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Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

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Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#51

Post by coffee_beqn »

koiueo wrote: post #38

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). B…

Linux and Nokia were at one point the Crown Jewels of Finnish tech. One still remains. Would’ve been a match made in heaven but I believe they needed Microsoft’s cash to keep the company running. I remember testing the N900 at their store and was really impressed but I think it was too little too late

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#52

Post by pengaru »

CobaltFire wrote: post #7

I had a Nokia N9 as my daily driver for years (2011-2015 if I recall right) and still have it. That phone was absolutely top tier at the time. It lacked some apps but overall it was an amazing phone. Everyone always wanted to know what it was I was using. I wish they had continued pushing it forward.

It really was a nice device. Great size, took excellent photos for the time, and that AMOLED screen with the always-on clock and black blacks. I'd probably have one today if it were LTE capable.

Qt/Sailfish worked well enough too but it definitely had its defects. My biggest complaint was they didn't ship complete source prepared for convenient reproduction of the firmware and out-of-box encouraged flashing of self-made builds. Then I would have been fixing the bugs I tripped over.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#53

Post by jimmySixDOF »

addicted wrote: post #37
skavi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What apps ?! That store they had was practically vacant so the phone basically ran on what it came installed with. Android was not as slick at that time but at least you had a ton of software and cooked ROMs

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#54

Post by manmal »

aj7 wrote: post #41
thematrixturtle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The memo is from 2011, so that hardly matters?

I'm really having trouble understanding why this is even relevant in 2022. Who cares what the excuses and problems were within Nokia in 2011? Is Nokia's inability to keep up with cell phone technology in 2011 and important part of technical history? Business history? If so, why? I didn't even really get the burning oil rig analogy. It was a pretty melodramatic way of describing being beaten by a competitor, which hap…

Many people loved Nokia and I guess still feel nostalgic about the brand. My first phone was a Nokia, and it was super reliable and, though quirky, enjoyable.

Nokia also was the most successful European high tech brand. Losing it felt disheartening at the time.

If not for Elop, I might now develop apps for Meego instead of iOS.

So, I guess, there‘s a moral to the story: don’t let bad hires run your company to the ground?

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#55

Post by LtWorf »

anthropodie wrote: post #30
_ea1k wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That his letter pointed out a real problem never seemed controversial. The shocking part was tying themselves to MS without a reasonable backup plan. They thought they couldn't build hardware good enough to compete with other Android makers, but somehow convinced themselves that the solution to that was to put their less competitive hardware onto a less competitive platform.

> They thought they couldn't build hardware good enough to compete with other Android makers, But that is so wrong. Hardware was their strength. They could've sticked to what they knew best and over time do what's necessary.

It seems you never tried a windows phone.

They were slow. Really slow. Typing was so slow. Opening the camera app even more so.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#56

Post by sangnoir »

stingraycharles wrote: post #28
skavi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As someone who owned a Windows phone around that time, and knew others who did as well, the shared opinion was that it was a pile of crap. Nokia went for Windows because of the acquisition target, not because of quality of the OS. With that, they prioritized business strategy over product quality, and we all know what happened after.

> As someone who owned a Windows phone around that time, and knew others who did as well, the shared opinion was that it was a pile of crap.

and had no apps. Windows Phone/Mobile had atrocious developer share. There few apps that were available were of terrible quality. Ironic, considering this happened in the era of a sweaty Balmer screaming "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"[1]

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#57

Post by 8ytecoder »

addicted wrote: post #34
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…

Android was a choice. Not the obvious one. Seriously how many Android manufacturers are really successful? Samsung? Google? Pretty much everyone else is completely interchangeable in the crowd of low cost devices.

LG, HTC, Sony …etc have all but disappeared and they all chose Android. Sony especially had some solid hits back in the day.

Microsoft utterly failed Nokia but I don’t consider the decision at the time to be a terrible one.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#58

Post by IncRnd »

aj7 wrote: post #41
thematrixturtle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The memo is from 2011, so that hardly matters?

I'm really having trouble understanding why this is even relevant in 2022. Who cares what the excuses and problems were within Nokia in 2011? Is Nokia's inability to keep up with cell phone technology in 2011 and important part of technical history? Business history? If so, why? I didn't even really get the burning oil rig analogy. It was a pretty melodramatic way of describing being beaten by a competitor, which hap…

You weren't the target for that memo. It was written to motivate Nokia employees and prepare them for strategic shifts. It showed employees there was an overarching plan in place for the changes that were to come. I'm sure you can find parallels from that to a website run by a VC for current, past, and potential investees.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#59

Post by bambax »

asveikau wrote: post #5

Here's a contemporaneous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2195520 I'm surprised how positive HN was about this. I don't remember reading any positive coverage at the time. I personally thought the guy was an idiot. He wound up performing worse than my expectations.

Yeah. In that thread at the time [0] I remarked that the "burning platform" theme/metaphor was highly unoriginal, and therefore, not a good sign.

I was afraid disaster would ensue...

Maybe it was impossible to do better, but it seems it would have been difficult to do worse.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2196311

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