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Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

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Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#51

Post by recoiledsnake »

pavlov wrote: post #2

Summary: journalist visits a Nokia software development site in Tampere, where everybody used to work on two mobile operating systems that Nokia is phasing out. Understandably, these people are not particularly willing to admit that the software they spent years on wasn't good enough to keep up with Apple and Google, so the old conspiracy theory plops up: the Nokia CEO must be a "mole" who's intentionally driving the…

This long article does a much better job of explaining matters than the link-bait here.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567...

This guy has atleast a plan after Nokia realized it needs a big shake, unlike RIM which is in a similar situation but burning it's hands with 'me-too' tablets that no one wants and handwaving about the awesomeness of QNX instead of pivoting quickly before it's too late. How a QNX based OS will save them is beyond me, because 99.9% of smartphone buyers wouldn't even know what that means.

As Elop said, the mobile arena has moved from a battle of devices to a war of ecosystems. If you can't break past the chicken and egg problem of creating an ecosystem and court developers, it's a death sentence. Just see Palm, they had a nice product, but they never had a chance.

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#53

Post by recoiledsnake »

dataminer wrote: post #30
bad_user wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that MeeGo Harmattan is definitely ahead of Android. I do not think so. I also do not think that it's enough for MeeGo to be better in terms of usability, performance and polish. For instance, I hate Android's built-in browser. The UI sucks. But the native apps for the online services I use, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and Flickr -- are kick-ass. This happened slowly and for a looong ti…

Can't agree with you more about Nokia picking up Windows Mobile. They should have gone with Android customized it to their liking (just like what Amazon did with kindle fire), taken advantage of already existing apps and ramp up from there just like what Samsung is doing right now. A big transition to a nascent mobile platform slows them down further, they seem to be heading towards the same fate as Palm.

Nokia is incomparable to Palm, you'd be more likely to know that if you've spent considerable time in Europe or Asia (apart from Japan). There are millions of people there who will blindly buy a Nokia phone regardless of the software. How do you think Symbian is still pushing so many sales?

Palm? It has nothing on Nokia, 'Nokia' is synonymous for 'cell phone' in many countries.

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#54

Post by nl »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #53
dataminer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree with you more about Nokia picking up Windows Mobile. They should have gone with Android customized it to their liking (just like what Amazon did with kindle fire), taken advantage of already existing apps and ramp up from there just like what Samsung is doing right now. A big transition to a nascent mobile platform slows them down further, they seem to be heading towards the same fate as Palm.

Nokia is incomparable to Palm, you'd be more likely to know that if you've spent considerable time in Europe or Asia (apart from Japan). There are millions of people there who will blindly buy a Nokia phone regardless of the software. How do you think Symbian is still pushing so many sales? Palm? It has nothing on Nokia, 'Nokia' is synonymous for 'cell phone' in many countries.

It has nothing on Nokia, 'Nokia' is synonymous for 'cell phone' in many countries

I live in Australia, where this used to be true. It is no longer the case.

How do you think Symbian is still pushing so many sales?

Because it runs on very low-end hardware, which makes it cheap. That advantage is slowly dying as low-end mobile chipsets get more powerful (eg, Android phones are down to $80 here, with no contract)

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#55

Post by nl »

zhwang wrote: post #34
kb101 wrote: post #14

It is definitely noteworthy that the N9 and the N8, both examples of excellent hardware running competitive software, have basically been sandbagged by Nokia. Contrast this with RIM, who just released a slew of stop-gap phones until QNX (BBX) is ready... but they still are promoting the hell out of those phones and are getting decent sales, keeping the company viable. And those aren't even world-beating phones. Meant…

Well actually, the N9's been promoted a bit around Australia, as far as I can see. I've been seeing ads for it on public transport, both in buses and at major train stations. Makes me wonder why they'd be bothering with throwing these advertising dollars around if the N9 ecosystem is pretty much doomed anyway.

Makes me wonder why they'd be bothering with throwing these advertising dollars around if the N9 ecosystem is pretty much doomed anyway.

They need to sell high-end phones to try to prop-up their revenue until the Windows phones are ready. It's pretty consumer-hostile, though.

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#56

Post by recoiledsnake »

patrickgzill wrote: post #10

Shades of the incompetent Rick Belluzzo who destroyed SGI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Belluzzo

How would he be incompetent if he was a MS mole? Sounds like he was pretty competent if he succeeded?

That Wiki article seems to be a hit job. A few references:

http://www.msboycott.com/news/00_01_17.shtml

http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=rick+belluzzo+%2...

And we have someone on HN here quoting the Urban dictionary reference. How long does it take to make a new entry for anyone or anything yourself?

Didn't know Google searches can be used as a reference on the Wiki.

>This article and talk page must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if there are other concerns about the biography of a living person, please report the issue to the biographies of living persons noticeboard. If you are connected to the subject of this article and need help with issues related to it, please see this page.

Anyway, I guess Linus was right, MS hatred is a disease, and one such manifestation is the people who wrote that Wiki article.

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#57

Post by peterb »

w33ble wrote: post #39
pavlov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harmattan was supposed to ship in fall of 2010. It's a year late. Yet, even if the MeeGo mess hadn't happened and Nokia had shipped a Harmattan phone on the original Maemo schedule, would it have made any difference? It would have been hamstrung by Nokia's confusion over Symbian's direction, and steamrolled by iOS and Android just the same. It's not Elop's fault that Nokia's software is in shambles. The damage was do…

Dumping Symbian made a lot of sense. Replacing it with MeeGo seemed like a decent idea, but it was never clear if MeeGo was really ready to replace it (thought early reviews of the N9 made it look promising at least), and Nokia wasn't ready to dump Symbian. Ditching both for something else was a hard call, but probably wasn't the wrong one. But, why announce when he did. The chosen OS wasn't out at the time, and Noki…

Why announce the deal when he did? I'll give you a Billion reasons ...

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#58

Post by zobzu »

maratd wrote: post #9
Geee wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about MeeGo Harmattan, which is said to be even ahead of iOS in terms of usability, performance and polish. Definitely ahead of Android. Elop stated that they couldn't get it ready until 2014, but surprisingly it's on markets before the WP phones. Nokia store is also way ahead of WP marketplace. It's just huge downplay of Nokia's products, while WP is not at all proven platform. Elop's statements were understanda…

It doesn't matter. WebOS was fantastic too. There is no demand. Consumers want iOS or Android. They don't want anything else. The only possible way they might is to introduce something that iOS or Android do not have ... and none of those operating systems introduce anything that would represent a significant innovation in the consumer space. They do the exact same thing, only incrementally better. That is not reason…

meego runs MUCH better than webos on the same hardware tho. also its not proprietary.

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#59

Post by Geee »

krelian wrote: post #50
Geee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it was their strategy all along with Qt, but it's been slow ride. Everything is Qt on new Symbian, MeeGo and upcoming Meltemi. Qt is natively on the new BBX and will probably be on Android. Qt is also their main strategy besides WP, so we will see how things pan out.

>Qt is natively on the new BBX and will probably be on Android. What do you mean exactly? The only thing I am afraid of losing if Nokia goes down is Qt.

Well, I might be confused with exact terms, but Blackberry supports Qt on it's new platforms, meaning developers can distribute Qt apps. See http://blackberry.github.com/ndk/components.html#Qt

If I'm correct, the Qt Lighthouse is integrated in Qt 4.8 (now RC1), which means easy porting for any platform, including Android. Remains to be seen if Nokia and Google come in terms with this officially though. Of course, you can already distribute Qt apps on Android, using third party ports like Necessitas: http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/28/necessitas/ .

Re: Is Nokia's CEO a Microsoft mole?

#60

Post by majika »

bauchidgw wrote: post #41

at a conference i talked with some nokia devs, two funny stories. 1) the N9 (the meego phone) will never be released in an english speaking country as marketing fears the tech blogger will write even more crap about their strategy change - as it is a quiete decent phone 2) even though the code for the N9 they do not get any test devices, the code in a very rudimentary ide only, as there is a no Meego phone for devs a…

As somebear has said, the N9 is being heavily promoted in Australia at the moment. On my way to university every morning, I see about 2 or 3 bilboards or bus paintjobs advertising the N9.

The ad is just a white background, a big blue Nokia logo, a stack of different-coloured N9s, and the text "beautifully simple."

It's pretty obvious they're trying to break the perception (here, at least) of Nokia only offering cheap phones.

I currently own an N900, so (a) I know what it's like being on an unsupported and unpopular platform (it sucks hard), and (b) I would buy an N9 in a heartbeat if Nokia had decided to stick with Meego.

I'm a Linux user and use no Microsoft online services, so Windows Phones aren't attractive for me at all. By dropping Meego/Maemo (hacker types) and moving to WP, Nokia is dumping its last remaining fanbase. It's starting from zero, on an OS that's also starting from zero.

My next phone will almost certainly be the Galaxy Nexus.

WP will probably earn itself a small niche in the no-man's-land of smartphones between iOS' simplicity and Android's customisability and personalisation (WRT phone choice), but lacking the universality of both. I can't see it achieving wider adoption. Nokia will claim a slice of this small niche, but that's all it will have.

WP can't survive on off-the-side interest from HTC and Samsung. Microsoft needs Nokia for WP to survive, so I fully expect Microsoft to purchase Nokia within the next five years.

I think Nokia would've been able to survive on its own had it gone with Android (earning a smaller slice of the Android pie, but still much larger overall). I think most technical-oriented people recognise that Nokia's expertise is in hardware - a quality that the Android ecosystem is still lacking. Samsung is getting there, but the N9's build quality is generations ahead of any of the Galaxy phones.

Nokia would always be my first choice in choosing an Android phone. It's a real pity.

I think there's a strong point to be made that Elop's biases towards Microsoft have impacted Nokia for the worse.

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