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Also, Nokia's work on Meego would transition well to webOS, since they are both linux based.
I worked for Accenture (then Andersen Consulting) in Paris in 1995 when a new team of Englishmen were brought in from London to "turn the French practice around". Their theme? "Burning platform". The exact same story that opens the memo was their story too. Maybe this Mr Elop is really an original thinker that will do great things; but the "burning platform" analogy is the most tired image EVER. Oh, and did it work i…
Where else have you heard it? What makes it a tired image beyond the fact that you heard it once in Paris?
The reality is that the "burning platform" metaphor is a classic story repeated ad nauseam in business schools and business books; see this for example (from 2005):
The term “burning platform” is a mainstay in business lexicon for many years.
For those not familiar with its origin, the story goes something like this:
A man working on an oil platform in the North Sea awakened suddenly one night by an explosion. Amidst the chaos, he made his way to the edge of the platform. As a plume of fire billowed behind him, he decided to jump from the burning platform even though jumping is a risky option for the following reasons: It was a 150-foot drop from the platform to the water.
There is debris and burning oil on the surface of the water.
If the jump into the 40°F water did not kill him, he would die of exposure within 15 minutes.
Luckily, the man survived the jump and hauled aboard a rescue boat shortly thereafter. When asked why he jumped, he replied, “Better probable death than certain death.” The point is the literally “burning” platform caused the radical change in his behavior.
http://www.imakenews.com/cppa/e_article000368179.cfm
(Please read the rest of this article to know how the story should be used in a business context; it really seems to describe the email, and it's prophetic since it was written six years ago).
Where do you think Mr. Elop heard this story in the first time? What's more likely, that he met an actual burning platform survivor, or that he read about this very common story in a business book?
I worked for Accenture (then Andersen Consulting) in Paris in 1995 when a new team of Englishmen were brought in from London to "turn the French practice around". Their theme? "Burning platform". The exact same story that opens the memo was their story too. Maybe this Mr Elop is really an original thinker that will do great things; but the "burning platform" analogy is the most tired image EVER. Oh, and did it work i…
Where else have you heard it? What makes it a tired image beyond the fact that you heard it once in Paris?
The only way forward is to embrace WP7 and become the WP7 phone. Build apps and an ecosystem around that. Hell, get Microsoft to acquire Nokia and make WP7 exclusive. WP7 is a much better platform than Android anyway (in a couple of OS updates at least). There is no way that Nokia will ever win using Symbian/MeeGo or Android. If they stay the course then Nokia's dead and will never recover.
I agree with everything you said except I think there's a 0% chance of Microsoft buying Nokia, it doesn't fit their business model. Companies would not be as willing to license WP7 if MSFT were competing directly with them and able to undercut their competitor's prices.
Both companies are at a point where they're about to enter irrelevance in the mobile space (Nokia actually entered irrelevance as soon as the iPhone launched, but it took them a while to figure that out due to pride and thinking all that matters is how many widgets you ship -- they're about to hit the bottom of the abyss).
The problem Microsoft has is that all the existing licensees don't care at all about their platform. Samsung, HTC and LG all have their hands in multiple pies, not willing to commit to any platform because they don't care about who wins, as long as they make money.
They need someone to focus exclusively on WP7, delivering the best integrated experience the platform can offer. Nokia's not going to go exclusive unless Microsoft does too.
There are issues on both sides though:
* Nokia used to build great hardware. They need to start doing that again to convince Microsoft it's worth acquiring.
* Microsoft needs to recognize that WP7 isn't going to go anywhere unless something major changes.
The upcoming announcement might be a precursor to the above scenario.
The problem is that Apple already did that recently. The iPhone was Apple's Wii, and now it seems incredibly difficult for Nokia to innovate that much that quickly without creating something the world might not be ready for, like the N-Gage.
I hope they pull it off though. Respect for the candor in the memo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd rather Nokia actually be the only truly open mobile platform out there. No, Android isn't sufficiently open. It's my phone, at a minimum I should be able to pull all my own data off it in any form I choose.
IMO a GNU/free fork of Android would still be a better platform than MeeGo or Symbian, and would be cheaper to develop.
I worked for Accenture (then Andersen Consulting) in Paris in 1995 when a new team of Englishmen were brought in from London to "turn the French practice around". Their theme? "Burning platform". The exact same story that opens the memo was their story too. Maybe this Mr Elop is really an original thinker that will do great things; but the "burning platform" analogy is the most tired image EVER. Oh, and did it work i…
Up there with "Burning Platform" would be "Problems are snakes. If you see a problem, don't hold a meeting, Kill the Snake" and "Our competitors don't have this problem as a central focus, it's like the chicken and pig at breakfast, we're the pig, the competitors are the chicken. The Pig is committed, the chicken is just involved", and, the one I've now heard no less than four times at four different companies - the story about the various people working on a church, and one character, sweeping his heart out, says that he's working for the glory of god (I.E. Do it because you love it, not because it's a job).
I never really got why dying to become someone else's food was supposed to inspire us - but I've heard it a couple times now.
I'm predicting an HP-Palm/Nokia combined effort. HP and Nokia already collaborate, and webOS is the closest Nokia will get to an existing "ecosystem" that they could thrive in. Palm has crappy hardware, and awesome software. Nokia has excellent hardware, but crappy software. Both of them are getting slammed by Apple/Android. The solution is obvious. Also, Nokia's work on Meego would transition well to webOS, since th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't follow your logic. Windows 7 isn't much of a competitor. It had a smaller debut than Android and iPhone, by a large amount, and is being outsold by both so the gap is widening. If I were Nokia, I wouldn't be worrying about fellow also-rans in the industry, like Microsoft. I'd be worried about the products that were eating my lunch, and I'd let Microsoft figure out how to protect their own lunch. If Nokia choo…
> Nobody likes Windows phones That's a bit categorical, no? I know at least two people who quite like their Windows Phones. Before you ask, not all of them work at Microsoft.
This leads me to believe that 50% of the people you know who like their Windows phone do work at Microsoft.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yeah, but that's the case with every phone manufacturer. That's exactly my point. In this regard Nokia are not in a special position to stand up to the carriers. Unlocked handsets don't count: almost no one is paying that much for a phone. Even Apple had to accept carrier subsidies for the iPhone to get the end purchase price down.
> Unlocked handsets don't count: almost no one is paying that much for a phone. Most mobile phones in the world are bought unlocked. Carrier-locked phones holding most of the market is an US/UK quirk, and in many European countries, carrier-locked phones like used in the US would actually be illegal.