
Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership, New Leadership Team - andre3k1
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/10/nokia-confirms-microsoft-partnership-new-leadership-team/
======
eftpotrm
They're mad.

Firstly, tying one company struggling to keep afloat to another struggling to
take off (in this domain at least) is hardly the obvious ideal strategy.

Secondly, they're about to go onto what, their _fourth_ platform strategy
without large-scale wider support? And they expect to retain developer support
and internal morale?

Thirdly, coming so soon after the news that Dalvik's porting to their previous
preferred platform looked to enable broad compatibility with one of the major
software bases to their platform, what's the point in this - they're moving to
largely unsupported platform that's less compatible with alternatives than
where they were.

This feels like the move of a new top dog who doesn't fully understand the
situation but wants to be seen to be doing something, and so has called his
old friends. Bad, bad, bad idea.

------
msbarnett
Ah yes, the old Palm strategy. Once you've let your internal OS completely
stagnate, ship Windows Mobile on your phones.

~~~
thematt
Make that plural in Nokia's case...at least two operating systems. They had
little chance of succeeding on their own with such a fragmented ecosystem.

~~~
msbarnett
Well, Palm also had that perpetually in-the-works Linux based update that
never seemed to materialize in shipping products...

Which is another similarity to Nokia, come to think of it.

~~~
stefanoric
I had worked in Motorola, our own Linux platform had been in the work for
years to never see the light (but for some minor products). So Motorola rushed
back to Symbian (!) while the market share was already plummeting.

Then came the cuts, which closed all software centers in Europe (mine
included), when finally someone saw Android as the last ship.

------
mbreese
Is it funny that I now think that HP buying Palm was the best business moves
made last year?

I one fell swoop HP got exclusive rights to a legit smartphone platform where
they wouldn't be beholden to any other company. No longer would HP be reliant
on Microsoft in mobile.

Now, Nokia is going the opposite direction. Sure, Nokia has some important
assets to leverage in this partnership. But make no mistake, this is a deal
with the devil.

I wonder what this means for Qt?

~~~
xuki
I wish Nokia bought Palm when they had the chance.

However I don't find this deal too bad for Nokia, we don't know the exact
terms behind it.

Now the smartphone OS market is getting more and more interesting =).

------
tc
Well, I suppose you don't always do the smartest thing when you're standing on
a burning platform.

~~~
wsf
What choice does Nokia has?

1\. Choose Android and be delegated to one of the hardware supplier amongst
HTC, Samsung etc (not necessary the preferred one).

2\. Stick with Symbian, Meego and be slower and further down road (Users don't
care about the OS. Just whether it works. I would argue that developing OS
internally is just playing catching up with minimal hope of overtaking the
others significantly)

3\. Try Microsoft and hopes the strengths compliment one another (not-too-bad
windows phone 7).

I don't envy Nokia. It's a tough choice. Effectively, they are trying to move
into a field just disrupted by Apple and competing on a sustaining basis.
Doesn't bode well but what other alternatives do they have?

~~~
mbreese
Has anyone ever come out of a Microsoft partnership stronger?

I agree, though that this something that is only done by a desperate company
with few choices.

~~~
teyc
HTC.

    
    
      HTC, once known as High Tech Computer, 
      is a Taiwanese company that began making
      phone sets using Microsoft software in
      2002. By 2005, it had grown to sales 
      of $2.2 billion, double that of the year
      before, making it the fastest growing 
      tech company that year according to
      BusinessWeek.
    

See:

[http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/02/18/microsoft-htc-
has-m...](http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/02/18/microsoft-htc-has-
made-80-of-all-windows-mobile-phones/)

~~~
mda
However, If HTC hadn't jump the Android bandwagon it would be as good as dead
now. So I am not sure if this example counts.

~~~
teyc
HTC grew by jumping on bandwagons. Windows Mobile 6 was _the_ product with an
established market.

Furthermore, Microsoft engaged HTC in many matters of industrial design, and
all these competencies allowed them to effectively move from being a PC
company to a mobile phone company.

The situation for Nokia is somewhat different. MS is no longer the dominant
platform in the mobile space.

However, MS still has the advantage of outlook/exchange being the dominant
enterprise email solution. If MS can do a good job of integrating features
like Sharepoint into WP7, then it has a strong position to defend.

------
zmmmmm
> "There are other mobile ecosystems. We will disrupt them. There will be
> challenges. We will overcome them. Success requires speed. We will be swift.
> Together, we see the opportunity, and we have the will, the resources and
> the drive to succeed."

This is my main problem with this deal: both parties are hoping that by
combining they will achieve something totally uncharacteristic of both of them
individually. Neither MS or Nokia have been fast at anything for the last 10
years. Are they really going to suddenly be nimble together?

(I guess I'm just spelling out the "two drowning people tied together"
analogy).

~~~
rbanffy
My favorite quote about this is "beause two bricks float better than one". I
no longer know where I heard it first.

~~~
whatusername
Were you thinking of this:
<http://twitter.com/#!/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664>

#feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle".

From Vic Gundotra. // Although there is prior art for the saying -- he was the
one to apply it to Microkia/Nokisoft

~~~
rbanffy
No, it's from well before that. Vic's quote is right on spot, btw.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Bye bye maemo ,meego and qt.

You could see that coming from a CEO that comes from MS, Nokia is desperate to
not lose their phone position and MS desperate to losing the new desktop as
all paradigms sift, losing OS control and people using Office(there was a time
everybody used Wordperfect, people started using word as it was ready for
windows before Wordperfect).

MS could design phones this way to compete with Apple, and Nokia could use the
MS experience in OS.

I don't think is a good idea to partner with MS, companies that do tend to be
screwed sooner or later, MS always winning.

Nokia reminds me more and more of SGI,I remember when MS windows NT was their
salvation, I wish I'm wrong.

~~~
maxharris
_I don't think is a good idea to partner with MS, companies that do tend to be
screwed sooner or later, MS always winning._

You do realize that MS stopped "always winning" almost a decade ago?

SGI sank because they couldn't or wouldn't follow the market, which didn't
need to pay $30,000 for hardware-accelerated 3D anymore once anyone could just
drop in a 3D card into their commodity PCs. Lots of people (Mark Kilgard, for
example) left SGI directly for Nvidia and other companies.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the one thing they could have done to save themselves
would have been to ship an awesome 3D card for commodity PCs around the time
3dfx was influential (1997). They could have done hardware geometry
acceleration two or three years before Nvidia did it with the first GeForce.

Carmack wrote this about SGI's NT workstation in 1999:
[http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/johnc_plan_1999.html...](http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/johnc_plan_1999.html#d19990317)

"I placed an order for a loaded system ($11k) from their web site two months
ago. It still hasn't arrived (bad impression), but SGI did bring a loaner
system by for us to work with.

The system tower is better than standard pc fare, but I still think Apple's
new G3 has the best designed computer case.

...

For single pass, top quality rendering (32 bit framebuffer, 32 bit depth
buffer, 32 bit trilinear textures, high res screen), the SGI has a higher fill
rate than any other card we have ever tested on a pc, _but not by too wide of
a margin._

 _If your application can take advantage of multitexture, a TNT or rage128
will deliver slightly greater fill performance. It is likely that the next
speed bump of both chips will be just plain faster than the SGI on all fill
modes._ " (emphasis mine)

Too little, too late.

Edit: It's sad, really. Although I haven't booted it in years, I still have a
purple Indigo2 in my closet, so I know exactly what it is that died.

~~~
spitfire
SGI could have done the smart thing in 1993 and targeted consumers/small
business. In 1993 they released the indy which was a low end workstation. It
had everything your imac has today, video camera, chat file sharing, etc.
Indigo magic was pretty usable even for today. All the desktop was vector
based (vector icons, etc).

In effect, they had everything OSX has today. But instead they focused on the
high end niche market and got eaten from below.

Do I think this is a good move for nokia? History sides very much with NO!
Which is a shame, nokia always made good hardware, but perhaps far too much of
it with too little support.

~~~
maxharris
RAM prices were the major reason that SGI couldn't make IRIX run decently on a
machine targeted at consumers or small businesses.

In 1993, 32mb of RAM was damn expensive (I know because I had a 32mb 486/66
machine in 1993. The thing cost $10,000!) And there were delays in IRIX
releases because the cheapest Indy configuration didn't have enough RAM.

In fact, RAM prices were also a major factor in Windows NT not going
mainstream until about 2000. People just couldn't afford machines that would
run modern operating systems well until around 1995, and it took a few more
years to sort out the software issues (drivers, backward compatibility with
existing software) surrounding the compromises people used until then.

~~~
spitfire
I remember when windows 95 came out, all everyone talked about was affording
more ram. Even the normal people. Still with a little bit of effort they could
have made it usable in 8-12meg. I think.

Then they had a second chance at the market with the SGI O2. Can you imagine
walking into a best buy and seeing that next to windows95? Built in webcam,
video recording, etc. It ran fine on 32-64 megs ram which in '96 was the norm.

I should mention, that NeXT also had the technology to make things happen. And
they made it happen, a few years later....

~~~
maxharris
Sure, IRIX could run in 8-12 mb _if_ you turn off X. But that means no
graphics and no browser. I don't mean to be rude, but have you ever actually
used an SGI?

In 1996, the O2 _started_ at about $6000, and listed for more:
<http://cgi.amazing.com/internet/faq-6.0.html>

As for the Indy, see
[http://www.siliconbunny.com/mirrors/www.tc.umn.edu/dols0011/...](http://www.siliconbunny.com/mirrors/www.tc.umn.edu/dols0011/sgi/index.html)

"At the beginning of its life, the Indy came standard with 16MB of RAM. IRIX
5.1, the first OS for the Indy, was the Windows NT 4.0 of Unices, magically
able to, performance-wise, transform an R4000PC Indy with 16MB of RAM (the
standard configuration) into a 386SX with a weird blue box.

SGI realized this and quickly upped the box to 32MB, at considerable cost. (As
you may recall, 16MB of parity 70ns RAM was hardly cheap in 1993-1995.)
Subsequent IRIX releases made huge improvements in memory usage."

But not enough improvements in time to beat back the PC, of course.

"The Indy packs a decent amount of power into a very small (16"x14"x3"),
simple, and elegant package. The chassis is just three parts: The "tray,"
which is sheet metal; the power supply; and the skin, which is a one-piece
plastic cover with a thin sheet of metal covering the bottom of it to meet FCC
compliance. The steel tray occupies the entire depth of the Indy, but not the
entire width; four inches or so of the left side belong to the power supply,
which occupies the entire depth of the tray and is a separate box. The whole
unit is, although well-built, very economical and, dare I say, cheap. Speaking
as someone who has had an opened-up broken Indy sitting on his basement floor,
this is not a machine that screams "I cost $10,000." It's obvious SGI made a
darn nice profit off these buggers."

~~~
spitfire
A good chunk of my career was based on SGI's until 2002ish. I started on an
iris professional if that helps. I still smile when I think of SGI's c++
compiler - it had real error messages unlike gcc up until a few years ago.

SGi hardware was priced high for two reasons 1) The market (government,
industry) would bear the price and 2) small market size. Fix market size and
the price can come down - leaving your indigo/indigo2/crimsons' for the
govt/oil/entreatment industry.

With proper application of brain juice, switching to IDE drives, etc you could
have shaved and optimized enough to get an indy or O2 usable for the mass
market. Add back the memory intensive things as time goes on. Then add in some
small business file/email/etc server (challenge s) and you're ready to take on
the business market.

------
raganwald
_It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard
dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that
now they’ll run faster._

[http://www.fakesteve.net/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-
out-o...](http://www.fakesteve.net/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-of-
ideas.html)

------
thought_alarm
Take a moment to think about how low the morale at Nokia is right now.

~~~
sharjeel
On the other hand, take a moment to think about how high at the morale at
Microsoft is right now!

------
davidw
Well... you could see that coming, I suppose.

If Nokia doesn't get a chapter in future updates to "X years of high tech
marketing disasters", I'll be disappointed. Jumping onto a sinking platform
from a burning one isn't a big improvement.

With Android, they would have had a lot more freedom and, most likely, some
more leverage in terms of innovating and differentiating themselves.

~~~
sliverstorm
At least a sinking platform is by definition, not on fire.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
<http://bash.org/?88551>: <Pie> I don't play with WD40 anymore. I actually
managed to light a fish on fire. while it was underwater

------
mhw
I'm trying to work out which of Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases>) best describes a CEO
abandoning the majority of his company's intellectual property in favour of a
partnership with his ex-employer.

------
tankenmate
Nokia signs a suicide pact with Microsoft? Desperate times lead to desperate
measures, but I don't think Nokia jumped from the platform here, instead they
have decided to huddle in a corner with MS. This will be the death of both. I
am resigning my Nokia Ambassadorship as I type. Of all the players it could
team up with this is probably the worst. MS like to control the platform, but
they do a very poor job of it (unlike Apple). Nokia would have been far better
off by making a deeper commitment with Intel. It is a sad day, the end of an
age.

------
jeswin
Windows Phone 7 is a solid result for a first iteration product; although I
see a lot of negative sentiment here (not sure how many have used it). It is
missing some features but I am pretty sure they are being worked upon right
now (considering the platform is so critical for Microsoft).

Here is what it has going for it:

1\. Ease of development - Writing WP7 apps with Visual Studio is very easy;
probably easier than any other platform.

2\. Games! - The most downloaded apps have always been games. WP7 is a solid
platform to write games and MS will _eventually_ bring in their considerable
clout in XBox/PC.

3\. "Enterprise" Apps - are still unexplored territory. WP7 is the first
platform where the countless in-house Windows teams can put out something in
languages they already know.

And finally the Nokia deal is a breakthrough for MS. Outside the US, Nokia has
an exceptional market presence. Around where I live (Bangalore), there are 3
Nokia exclusive shops and all of them are going to showcase their new WP7
phones soon. With a good enough product, you can make up for everything else
with marketing.

As for Nokia, they now will a product I might consider buying at some point.

~~~
nika
I'm an iOS developer who has passed on android, but I'm surprisingly (as a
longtime microsoft hater) open minded about Phone 7. I sincerely doubt that it
is as easy to develop for as iOS... but I am an optimist and hope MSFT has
improved this regard enough to not drive me up the wall.

What remains to be seen, for me, is whether there is a viable market or not.
People like to complain about Apple's AppStore, but it is a good market. I
don't worry about whether I'll get paid, I get good info about sales in a
timely manner, and the terms are acceptable. And I appreciate the review
process (despite having an app rejected once, they were right, I fixed it, no
problem.)

So, my real concern is how the stores are going to shake out, and if there is
a single store for "Phone 7" (what a name! ugh) whether it is as well run as
the AppStore.

~~~
steverb
Having done both iOS and WP7 development I will tell you that I found WP7
enormously easier to develop for. If you can handle writing a Silverlight app,
then you can program for WP7 with no problem.

I have not written any games for either platform though, so I can't compare
that experience.

------
rue
I can't help but feel this was all arranged, with or without the full
knowledge of the Nokia board, when Elop moved over.

It's a little sad for me, personally. I can't say with confidence that this
isn't a good move for Nokia among the general populace but I've, finally,
given up on them.

Goodbye. We'll always have the 2110 and the summer of 1994!

~~~
henrikschroder
Aww, I bought a 2010 in the summer of 1995, and have been using Nokia phones
ever since. Next one is going to be something with Android probably, too bad
it couldn't have been a Nokia as well.

------
Yaggo
A sinking ship and burning platform, what could possibly go wrong?

------
murrayb
My prediction FWIW: more lawsuits. This diagram is about to get some more
lines- <http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/whos_suing_whom.png>

------
yatsyk
Not so smart move for Nokia, but this move could be good for WP7. With Nokia
MS could get some market share. But for Nokia it's dumb. They are betting on
not so feature rich platform with very small market share, with small
(comparing to competitors) number of third party applications. And what it
worst this is closed platform controlled by other company.

Why not fork Android?

------
jpalomaki
Before: At least some kind of vision, build around Qt and multiple platforms
After: A little bit of dying Symbian, some open source development around
Meego, some Windows phones in distant future

Guess this won't help in selling those Symbian E7 phones to companies.

I have a feeling that Vanjoki knew what was coming and gave his peeing
statement in order to have his opinion on the record.

------
lucasr
This is the definitive proof that leaving Nokia back in 2008—when they pretty
much killed Maemo—was the best decision I ever made.

They've made two major platform shifts in just a few years. From Maemo to
MeeGo and now from MeeGo to Windows Phone. Not something that inspires
confidence in the company or attracts talented developers...

------
koski
I hope Nokia and Microsoft are not joining forces like two drowning men, each
trying to use the other for support.

I was hoping to see an Android phone made by Nokia.

------
rbanffy
So... Anyone wants to bet that Elop will be back to Microsoft (or something
Microsoft controls) in less than five years?

------
dagw
Has partnering with Microsoft ever worked out well for a failing tech company?
I can think of a few examples where it has failed spectacularly.

~~~
maxharris
Yes, it has.

August 6, 1997: Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple, guaranteeing that
they would make Mac Office until 2002. Litigation between the companies was
settled, and Apple agreed to make IE the preferred browser on Macs for awhile.
<http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html>

You might still have some kind of a point because Apple didn't adopt a
Microsoft operating system their 1997 deal. But you still need to rephrase
your statement if you want to be accurate.

Partnerships don't save bad companies. SGI and Palm were running into the
ground on their own accord.

~~~
mbreese
Can you name one that isn't Apple? (that's the only one anyone has mentioned
so far). Because, I think that Microsoft actually made out better in that deal
- they didn't get broken up in antitrust.

Also, Apple really didn't get a 'partner' in Microsoft. Microsoft didn't need
them from a technology point of view. They needed them to survive for legal
reasons.

Essentially, Apple got an agreement that Microsoft would support the Mac for
Office. That was the major coup because that meant that the Mac would be able
to keep being seen as a legitimate business computer.

I think that the money was pretty minor in the deal (but I can't remember
Apple's cash flow at that point in time).

~~~
maxharris
_Can you name one that isn't Apple?_

Intel: Sure, they had clashes over the decades (especially over Intel's forays
into software, which Microsoft pushed damn hard to kill, and over NT ports to
other ISAs), but these are exceptions.

Citrix: (From the fourth reference listed by
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Citrix_System...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Citrix_Systems#Microsoft_relationship))

"Citrix's relationship with Microsoft was key to the company's growth.
Microsoft's Windows was exceedingly popular, and Citrix allowed network users
to run Windows, even if they used Macintosh computers, which had a completely
different operating system. The two companies were deeply intertwined.
Iacobucci had known Bill Gates for years, Microsoft was a major investor in
Citrix, and much of Citrix's growth was due to the demand for access to
Windows. But Microsoft shocked Citrix in 1997 when it announced that it was
considering building its own version of Windows networking technology,
supplanting Citrix with a home-grown Microsoft product. Citrix's stock
plummeted on this news, as it did not seem possible for Citrix to survive
without Microsoft. Yet in some ways, Microsoft's new plan didn't make sense.
At that point, no one besides Citrix made anything like what Citrix made, so
there was no chance of Microsoft licensing the technology from another
company. And it would take Microsoft some time to develop a comparable
program, probably years. Iacobucci flew to Microsoft's headquarters in
Redmond, Washington, with a crew of advisors and negotiators and prepared for
a long stay. The Citrix team camped out in a suite of apartments and hammered
out an agreement with Microsoft over a period of months. Finally Citrix
announced that it had signed a new licensing agreement with Microsoft,
promising Citrix $75 million immediately, and another $100 million spread over
several years. Microsoft would endorse Citrix's Windows networking systems for
five more years."

Just because a partner is strong doesn't mean they're not a partner.

------
Garbage
Wouldn't Android a better choice than Windows Phone?

------
robbiewhittle
_"Nokia Maps will become core to Microsoft’s mapping services"_

Does this mean that Bing Maps is getting axed?

~~~
aphexairlines
It could just mean that bing maps would use nokia imaging data.

~~~
jsnell
But they already use Navteq data, so that would not exactly be news.

------
balakk
Well, as they say, a quick death is better than a slow, painful death..

------
Keyframe
I was recently hunting for a new phone. I have a plan with my mobile company
where I get a new phone (any that I want) for approx. $1.99.. I needed a new
phone right away since I accidentally dropped my old phone and it broke, and
it was just a right time to get a new one for $1.99...

Anyway, there was a waiting period for iPhone 4 and HTC Desire HD (obviously
they're popular), and I needed phone right now and I saw a Samsung Omnia 7..
and thought what the hell, just give me the phone - I only use it for talking
(a lot) and occasional sms and email...

I am really surprised how WP7 is good - it lacks polish, little details,
thought lots of them, but it's pretty much all there.. if they focus on those
details and pimp up a marketplace a bit and let more countries in, I'm very
optimistic about it.

------
saturdaysaint
The line in the announcement about pushing these devices into new pricepoints
actually gives me some hope for the marriage. IMO, the next phase of the
smartphone race will not be about having the hottest high-end smartphone - I
think the winner will be the one that can make a smartphone platform pervasive
on entry-level phones.

If Nokia and MS get WP7 on every entry level Nokia, they might be able to
disrupt the high end players and bring quality to the low end that Chinese
competition will haage trouble matching.

~~~
davros
Nokia says they will still run symbian on entry level phones. Increasingly
these will compete with cheap android phones like huawei ideos. Nokia's
advantage will be battery life, but the android phones will have the features
that consumers want.

------
ssp
Maybe Nokia is going to make ARM laptops running Windows 8. A laptop with
Windows and seriously great battery life could easily be a hit, especially if
they get it out before Apple makes an ARM MacBook.

The existing PC manufacturers are all pwned by Intel, so there is room for
someone new. (And probably for a startup trying to become the Dell of WARM,
for that matter). Note also that both the WARM announcement and this one are
big screw-yous to Intel.

------
Derbasti
Nokia still makes most of its money with dumbphones. You know, feature phones
that are good at telephony and texting but not much else. Many people still
heavily use these, especially in poorer countries. Nokia never really had a
widely successful smartphone.

So partnering with Microsoft for smartphones doesn't look like a bad idea to
me. They certainly know how to build hardware, even at large scale, and
Microsoft will supply the software.

------
Stormbringer
From the article:

 _"To support the planned new partnership with Microsoft, Smart Devices will
be responsible for creating a winning Windows Phone portfolio."_

Ahh... did that Elop guy forget which team he was batting for? Does Balmer
still sign his pay-cheques?

If I was a Nokia person and got told that now whether Windows Phone was
successful or not was my fault, I'd show them where they could put their
phones....

Are they victims of Stockholm Syndrome or what?

------
juiceandjuice
This is kind of a bummer. I was hoping to see an N9 with Meego, and I don't
think that's going to happen anymore.

~~~
andre3k1
No, unfortunately it's not going to happen. A few days ago Reuters reported
that Nokia slashed the first MeeGo device before it even hit production.

My guess is that dropping the project comes as a result of signing this deal
with Microsoft. Nokia seems to have opted for Windows Phone instead of MeeGo.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/09/nokia-meego-
idUSLD...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/09/nokia-meego-
idUSLDE7180X420110209)

~~~
juiceandjuice
Yeah, I saw this the other day too, but I was hoping it wasn't all true:
[http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-it/2011/02/10/nokia-
halts...](http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-it/2011/02/10/nokia-halts-meego-
and-n9-releases-says-report-40091751/)

I was kind of holding out for that to replace my 3GS I guess. I don't really
like Symbian, and I was hoping for a solid, well engineered phone with a real
keyboard for a change.

~~~
andre3k1
Actually I was wrong. 2 minutes ago Engadget reported that Nokia has not
scrapped MeeGo.

[http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-meego-not-dead-
stil...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-meego-not-dead-still-
shipping-this-year/)

------
koski
Here is a pretty good summary of all of this (And what Nokia is about to do in
the near future): <http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=204353>

------
rbanffy
"As of April 1, Nokia will also boast a new company structure"

I am not sure what to read from that.

~~~
ThomPete
ups downvote was not intentional sorry. Stupid small arrows!

------
thematt
This will be interesting in terms of hardware. Windows Phone 7 has some steep
system requirements. Will Nokia's existing phones even be able to accommodate
it?

~~~
dagw
The N8 has a 680MHz ARM, 256 MB Ram and hardware accelerated OpenGL-ES 2.0. If
they can write a DirectX driver for the GPU, then that should be good enough.

The really interesting question is if they'll do something interesting enough
to differentiate themselves from their field. Given how dull the current
lineup of Windows 7 phones is, they might have some real opportunities.

~~~
jf
Windows Phone 7 requires a baseline of 1 GHz for the processor.

~~~
zmmmmm
That and the fact WP7 still doesn't support less than WVGA screens really
makes me question how Nokia is going to compete at the low end with WP7.
Honestly I think a big part of the threat to them is not even the "smartphone"
market but rather that their low to mid range phones where all their volume
comes from are going to get knocked out by Android.

------
borism
is it not a slight conflict of interest when former MSFT exec who just became
NOK CEO makes a strategic partnership with his former company?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
The board probably hired him to make this happen.

~~~
borism
shouldn't they have disclosed that?

~~~
parfe
To who? The Board?

~~~
borism
to the shareholders

------
mkramlich
from burning platform to slowly sinking ship. awesome!

------
eurohacker
its a right decision - MS needs Nokia and mobile sucess as much as Nokia needs
MS soft,

both sides are ready to contribute greatly to increase the tablet market
share,

hint - creating and editing Excel files and Word files by mobile phones in the
future

------
nika
If I were CEO of Nokia, here's what I'd do. I'd go to Apple and license iOS.
Now is the perfect time, and Nokia missed a critical opportunity by not doing
so.

I know, "apple doesn't license their OS dummy!". But think about this:

1\. Android is selling more phones right now.

2\. Apple is unable to manufacture enough phones, and has admitted in
conference calls that they have lost sales for this reason.

3\. Nokia going to MSFT (with an ex-MFST exec as their CEO) is an obvious
move... Apple was surely aware of this alternative, and killing Phone 7 in the
crib is in Apple's interest. So, "keep your enemy closer", in a sense.

4\. The terms would be sufficient for Apple. (EG: Apple wants platform
dominance, and profit on its hardware, not exclusivity.)

5\. Nokia probably could have gotten an exclusive for 4-5 years, so that the
only suppliers of iPhones would be Apple and Nokia for that period. This
benefits both- less distraction for Apple, and Nokia doesn't have to worry
about being commoditized like they do with MSFT, which would never grant such
an exclusivity period.

Why wouldn't Apple agree to this? Here's the objections, and why I think they
don't apply:

1\. Apple wants control over their OS. Well, this they would get. Apple would
dictate to nokia the specs of the hardware, nokia would build it. They would
have to cooperate on addtional features (like a second screen that noikia
might want to ad, or whatever.) Apple would still be in the drivers seat for
the OS like Microsoft is here.

2\. Apple wants all the money. This isn't really true. Steve Jobs offered to
license Mac OS X to the One Laptop Per Child project for free. Apple would do
financial terms with Nokia, probably competitive to MSFT. Apple wants the
platform dominance and the consequent %30 of appstore sales more than they
want to make $300 on every phone sold. (We'll see this from apple soon with a
"feature iphone")

3\. Apple doesn't want Nokia taking away sales of iPhones. There might be some
risk of this, but nokia can't compete with iphones now hardware wise, and
apple's more interested in platform dominance than squeezing every penny out
of the phone market. Most nokia phones right now are sold to people who chose
them over the iphone for various reasons, probably having to do with not
having any taste, or more seriously, nokias distribution and manufacturing
capacity.

So long as the iPhone isn't threatened, and it wouldn't be by nokia, and the
OS is respected, Apple would be happy to have another major manufacturer
increasing iPhone market share.

In Apple's DNA are two drives:

1\. To never again be in a situation where someone can cut off their air
supply like Microsoft did.

2\. To always produce a high quality product.

3\. There is no three.

Apple doesn't care about being the most profitable, or having absolute control
Everything apple does is really related to 1 & 2\. People often like to
attribute other drives to Apple because it serves their interests to do so,
but if you listen to what Apple's executives say and look at how the act,
these are the two drives.

Apple licensing iOS to nokia under terms similar to the MSFT deal supports
both of these drives and doesn't undermine either. (if Nokia started cutting
off apple's air supply, Apple would simply not renew the agreement.)

I believe the reason this deal happened with Microsoft is that Elop is an ex-
MSFTie. In my experience, people who spend large parts of their career at MSFT
start seeing things completely in terms of MSFT's dominance, and I suspect
this still happens even though MSFT is no longer dominant.

The Nokia board screwed the pooch, as they say.

~~~
Pooter
> I know, "apple doesn't license their OS dummy!". But think about this:

> 1\. Android is selling more phones right now.

> 2\. Apple is unable to manufacture enough phones, and has admitted in
> conference calls that they have lost sales for this reason.

On the other hand, Apple made 51% of all profits in mobile devices last
quarter. With 4% marketshare. They've got tons of cash on-hand. If they want
to start making a play for cheaper devices or somehow throw money at
increasing production volume, they can do that rather than become a software
OEM.

The reason Apple can a high quality integrated experience is cause they
control the whole thing. If they license to Nokia, then they don't control the
whole thing - there's another, fairly powerful party there who will throw
whatever weight they have around to get things that favor them.

You also entirely ignore the problems. It's harder to develop for multiple
hardware configurations. Apple and it's 3rd party developers have 2-3 iPhones
that they develop for at one time (plus a few iTouches and the iPad). Limited
hardware sets, fairly similar capabilities. That's a good thing for producing
consistent, high quality user experiences and keeping support costs in-line.

Maybe it would've been great for Nokia to license iOS, but there's nothing in
it for Apple, whatever you say, and a bunch of unacceptable downsides.

------
nice1
poor nokia is going the way of the dodo (and zune, bing, you get the picture)

