Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

The N900 was my favorite phone by far. Most of the reason come as a programmer, not all users might value them.

First of all ot was a true Linux phone. Running a derivative of Debian, complete with apt etc. Most of the apps on it, even the app to make a phone call where preexisting open source Linux applications with a nice mobile UI. An UI that was clean and consistent without the need off branding that other platforms suffer from.

I could simply write bash script for it to extend its functionality. For example I remember writing a script that would record and sent recordings of phone calls to my server.

I installed Pidgin the chat client and used it to chat with my friends when MSN was still popular in my county. It truly felt like having a PC in your pocket.

The keyboard was the best keyboard ever made in my opinion. I could actually type blind on it sensing a message without looking at the phone at all. I still own 3 N900's with the hope of every managing the find the enthusiasm to rig in the another phone or a pi.

Operation Elop is also a fascinating read.

https://medium.com/@harrikiljander/operation-elop-6f2b043f52...

A great metaphor, unless it’s used inappropriately, which is like 99% of the time. And Kotter is the excuse for a ton of change-by-imposition too. As someone interested in change, I kinda wish that the 1990’s hadn’t happened. There is a lot that’s good and exciting in the organisation development space, but that metaphor and Kotter’s model are not representative of it.

> Great hw engineers let down by less than stellar software decisions.

I remember reading a deep dive into how exactly Nokia run it's cellular department, in it's corporate culture... and things there were not great. Everything were behind the red tape and countless meetings, every feature had someone who was appointed as an 'owner' of that feature and if you need to change something what would somehow involve that feature you needed an approval from that owner. And if the guy didn't want to give the approval, because he was afraid to take the responsibility than there was nothing you could with it. Same in the Symbian dept.

People like to shit on Elop, but with or without him the mighty Finnish giant would die anyway. With Elop and MS deal they, at least, tried to do something and saved jobs for a couple of years (though not all). Without MS deal all those people would been on the street in 2013 at best.

>At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, “the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation.” They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.

Never forget that no matter how brilliant you think your company is, there are five of those companies in China, four of which are brand new and working in a playground of mass production at scales you can't comprehend. If the world ever shifts power and relevance to China the whole West will collectively have a burning platform situation. China's not just "cheap", and when people start trusting them for the occasional higher-quality product, and there's a market for it, they'll come for all of us.

Make no mistake, China's industrial prowess will be the major game-changing force in the 2020's.