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Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

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Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#41

Post by Mikeb85 »

Geee wrote: post #20
Zigurd wrote: post #13

Probably not this proposal, but there are a couple scenarios that could lead to Nokia being a takeover target: 1. Microsoft's activist shareholders tanking the deal, perhaps by pointing out that buying Nokia's factories and the whole legacy handset business including Series 30 and Asha is pretty crazy. 2. Nokia's board concluding that, now that they are rid of Elop, could reboot Nokia themselves: spin Jolla back in,…

Nokia doesn't have money any more to develop Android phones on their own. They don't even have money to continue with WP strategy on their own. Elop spent billions of Nokia's money to boot Windows Phone and restructure the operation as a Microsoft division. It was 'all in' with Nokia's money.

> Nokia doesn't have money any more to develop Android phones on their own. They don't even have money to continue with WP strategy on their own.

They actually do. If you were to check their quarterly reports you'd see they have plenty of cash...

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#42

Post by a3n »

jevinskie wrote: post #35
sz4kerto wrote: post #4

> Corporate Culture Reboot to 2002 Wow, that would be very useful. Should we reboot Blackberry to it's 2008 culture, Microsoft to 1996, Yahoo to 1999?

How do you reboot a company's culture? The culture is something that is developed over many years, "rebooting" it would take quite a bit of time if it is even possible at all.

> How do you reboot a company's culture?

Management declares it, which causes corrosive cynicism.

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#43

Post by killme »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #34
jgreen10 wrote: post #19

Can someone explain why Elop did a bad job? No one was buying Nokia phones anymore... they are now.

He canned their best phone (N9) and OS (Meego), only to pursue a clearly inferior business strategy, drive the stock price down, and enable a Microsoft takeover...

>best phone (N9) and OS (Meego)

Best phone and OS according to who? The same folks who cheered on the OpenMoko? As Elop said, the market has turned from a battle of devices into a war of ecosystems. Meego would've ended up like BB10 running on QNX(remember how many folks on here salivated about a QNX based mobile OS?), critically appreciated but with no apps and sales.

Nokia recently became the fourth largest OEM in the US market. http://pocketnow.com/2013/11/01/nokia-smartphone-sales I doubt that given Nokia never really had a brand in the US for smartphones, it could've done so without Microsoft's support.

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#44

Post by Mikeb85 »

killme wrote: post #43
Mikeb85 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He canned their best phone (N9) and OS (Meego), only to pursue a clearly inferior business strategy, drive the stock price down, and enable a Microsoft takeover...

>best phone (N9) and OS (Meego) Best phone and OS according to who? The same folks who cheered on the OpenMoko? As Elop said, the market has turned from a battle of devices into a war of ecosystems. Meego would've ended up like BB10 running on QNX(remember how many folks on here salivated about a QNX based mobile OS?), critically appreciated but with no apps and sales. Nokia recently became the fourth largest OEM in…

According to everyone who saw it and touched it. I was watching their unveiling of the phone, trading their stock and listening to market opinion, and I remember that very day. Everyone in the market agreed that Meego could have been huge (it was also open-source like Android, and in many ways a better OS), and it was only Elop's allegiance to Microsoft which killed it.

Meego was good enough that Jolla picked it up, and Intel spun it into Tizen. At the time of the N9 unveiling, it was better than Android.

Speaking of ecosystems, fast forward a few years, if Nokia had indeed attempted to push Meego and failed, Android would have been the logical choice. Now they're settling for scraps with Windows Phone, when they were once THE leader worldwide in smartphones...

Edit - by the way, Nokia was the smartphone market share leader as recently as 2011... In fact, it was during Elop's tenure that Nokia lost most of its market share, although they were on the way out for awhile before then. But had Meego had better traction, it could have been very different. Nokia had an ecosystem, and had mindshare...

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#45

Post by Danieru »

adventured wrote: post #26
Geee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia doesn't have money any more to develop Android phones on their own. They don't even have money to continue with WP strategy on their own. Elop spent billions of Nokia's money to boot Windows Phone and restructure the operation as a Microsoft division. It was 'all in' with Nokia's money.

Not accurate. They're flush with cash. End of fiscal 2010, they had $16.4 billion in cash. Today they have $12 billion in cash. With zero long term liabilities. They have drastically more money than they would need to remake their business and target Android. If it didn't work, that might be the last shot they get at it however.

To be fair if I was Nokia and wanted to save myself this microsoft deal would still make sense. It all depends on the contract terms.

Sell the smartphone division, aka Windows Phone division, to Microsoft. You get rid of Elop and still scavenge a portion of the money poured into WP. Then start a new smartphone division leveraging Android. On the employees front most of your best former designers and engineers are still local just working for Jolla or Intel. Buy Jolla for the hardware designer then partner with Intel and get help on the engineering front. Hype the hardware at some consumer electronics conference and try hiring back the few of your best engineers which stayed and were included in the Microsoft deal.

Boom, you now have Daniel's untested and high risk plan for an Android Nokia. Please vote for me as the next Nokia CEO.

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#46

Post by specialp »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #34
jgreen10 wrote: post #19

Can someone explain why Elop did a bad job? No one was buying Nokia phones anymore... they are now.

He canned their best phone (N9) and OS (Meego), only to pursue a clearly inferior business strategy, drive the stock price down, and enable a Microsoft takeover...

I was an owner of a N9 and really enjoyed the OS. Most of the employees that developed Maemo and MeeGo are carrying on at jolla.com. They still have not shipped a phone yet and I have been following them for nearly 2 years now.

As much as I love the close to open source atmosphere and very good UI of the N9, Elop is right. Android turned making phones into a commodity. The only place where money can be made is by providing an ecosystem. Customers demand an ecosystem too. Nokia was losing market share so fast that as Elop said they were on a "burning platform". I am not sure they had the might anymore to create a MeeGo/Maemo ecosystem in time to save them.

I really wish that Nokia would have continued MeeGo development but I understand the decision to can it too. Nokia for many years was offering contradictory statements and making half assed partnerships. So they had to say we are going all in and all of our resources are behind Windows Phone. Developers got burnt several times. Even with Maemo they suddenly partnered with Intel's mobile OS and had to spend a year porting stuff with no apparent gain to customers. So I wish Jolla well, but Nokia did what they had to do.

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#47

Post by makmanalp »

killme wrote: post #43
Mikeb85 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He canned their best phone (N9) and OS (Meego), only to pursue a clearly inferior business strategy, drive the stock price down, and enable a Microsoft takeover...

>best phone (N9) and OS (Meego) Best phone and OS according to who? The same folks who cheered on the OpenMoko? As Elop said, the market has turned from a battle of devices into a war of ecosystems. Meego would've ended up like BB10 running on QNX(remember how many folks on here salivated about a QNX based mobile OS?), critically appreciated but with no apps and sales. Nokia recently became the fourth largest OEM in…

4th at 4.1%. Beating Motorola (which was stagnating, even after the Google buy) and ZTE (which didn't have much US brand recognition anyway) wasn't super difficult.

Also, Meego Harmattan (released with the N9) got pretty stellar reviews all round. See for your self:

http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/22/2506376/nokia-n9-review

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/22/nokia-n9-review/

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-review-659.php

Every review lauds the software, and laments the fact that it was doomed by Elop.

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#48

Post by Zigurd »

killme wrote: post #38
Zigurd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asha WAS doing well is developing world markets. Asha is now a dying business. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://allaboutwindowsph... Microsoft bought itself another Kin.

What makes you think Microsoft bought Nokia for the Asha business?

I stated the exact opposite

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#49

Post by specialp »

Noughmad wrote: post #22
jgreen10 wrote: post #19

Can someone explain why Elop did a bad job? No one was buying Nokia phones anymore... they are now.

It's more like the other way around. I used to know lots of people with Nokia phones, both feature phones and smartphones. Now there are only iPhones and Androids, I don't think I've seen a phone with Windows except in a store. Besides, Nokia had great reputation as a quality brand. Some of their phones were unbreakable. They've lost their reputation since their deal with MS.

They lost their reputation long before they went to MS. Symbian had over 3000 developers yet their interface was very confusing, and full of bugs. The N95 was a decent phone in 2007 besting the iPhone in many ways (fast CPU/GPU, 3.5G, full GPS, good display, 5MP camera with good optics) but it did not have touch. I was fine with it and owned one and loved it.

So Nokia then came out with the N97 and it was clear that they did not have the ability anymore to design software or pick a strategy. Their 'app store' switched from MoSH to Ovi and it just simply did not work. All the while Android and iOS were moving very fast. People were very unhappy with the N97 flagship and the rest of the offerings were not very clear. They had dozens of models. E series was supposed to be the business series and N series for "media". It was confusing marketing. From 2009-2012 they were losing double digit marketshare every year. Even strongholds like India and Asia were starting to view Nokia as a company that lost their direction. So yes people did have fond memories of their unbreakable candybar phones but they also associated Nokia with the old days of phones as they could not produce a modern, coherent UI. (until MeeGo where it was too late)

Re: Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft

#50

Post by killme »

makmanalp wrote: post #47
killme wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>best phone (N9) and OS (Meego) Best phone and OS according to who? The same folks who cheered on the OpenMoko? As Elop said, the market has turned from a battle of devices into a war of ecosystems. Meego would've ended up like BB10 running on QNX(remember how many folks on here salivated about a QNX based mobile OS?), critically appreciated but with no apps and sales. Nokia recently became the fourth largest OEM in…

4th at 4.1%. Beating Motorola (which was stagnating, even after the Google buy) and ZTE (which didn't have much US brand recognition anyway) wasn't super difficult. Also, Meego Harmattan (released with the N9) got pretty stellar reviews all round. See for your self: http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/22/2506376/nokia-n9-review http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/22/nokia-n9-review/ http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-review-65…

BB10 got great reviews too, so did WebOS. That in itself doesn't signify success. The ecosystem is the weakness. No apps = no sales.
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