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The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

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Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#21

Post by masklinn »

SafdarIqbal wrote: post #3

It is more of a "hardware specifications" driven culture, where design of the software experience is secondary. But in "touch phone" devices, just getting the hardware right can't even get you halfway into making a better product.

> But in "touch phone" devices, just getting the hardware right can't even get you halfway into making a better product.

That was true long before touch phones. I had an E70 phone as my second (? I think) smartphone. The software was complete shit and it was a pain to use, and the hardware was solid but way underspecced for the needs, especially RAM-wise (the thing had like 16MB ram, it would slow to a crawl at the slightest whiff of me having an idea of opening a web page)

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#22

Post by stretchwithme »

JanezStupar wrote: post #15
barista wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly just look at the ifanboys and droiddroolers. They never post anything disparaging about their competitors.

When ifanboy and droidroolers mock Nokia - its for a good reason, since majority of people agree that Nokia's smartphones suck. While when Nokia's employees or fans mock ifanboys's and doridroolers's toys - its just, well sad.

is the smart phones dumb or is the really dumb phones sorta smart for a dumb phone?

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#23

Post by arethuza »

r0h4n wrote: post #18
teyc wrote: post #9

No. It is a corporate turf war. Like MS, the engineering departments have the upper hand and prefers control to continue in engineering hands. They'd rather die than let the design manager get promoted. This is what you get if there is no strong alpha male founder leadership at the top. Ellison, Gates, Brin, Jobs were there to make sure this doesn't happen. When the founders leave, chaos ensues.

I cannot picture Gates as the alpha male leader. He is a intelligent leader, but alpha male leader?

Here is Joel's account of a review meeting with Bill:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

"a person who came along from my team whose whole job during the meeting was to keep an accurate count of how many times Bill said the F word. The lower the f*-count, the better."

I don't think you get to be the richest guy in the world just by being exceptionally smart.

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#24

Post by greyman »

sliverstorm wrote: post #5
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

"Some Nokia employees continually disparage Apple, internally calling it The California Fruit Company," he said. Classy. Nothing quite like mocking one of the companies that's been ripping you limb from limb for the past three-and-a-half years.

Can you blame them? Have you truly never made a bitter jibe into your beer at someone who has surpassed you?

I am afraid they mean it. I think it's about the perception how the mobile phone should be like. Not everyone considers the iPhone+iOS to be the best concept. I personally know people who think that nokia dumbphones are the best mobiles, or that Win 6.5. is currently the best mobile OS, etc.

I don't believe that most of the Nokia people perceive the situation as being surpassed by Apple.

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#25

Post by greyman »

bad_user wrote: post #13
sliverstorm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually why I love Nokia phones. They have fantastic hardware. I'm really hoping that letting someone else do most of the heavy lifting for the software will allow Nokia to focus on what we already know it does best.

Yeah, but Microsoft? If this partnership succeeds it would be the exception.

What is wrong with WP7, except of the lack of apps? Or what is wrong with Microsoft in terms of providing developer tools or marketing support for their products and 3rd party programmers?

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#26

Post by statictype »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

"Some Nokia employees continually disparage Apple, internally calling it The California Fruit Company," he said. Classy. Nothing quite like mocking one of the companies that's been ripping you limb from limb for the past three-and-a-half years.

that's been ripping you limb from limb for the past three-and-a-half years.

Even though Nokia was never really popular in America, they had and still have an incredibly strong presence in other regions - especially Asia which has a robust mobile market.

Sure, their smart phones don't compare to what iOS or Android offers, but there's a ton of people out there who aren't using phones like those.

I carry an iPhone 3GS and friends/family are always ribbing me because my 'smart phone' can't do basic things like send ringtones or songs to others via bluetooth or even contacts via sms.

I'm just saying that there's a whole world of people out there who have a completely different use-case for their mobile phone and Nokia still dominates that market.

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#27

Post by erikpukinskis »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #7
sliverstorm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you blame them? Have you truly never made a bitter jibe into your beer at someone who has surpassed you?

Better to take that energy and redirect it at kicking the crap out of your competitors than to waste it on schoolyard taunts.

Not everything in life has to be about winning. The taunting can be an art in and of itself.

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#28

Post by rue »

I think it's simplistic to discount the effect that the bureaucracy, turf wars, and the split-up of the various units as well as trying to push dozens and dozens of different models would have had on the design ethos in the company. It'd say it's more that all these externalities forced the departments to focus on things other than maturation of design to stick around.

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#29

Post by wazoox »

greyman wrote: post #24
sliverstorm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you blame them? Have you truly never made a bitter jibe into your beer at someone who has surpassed you?

I am afraid they mean it. I think it's about the perception how the mobile phone should be like. Not everyone considers the iPhone+iOS to be the best concept. I personally know people who think that nokia dumbphones are the best mobiles, or that Win 6.5. is currently the best mobile OS, etc. I don't believe that most of the Nokia people perceive the situation as being surpassed by Apple.

> I personally know people who think that nokia dumbphones are the best mobiles

If voice calling is your main and only application, they win hands down. Good sound, easy to use even with one hand and without looking at it, one week use on a single charge...

Re: The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

#30

Post by pilif »

greyman wrote: post #25
bad_user wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but Microsoft? If this partnership succeeds it would be the exception.

What is wrong with WP7, except of the lack of apps? Or what is wrong with Microsoft in terms of providing developer tools or marketing support for their products and 3rd party programmers?

IE is what's wrong.

Because up until WP7, doing mobile web apps for smart phones meant being able to write standards based code plus some webkit specific CSS for fluff.

But now we got to deal with this frustrating piece of crap that is IE on a mobile platform with significant deployment. Gone are the days where at least in the mobile world you were able to write code and have it work in all browsers with spending hours after hours working around bugs in IE.

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