Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

fifilura wrote: post #41

bityard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, that platform was set to compete with iOS and Android and with fine timing. I think they fumbled with the developer relations when first choosing Gtk for the UI and then jumped to QT. That made developers angry. And then of course the Microsoft steamroller killed it.

And it pretty much fucked up the Qt project afterward.

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

#272

Post by turnsout » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #239

turnsout wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is classic disruption. The amazing part is, I can almost guarantee that execs at Kodak read The Innovator's Dilemma, but it didn't help. Same goes for Nokia. Knowledge of the problem is apparently insufficient.

Sometimes there is no clear path from A to B. There is some weird fallacy where people tend to think every single company can make every single product if they simply hired the right engineers and throw money at it. I think it comes from underestimating the role of process, structure, and competency, which are the DNA and codebase of a company.

I'm definitely not saying any company can make any product, but it is striking when a company which is making a product refuses to believe the product category is going to evolve—even when they themselves are doing the original R&D to evolve it.

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

#273

Post by pmontra » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #205

bombcar wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this around the time Microsoft kept switching what "windows phone" was? I remember that the one friend who got into it loved it, and then they released something completely incompatible and he abandoned the platform.

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…

A relative of mine had a Windows Phone and kept it running at least until the mid 10s. It was fast but he could basically only do calls and SMSes with it because nobody wrote apps for that OS. Everybody in app development (devs and their customers) was keen to see Windows Phone die quickly so they could spare time and money and develop only for two OSes.

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

#274

Post by ryandrake » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:24 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #255

jillesvangurp wrote: post #93

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…

> These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business I believe Sony failed to transition for similar reasons. They really owned the hardware era with its own kind of ui, pattern ... but everything they did in software was lacking.

So many manufacturing companies fail at software. They think of software like it's any other component on the BOM. As if it's just like a screw or a piece of molded plastic: Build the cheapest "software part" that meets the requirements (or buy it from a "supplier"), and then bolt it onto the product some time during assembly.

They don't think of software as a major component of their brand. They don't think of software as the user's interface to (and perception of) the product. They don't think of software as an ecosystem with updates, a changing security landscape, and third party developers and integrators. It's just one of 500 things on the BOM that gets sourced and assembled.

I've seen companies where each branch in the software repo is named with a part number, and they're all somewhat similar, copy-pasted around from one another, but with no real concept of what's an earlier or later version or updates, no concept of where the codebase came from or is going, and no real structure other than "This software blob is part 003-2291-54 for product 003-2291-00. The product is shipped and we will never look at the code again."

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

#275

Post by sleepybrett » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #231

jorvi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The iphone was solidly in charge by then Nit: the iPhone was only "in charge" for a brief year or two, and then Android ate its lunch in terms of marketshare. What is very interesting is that Apple has displayed twice over ( MacBooks and iPhones) that a minority marketshare can capture the vast majority of profits in that market. OEMs like HTC and LG made a few bucks profit off of any phone, sometimes even losing m…

I was a day one Android fan (got the Nexus One) but I'd actually debate what "in charge" means... to me it doesn't necessarily mean dominating market share. I think the iPhone defined the touch-based smartphone when it came out and continues to do so. These days Android has a much more cohesive concept (in the form of Material UI and so on) but in the early days it was just a hodgepodge mess of ideas, even if it domi…

it dominated the market because they seized the 'budget' smartphone market. Back in they hayday everyone dreaded a new android app coming into the shop because of all the absolute shit phones (slow cpus, tiny screens) the client wanted us to support because there were so many in the market (overseas).

iPhone did and still does run the market, everyone else is a follower.

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

#276

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #177

bombcar wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this around the time Microsoft kept switching what "windows phone" was? I remember that the one friend who got into it loved it, and then they released something completely incompatible and he abandoned the platform.

If memory serves, it was a custom kernel and OS, then a semi-custom kernel with a few OS components shared with Windows 8, and then the Windows 10 'core' kernel (same as on the Xbox One?) with many shared OS components. At each step they left the majority of devices behind. What was equally worse was the triple (quadruple?) switch of app frameworks. If I remember correctly it was a dotnet abomination, then ?? then WP…

Didn't it end up as UWP? At one point they were trying to pitch running the same app on mobile and on desktop, and it .. kind of worked, although obviously very sandboxed and restricted in APIs.

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

#277

Post by joshmarinacci » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

Sometimes a company can know the problem is real and be unable to address it. I was at Palm when HP bought us. HP knew the future was mobile and wanted to not be just a low margin OEM for someone else’s software platform. Buying Palm was a way for them to control their own destiny again.

Unfortunately the driver of this dream at HP was fired by the board before it got going and his replacement didn’t share the vision. A year later HP took a massive writedown and turned it all off. (Then he was fired by the board as well. The circle of life continues).

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

#278

Post by mitjam » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

willvarfar wrote: post #112

simultsop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the very end. It all boils down to who got the developers on platform for free. ( From Apple's context, while devs cost a lot, they just marketed well and even made them pay something to list apps )

Can you elaborate? My memory is that Apple _charged_ developers to make apps :)

To publish something on a feature phone was much more costly, including five-figure quality approvals. The App Store was a true revolution and probably needed new players that were not as entrenched with carriers like Nokia, and Siemens.

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

#279

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:30 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #274

agumonkey wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people had a blind spot for software. They thought they were still in the electronics business I believe Sony failed to transition for similar reasons. They really owned the hardware era with its own kind of ui, pattern ... but everything they did in software was lacking.

So many manufacturing companies fail at software. They think of software like it's any other component on the BOM. As if it's just like a screw or a piece of molded plastic: Build the cheapest "software part" that meets the requirements (or buy it from a "supplier"), and then bolt it onto the product some time during assembly. They don't think of software as a major component of their brand. They don't think of softw…

This is very visible in places like TVs/set-top-boxes, which are always chronically awful and slow, and now cars are filling up with terrible software. Which they want to charge a subscription for.

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

#280

Post by dig1 » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #59

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 i…

The comparison to the Titanic was quite fitting. I was with Nokia then, and there was an overly large administration, excessive politics, and far too many managers and meetings for anything to be done on time. If I recall correctly, we spent 1-2 weeks in meetings just to discuss replacing apache with nginx as a web proxy for a less critical service. The actual work for that change would take about 10-15 minutes.

Although they attempted to make improvements, they failed to recognize what Apple understood: ordinary people wanted to walk into a store and purchase a visually appealing phone that was easy to set up and use, everything in 20 minutes max. Nokia had an overwhelming number of models, catering to everyone from older individuals to tech enthusiasts. If you wanted to buy a new phone, you had to be prepared to spend weeks searching for the right model.