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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

#51

Post by stretchwithme »

stcredzero wrote: post #44
stretchwithme wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wonder if Nokia is in a position to blur the lines between smart phones and feature phones? This could be done with only a moderate increase in the resources in each phone. The hard part would be establishing the software ecosystem and getting the carriers to follow. As pointed out elsewhere in these comments, Nokia has a huge chunk of market in the rest of the world. If they could blur the lines between smart phon…

I'm sure things at Nokia will be getting a lot blurrier.

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

#52

Post by winestock »

aphexairlines wrote: post #31

Great, another article pushing the viewpoint that hardware and software doesn't matter, that investment in technology is a waste of time, that what really matters is slick marketing and pretty packaging. What do they think makes the iPhone battery last more than 20 minutes or an Android app pop up on your phone when you click install on their pc website -- pixie dust?

"Great, another article pushing the viewpoint that hardware and software doesn't matter, that investment in technology is a waste of time, that what really matters is slick marketing and pretty packaging."

Bless your heart, my friend. You are dedicated to substance over appearance, and for that, I give you an upvote.

Sadly, most people are more complicated than that.

If engineering alone mattered, then the dominant desktop computer would be the Commodore Amiga. OS/2 Warp would be the standard business platform. TOPS-20 would be the server operating system of choice. They would all be written in concurrent versions of BLISS and run on multicore descendants of the DEC Alpha microprocessor. Microsoft would be a third-tier maker of programming languages. The Intel 8086 line would be long forgotten. Unix and C would be unknown outside of Bell Labs. Finally, academics and the cool open source hackers would be using different flavors of portable Lisp Machine.

"Man has as much of a sensible as of a rational nature." - Alban Butler

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

#53

Post by winestock »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #41
aphexairlines wrote: post #31

Great, another article pushing the viewpoint that hardware and software doesn't matter, that investment in technology is a waste of time, that what really matters is slick marketing and pretty packaging. What do they think makes the iPhone battery last more than 20 minutes or an Android app pop up on your phone when you click install on their pc website -- pixie dust?

I worked at Black & Decker when product engineer deservedly took back seat to marketing as the premier discipline. Makita was cleaning B&D's clock in the marketplace and all engineering could say was, "But ours test better than Makita's" Joe Galli took a dozen of the best Black & Decker tools; changed the housings from grey to yellow, and changed the labels from B&D to DeWalt. He hired a dozen new college grads to dr…

That reminds me of a Microsoft situation.

This happened a year or so ago: Microsoft conducted a usability test where they put a different skin on Windows Vista service pack 2 and told the users that it wasn't Vista.

The users said that they preferred the Vista in sheep's clothing.

Anyone have a link?

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

#54

Post by winestock »

arethuza wrote: post #23
r0h4n wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That story, Joel's reaction to Gates, and the reaction of the other Microsofties has always disturbed me. Gates' behavior wasn't an example of competence; he was a bully on a power trip.

The cognitive load of asking a question or making an objection is generally lighter than giving an honest counter-argument. Especially if the question or objection is a profanity-smeared act of belligerence and the answers have to be polite or else you're fired.

"Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer." - Charles Caleb Colton

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

#55

Post by bad_user »

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?

      what is wrong with Microsoft in terms of providing 
      developer tools or marketing support
Nokia doesn't lack development tools, neither marketing support. They also have all the resources they need to produce an operating system / platform to rival iOS and Android.

They lack focus.

Android also had lots of flaws when launched, but Google & partners kept iterating. Nokia could have taken the world by storm simply because they can push lots of cheap smartphones all over the world. And the Ovi Store could have been the most popular app store. If only they provided enough consistency across what they are doing.

And Microsoft?

When choosing a partner you have to take into consideration the company's track record. Microsoft has been caught resting on its laurels several times over the years, with Windows, with IExplorer, with Windows Mobile. It also has been caught screwing several of its partners.

Microsoft transformed PC-makers in cheap complementaries to Windows and bloatware. Microsoft also forced PC-makers to only bundle Windows with new PCs.

For us (devs and consumers), Android and Windows Mobile may be good things, but for Nokia this will be a disaster.

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

#56

Post by aaronbrethorst »

winestock wrote: post #53
asmithmd1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Black & Decker when product engineer deservedly took back seat to marketing as the premier discipline. Makita was cleaning B&D's clock in the marketplace and all engineering could say was, "But ours test better than Makita's" Joe Galli took a dozen of the best Black & Decker tools; changed the housings from grey to yellow, and changed the labels from B&D to DeWalt. He hired a dozen new college grads to dr…

That reminds me of a Microsoft situation. This happened a year or so ago: Microsoft conducted a usability test where they put a different skin on Windows Vista service pack 2 and told the users that it wasn't Vista. The users said that they preferred the Vista in sheep's clothing. Anyone have a link?

Mojave: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/29/vista_taste_test_cha...

They didn't change Vista at all for it, though.

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

#57

Post by aaronbrethorst »

tomjen3 wrote: post #45
greyman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The price. Nokia now has to pay for the license to their mobile software as well as the hardware while everybody else only have to pay for the hardware.

Nokia is going to get licenses for WP7 at essentially zero cost from Microsoft.

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

#58

Post by tomjen3 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #57
tomjen3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price. Nokia now has to pay for the license to their mobile software as well as the hardware while everybody else only have to pay for the hardware.

Nokia is going to get licenses for WP7 at essentially zero cost from Microsoft.

They can't keep doing that forever - Microsoft makes money selling software, they will have to sell it to do so.

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

#59

Post by teyc »

winestock wrote: post #54
arethuza wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That story, Joel's reaction to Gates, and the reaction of the other Microsofties has always disturbed me. Gates' behavior wasn't an example of competence; he was a bully on a power trip. The cognitive load of asking a question or making an objection is generally lighter than giving an honest counter-argument. Especially if the question or objection is a profanity-smeared act of belligerence and the answers have to be…

One of the biggest problems running a software company is getting hoodwinked by a developer, because they might handwave a problem away.

The second problem is one of scalability.

How does a leader make sure that the technical decisions are correct without having to learn very deeply about it?

One is by constantly probing for weaknesses and see if people have difficulty defending their choices, and seeing if the trade offs were reasonable.

The second is to develop a fierce reputation so that the person is sufficiently prepared before presenting his thesis.

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

#60

Post by carussell »

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.

"And then you said … I was late." http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-27-2011/bill-o...
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