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Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

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Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#261

Post by theshrike79 »

dsr_ wrote: post #231
stuaxo wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aah that's awful. I remember when Maemo first arrived wanting one, and they never made it mainstream.

Let's compare the Nokia N900 (Nov 2009) to the Motorola Droid (Oct 2009). They arrived at about the same time. They used the same CPU. They both had (approximately) 800x480 screens, which at the time was flagship class. They both used slide-out keyboards, removable batteries, a 5MP camera, 256MB of RAM, and some on-board storage plus a microSD slot. They weighed within 20g of each other. The N900 had a resistive touc…

The N900 was as close to a pure Linux phone as you could get at the time.

People ran IRC clients directly on the console on it. A few friends of mine ran them as IRC hosts on their home network well into the 2010s - it was basically a Raspberry Pi with a keyboard and display =)

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#262

Post by peteri »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #238
dsr_ wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's compare the Nokia N900 (Nov 2009) to the Motorola Droid (Oct 2009). They arrived at about the same time. They used the same CPU. They both had (approximately) 800x480 screens, which at the time was flagship class. They both used slide-out keyboards, removable batteries, a 5MP camera, 256MB of RAM, and some on-board storage plus a microSD slot. They weighed within 20g of each other. The N900 had a resistive touc…

> The N900 had a resistive touchscreen, the Droid was capacitative. N900 touchscreen was great. Not only was it perfectly readable in direct sunlight, it was also much more accurate than capacitive screens and not anywhere close to cheap resistive screens' clunkiness people usually imagine when hearing the term. The only issue I had with it was that they tend to develop issues after years of use, so my Nokia N900 doe…

True but the UI did often require the stylus to be pulled out. Compared to the capacitive screens it was pain to use. I did try and I used the N900 as a daily driver for a good couple of years but that UI wasn't designed for use without the stylus.

I still however miss Windows Phone, there were some major mis-steps by Microsoft (the intial side load / developer story) forcing a software break with the move to Windows Phone 8. However as a user provided you could live with the pre-installed apps it was a great phone.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#263

Post by nradov »

blagie wrote: post #247
tomxor wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a sense Nokia was (organizationally) victim of its own success. During the dumb phone and feature phone era Nokia did everything better than others. Everything from the supply chain management, to the phone design and manufacturing worked so well. They are still the best, Nokia "dumb" phones feel a bit like the f91 Casio watch... but just like those watches, they aren't as popular as they once were. For people w…

I think Nokia had a third choice: Explore new market segments. Personally, I want a smartphone along the lines of traditional Nokia phones: Big and tough. I'm glad to have something double the thickness of a normal phone, but: - The screen shouldn't crack if you squint at it funny (bezel is fine) - The battery should last a week (double, or more, the thickness of modern smartphones is fine) - The cell coverage should…

Such a device would be expensive to manufacture and appeal to only a niche market. Rugged Android phones are available but don't sell well. Most people just buy a regular Samsung and put a case on it.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#264

Post by nradov »

toast0 wrote: post #251
Aleksdev wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, this a silly question but since you are an insider I would love to know why did Nokia not beat Apple to the smart phone punch?

They did, Nokia launched their first Symbian smartphone in 2001, the Nokia 7650. iPhone was launched in 2007. The Newton of 1997 is not exactly a phone, so I don't think it counts here, but if it does, so does the Nokia Communicator 9000 of 1996. Either way, Nokia was first to market. Apple had the advantage of a nicer product, and was building products for the US first, rather than US maybe later. Tech news is mostl…

Apple launched the iPhone in the USA as an AT&T exclusive device. They had good relations with the carrier (at least publicly) and were able to offer service plans including data and SMS to customers with attractive pricing.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#265

Post by kcb »

tus666 wrote: post #151

> Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone Apple invented the smartphone. The fact Nokia didn't understand that shows why it failed.

Apple should get the credit for making the smartphone industry what it is today but there's no need to rewrite history.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#266

Post by pnw »

Nokinside wrote: post #167

Nokia's made institutional mistakes that doomed Nokia phones before hiring Elop. (I was there). In a sense Nokia was (organizationally) victim of its own success. During the dumb phone and feature phone era Nokia did everything better than others. Everything from the supply chain management, to the phone design and manufacturing worked so well. Why would you sideline leaders and organizations who build all that and w…

That anecdote about Netflix is not correct according to a friend of mine who was a manager there at the time. Quote below.

“It wasn't until the streaming business was massively ahead of the DVD business before the execs on the DVD side weren't going to the overall strategy meetings. A lot of us had roles on both sides until like 2012ish when there was a clear split internally and a DVD-only executive team was officially set up.”

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#267

Post by metacritic12 »

pjmlp wrote: post #174
metacritic12 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you still don't. It's not about which Nokia employee. It's about whether they were external vs internal facing. E.g. I can perfectly believe the employees of the DMV are super sweet to each other, while being the bane of customers.

Have you stop for a second to wonder what might have been my set of roles, or what kind of relationship I might have had with Nokia customers? Same applies to thousands of other employees.

What was it then? Were you in a customer facing role?

This wasn't clear from your original post at all -- you just said you had a lot of fun working there, not that you felt you treated customers super well.

If you were customer facing, and taking at face value you were wonderful to work with for outsiders, then yes, within Nokia you were a great outside facing person (and I'm sure there was at least 1 other in such a big company). But also with a lot of poor outside facing people (from the comments in this thread).

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#268

Post by etempleton »

nextos wrote: post #219
theshrike79 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teams that did Maemo stuff etc. weren't allowed to ship any features before the Symbian side (which had more political and monetary power) had achieved feature parity...

I never understood this memo. All they had to do was to switch to MeeGo. There was no burning platform. Hardware was great and software was great, but needed a bit more polish. MeeGo was more advanced than iOS in many ways at the time of this memo, and Maemo had been released way before the iPhone. The 770 was released in late 2005 and it was totally futuristic. However, Elop had no interest in going this route. When…

Similarly it seemed obvious early on, to me, that RIM should switch blackberry to Android with some customization aand port some apps over. They could still be a major player if they had done so. Instead they doubled down and buried their heads in the sand.

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#269

Post by stereoradonc »

nextos wrote: post #219
theshrike79 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teams that did Maemo stuff etc. weren't allowed to ship any features before the Symbian side (which had more political and monetary power) had achieved feature parity...

I never understood this memo. All they had to do was to switch to MeeGo. There was no burning platform. Hardware was great and software was great, but needed a bit more polish. MeeGo was more advanced than iOS in many ways at the time of this memo, and Maemo had been released way before the iPhone. The 770 was released in late 2005 and it was totally futuristic. However, Elop had no interest in going this route. When…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x057oh0x5p8

Blast from the past!

Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)

#270

Post by sogen »

vishnugupta wrote: post #187
codeflo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Netflix made the decision to move from mail-based rental to streaming, they did not allow leaders involved in rental business to any meetings involving the company future planning. I wonder, who was the “they” that successfully made such a decision? In most places, there wouldn’t be any senior leadership that isn’t “tainted”, so to speak, by the previous business model. Even a freshly appointed CEO is ineffect…

A different example, from Amazon. The top down directive from Jeff was to build every new initiative in total secrecy completely cut off from rest of the organization. To an extent even the building would be cordoned off for other employees. Kindle reader, Eco line of devices, AWS and so on. I guess the reason was to let them move fast and deliver 0-1 product without being shackled by existing strictures, including t…

Really? Very interesting!

Where can I read more about this?

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