Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#31

Post by toast0 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:29 AM UTC

tananaev wrote: post #8

Nokia had a chance, but their developer experience was terrible. They should have invested in it. And also open source. They could have open sourced their platform and compete with Android. What did they do instead? They made an extremely stupid bet on Microsoft, which by that time was even further behind in mobile world than Nokia itself.

Symbian was open sourced at one point and before that, available for others to make phones with, SonyEricsson had a couple, I think there were one or two others as well. The Nokia linux phones were open sourceish as well, in partnership with Intel.

Open or closed source wasn't the problem, really.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#32

Post by donio » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:29 AM UTC

locallost wrote: post #12

cmdrriker wrote: post #4

Boy, did Nokia elope after this with M$ft phone which was supposed to right Nokia's collective "ship". Elop joined the hallowed hall of fame of abysmal CEO's who ran their firms into the ground. Remember Lumia, Windows Phone 7,8 & 10 blehh. Was it Balmer that hired Elop?

I had a Windows 8 phone from Nokia around 2015 or so and other than the lack of apps it was a phone like pretty much any other at the time or even these days. By that I mean I don't remember anything really bad about it, especially because I mostly use the web anyway. I have no idea why things succeed or fail and so I don't know for this either, but my guess is it was new, but didn't have anything that provoked an in…

It didn't matter how good or bad it was, Windows was a toxic brand on mobile. A very large segment of potential customers was rejecting it off hand based on their desktop Windows experience. They may have been stuck with it on the desktop but on mobile even if they weren't sure what they wanted they definitely knew that it wasn't THAT.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#33

Post by majormajor » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:29 AM UTC

skavi wrote: post #22

eslaught wrote: post #15

I'm not saying this is a great letter, but he wasn't wrong. I owned both Symbian and Maemo devices, and the experience (both to use and develop) really was this bad. That's not to say everything about it was bad, or that there was nothing to like (as HN comments have often pointed out, there was), but it didn't hold a candle to iOS, or even Android. (And Android in those days was pretty hideous.) Now what Nokia did i…

I think it’s simple enough to see why Nokia thought Windows would be the right choice. It was far more polished than Android at the time. It ran well on cheap hardware. And they would have Microsoft backing them.

WP7 was more polished than Android - I went from an HTC Evo to a Lumia - but a lot of that polish was in the same style as early-iOS: fewer features and capabilities, just done well and with better consistency.

I think betting on either (a) MS beating Apple at their own game or (b) there being room in the market for two premium-limited-but-smoother-UX systems was a dicey call.

Nokia's hardware design advantage over that HTC was MUCH larger than WP7's UI advantage over Android, anyway. I would've stuck with Android but moved to Nokia in a heartbeat if that sleek blue slab of plastic phone ran Android.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#34

Post by addicted » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:30 AM UTC

eslaught wrote: post #15

I'm not saying this is a great letter, but he wasn't wrong. I owned both Symbian and Maemo devices, and the experience (both to use and develop) really was this bad. That's not to say everything about it was bad, or that there was nothing to like (as HN comments have often pointed out, there was), but it didn't hold a candle to iOS, or even Android. (And Android in those days was pretty hideous.) Now what Nokia did i…

The letter talks about a man standing on a burning platform choosing to jump into the icy waters instead.

In this metaphor, Nokias actions were neither staying on the platform not jumping into the water but shooting itself in the head instead.

If the internally Nokia OSes were not going anywhere, which looked to be the case from the outside, the obvious solution was to go with Android. Something that already had the user base, had the apps, had the platform, was open source so it allowed for innovation and differentiation, and Nokia could tailor it to work well with their hardware.

Instead, he chose to go with Windows Phone which had absolutely no benefits. And had severe restriction the kind of phones Nokia could create and on the modifications they could make (they could barely even reskin it) and did not allow Nokia to leverage any software or hardware prowess they may have had.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#35

Post by thematrixturtle » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:31 AM UTC

aj7 wrote: post #23

Is this a website that hasn't been updated in four years?

The memo is from 2011, so that hardly matters?

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#36

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:32 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #19

Great hw engineers let down by less than stellar software decisions. Nokia owned a significant slice of late stage pre internet telephony infrastructure level equipment, bridged over to the emerging mobile world and .. kinda missed the boat when Apple happend in with iPhone and then Android's emergence killed them. A lot of people loved their handsets. Just not enough in any single market to make up for some bad deci…

That included me. I had fond memories of an near indestructible 3310 and I genuinely wish I did not miss the boat on N900 ( I just landed in US and phone was the least of my concerns then ).

Sadly, clearly there are decisions that can sink even a dominant power in the market. He is not HP's Fiorina. He did have some wins in previous positions, which makes a person like me question whether the failures at Nokia was little more than a sabotage. Obviously, we will likely never really know.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#37

Post by addicted » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:32 AM UTC

skavi wrote: post #22

eslaught wrote: post #15

I'm not saying this is a great letter, but he wasn't wrong. I owned both Symbian and Maemo devices, and the experience (both to use and develop) really was this bad. That's not to say everything about it was bad, or that there was nothing to like (as HN comments have often pointed out, there was), but it didn't hold a candle to iOS, or even Android. (And Android in those days was pretty hideous.) Now what Nokia did i…

I think it’s simple enough to see why Nokia thought Windows would be the right choice. It was far more polished than Android at the time. It ran well on cheap hardware. And they would have Microsoft backing them.

I owned a WP7 and an Android around that time.

Any WP7 polish advantage was skin deep at best. It took approximately 3-5 interactions for something to break in 3rd party apps and maybe twice that in first party apps.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#38

Post by koiueo » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:33 AM UTC

Nokia N9 was the best phone I have ever owned.

To these days their gesture navigation implementation is the best. And they had Swype keyboard preinstalled.

Speaking of apps: Here maps, SoundHound, amazing mail client and calendar...

Gosh I miss that phone.

I used mine for about 3 years, I think, and sold it for more than a half of its original price in literally a couple of hours (which means my price was too low).

By the time the software started showing its age: no banking apps, browser failing to display more and more modern sites...

I believe, they should have pushed with Meego. With vendor support their OS could've been a hit.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#39

Post by p_j_w » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:33 AM UTC

_ea1k wrote: post #27

jeswin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they concluded (rightly) that there are no margins in Android devices. Samsung is a rare exception, but by then the signs were clear that manufacturing (including the R&D around it) was shifting to East Asia.

Yeah, the only people making money on Android were the ones with great hardware and brand recognition.

So a company like Nokia then?

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#40

Post by tschwimmer » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:36 AM UTC

I'm pretty sure the metaphorical platform had already fully melted down by 2011, they just hadn't realized it yet. Nokia was not dead on January 9th, 2007 but maybe by 2008 when the App Store launched or perhaps in 2010 when FaceTime launched with the iPhone 4. At that time Nokia made very solid utility devices that admirably did their jobs. What they failed to ever make and what I suspect they failed to realize that Apple was making was a desire object - something that was more than the sum of its parts. The N9000 and the N9 were technically very good (on paper even better than the iPhone) but they lacked the integrated and holistic design decisions that made the iPhone special.