71–80 of 208 posts
I think they might be looking at Android rather than WinMo7 (ok, maybe I'm just being hopeful...) The memo repeatedly mentions innovation and market leadership. With WinMo7 locked down as tightly as it is it is very difficult for a company to be innovative in that market. OTOH, Android already has quite a diverse ecosystem, and would allow Nokia the opportunity to do it's own thing while still supporting an active de…
I would work for that man.
I sometimes wonder where Microsoft might be if he'd replaced Balmer, but it's great to see him take on Nokia. Talk about a tough gig!
Ignoring the problems with WP7, if Nokia were to produce phones with other 'external' OSes why would they stick with just one? No one criticizes Samsung and they are pretty much a mobile-OS whore: SHP, Bada, WP7, Symbian (albeit a year or so ago), Android, Limo, etc. N.B. Regarding SHP: I can't remember the name properly but this was the old/existing Samsung feature phone platform, it probably has got rolled into Bad…
IMO, that's because Samsung doesn't have a clue and would rather hedge their bets. Most people I know who has a Samsung Galaxy, Captivate, etc have complained endlessly about the wait for updates. Samsung's business is in selling phones, not developing a software platform and therein lies the problem. They make their bread and butter on planned obsolescence and in the process screw over their customers.
Once the operators (typically) have added their crap on top it leaves you little margin to extract extra cash until you get someone to buy another device.
A well-written email is more powerful than many people comprehend. We used to call them letters, and they were powerful then too. You can change a person's or a group's mind about something, even after a decision appears to have been made. You can clinch a job, win a contract, stop a lawsuit, regain a friend, woo a lover, and change history itself with just a few words. I'm not sure if people realize quite how powerf…
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Pretty much the only people making money on Ovi are game companies. Nothing wrong with that, except that gaming is different to other types of software. Also, note these points: * There are 30,000 apps available * 400,000 new Forum Nokia developers were added in the last 12 months. That really illustrates what a horrible platform Nokia has. 400K new developers were interested in it over the last 12 months, and yet th…
The prior development tools for native Symbian have been horrid, combined with difficult signing process etc. However, the transition to Qt and Qt Quick -based apps makes it all very easy and convenient thus enabling the potential better. It's true that it isn't the most exciting platform right now, but it's certainly on the right path.
With Qt/Qt Quick you get an environment that is sort of competitive with where iOS and Android were over a year ago. Meanwhile, iOS and Android have moved on and are accelerating development of their SDKs, and Nokia is falling further & further behind.
Anyway, say you build your app, thinking how great it will be with the huge reach of the Symbian platform. You ship, and discover that (a) people who have a Symbian phone and can afford to buy your apps are just waiting to upgrade to iOS or Android, and so won't invest any time in new apps on their Nokia phones and (b) Symbian is only growing in use in the developing world, where people are very unlikely to buy your app because the cost is a lot more significant.
So you give up, and go back to iOS and Android where the toolsets are nicer and there is more money to be made.
idea for how to create value in your brand when you're "just another android phone". 1. create a really awesome skin like HTC has. 2. create a suite of really awesome apps and release them on the apps market, but give them free to users of your specific phone.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1481354
this new memo makes me think better of them. if Nokia can get out of the new CEO's way and let him execute, then maybe they can turn it around.
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> Nokia regularly cripple features, specifically including VoIP, at the demands of carriers. Perhaps not US carriers, Oh, definitely in the US—look at the difference between the E71 and the E71x, the AT&T version. The GP was talking about unlocked phones. I have an N86 which I bought on Amazon, and it's got SIP and other features which AT&T would hate me to have. > The carriers were always Nokia's customers, not the…
> Yeah, but that's the case with every phone manufacturer. That's exactly my point. In this regard Nokia are not in a special position to stand up to the carriers. Unlocked handsets don't count: almost no one is paying that much for a phone. Even Apple had to accept carrier subsidies for the iPhone to get the end purchase price down.
Most mobile phones in the world are bought unlocked. Carrier-locked phones holding most of the market is an US/UK quirk, and in many European countries, carrier-locked phones like used in the US would actually be illegal.
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Nokia used to be up around 60% of the mobile phone market (in terms of profit). Now they're around ~20%, while Apple is more than 50% (on less than 5% marketshare). Nokia is still making money, but pretty much all new profit is going to everyone else (especially Apple). http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2666565/posts
Do you think there is a fixed "profit" out there for the taking? Apple's profit margin is an extreme aberration, and it isn't sustainable. Any comparison that relies upon profit numbers is...disturbed.
So the goal of a phone maker should be to sell as many devices as possible regardless of whether they're profitable? That sounds a lot like, say, Motorola before they adopted Android - not exactly a picture of a healthy business.
> The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means…
I'd rather Nokia actually be the only truly open mobile platform out there. No, Android isn't sufficiently open. It's my phone, at a minimum I should be able to pull all my own data off it in any form I choose.