Nokia CEO: Nokia is "standing on a burning platform" • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by limmeau » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 8:38 AM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #97

bambax wrote: post #82

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…

Totally Agree - while I loved the memo, it would have had more impact with me if it hadn't had it's central theme cribbed from 'the book of management phrases' that I hear from multiple CEOs. Ironically, I was inspired _the first time_ I heard those sayings- because I thought it was something clever our CEO had come up with. Imagine how depressed I must have felt when I heard the same phrases come up over, and over a…

I thought the idea was to become the chicken, not the pig? But my management lingo isn't fluent.

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

#112

Post by gaius » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 8:47 AM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #43

ergo98 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple and Sony do share some similarities, but at least one big difference exists... Sony focused on licensing technology, from CD to BetaMax. Whereas Apple is creating a walled garden to lock in customers. Sony eventually got commodotized in the very technology they created. This won't happen with Apple. At worst they get undercut in their industry, but Apple has a rich ecosystem that has to stay with Apple to reap…

No, Sony tried to lock-in as well, e.g. Memory Stick, Minidisc, etc. Sony anything worked better with Sony anything-else. You saw this in the marketing too, SonyStyle etc, you could buy every electronic device from them and they'd all integrate nicely. Exactly like Mac, iPod/Pad, iTunes, AirPort, AirTunes, AppleTV...

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

#113

Post by potatolicious » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 8:51 AM UTC

edderly wrote: post #73

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, that's because Samsung doesn't have a clue and would rather hedge their bets. Most people I know who has a Samsung Galaxy, Captivate, etc have complained endlessly about the wait for updates. Samsung's business is in selling phones, not developing a software platform and therein lies the problem. They make their bread and butter on planned obsolescence and in the process screw over their customers.

But this points out a potential weakness with the model of taking someone else's OS and slapping it in your device. Once the operators (typically) have added their crap on top it leaves you little margin to extract extra cash until you get someone to buy another device.

Seems to work alright for Apple - even though they're doing gangbusters on App sales, it seems the majority of iPhone's profitability comes from hardware sales themselves, and this is without any real shades of planned obsolescence.

Nokia is renowned for their hardware build quality - well in advance of LG, Moto, or Samsung. I think the market has spoken that they want the full experience - solid software, beautiful hardware, and impeccable integration of the two. Samsung IMHO has fumbled that ball up until now, producing cheap-y hardware coupled with lazy software integration. There's a lot of room for someone who knows what they're doing with Android to come and eat their lunch.

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

#114

Post by wisty » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 8:52 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #107

This memo is spot on, except for the optimism at the end. I think Nokia is toast. At the end of the day, you can't create a best-of-breed product out of nowhere. You need the core competencies to be already present in your company's DNA. Palm came back out of nowhere and created in the Pre a phone with great usability fundamentals, and an incredibly innovative contact/data management layer. But that didn't come from…

Nokia already produces some of the best phone hardware there is. If they got Android onto it, I'd upgrade in a heartbeat.

They also know how to differentiate without creating fragmentation. Most Android products suffer because of fragmentation - different OS versions, different hardware, etc. Nokia should know to create a core platform or 2 (standard screen size, hopefully upgrade support), and then make money on marketing prettier models to the people who'll buy them.

It's obvious that they need Android, maybe with some "value added" features tacked on (but not in a tacky way).

OK, crappy feature phones may be "good enough", but mobile phones has always been something of a fashion business. Nokia is good at this game, they just got blindsided by the iPhone and Android.

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

#115

Post by regularfry » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 8:56 AM UTC

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #69

foobarbazetc wrote: post #37

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.

The Xbox doesn't fit MS's business model either. If MS were to go that way I think they could make a decent go of it.

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

#116

Post by apetrovic » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 9:02 AM UTC

mkramlich wrote: post #67

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…

> 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. I agree with what you said here. But to take it a step further I'd say that the num…

> But to take it a step further I'd say that the number one rule I've learned from doing mobile native apps the last few years is that ideally one should NOT be making mobile native apps. Make a web app, that just happens to look and interact decently on a mobile device.

Yeah, make a web page so I would need to start the browser first, then wait for the page to load. The GUI and the experience will be completely different than anything what I already have on the phone, not to mention that the GUI will be suboptimal. Transition between screens in the app will be dependent on network coverage - if I'm in the bus and it stops on some blind spot just when I clicked the button, I'll have to watch white screen (or an error message) until the bus moves. And for what? To "save developers a lot of pain". Sounds reasonable, I'm sure I'll give you my money.

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

#117

Post by erikstarck » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 9:02 AM UTC

I worked for Sony Ericsson when the iPhone was revealed. My job was to translate the thousands of pages of operator requirements that came in (within my technology area: Java) to a technical roadmap for the coming 2-5 years. So I have a fairly good picture of how the market for mobile phones work wrt to the interplay between operators and manufacturers.

It's hard to grasp just how revolutionary the iPhone was. There are so many tiny things that's not by itself a revolution, but adding them all up and you're going disruptive.

I tried to compile some of it in a list here:

http://blog.opportunitycloud.com/2011/01/21/what-apple-did-w...

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

#118

Post by PaulHoll » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 9:14 AM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #51

lamby wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

I know very little about the smartphone market, but in the console market, Sony were happy to sell the Playstation at a loss to get the hardware out there.

Is this what you are predicting for the smartphone arena? Having the hardware at increasingly lower prices in order to make money on the app sales?

Surely, this is the only logical conclusion if Nokia move into an app store-like closed marketplace?

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

#119

Post by justincormack » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 9:36 AM UTC

limmeau wrote: post #110

joe_the_user wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and you could put QT on top of it!

A C++ framework on top of a mobile OS in which most interesting things happen in the Dalvik VM? What for?

I think the hacker expectation is that a free open mobile OS would not be tied to a single programming environment and making it easy to port the mass of existing qt code would be useful.

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

#120

Post by StudyAnimal » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 9:42 AM UTC

limmeau wrote: post #109

thomasz wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locked Phones are the norm in Germany too. If this holds true for France too, the vast majority of mobile phones in Europe is being sold locked. I don't know the details about the "illegal" claim, but normally those things are governed by EU laws, making it somewhat hard to believe that contracts common in the UK and Germany would be considered illegal in the Netherlands or Portugal.

Locked as in "locked to one network"? Except for prepaid 20EUR-phones and perhaps the iPhone, which phones in Germany come locked?

Yeah locked to one network which also means you can only get firmware updates when the network specific version is ready, which is often months later, or never.

Any subsidized phone purchased with a new contract is locked, as far as I know. But I don't know of many that are hard to unlock.