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Nokia acquired by Microsoft

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Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#381

Post by sjf »

dagw wrote: post #337
pinaceae wrote: post #112

MS paid less for Nokia handset business than for Skype. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Goodbye to the Nokia brand, soon only to be mentioned in rose-tinted lookbacks. Mobile phones, built like a brick, running for days.

Mobile phones, built like a brick, running for days The sad thing is that someone at Nokia seems to have just remembered those days and they've just announced the Nokia 515. A solidly designed aluminium and gorilla glass 'dumb phone' with a 30+ day standby time.

Eh, they've been selling brick phones to literally billions of people in the developing world for years.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#382

Post by chris_wot »

crocowhile wrote: post #365
brador wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it have been 'we need a new ceo, hey that guy from Nokia looks like a good candidate, buy nokia, get Elop, make Elop ceo' without the conspiracy?

Elop used to work at MS before going to Nokia.

It's looking more and more like a blatant take over from within via Elop as a Microsoft puppet. Now Elop has a high chance of becoming CEO of Microsoft.

Either way, it's not looking good for either Microsoft or Nokia. Those massive mega mergers rarely go well, for one party or the other.

I suspect that the name Nokia will be no longer in 2 years time.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#383

Post by twoodfin »

throwawaykf02 wrote: post #202
undoware wrote: post #48

Here's my take. Nokia's downfall has literally been the biggest business failure in the history of the planet - see communities-dominate.blogs.com for backstory. (As I mentioned in a previous post; I'm largely summarizing things Tomi proves with hard data.) My interpretation of this is that the increasingly untenable position of Stephen Elop began to incriminate the whole board, as any toppling of Elop would invite a…

I know a couple of savvy guys working for Intel's competitors moaning about how Intel is going to demolish them. Haswell and its descendants, it seems, are the real deal, and in the long term, they hold out little hope for ARM in the mobile space, let alone the server space. I dunno about Microsoft, but I wouldn't be betting against Intel. (Just to be clear, I have no stock in or position on any of the companies ment…

It'll be fascinating to see how this plays out. What's Tim Cook's magic number for price/performance in the iPad to justify an architecture swap, and can Intel hit it? I would have thought no a few months ago, but ULV Haswell looks like it's the precursor to something very, very nice.

It's hard to underestimate just how easy a platform swap would be for Apple (and Google already supports both in shipping products).

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#384

Post by chris_wot »

corresation wrote: post #136
hippee-lee wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we not talk about this in terms of war and battle? It is the business of selling consumer electronics, same as it has always been. You do explain your position well but I feel the references to war and battle water it down. No one has been killed in the development of phones. I get that the MBA crowd read the art of war and it's practical knowledge seeped into popular discussion. But the endless reference to war…

Whatever your personal hangups are, words such as "battle" (an extended contest, struggle, or controversy) and "war" (a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end) are entirely and absolutely appropriate for such discussions. Your comment borders on bizarre.

Neither of those are the full definition of the terms mentioned. Both have connotations of violence.

War is an armed conflict.

Battle is a military conflict.

Both have non-military meanings, but what is being said about the use the terms is not weird or bizarre.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#385

Post by Tloewald »

cageface wrote: post #230
ddeck wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple already lost to Android. Last count, Android had 80% of the market. That's like suggesting that Mercedes Benz have lost already to Ford because they have smaller market share. Apple produce a premium product with prices and margins that reflect that. Of course they would prefer dominant market share, as would Mercedes. But a non-majority share does not imply that they've somehow lost.

The car analogy gets trotted out over and over again when talking about smart phone market share but it really doesn't work at all. Smart phone ecosystems have powerful network effects that just don't exist for most luxury goods.

Good point. Which ecosystem seems to be stronger again?

It's like mercedes, only mercedes also gets to drive on nicer roads that go more places.

When market share translates to usage and developer revenue, as it may some day, this will change. But network effects scarcely reinforce your point.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#386

Post by dagw »

sjf wrote: post #381
dagw wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile phones, built like a brick, running for days The sad thing is that someone at Nokia seems to have just remembered those days and they've just announced the Nokia 515. A solidly designed aluminium and gorilla glass 'dumb phone' with a 30+ day standby time.

Eh, they've been selling brick phones to literally billions of people in the developing world for years.

But they've been all cheap, ugly and badly built plastic things (I've owned a couple). The 515 is an attempt to see if people are still willing to pay slightly more for a simpler phone if it is good looking and well built.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#387

Post by Tloewald »

DominikR wrote: post #356
bdcravens wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the phones running 2.3 aren't shipping with Google Play (is Play even compatible?), so there isn't the integrated app marketplace that defines the modern smartphone experience. These are drastically underpowered devices. Even if an app can run on 2.2, it doesn't mean it'll run well (or at all) on sub-$100 hardware.

"Most of the phones running 2.3 aren't shipping with Google Play (is Play even compatible?)" This is wrong, Google Play is compatible with every Android device. (link: http://source.android.com/compatibility/ ) I don't know where you got this information from, but I can assure you that 99,9999% of all Android devices you'll find outside of China will have Google Play on it. "These are drastically underpowered devices…

I think Amazon devices comprise more than 0.0001% of non Chinese devices. OK not exactly Android.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#388

Post by chris_wot »

nextw33k wrote: post #317
DominikR wrote: post #296

To me, this is borderline criminal behaviour and shows once more that Microsoft is incapable of playing fair. Installing a trojan horse as Nokias CEO, who then proceeds to destroy any value left in that company so that Microsoft can pick it up for a cheap price. I'd be amazed if Elop is promoted to MS's CEO position for such deceitful behaviour

The problem is that you could never prove it in a court of law.

It's not illegal, unless strong arm tactics were used to force the board into it against their will.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#389

Post by gnaffle »

rayiner wrote: post #374
gnaffle wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There's no money in being an Android vendor if except if you're Samsung" is a silly statement. Nokia _could_ have done just like Amazon, and created their own platform based off Android, but with no ties to the Google ecosystem. With Meego, they could even have made a compatibility layer allowing developers to easily port their Android apps. However, that plan would only have worked if they did it just around the ti…

No, they couldn't have for the same reason no other android vendor can: they have no compelling way of differentiating an Android spin off, unlike Amazon who has tremendous media store resources. Its just shitty skins like Sense and Touchwiz.

..and the same argument applies to being a Windows Phone vendor - if Nokia had great success with WP, others would have followed and they would have been in the same situation.

However, Nokia actually has, and used to have lots of resources, far more than most other phone vendors. They had the Ovi store, Nokia Comes With Music, N-Gage, and finally a very nice in-house NAVTEQ Maps application. The "only" problem was that they never really managed to do most of these _well_.

Which I think is at the core of the problem. Choosing Windows Phone as the platform only made it worse and tied Nokias hands, not better.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#390

Post by Datsundere »

_djo_ wrote: post #358
3825 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nokia n95 was announced in September 2006 and available in March 2007. Its ad slogan was "It's what computers have become."[0] What stands out in the second paragraph of the article where they highlight the capabilities is "the ability to install and run third party Java ME or Symbian mobile applications". By contrast, the iPhone was decidedly not a computer. Not in the traditional sense. It is apparent in hindsi…

The N95 had a decidedly subpar user experience. The OS was slow, unstable and clearly long past its use-by date and the available apps were with few exceptions really crappy lowest-common denominator stuff. I say this as a one-time Nokia N95 owner (and long-time Nokia smartphone owner) who moved to an iPhone and found it a revelation. Nokia were ridiculously far behind at that point, the N95 was their best effort and…

they subsequently came out with the n96 which is a great phone.

By the way I still use an n95. It's great because it's a smart phone but not considered a smart phone by att so I dont get charged data. I can use wifi anywhere. It is a bit slow though.

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