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

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261–270 of 538 posts

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

#262
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can see the same thing happening today. BYD+CATL are the new iphone and other manufacturers are Symbian, Motorola and Sony Ericsson VW, Toyota and friends cannot change fast enough. They should have started with big battery investments 10-15y ago and RnDing then, not now when Market is flooded.

I disagree. Cars are much more entrenched status symbols than phones were back then. A Porsche is a Porsche, a truck to show you're manly and outdoorsy is a truck. People will continue to buy brands they know and whose marketing aligns with how they see themselves. Not everyone will switch to BEVs for a variety of reasons - cost, lack of infrastructure, or hell, even contrarianism. VW, Renault, Nissan, Stellantis, To…

> A Porsche is a Porsche, a truck to show you're manly and outdoorsy is a truck.

A Rolls-Royce is a BMW, a Chrysler is a Fiat, an Aston Martin is a Ford, a Jaguar is a Tata, a Lamborghini is an Audi. And a Porsche is a Volkswagen.

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

#263
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with an ex-Kodak guy, and he related the following story to me from the 80’s or early 90’s. Xerox was kicking their ass, they were completely owning the copier market. But it was a natural fit for Kodak, they knew imaging better than everybody, why couldn’t they get into this market? This guy was on a crack team of engineers a VP assembled to create a competing product. 9 months later, they demo a fully digi…

The problem was that Kodak essentially was a film chemical production company pretending to be an imaging company. The switch to digital meant they could no longer get the fat recurring profits from selling film that they were used to. Kodak's value peaked at $31 billion in 1996 ($58 billion in 2025 dollars) while the total value of the digital camera industry today is around $8 billion ( https://www.researchandmarke…

I think camera is a major smartphone selling point and certainly cannibalized the digital camera business. Kodak could have upgraded from camera to phone like Apple upgraded from mp3 player.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they didn't have the sharp focus of Android and kept a lot of crap from Linux (like X11 sigh) X11 let them use existing apps outright and made porting easy. What else would they have used at that time and what advantage would it give them?

I don't disagree with this, it had a lot of advantages. But at the same time I don't think it was good enough for the purpose Because if it was good enough why didn't Android keep it?

Actually that's an interesting question; why didn't Android use X11? A few minutes of web searching don't seem to turn up anybody commenting on it; do you happen to know how I would check what their reasons were?

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the original iPhone, then swapped it for a flagship android and hated it. I tried Windows Phone out a few years later and loved it and had two of them over the years. Some apps didn't exist for it and that sucked, but the OS was snappy and something different that I really liked. The Nokia windows phones were great. I knew it was doomed though as when I got them from the carrier, I was apparently like the only…

My cousin says the same thing... 25 year IT veteran. Early adopter for almost all new tech. He says his 1000-whatever Lumia phone was one of the best phones he ever owned. I know it ran Windows Phone OS, and I remember playing with it a bit.

I remember having a Windows PDA when I was in college, and developing a bit on top of Windows M. It was a reasonable platform.

But Microsoft was too greedy with their licensing schemes and demanding too much adaptation from the hardware and chip manufacturers. You’d think they would adapt their OS and drivers, but no, you had to tape out new silicon for them. So they’ve lost the mobile OS market.

It feels like something like this may happen with the AI OS now. They are pushing hardware manufacturers to conform to their standards while Linux is adapting to what is available and working already.

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

#266
post #95
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Cars are much more entrenched status symbols than phones were back then. A Porsche is a Porsche, a truck to show you're manly and outdoorsy is a truck. People will continue to buy brands they know and whose marketing aligns with how they see themselves. Not everyone will switch to BEVs for a variety of reasons - cost, lack of infrastructure, or hell, even contrarianism. VW, Renault, Nissan, Stellantis, To…

Status symbols can be shifted with marketing. BEVs are heavy as fuck, and (at least theoretically) torquey as fuck at zero speed - both of those seem pretty manly if you put the right spin on them.

> Status symbols can be shifted with marketing

Or by buying a brand. Happens all the time. BYD already bought full control of the luxury brand Denza from the Mercedes-Benz joint venture.

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's way too much worship of Steve Jobs, but one thing he had right - either you develop the product that eats your cash cow, or someone else is going to do it.

I’ll never not talk about how he killed their most successful product ever at the time, in 2005— the iPod mini. In one fell swoop, the small form factor iPod switched from a tiny hard disk to flash memory and the former model was discontinued, before competitors had even really come close to catching up.

Not to mention the iPhone, which erased the iPod. He also seemed to make that move with zero regret.

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MS killed the whole division shortly after Satya Nadella took over and was sorting out the mess left by Steve Ballmer. These have always been the real crimes in my mind. Ballmer wasn't an idea guy, he was a top-tier salesman / cheerleader, and he definitely "understood" what actually made Microsoft successful (put out a product, then allow third-party developers and support to extend it / support / learn it inside…

Wasn’t it already too late by the time Ballmer left?

Yes and no. Too late to take on Apple, but Microsoft could have persisted as a loss leader and finally at least had Enterprise Mobile in its pocket. Just don't actively burn third party developers. It would have been too late for courting hardware OEMs by then I reckon, though.

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

#269
This seems to have been originally posted on Reddit, and the link posted there seems to be online, whereas this post's link seems to be now dead.

https://repo.aalto.fi/uncategorized/IO_926740c7-5165-439a-a0...

https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/1i2pijr/nokias_...

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

#270

I was there as this played out. Nokia had a lot of good software and software engineers but not the management structure to do anything good with that. Nokia was huge as an organization and parts of that organization recognized the threat early on. The problem was at the board and executive level. These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business. Lots of people with…

I was there during the end of the Windows Phone era and can confirm. There were even efforts for additional Linux based OSes post windows phone. Nokia just never had software in their DNA.
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