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Nokia made too many phones

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Re: Nokia made too many phones

#81

Post by usr1106 »

That's not a convincing analysis.

It's disputable whether Nokia was a master in logistics, in fashion/design or in RF-technology or all of them.

However, it's undisputed that they did not master software. Management had no idea about software development, the tooling was awkward. Well, and for OSes, Symbian was from another decade, Linux too little, introduced too slowly because management believed in Symbian being the cash cow.

It worked as long as phones were manufactured in their own factories with high margins. Once manufacturing was outsourced to low cost countries and software became more important, they were lost.

Disclaimer: I was a software developer there for 10 years, but understood to leave well before the bitter end.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#82

Post by badgersnake »

panick21_ wrote: post #33
rusticpenn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia N900 was pretty awesome and Maemo was a great OS. Unfortunately killed by internal politics.

On of the big tech letdowns in my life. I was excited about the N900, but to young to really drop that amount of cash on a new fancy phone and I didn't want to buy the first product of the platform. But then it just sort of died. There was one more release but by then it was clear where it was going. It wasn't even released widely. Such a sad end.

It wasn’t the end, the N9 was the more refined and frankly quite brilliant follow up. Unfortunately they failed to launch it in any major markets because they’d pivoted to Windows.

Had to ship mine from Australia. For me when it launched it was the best phone you could buy. Apple caught up quick though.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#83

Post by tecleandor »

Well, Samsung is making even more.

Although 10 years ago they said that 56 models a year were too much [0], they still released ~52 in 2022 [1]

  [0]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/samsung-decides-56-smartphones-a-year-is-too-many-will-cut-lineup-by-30/
  [1]: https://thelec.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=3574

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#84

Post by tekla »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #64
panick21_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On of the big tech letdowns in my life. I was excited about the N900, but to young to really drop that amount of cash on a new fancy phone and I didn't want to buy the first product of the platform. But then it just sort of died. There was one more release but by then it was clear where it was going. It wasn't even released widely. Such a sad end.

I'm not sure if I'd call a phone that served me well for a decade a "letdown". There were hardly any phones around worth switching to from N900 for this whole time.

The N900 and Maemo was almost immediately abandoned following launch (<2 Years). Not even Nokia cared

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#85

Post by kurkkumopo »

mikko-apo wrote: post #15
Erratic6576 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think that it was Microsoft which destroyed Nokia from the inside in order to make Windows phone great at last https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/microsoft-nokia-deal-a-...

Nokia's then CEO's Elop's "burning platform" memo leak in 2011 seemed to hurt Nokia a lot by painting their existing and upcoming phones as inferior. > I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform. https://www.engadget.com/2011-02-08-nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-r...

Karaportti 4 lyfe

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#86

Post by nottorp »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #46

> Nokia Made Too Many Phones Perhaps compared with today, but these weren't complex smart phones marketed globally. Global network technology wasn't as homogenous as now. Phones were usually sold by the phone networks who had specific requirements - technical and marketing. Different phones were also used to price phones differently around the world - from rural Africa to the rich west.

> these weren't complex smart phones marketed globally

Yeah, they had like 4 "established" operating systems and on top of that some experimental OSes that only came out on a model or two and changed every year.

Can't make a smart platform with apps when you have 7 current platforms.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#87

Post by panick21_ »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #64
panick21_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On of the big tech letdowns in my life. I was excited about the N900, but to young to really drop that amount of cash on a new fancy phone and I didn't want to buy the first product of the platform. But then it just sort of died. There was one more release but by then it was clear where it was going. It wasn't even released widely. Such a sad end.

I'm not sure if I'd call a phone that served me well for a decade a "letdown". There were hardly any phones around worth switching to from N900 for this whole time.

Yes. That just shows how promising it was. But if you only bring out an initial modal and then basically never follow it up, you are simply not competing against competitors who bring out new hard-ware and soft-ware every year and also do hardware-software co-design.

Its nice that it served you personally, but as a platform it was a gigantic bust.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#88

Post by looping8 »

The comparison to Apple is strange - Apple is literally only serving one phone and that's their brand's stand-out thing. Competitors like Xiaomi, Motorola, etc, all make different models. Of course 57 models a year is too much but few other companies make only one phone with minor variations. Nokia was working in a market with fast changing technology and higher number of competitors, they had to keep innovating and marketing new stuff.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#89

Post by zubairq »

I can confirm this as I worked at Nokia in the Helsinki head office in 2006 and they made so many phones, which were not tested properly and were just thrown out to different market segments. It was obvious at the time that they had no passion or craftsmanship for their products anymore (as a company, as there were still some brilliant individuals)

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#90

Post by serial_dev »

diggan wrote: post #28
pavlov wrote: post #19

Around 2003 I did the art direction (mostly pixel-pushing...) for a game that shipped on a Nokia model. I have no recollection of what the phone looked like, but it was part of the "lifestyle" category described in this article. It wasn't one of the craziest form factors, just a candybar phone in pretty plastic with one of those early square color screens. Nokia Design sent a massive moodboard PDF, something like 100…

> Of course the implication with these fashion devices was that they were almost disposable, and you'd buy a new one for the next season. This would be great for Nokia's business. Unfortunately their design department seemed consumed by becoming a fashion brand and forgot that they're still a technology company. Everyone knows what happened next. Maybe Nokia was simply too early for the vision, or the execution was s…

I'm not sure they are that similar.

There were so many significantly different Nokia phones at one point. I'm talking about after 3310, like 3220, 6600, 7610, 3660, 7600, each design is unique.

Apple has like two models (small and larger) at a time, and you can get them in a couple of different colors. The big design revolution is that they add rose gold or purple or whatever color each year so that the few people who care about showing off their latest model can do so.

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