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Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

engadget.com

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Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#51

Post by zmmmmm »

lamby wrote: post #10
avner wrote: post #6

Stephen Elop has finally put in writing what the market has said about Nokia ever since the iPhone came out. Props to him for finally initiating this intervention at Nokia; it has been long overdue. Someone has finally said "we have fucked up, its now time to get back on the horse and make it right" to the Nokia management. Less than a decade ago, nobody could touch Nokia in the mobile handset market, Nokia defined q…

Your comment and Engadget's article seem to imply that Nokia failing in the smartphone market means that Nokia is failing generally. But wouldn't Nokia still be making a lovely profit even if they stuck to the more vanilla phones? Don't forget that only a fraction of people can afford these >= £500 devices and only a fraction of those buy them without financing.

> Don't forget that only a fraction of people can afford these >= £500 device

No - fairly good Android devices are already available for US$150 unlocked (see Huawei Ideos). In the next year they'll fall below $100 and after that they'll be coming free with your breakfast cereal.

Elop is absolutely right with his analogy of a burning platform - there's a very real prospect that within 2 years Nokia could be entirely wiped out from the low end market - down to single digit market share and making very little profit on those. It's nothing short of an existential crisis for them.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#52

Post by pohl »

ergo98 wrote: post #36
chc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been making similar margins on all of its products for the past 10 years. How can you say it isn't sustainable?

10 years ago Apple had 5 billion in revenue. Now they're pushing 100 billion in revenue. They butting in on competitors who operate in the 5% margin range, and who are all desperately starting to claw back at Apple's gains. No, it isn't sustainable. History will prove me out, and in 3 years I would bet that Apple has seen a significant margin haircut. Quote me on a 50% decline. As a comparison, by the way, look at So…

It's a very easy bet that their profit margin is not sustainable. Obviously it won't survive the heat-death of the universe, nor the sun's expansion into a red giant.

The most contentious statement you made, to me, is "any comparison that relies upon profit numbers is...disturbed."

Why is profit a disturbing business metric?

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#53

Post by robryan »

Geee wrote: post #44
robryan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the way forward, a company that wants to develop native apps for mobile must already work with so many different systems. A new startup is going to focus on an iphone app, if they are successful or well capitalized from the start then they will look at android. The third choice in the market is shaping to be windows 7 phone. Expecting companies to develop for then yet another platform, one which seems to be r…

Not really, Nokia's Ovi Store is now third in downloaded apps per day. However, in many countries such as in China, Ovi Store is the most popular app store. http://www.forum.nokia.com/Distribute/Ovi_Store_statistics.x...

This says nothing of what the sales are like in China which is notorious for not paying for software. In China currently these phones have a much larger share of the market because they are cheaper than iphones and android phones.

Eventually when the prices of the better smartphones fall you would expect a big shift away from nokia unless they can improve on their current offerings. I think we will have to wait some time to for windows 7 phone to pick up some market share before app store figures show whether it is a better bet than nokia in the American market.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#54

Post by zmmmmm »

ldayley wrote: post #3
quannum wrote: post #2

The idea of a Nokia device running Android is pretty appealing. They've always had good hardware, but Symbian has become a develpment dead-end, and Meego isn't yet here.

Android on Nokia hardware is an appealing idea, but given Stephen Elop's Microsoft background I wonder if they won't shift to WP7. Or both.

I'm betting on both.

I think there is no way they could go only WP7 - WP7 is controlled absolutely by Microsoft and Nokia cannot afford to be subjugated that way.

If they are really bold - and I kind of hope hey are - I would base it on Android but make it "better" - as in, devote huge resources to solve the long standing problems with Android - the UI is not slick enough, not smooth enough, the compatibility story is problematic, the market is polluted with low end stuff and much of the high end stuff doesn't run on all the phones.

If they forked Android and put out kick-ass awesome hardware with compatible but totally redone and beautiful iPhone-quality UI, a more curated market (without Apple lock down), bold promises about upgrades ("we will guarantee any phone we release will get current versions of the OS for 3 years") - they could possibly even steal the market leadership from Google on the Android platform. They are one of the few companies that would have the resources to do this - I hope they give it a shot.

Having said that, I bet WP7 will be in the mix if only to convince the market that there is a backup plan.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#55

Post by balakk »

gonzo wrote: post #32
balakk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia on WP7 would mean they would have to cannibalize their OS teams, their app.dev stack(QT), existing software etc. gutting a huge part their workforce. It is far more easier to have Meego adopt an Android personality, since they're the same kernel inside. They could add Nokia flavor on top. The far more important decision is positioning; they would've to leave the low-end phone market to chinese, and focus on the…

a) not quite the same kernel. You appear to be unaware of what Google has done to the internals of linux b) having an OS team has turned into a liability for Nokia. CEOs normally don't care about 'gutting' workforces. In fact, I predict that Elop will cut the 'deadwood' of the old company as soon as he announces whatever on Friday. c) (edit) Elop has to pay attention to Oracle having sued Google over Java in Android.…

I understand Android is quite different from vanilla Linux - I meant Android is closer to the Meego platform than WP7. Moving from Meego to Android is less of a stretch. For example, porting QT to Android should not be too difficult.

I really hope Nokia doesn't follow the SGI way.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#56

Post by rdl »

jsnell wrote: post #18
donaldc wrote: post #8

I thought that this was the most interesting part of the article: and that Elop would start looking to Nokia's new Silicon Valley campus as its center of gravity, with execs and senior management expected to start spending more time outside Finland. That's quite an endorsement of Silicon Valley as a tech hub...

And also the part of the rumors that makes the least sense. Hack through the middle management and bureaucracy with a chainsaw, cut off all the incredibly inefficient contractors, clean all the dead wood from R&D, kill one or both of the in-house operating systems, give up on building services and just start preloading every phone with Bing services for big money, etc. One might not agree with those actions, but at l…

I agree -- I think the best thing Nokia could do is probably to relocate somewhere more central within Europe (Berlin? London?) and become the strongest European mobile phone option, vs. trying to compete for talent in SFBA. Arguably they could also try NYC or another major city with lots of development expertise but no strong mobile company.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#57

Post by nl »

Geee wrote: post #44
robryan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the way forward, a company that wants to develop native apps for mobile must already work with so many different systems. A new startup is going to focus on an iphone app, if they are successful or well capitalized from the start then they will look at android. The third choice in the market is shaping to be windows 7 phone. Expecting companies to develop for then yet another platform, one which seems to be r…

Not really, Nokia's Ovi Store is now third in downloaded apps per day. However, in many countries such as in China, Ovi Store is the most popular app store. http://www.forum.nokia.com/Distribute/Ovi_Store_statistics.x...

Pretty much the only people making money on Ovi are game companies. Nothing wrong with that, except that gaming is different to other types of software.

Also, note these points:

  * There are 30,000 apps available
  * 400,000 new Forum Nokia developers were added in the last 12 months.
That really illustrates what a horrible platform Nokia has. 400K new developers were interested in it over the last 12 months, and yet there are only 30K apps in the whole store. Compare that to the adoption that the iOS and Android app stores have had.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#58

Post by brisance »

ergo98 wrote: post #36
chc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been making similar margins on all of its products for the past 10 years. How can you say it isn't sustainable?

10 years ago Apple had 5 billion in revenue. Now they're pushing 100 billion in revenue. They butting in on competitors who operate in the 5% margin range, and who are all desperately starting to claw back at Apple's gains. No, it isn't sustainable. History will prove me out, and in 3 years I would bet that Apple has seen a significant margin haircut. Quote me on a 50% decline. As a comparison, by the way, look at So…

You're still thinking in terms of hardware and devices. Elop's memo clearly shows that he comprehends the challenge. It's not the hardware. It's the ecosystem that matters. Think iTunes, App Store, MobileMe etc. Why do you think Apple is building a data center in NC? They're skating to where the puck's going to be.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#59

Post by Geee »

nl wrote: post #57
Geee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, Nokia's Ovi Store is now third in downloaded apps per day. However, in many countries such as in China, Ovi Store is the most popular app store. http://www.forum.nokia.com/Distribute/Ovi_Store_statistics.x...

Pretty much the only people making money on Ovi are game companies. Nothing wrong with that, except that gaming is different to other types of software. Also, note these points: * There are 30,000 apps available * 400,000 new Forum Nokia developers were added in the last 12 months. That really illustrates what a horrible platform Nokia has. 400K new developers were interested in it over the last 12 months, and yet th…

The prior development tools for native Symbian have been horrid, combined with difficult signing process etc. However, the transition to Qt and Qt Quick -based apps makes it all very easy and convenient thus enabling the potential better. It's true that it isn't the most exciting platform right now, but it's certainly on the right path.

Re: Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform"

#60

Post by davros »

SandB0x wrote: post #12

> The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means…

What about Meego? If they actually gave it some resources, rather than treat it as an afterthought, it could be great. To date Symbian has sucked all the resources from Meego, but one of the clearest messages was finally admitting reality on Symbian - 'if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind'.
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