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1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

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Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#161

Post by nagnatron »

Flam wrote: post #157

The Nokia n900 (Maemo) albeit with some flaws, is the greatest phone I will ever own. Allow me to explain. I live in Canada. We get a lot of snow over here. Last winter, I lost my Nokia phone. I remember it was a night we had a huge snowstorm, and I stayed in drinking hot chocolate by the fireplace only to wake up the next day stressing out because I couldn't find my phone. After an hour of searching, I came to terms…

I like the WP7 UI so I'm looking forward to that combined with Nokia's build quality

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#162

Post by rbanffy »

rimantas wrote: post #145
rbanffy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There aren't really many alternatives to WP7. Can you say it with a straight face? Without laughing?

Sure, why not? You cannot count Android as "many". Ok, you can, but let's not go there.

Well... Starting from Android you can make as many as you want. And they don't even have to look like Android - My Nook run Android and looks like a Nook.

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#163

Post by rbanffy »

redthrowaway wrote: post #156
rbanffy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going with Android would make Nokia just another Sony/Samsung/HTC IIRC, Samsung, HTC and Dell are offering WP7 phones.

But they're doing it as an afterthought. They're committed to Android, and are supporting wp7 to cover their bases. Nokia's going all in, which would position them at the top of the WP7 hierarchy. If wp7 is a hit, Nokia rides the wave back to relevance, If not, well, they tried.

> would position them at the top of the WP7 hierarchy

This is a mistake many Microsoft partners make. Nobody but Microsoft is at the top of the WP7 hierarchy. If WP7 is a success, Nokia's efforts will be rewarded by lots of competition with more money (because they are already riding the other hit, Android), not relevance.

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#164

Post by darklajid »

rbanffy wrote: post #134
zokier wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you realize how different Android and MeeGo (or atleast Maemo) are. They aren't running the same kernel and their userland is completely different. The fact that both have bits of linux inside doesn't really make them alike. It probably would be easier to port Qt for WP7 than integrate Android on top of MeeGo.

It cannot be that hard. If Linux, MeeGo and Android kernels diverged too much, maybe it's time to unify them in a way they all can share the maximum amount of code and effort. I agree porting Qt to WP7 shouldn't be much of a problem too, or a much larger one. But I suspect that Nokia's plan may prove hard to follow because it will be very hard to convince people to use WP7 phones.

That's still missing the point and exactly what _Android_ not did. While MeeGo is quite close to your standard "Linux on the Desktop" (Sorry, was hard to resist), Google suffered from a lot of NIH based design decisions. On the other hand they probably chose the easier route for themselves (instead of solving their problems in a codebase that's outside of their control) by creating things from scratch although "standard" alternatives were available.

In short: I'd say it probably _is_ hard and I'd even go so far as to say that MeeGo moving into Android would be pointless.

For code and effort sharing maemo/MeeGo was the better stack.

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#165

Post by beagle3 »

hvs wrote: post #115
beagle3 wrote: post #69

Does this remind anyone else of SGI? - Total domination of their own field - Resting on laurels while others snatch the market from under them - Panic - Get a CEO from Microsoft - CEO quickly decides that the O/S developed in house is not worth maintaining. And that the right O/S is no other than Microsoft's offering - Company continues dive to irrelevance, albeit at a much faster rate than before Well, the last one…

I don't disagree with you in general, but IRIX was a dog of an OS. They dominated in hardware, but the OS was always something you just had to live with.

IRIX was a god of an OS.

It had real time I/O. It had the best user interface at the time, with super fast scalable vector graphics for everything in '94. (Modern desktops have caught up some 13 years later). It had usable 64 bits everything before anyone else - R10000 was generally available in '95.

They were insanely fast compared to the Sun and Digital stations of the time - the only competitor was Digital Alpha, and IRIX beat Ultrix to the ground and mopped the floor with it.

These were the days of multiculture, where my employer insisted on having several Alphas, Suns, SGIs, RS/6000 and more to make sure we're not locked to any specific vendor.

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#167

Post by niels_olson »

alderssc wrote: post #149
niels_olson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by what metric? sign of the first derivative.

I think integrating would be better, because it seems wrong to judge a products "success" only at some specific instant of time, rather than judging it over a full period of time. The sign of the first derivative only gives you the present rate of adoption/abandonment of the platform, while integrating gives you a measure of success over the platform's entire existence.

I was just answering his question. Thank you for defining the opposing view quantitatively. I have never used a nokia phone, but certainly I would count myself a success if I had area under the curve like that.

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#168

Post by mfukar »

jarek wrote: post #52
mfukar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly surprised the Nokia staff. Wasn't it communicated inside the company? If so, why? I bet the answers to those questions are very interesting.

It's surprising to a degree, yes. But less surprising than if he was to announce, say, that Nokia is pivoting to become an oil company. He came from Microsoft on a rescue mission to a company where software was widely acknowledged to be the biggest problem.

  But less surprising than if he was to announce, say, that Nokia is pivoting to become an oil company.
Definitely, since that'd be utterly absurd.

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#169

Post by alf »

rbanffy wrote: post #15
davidw wrote: post #8

Whether it was Android, Microsoft, or slowly dying, people working there would be affected, so I'm not sure the choice of Microsoft changes things too much from that point of view. With Android, perhaps they could have kept more people on board to hack on it and customize it, but still, the axe was going to fall. Should be interesting to see how this is handled in Finland. Stock is down, layoffs, and some "arrogant f…

Android could be built/merged with MeeGo. They have the same kernel and all hardware-specific work would be reused. Both userlands could run side by side.

Something tells me Google would have been very happy to help Nokia add the Dalvik VM to MeeGo. Nokia would get Android apps and developers, while still being able to diversify their OS and and UI from the competition. Google would get Dalvik as the dominant development platform in mobile.

Re: 1000+ Nokia workers have walked out in protest (in English via Google Translate)

#170

Post by martinshen »

halo wrote: post #45
marshray wrote: post #9

Let's see 1. Hire someone from Microsoft to run the company 2. He says "our platform is burning, we have to do something drastic" which most people interpret as "prepare to come up with a strategy and fight like hell to win". 3. Guess what, he already had something in mind! It was "throw out our current reasonably successful development efforts and become a licensee of Microsoft's failed platform instead". And piss o…

It's amazing how hyperbolic people are being about this, presumably out of blind Microsoft hatred. Pretty much everyone agreed that Nokia's Symbian/MeeGo strategy was a failure, that Nokia were quickly losing marketshare and that they needed a new OS. The only options were Android and Windows Phone 7. WebOS would have been a better fit than either, but that option had already been and gone. I think there are compelli…

What I don't understand is how it took over 1000 people to screw up modding Symbian (which has been around forever) into a usable interface. This platform should have been more quickly developed because at the end of the day, Symbian just needed a beautiful skin.
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