Nokia acquired by Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#551

Post by Maarten88 » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 7:27 AM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #237

corresation wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no money in being an Android vendor except if you're Samsung and are totally vertically integrated. There are a lot of people who would have picked up the attractive, well built, well engineered Nokia devices if they had the platform of Android. The core problem with the "no money in Android" argument is that you can't choose not to compete with Android if you're in the smartphone game, which is pretty obvio…

WP8 suffers more from a perception problem than anything else. I just switched from android to wp8 and the way i see it i got the smooth interaction and ease of use of iOS at the price point of android. The US market is a special beast because the subsidies erase most of the price difference, but in markets where people buy unlocked I think WP8 can take a lot of market share away from android by virtue of its better…

For example, you can buy a Nokia 520 for $100 without contract. You get a well-built phone. Add a 64gb Micro SD and you have a very capable device. You can download worldwide HERE maps on it for offline navigation, for free. Or use it as a music device with one of the available Music services.

And you can expect it to be updated for one or two versions of WP ahead.

I'd say Windows Phone is a much better value than people know, and for most people, better value than Android.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#552

Post by noisy_boy » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 8:48 AM UTC

mynameisvlad wrote: post #303

noisy_boy wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has already done that end-to-end experience thing with Surface and that didn't turn out all that well. Windows phone has been critically acclaimed but that hasn't really made much dent on the IPhone/Android duopoly. And the relatively more successful windows phone devices aren't exactly sub-standard, infact they are quite high quality handsets made by the same manufacturer they just acquired. I'm doubtful h…

Surface was a failure in marketing, not the devices themselves (okay, Surface RT was pretty bad). The hardware is great, and people love it, and the Surface Pro is really useful for students and even small time developers, and people generally really love it after playing with one.

For Surface, in my opinion, it was an UI which looked nothing like what people expect from "Windows" (not saying it was bad) combined with hardware that was not appealing in terms of specs vs price. So I don't think the hardware is that great. E.g. 64 GB Surface Pro is now selling for around 900 USD; after deducing space taken by OS, the free space is literally an insult considering the price. If you sell it to me as a full computer, the specs just don't stack up. If you sell it to me as a tablet, it is way too pricey when I can get a significant portion of functionality from a more portable Galaxy-class tablet at a much lower price point. Not sure if marketing can fix this.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#553

Post by mortehu » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 9:05 AM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #436

aet wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, they'll end up like Apple

Apple's position depends on no one undercutting them with a phone that has equal or greater polish and a lower price point.

It still baffles me that it's so hard for anyone other than Apple to make a single well-polished device, all the way through. If someone gets the casing right, they'll still mess up UI transitions that are meant to be seamless, create laggy or inaccurate touch input, fail to run at 60 or 30 fps, or make hilariously ill-informed UI decisions in the most frequently used apps (clock, settings, camera, ...). What's the explanation for this phenomenon?

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#554

Post by gnaffle » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 9:29 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #546

gnaffle wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I don't think that was intentional at all. Nokia failing so miserably with Windows Phone can't have been anyones plan. And if they had succeeded like expected, Nokia would still be worth too much for Microsoft to consider buying it.

Except that everybody knew that switching to WinPhone is suicidal. Search for the announcements on HN and read the comments.

Agreed, but I doubt that Nokia execs knew it (or some knew, but weren't in the majority). I think Nokias biggest mistake was to commit to WP 100%, at a time when they didn't even have handsets ready. The completely silly estimate of selling hundreds of millions of Symbian smartphones after that announcement just underscores that.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#555

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 9:46 AM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #536

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like that report you can check out two others that are provided by sources that most would describe as "rabidly pro-Apple". The trend is pretty clear and has been for a while so I'm not sure why everyone seems so suprised by this. Though given Apple's yearly cycle which has a slump in Q3 and a big spike in Q4 they may briefly reclaim the crown in Q4 if their next launch does well. Strategy Analytics: htt…

Not sure how you're getting that from the Asymco one... The Canaccord one does seem to note that Samsung's "handset" division incorporates tablets and PCs, and that their estimate for the iPhone's share of Apple's profits is fuzzy (we know Apple's revenue per division, but not profit; Strategy Analytics and Canaccord seem to have decided that profit per division is proportional to revenue, which is a bit of a leap...…

Everyone seems to have real difficulty reading the Asymco one, and to be fair his graphs are typically abysmal.

What seems to trip people up with this one is that the profit share "line" is an average over the last 4 quarters, which since the two number are moving quickly in opposite directions adds lag, the actual estimate for the quarter is a purple dot.

But even with that lag, the trend is fairly hard to miss (people do seem prepared to put that effort in though).

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#556

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 9:51 AM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #494

ajuc wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you choose: small profits, or no customers? That's the choice. Android was "IBM PC trick", and competititors trying to preserve high margins and differentiate their products will end like Amiga, Commodore or Atari.

Windows Phone is in second place in Latin America now. I wouldn't say "no customers" so quick.

Strangely every report I see of this (also in e.g. Vietnam) stresses that it's due to the strength of the Nokia brand in these regions. A brand that Microsoft apparently didn't buy the rights to for use on smartphones.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#557

Post by TerraHertz » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 10:42 AM UTC

Now we find out if Failure has a critical mass.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#558

Post by anjc » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 10:43 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #546

gnaffle wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I don't think that was intentional at all. Nokia failing so miserably with Windows Phone can't have been anyones plan. And if they had succeeded like expected, Nokia would still be worth too much for Microsoft to consider buying it.

Except that everybody knew that switching to WinPhone is suicidal. Search for the announcements on HN and read the comments.

Really? The way I remember it was that the Lumia 920 was hyped up massively online. If people didn't like WP8, they at least admitted that the camera looked amazing. The buzz seemed to die before it even launched though..

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#559

Post by tellarin » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 11:10 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #556

gtirloni wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows Phone is in second place in Latin America now. I wouldn't say "no customers" so quick.

Strangely every report I see of this (also in e.g. Vietnam) stresses that it's due to the strength of the Nokia brand in these regions. A brand that Microsoft apparently didn't buy the rights to for use on smartphones.

MS did "buy" the brand for this use; for two years.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#560

Post by makomk » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 12:22 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #465

rayiner wrote: post #38

This is a great move. There is no money in being an Android vendor except if you're Samsung and are totally vertically integrated. With Windows Phone, Nokia and Microsoft at least have some hope of carving out a profitable stake in the market. Anecdotally, I'm very impressed with some of the new Lumias. I got a 620 to replace my stolen iPhone, and for $200 unlocked its phenomenal phone. The build quality makes a flag…

The new Nokia mobile can be great but business is business and if they can't build an ecosystem it does not matter if your mobile has billion of megapixels. I love that Blackberries are using QNX but this is not enough. My other concern is if Microsoft is being negligent instead of if they are right or wrong. For example, I think Skype acquisition was negligent in a moment where this kind of technology was moving to…

Not really. WebRTC makes the technical part of voice and video messaging easier, but it doesn't solve the problem of getting enough people on your service to make it worth joining.

WebRTC makes sense if you have a web service that the majority of people already have accounts on, have open in their browser whenever they're online, and already know their friends' usernames on - something like for example GMail. Which is probably why Google have been pushing it so hard.