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Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

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Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#51

Post by vachina »

finaard wrote: post #37
jaustin wrote: post #18

This is fascinating. A reminder that being (broadly) right in your analysis doesn't necessarily mean you can execute to turn things around. They note the impact to the high-end, the fact that UI is crucial, they even had a good guess at 2008 sales numbers (estimate 14m, looks like real was 13m). I was intrigued by this bullet point on how their Maemo platform could help: * Cellular development of the maemo platform a…

N9 was very close to launch when Elop came, so that went ahead, but the rest of the development got cancelled immediately to focus on Windows phone: N9 would've otherwise been the first in a series of devices to slowly take over from Symbian. Until Elop canceled everything Symbian was still selling - declining sales, but still millions of units. So while the situation was bad slowly phasing out Symbian for taking all…

Elop was the trojan horse that killed Nokia. He worked at MSFT prior to this and single handedly destroyed Nokia. The N9 was revolutionary on its own; GPU accelerated UI, sleek looks, Maemo OS, it is a device people would actually want over the limping Symbian that never fully adapted to touch-only, or the useless Windows Phone 7.

No developer dared to touch Maemo because its future was so uncertain due to the switch to WP. My dad was one of the early Lumia adopters and it was so limiting in what it can do.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#52

Post by Nursie »

flir wrote: post #45
ddalex wrote: post #12

N800 is the future that never was - opem Linux-based mobile computing for the masses. It had developer support, cool form factor, big touchable screen, and no corp to love it.

But with no app store. (As a programmer, I never in a billion years would have invented the app store. Yet it was the most important component of the iphone ecosystem).

Pretty sure there was some sort of App Store.

It didn’t have a hell of a lot in it, but I remember grabbing a cute little game (hex-a-hop) and … maybe an Angry Birds demo on it?

— edit - I’m thinking of the N900

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#53

Post by anshumankmr »

albert_e wrote: post #3

Currently erroring out for me: > Error establishing a database connection How is this already at the top of HN frontpage with just 6 points and zero comments as of my writing

kiss of death for the poor server, might have been the highest traffic it has ever received

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#54

Post by broken-kebab »

bityard wrote: post #34
ddalex wrote: post #12

N800 is the future that never was - opem Linux-based mobile computing for the masses. It had developer support, cool form factor, big touchable screen, and no corp to love it.

I had one of those. It was interesting in that it ran Linux and you could (at the time) browse most web sites with it. Otherwise, it was slow, bulky, and had a pretty terrible resistive touch screen. (The stylus was NOT optional.) And you still had to carry your flip phone in another pocket. In the end I was mainly using mine to listen to podcasts (before they were called that). An iPod Touch eventually replaced it u…

>And you still had to carry your flip phone in another pocket.

UPDATE: Memory failure! I meant N900, not N800

Why? I had N800 as my only mobile, and was more than happy with it. Stylus was not optional for things like browsing. But most of the time I took it from my pocket, I used it for text input, and physical keyboard made it comfortable to the point no other device has been able to offer me ever since I retired my N800

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#55

Post by wodenokoto »

auggierose wrote: post #28

It is clear that the presentation doesn't really get it. There would be no iPhone mini. This WAS the iPhone mini.

In all fairness, Apple didn't expect the market to want giant phones, and were very late with big screens.

Releatedly: It's fun to look at old Futurama episodes, where they joke about phones becoming so small you accidentally inhale them while talking.

We all really thought size was going one way and that was down.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#56

Post by seventytwo »

jampekka wrote: post #22
jaustin wrote: post #18

This is fascinating. A reminder that being (broadly) right in your analysis doesn't necessarily mean you can execute to turn things around. They note the impact to the high-end, the fact that UI is crucial, they even had a good guess at 2008 sales numbers (estimate 14m, looks like real was 13m). I was intrigued by this bullet point on how their Maemo platform could help: * Cellular development of the maemo platform a…

> Any folks from Nokia in this time care to shed more light on that? Cellular connection was not allowed for the Linux devices so they don't compete with the Symbian phones. Nokia had deeply dysfunctional internal politics at that point.

If you don’t eat your own lunch, someone else will…

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#57

Post by sitkack »

badlibrarian wrote: post #13

My personal moment of "CEO's -- they're just like us!" was walking into a Kinko's in Santa Monica to drop off a package, and seeing a sweaty Stephen Elop frantically photocopying documents the week his part in this debacle came to a head.

For those not in the know, this is the Ex CIO of Boston Chicken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#58

Post by astrange »

albert_e wrote: post #3

Currently erroring out for me: > Error establishing a database connection How is this already at the top of HN frontpage with just 6 points and zero comments as of my writing

I get "There was a problem acquiring a content access token from the data service. If this problem persists, please notify your administrator."

Which makes me wonder what a content access token is.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#59

Post by cs702 »

2007. The presentation reads like an eerily accurate crystal-ball prediction of what actually happened in subsequent years.

Evidently, Nokia executives knew well in advance what the iPhone could do to their company.

Evidently, they knew they needed to do "something" to avoid an implosion of their mobile-phone business.

Evidently, despite their prescience and best efforts, they were unable to avoid disaster.

It's as if they were in the Titanic, and saw the dangerous iceberg well in advance, but somehow were unable to turn the steering wheel and change course.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#60

Post by ceejayoz »

anonu wrote: post #29

I was expecting sort of the opposite, for Nokia to deride the whole iPhone thing. But it was quite the opposite, they understand what they were facing. Ultimately, the could not meet the challenge fast enough.

Blackberry took that approach.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/05/26/blackberr...

> Instead they comforted themselves with reminders that the iPhone's keyboard was difficult to use and the battery life, terrible. BlackBerry was leading the pack, after all.

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