history. It's big brother was only available as a dev device.

There's plenty of evidence that there was demand. I'd love to see them relaunch a similar device with updated specs today. I'd certainly get one.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#99

Post by cJ0th »

jamesblonde wrote: post #72
wolfgke wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We haven't done software right in Europe. Really, we only have SAP and computer games companies as massive software companies. We have been terrible at software. It's very worrying for the remaining industries that software will soon eat: automobiles and trucks. We're way behind there. Deja vu all over again, maybe? As a German I say: I would not say we can't do software or we are bad at it. "Getting really big" is…

I never said we can't do it. We educate good enough people - just look at some of the key technical people at the american giants - Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, Urs Hölzle at Google, Johnny Ive at Apple. There are technical reasons - lack of deep VC capital markets and data protection laws as you point out. There are also cultural reasons - we sell out at 100m and then go enjoy life instead of building a global giant.

> data protection laws as you point out

I don't think data protection is our problem. For one thing, if our government really meant it (which they don't), we could build businesses that attract customers from all over the world who need strong data protection laws they can't find anywhere else.

For another thing, there probably is a huge, unexplored market for all kinds of software which would be in line with the current law.

However, there are many roadblocks that hinder people from experimenting, like too much bureaucracy and financial dangers (UBI might come in handy here)

And then there are "the little things". Take that law which urges you to fully disclose your address on your website. If I had build twitter, without knowing how it is going to turn out, I would not want my boss to be able to find out what I do in my spare time. In other words, I wouldn't have put it online.

Re: Where Is Nokia Now?

#100

Post by abritinthebay »

Spooky23 wrote: post #73
chrisseaton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I don't think connected devices are always the best, but the person I was replying to was doing the classic informercial black-and-white video impression of someone pretending something is more difficult than it actually is.

No, that's not what I did at all. The GP of my comment was looking for an alternative recommendation. Spending >$100 for a fancy pants scale as a convenient alternative is incredibly wasteful and encourages activity (daily or mulime times daily) that is counter productive.

A high quality regular scale (of similar build quality, design, and construction) to a Withings scale is $40-60

The Withings is $100. So it’s up to the consumer of the simplicity, ease of use, lack of friction in monitoring, and saving of time is worth $40-60 extra.

If I save 30-45 mins of my time over the life of the scale: yes it is. Just from time alone (not taking other benefits into account yet) That’s not wasteful - that’s economical long term.

You’re promoting such short term thinking.

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