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Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

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Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#191

Post by mark_undoio »

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.

The cheapness of the hardware is an interesting point.

I worked with an ex Nokia hardware engineer around that time and he said lots of them had left / been laid off (can't remember which) since Windows Phone could only run on quite specific chipsets (Qualcomm, I think), which basically made their jobs less useful.

But if cost was a factor then maybe that was part of the point, rather than a side effect of the decision.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#192

Post by jonasdegendt »

mxfh wrote: post #182
AdamCraven wrote: post #171

I worked at Nokia as a SWE in Berlin when that email dropped into my inbox. A few days later, it reached the press. We mostly thought ok, fine. What’s next? Before that, we’d been building an app for Nokia N97 handset users, an ever-decreasing market - all the engineers on the team had iPhones. We thought after that email that the next step would be to go on Android. Sure, Nokia would contract a little as it lost its…

It might even have worked out. Just that Microsoft still doesn't know how to run a proper app store besides the XBox Games one until this day. They flooded this thing with crappy apps anyone could submit for some weird incentives just to get their weird app store metrics up, making the user experience horrible. I wonder what would have happened, if they ran a properly curated platform, where they didn't allow for key…

I got a ton of free Nokia phones back in the day through these weird incentive programs. I was told at a meetup by one of the employees that each Microsoft division was to get N number of new apps in their local store each quarter, and they’d have developer programs along the line of “publish 5 Windows Phone apps, get a free Lumia phone.”

There were zero requirements other than publish N number of apps, there was zero form of quality control. I was a freshman in college at the time, could barely code my way out of a leetcode at that point and I’d have five calculator-esque apps ready to go whenever my local Microsoft division dropped a Tweet saying a new program was live since there was only a limited amount of phones.

Felt real good for me and my buddies but ironically we were left with phones that had these junk riddled app stores, amazing hardware devices though.

But yeah, Balmer did great developing the B2B side of things, consumer devices wasn’t it.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#193

Post by lelanthran »

8ytecoder wrote: post #57
addicted wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> 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.

Yeah, but that took a decade or more. Going with Windows was an insta-death. Going with Android would have given them at least a decade to decide on a strategy.

Windows over Android was an insane choice, no matter which angle you look at it from.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#194

Post by tekkk »

sofixa wrote: post #154
tekkk wrote: post #116

I just bought a new Nokia phone. Part from nostalgia since the last one I owned was over 10 years ago, part because it seemed to be good value for its price (300€). Now, having used it for a while, I wouldn't say I'm impressed - design-wise Apple products for example are miles ahead. Yet I don't really have anything to complain about - it does what a modern phone should do. It's pretty big though so it's harder to pu…

> its price (300€) > design-wise Apple products for example are miles ahead Well yes, of course. The cheapest iPhone, the SE, which is of an old design and with an old chip, costs 500€+. You can't expect 50%+ price difference to result in no difference in what you get. Premium Android phones closer to iPhone pricing are usually better design-wise.

Well by design I meant in general its shape and feel. Like the logo at the bottom of the screen, the way it's positioned little asymmetrically between the lighted and darkened area is to me a little jarring. Or why it's there in the first place. And the bevel between screen and the frame, I think it could have been done better.

So it's not really "of course, that's how it's supposed to be". I did not like the feel of some of the premium Android phones either, so I think it's just in general the vibe of the phone that I don't find that exciting.

It's a fine phone but it feels the people who made the phone were not overly passionate about making it. Which makes sense but I had hoped more distinct personality out of it. Not just another generic mid-range Android phone.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#195

Post by javier2 »

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…

Lol, I had an N900 and it was clunky at best. It was ok as a tech preview, but it wasnt a fantastic product by any means.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#196

Post by guai888 »

rasz wrote: post #190
guai888 wrote: post #50

I use to work for HTC. I was there when iPaq launched and saw the birth of first PocketPC phone, a black and white screen phone for Sagem/Mitsubishi. I would like to share my opinion on this issue of tech disruption. From my point of view, Nokia did not have enough resource and time to meet the challenge which was brought about by Apple and Google/Android. All the tech companies need at least one dominating advantage…

>Nokia had nothing that matter Nokia had extremely high hardware quality. Indestructible Nokia 3310 meme and all that.

High hardware quality is always important but it is not enough to build a moat to stop the competition. I remember a Siemens quality manager told me the high hardware quality of Siemens's phone when HTC was building a phone for Siemens. High hardware quality did not save Siemens's phone business either.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#197

Post by dade_ »

AdamCraven wrote: post #171

I worked at Nokia as a SWE in Berlin when that email dropped into my inbox. A few days later, it reached the press. We mostly thought ok, fine. What’s next? Before that, we’d been building an app for Nokia N97 handset users, an ever-decreasing market - all the engineers on the team had iPhones. We thought after that email that the next step would be to go on Android. Sure, Nokia would contract a little as it lost its…

The last company I worked for used the “burning platform” story a few years later after Elop’s memo. It was true, but it didn’t work.

The rank and file have no idea what to do with this information. The new platform looks great, but it isn’t proven, doesn’t replace the margin targets for sales, and the marketing is split telling the new story while trying not to accelerate the fire. Customers don’t know us for the new platform, so large effort is invested trying to get the smallest of wins at new clients. Invariably, the staff don’t really understand the new platform, quality is lower than the burning platform. Client decides this isn’t something you are good at, sales gets burned and says no thanks. Executives say, oh shit, our finances are a catastrophe, focus on the burning platform. We need quick wins!

Layoffs throw a bunch of people off the platform, repeat until the business is 10% of size, and languish for years with mediocre executives (well paid for skills /competency as no one that has a clue will work for them). People that should resign do the work for 8 people until they burnout. The situation messes with people’s minds and they stick around even though they know they must leave.

The analogy makes sense, but thought out, it is apparent why it can’t work. The whole business leaps from a platform, not to another platform, but to a life raft. It has no stability, can’t support the same people, processes, or way of thinking. Eventually it capsizes and sinks, or is collected by someone with a platform who will extract the last of the value as it goes away silently in the night.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#198

Post by somewhereoutth »

simonh wrote: post #172
Nokinside wrote: post #167

Nokia's made institutional mistakes that doomed Nokia phones before hiring Elop. (I was there). In a sense Nokia was (organizationally) victim of its own success. During the dumb phone and feature phone era Nokia did everything better than others. Everything from the supply chain management, to the phone design and manufacturing worked so well. Why would you sideline leaders and organizations who build all that and w…

I’d not heard that about Netflix before but it makes a lot of sense. The Apple case is an interesting counterpoint though. They seem to have a pretty solid culture of consensus and collaboration between teams at the top. But then they have an unusual functional organisation structure rather than being organised around product divisions. This means the functional teams have a stake in (basically) all the products, so…

Ah yes I remember it being made a big thing of, like it was revolutionary or something, when I joined - however in the UK we'd understood functional vs product and indeed matrix management since forever. Welcome to the 1970s theme park that is the US I guess!

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#199

Post by guai888 »

Nokinside wrote: post #167

Nokia's made institutional mistakes that doomed Nokia phones before hiring Elop. (I was there). In a sense Nokia was (organizationally) victim of its own success. During the dumb phone and feature phone era Nokia did everything better than others. Everything from the supply chain management, to the phone design and manufacturing worked so well. Why would you sideline leaders and organizations who build all that and w…

I am not sure Android could have saved Nokia. Samsung survived in smart phone business because of their display and memory. Chinese smart phone makers was able to compete because of the enormous support from CCP. I was on another oil platform call "HTC" when Nokia platform was "burning". Eventually HTC went down too.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#200

Post by fignews »

javier2 wrote: post #195
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…

Lol, I had an N900 and it was clunky at best. It was ok as a tech preview, but it wasnt a fantastic product by any means.

The N900 did NOT run Meego. I agree with OP 100% that the N9 was an amazing phone. Honestly it was brilliant. Super smooth and well thought out. Polished too. With an android emulation layer on top it could have been a success. Alas Nokia got Elop’d.
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