
Nokia Plan B - wybo
http://nokiaplanb.com/
======
harshaw
I did a bunch of work with Nokia back when I was working at Orange. We had a
project to build push to talk software on Series 60 phones. Besides the idea
that push to talk is a horrible idea, my job was to work with Nokia to make
sure the software worked properly. We had some lower level software from our
hardware provider (Kodiak Networks) and some UI code that we had built
ourselves.

As these projects tend to go, things didn't go well. due to various issues in
the Nokia closed source software layer there were a number of bugs we (Orange
& Kodiak) couldn't fix. We decided to fly to Tampere (one of Nokia's R&D
locations) to fix the problem.

Tampere is a lovely place to eat Reindeer. However, not _once_ did I meet an
engineer who could get shit done. Not once - Nokia never paired us with a
serious developer who could even attempt to fix issues in their code. They
surrounded us with product manager wankers and threw in a 22 year old engineer
who wasn't able to make much progress debugging the problem. The Kodiak
engineer was all ready to attack the problem with a dev board and a JTAG but
no one would let us in the lab. What a clusterf _ck. Apparently a good bit of
the S60 development wasn't even done in Tampere (or Finland). I think it might
have been done in Japan. I think these sort of issues are what the author of
the article alluded to regarding distributed development teams.

Perhaps I only saw a small slice of the Nokia culture. But it was _really*
bad.

I'm glad the guys behind nokiaplanb.com are passionate about fixing Nokia.
Much as I think the M$ alliance is a waste of time, I admire Elop's bold
actions. I can't see continued development of MeeGo as useful. What I have
seen to date has been unimpressive and late. Additionally -why not just use
Android as the base OS and innovate on top of it?

~~~
Murkin
To counter point, 5 years back when our company sold our software product to
Nokia, I flew to Finland to talk about architecture and implementation.

Ended up giving a lecture to 8 (+2 PMs) Nokia engineers, many of whom asked
the most intelligent and domain relevant questions I heard so far. (3 even
asked me to stay after the lecture and go over detail).

Things got done

~~~
harshaw
good :) No doubt once you are plugged in their engineering talent is top
notch.

------
johnrob
_MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior
experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products_

That is one bold statement. I don't know if I'd bet the company's success on a
claim like that.

~~~
dotBen
Yes, their commitment to MeeGo being the center piece of their strategy is
where I fall off being on the same page as these folks.

Phones need strong app ecosystems and familiar apps that everyone expects, but
developers can only realistically support so many discrete platforms.

Nokia is great at making hardware, they should be confident that is what will
stop them being a commodity OEM should they support a first-class citizen
operating system (which is iOS or Android - so assuming no deal to support iOS
means for me they have to do Android)

~~~
bad_user

           Phones need strong app ecosystems and familiar 
           apps that everyone expects
    

Both iOS and Android started with zero apps.

MeeGo is based on the Linux ecosystem. Porting games from Android / iOS to
MeeGo should be trivial. Building cross-platform apps that run on all of them
in C++ is also doable, since you can share the business-logic.

Android would be a bad choice for them. They are big enough to want to
differentiate themselves from the competition. Forking Android would be
terrible for everybody; Symbian all over again.

So MeeGo or a new version of Symbian is their best option: they can reuse
existing code-bases and they also have enough control.

Either way, the partnership with Microsoft is a disaster.

~~~
panacea
"Porting... should be trivial."

There is a world of difference between getting an <strikeout>executable
program application</strikeout> app to run and designing one from the ground
up that is platform specific and provides an optimal UX.

~~~
bad_user
That's why I said "games", which are written in C++ and for which you only
really need OpenGL ES. Other differences can be easily abstracted.

And when speaking about "games", they have their own UI, so providing an
optimal UX is not about using OS-specific widgets.

~~~
panacea
Apologies. I missed your games distinction. Quite right.

------
latch
I know they are saying it's coming soon, but this is really missing 9 bios.
You have a definitive plan for what you'll do if elected to the __Board of
Directors __, which is a great start. But writing an open letter, asking for
something so serious, without a paragraph-long bio on each one of you is
crazies in my book.

~~~
kooshball
I agree. If they can get a major shareholder as even a figurehead, it would
add a lot more credibility over "9 young shareholders", which means they have
at least 1 share each.

~~~
fleitz
No kidding, if they could actually head a company like Nokia and create a
superior UX then why not go shop your bios around SV looking for some VC to
make a mobile OS. Or go shop your resume at Apple / Google / Microsoft.
WinPhone 7 is light years ahead of anything I've seen from Nokia.

Their naivety is betrayed when the talk about developing technology in house
and then talk about Qt. If Nokia could build their own GUI toolkit they'd have
no use for Qt.

~~~
bad_user
They already own Qt and all intellectual property associated, so why not use
it? It's also a cross-platform toolkit with a clean interface and lots of
mind-share.

The whole MeeGo operating system is using bits and pieces from the Linux
ecosystem.

There's nothing wrong with that. The difference between them using MeeGo and
them using Android or WinMo 7, is that with MeeGo they have complete control,
as it's their platform.

    
    
          WinPhone 7 is light years ahead of anything I've seen from Nokia
    

This statement doesn't hold water. I've tried WinMo 7, and it is decent, but
all I could say about it was the same as for Windows 7 ... it is not that bad,
but it's late, and limited, and those animations are causing me nausea, and
tell me why should I choose a Windows again when I tried so hard to get rid of
it the last time?

Also, speaking as a developer, porting games from iOS / Android to WinMo 7 is
not really possible without a 100% complete rewrite.

And what happens when they completely break backwards compatibility again for
WinMo 8, like they did with 7?

Now you've got 3 problems.

~~~
fleitz
Wouldn't disagree with you on porting.

Backwards compat w/ WinMo 8? You rewrite your apps and get to sell them again
:)

Nokia has also switched from Symbian to MeeGo so what's to stop them from
breaking compat?

The point of directing a public company is to do so with the best interests of
the shareholders, I could be wrong but I have a feeling the majority of the
shareholders of Nokia would be happier with Elops plan than the plan of these
guys.

------
elithrar
I think a couple of things are obvious, from knowing some Nokia employees:

a) These 9 are young, and likely Finns — who are generally proud people and
who are guarded against outsiders (like Elop)

b) They are software developers. Most of their Plan B focuses heavily on Meego
and keeping development and R&D in-house. With Meego 'out' (or close to it)
and WP7 in, software development resources at Nokia are likely to be slashed,
and so of course they'd want to contest the decision.

The biggest problem I have with their plan though, is this:

> Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit
> margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with
> unrivaled user experience.

Return? Nokia & Symbian might sell a ton of phones in the global market, but
they certainly haven't had high margins nor growth over the last few years.
They can't 'return' to the way things were, because that strategy is no longer
viable in today's market. To carry on as if Apple & Google aren't kicking your
ass is a sure-fire way to lose everything.

------
ajg1977
Plan B: Fire a couple of execs and keep following the strategy that got us to
this point.

~~~
pyre
Well, Plan A seems to be hitching their wagon to the horse that's seemingly in
last place by a large margin. So comparatively, Plan B isn't that bad.

~~~
keithwarren
Well, Plan A seems to be hitching their wagon to the richest and most powerful
software company in the world who has pledged to give billions of dollars plus
rights to customize a modern mobile operating system. So comparatively, Plan B
is just sour grapes.

~~~
rbanffy
> Plan A seems to be hitching their wagon to the richest and most powerful
> software company in the world

... the same company that has been trying for more than a decade to produce a
marginally adequate phone experience and has been consistently failing, with
great comedic value, in each and every attempt to challenge whoever is the
market leader at a given point. Nokia, who was the leader of this market on
more than one occasion, is hitching their wagon to a goldfish who seemingly
can't learn from past experience.

Sadly, this Plan B has zero chances of flying. The board is on Elop's side
because they are betting Nokia is doomed and the billions Microsoft will
inject will give them both time and some added value when they gut the company
to sell its parts a couple years from now.

Nokia is gone. We'd better get used to it.

~~~
nl
Remember the old adage about Microsoft: "It take them 3 god to get something
right"? (1) Windows Mobile, (2) Kin, (3) WinMo7

Have you used WinMo7? It's really nice (and this from an Android fan).

I'm not sure it will save Nokia, but read a few reviews of WinMo7 ans go and
have a play before you dismiss it entirely.

(Edit: WinMo7's biggest problem is it's name. "Windows" is a huge liability
because everyone associates it with desktop windows even though it shares no
common code at all)

~~~
cubicle67
(1) 1996 - Windows CE 1.0

(2) 1997 - Windows CE 2.0

(3) 2000 - Windows CE 3.0 / Pocket PC 2000

(4) 2002 - Windows CE 4.0 / Pocket PC 2002

(5) 2003 - Windows Mobile 2003

(5.5) 2003 - Windows Mobile 2003 SE

(6) 2005 - Windows Mobile 5

(7) 2007 - Windows Mobile 6

(7.1) 2008 - Windows Mobile 6.1

(7.5) 2009 - Windows Mobile 6.5

(8) 2010 - Microsoft Kin

(9) 2010 - Windows Phone 7

That's about 15 years and nine attempts

[Edit: reading further I've found Windows Mobile 2003 (and, I assume, 2003 SE)
was based on CE 4.2, so numbers 5 and 5.5 should become 4.x and following
numbers reduced by one]

~~~
nl
Windows CE -> Windows Mobile 6.5 is all the same codebase.

It doesn't matter anyway - adages are just rules of thumb. The point is that
Microsoft isn't as bad at creating good products... eventually.

Think about these: XBox, Bing (esp travel search), C#, F#, etc

Try WinMo7 - it's quite impressive and different to the iPhone or Android.

~~~
cubicle67
sorry if I've touched a nerve there. I've never said (on this forum or
elsewhere) a bad word about WP7. I've never seen one but I'm quite willing to
believe all the positive things I've read about it. I was just having a light
dig at your '3 attempts' remark, that's all

~~~
nl
Oops - I thought you were the poster I was replying to and were missing the
point. Sorry!

And yes: I agree that Microsoft managed to spend a lot of time & money on
mobile operating systems that turned out to be dead ends.

~~~
cubicle67
no worries :)

------
dreaming
Assuming this is genuine, it is too little too late. Nokia needed someone to
come and say this before the decided to jump ship.

Its staggering to think of how many resources nokia have, and how little and
slowly they've innovated. Nokia has been falling behind for a long time. One
thing I always found disheartening was their desire to compete against
themselves, and ignore others, as illustrated by them releasing an older
version of symbian for their business phones, while using the new symbian for
their media phones, but it seemed there was no place to get 'the best' nokia.
It was always a choice, but one that didn't seem to have an easily
identifiable consumer flagship. Just N's and E's and everything in between.

~~~
dangero
Right. It's totally too little too late. Getting a billion dollars from
Microsoft and using their ecosystem may be their best option at this point to
get in the game again. Otherwise, they have too much ground to catch up in too
little time.

~~~
Bud
Why do you think that MS will help? Microsoft _has_ no established
"ecosystem"; not in the mobile phone world, at least. How does allying
yourself with the aspirational #3 player in a two-player market help you catch
up?

~~~
kenjackson
You look at their roadmap and look at yours.

While Android is doing well there are a LOT more Android phones and
competitors. I suspect they went to Google and said, "we need to be the
premiere OEM" and Google said, "screw you."

Then they looked at tech roadmap and maybe thought by end of year WP7 looks as
good, if not better, than Android. They won't have a phone ready by then
anyways, so the fact that WP7 is behind Android now isn't as big of a deal.

And if MS said, you're our premiere partner and we'll even give you a payout
on phones sold... then it's a no-brainer.

Based on what MS showed today at MWC, this race tightens up, not spreads out.

~~~
nextparadigms
Google has worked tightly with all major Android phone manufacturers to
release at least one important product. They've also helped other
manufacturers do the same, like some in India. I'm sure they would've helped
Nokia to get off the ground as well and get their sh*t together. It's in
Google's best interest that every manufacturer impresses with their Android
phones, don't you think?

The guy above is right. If Android is the next Windows 95, which brings all
manufacturers under it (I believe it is), then no matter whether Nokia likes
it or not, choosing another OS would kill it, once it fails.

By the time Nokia helps WP7 capture 10% of the smartphone market, let's say by
end of 2012, Android will reach 50-60%. There's no way WP7 can fight that back
once Android reaches there.

------
mjfern
I think the authors are underestimating the challenges of commercializing and
then gaining market share with the MeeGo platform.

First, there is a question of development and time to market. By the time
Nokia launches MeeGo and handsets, Android, iOS, and others (WP7, RIM, Palm)
will be further entrenched in the market (e.g., market share, brand, hardware
partners). Second, there is the fundamental issue that succeeding with MeeGo
hinges not only on the OS but also on a thriving application market. Because
of the application markets, there are strong network effects with mobile
platforms. These network effects make it very difficult for a new platform to
break into the space.

To complement investments in MeeGo and WP7 for the smartphone market and
Symbian for the feature phone market, Nokia should immediately invest in an
Android strategy as a fail-safe. I understand this conflicts with Nokia's
historical strategy of controlling both software and hardware, but it's quite
possible that Android will eventually emerge as the winner-take-all platform
in smartphones, aside from Apple/iOS and several niche platforms. If this were
to happen, Nokia's singular bet on MeeGo (or WP7) may destabilize the entire
company.

In short, I propose that Nokia pursue a four-pronged strategy, pushing forward
with MeeGo, WP7, Symbian, and Android -- Symbian for feature phones, which
still account for roughly 80% of the worldwide mobile phone market, and MeeGo,
WP7, and Android for the smartphone market. As uncertainty is reduced over
time regarding 1) the potential of each of the smartphone platforms and 2) the
pace at which geographic markets are shifting away from feature phones to
smartphones, Nokia can appropriately adjust its investments. By making
investments in each area, and adjusting the relative amounts over time, Nokia
can better ensure its survival and prosperity despite the quickly evolving
mobile phone market.

~~~
theoj
That seems like a lot of options to explore at once, and could be quite
expensive from an R&D and product development standpoint, while at the same
time failing to capitalize on large returns to scale. Rather than a 4-pronged
strategy I'd rather see 2 pronged strategy. Keep Android, dump WP7 (it's a
laggard and Ballmer's MS seems incapable of generating any big wins) and
select one of either MeeGo or Symbian.

------
spiralganglion
I don't own any shares in Nokia, I have never nor likely will ever own a Nokia
phone, and I don't have any real insight into the nuances of the situation.

But as an avid spectator of the evolving mobile platform "war", this sort of
coup d'état would be amazing to witness from the sidelines, no matter the
outcome. Therefore, and for no greater reason, I really hope this goes
through.

~~~
WiseWeasel
I think it's kinda sad. The marketplace shrank with this development, and a
major powerhouse in mobile device development has been transformed into a
commodity OEM. Nokia has suddenly been emptied of all of its unique value to
consumers, leaving only an irrelevant shell of a brand without a vision or
purpose.

------
gnaffle
I think people are forgetting that Nokia _did_ make a very innovative platform
back in 2005 with Maemo at the GTK-based Hildon GUI. If they hadn't stopped
innovating and had gotten others on board except for Intel, that platform
could have been Android today.

It's true that they managed to kill it through sheer incompetence, including
alienating a lot of first adopters by discontinuing product support for the
internet tablets. But there's obviously brilliant people at Nokia, just like
there were brilliant people at Apple before Steve Jobs.

Now, if Apple had ditched MacOS when Steve returned instead of using NextStep,
and instead went with Windows, and shipped a WP7 phone instead of a phone with
OSX, where would they be today? They _might_ have had the iTunes ecosystem, if
Microsoft would have allowed it. Their "differentiating features" would be at
the mercy of Microsoft and their strategic plans.

I guess people are right that you need an app ecosystem to compete in the
smartphone market today. But the iPhone sold like hotcakes for more than a
year before it had apps. If Nokia made a phone that users really wanted, I
think the app ecosystem would have followed. Instead, they're using their huge
market presence to give Microsofts platform the same boost.

------
cookiecaper
Supposing they did get elected, I would expect they would cost Nokia a _lot_
of money, possibly ultimately bankrupting the company, from litigation MS
would inevitably bring and probably win. It would be a huge embarrassment to
WP7 and MS if Nokia backed out, and if there's any way MS can swing damages
for that kind of thing given their contract with Nokia, and I'm sure there is,
they will definitely do so. I think that the ship has sailed and they're stuck
with WP7 for the term of the exclusivity arrangement.

If these guys want to make Meego the dominant smartphone platform, they're
going to have to do it with something besides Nokia.

~~~
rbanffy
> litigation MS would inevitably bring and probably win

Unless they can convince a judge Elop acted on bad faith against the best
interests of the company and favoring his previous corporate master. That
could make the Microsoft executives who helped broker the deal accessories to
this.

I am not sure the first part is that hard to sell to a judge.

~~~
jarek
On the upside, tear up a contract here, a strategic partnership there, and no
one would ever want to do business with them again.

~~~
varjag
Well Elop just dumped Intel the same way, so I guess it's never a problem.

------
nl
<http://nokiaplanc.com/> is up :)

No affiliation, but I think it's funny.

(For those who don't get it, Nokia was originally a rubber goods manufacturer)

~~~
siika2000
Also:

<http://nokiapland.com/>

<http://nokiaplane.com/>

~~~
eik3_de
Also: <http://nokiaplanx.com/>

------
c141charlie
We are seeing the beginning of the commoditization of the smart phone
industry. Smart phones will become ubiquitous and intense competition among
handset manufacturers will erode profit margins.

While I admire the passion that fueled this letter, their goal to "offer
overwhelmingly superior experiences" seems foolishly optimistic. How will
Nokia differentiate from the plethora of Android derivatives, iOS, WP7, Web
OS, and Blackberry?

~~~
spitfire
Isn't that what android is all about? Commoditizing the market, and
acclimatizing users to sophisticated capabilities (Like handheld search!). I'm
not a fan of microsoft, but I am a fan of competition.

I kind of like this battle that's warming up here.

------
artsrc
I have an idea, startups.

Have some former Nokia lead engineers and managers, start working on that
plan.

Have some other managers and engineers work on the Android plan.

Have some others compete with Nokia to make better WP7 phones.

Gets rid of 100 layers of management, etc.

------
cloudwalking
I don't think smartphones can win without apps, and the OS market is getting
pretty saturated. If iOS, Android, WebOS, and WP7 all have more users, when am
I ever going to get around to writing MeeGo apps?

~~~
cookiecaper
MeeGo, at least last I knew, follows in the vein of Maemo and doesn't need
special apps written for it, it can run the same software as any Linux
userland. Perhaps this has changed recently but I don't think it has.

You can unify most of the codebase in .NET probably; use MonoTouch and
MonoDroid for iOS and Android, Mono for Meego, and MS's included CLR on WP7.
That only leaves webOS.

~~~
ajg1977
_it doesn't need special apps written for it, it can run the same software as
any Linux userland_

This type of fundamental failure to understand the consumer space is exactly
what's driving Nokia into the ground.

Consumers don't give a fig what userland your device is compatible with.
Consumers want a super-simple way of finding interesting apps, putting them on
their phone, and having them look good and run problem free.

So yes, you really do need special apps.

~~~
cookiecaper
I didn't say consumers cared. I am annoyed to see people upvoting you since
you are replying to something I didn't say or attempt to say. The grandparent
said developers would have a difficult time keeping up, and I was replying to
that. If you have a decent consumer-facing Linux application, it is easy to
port it to Meego since it's basically the same thing, with maybe a few extra
integration hooks to add in. Especially if the app uses Qt anyway. This,
indeed, is a positive for developers, which is what the OP addressed. It
trickles down to consumers, too -- if I can run normal programs with few or no
changes on my phone, I'll have a lot more choices that already exist available
to me.

Also, as I stated, a normal Linux userland means normal Linux applications and
things work -- you can use Mono or Wine if you want to run a Windows or .NET
application.

~~~
ajg1977
Honestly, doing this backend work is pretty trivial. Aside from Windows Phone
that is, where everything must be in managed code (doh). But iPhone / Android
is trivial, like literally a couple of days for a moderately complex app with
storage, threading, background downloading, and so on. Even input isn't too
bad for simple gestures.

The real work for non-game apps is converting all of your UI and device
interactions to the new OS. Linux compatibility might let you avoid rewriting
your code that opens files, bit it's not going to let you make a UI element
pulse for a few seconds then drop off the screen.

------
jodrellblank
If they had a clue based on modern software practices, they would _make it
easy to support them_.

From the bottom of the AGM questions page:

 _Who has the right to participate in the AGM 2011 and what is the last day to
buy shares if I want the right to attend and vote in the AGM? Each
shareholder, who is registered on April 19, 2011 in the Register of
Shareholders of the Company, has the right to participate in the Annual
General Meeting. A shareholder, whose shares are registered on his/her Finnish
book-entry account, is registered in the Register of Shareholders of the
Company. A shareholder, who wishes to participate in the Annual General
Meeting, may register for the Meeting by giving a prior notice of
participation no later than on April 27, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. (Finnish time) by
which time the registration needs to arrive in the Company._ \-
[http://www.nokia.com/agm/2011/in-english/questions-and-
answe...](http://www.nokia.com/agm/2011/in-english/questions-and-answers)

Although their plan is not in the list of proposals. How does it work? 1 vote
per share or 1 per shareholder? Can I buy 1 share (which stock name on which
exchange?) and support them? If not, and only big shareholders count, why the
twitter popularity campaign?

What specific goal(s) do they have (how many people, doing what?)

------
pjy04
I like their developer plan. Focus on two areas of main development and
eliminate a lot of the waste on the PM/Manager level.

------
mambodog
I think their biggest challenge with going down the MeeGo route would be
acquiring the kind of App ecosystem that iOS and Android have. I reckon their
best bet would be to implement something like Alien Dalvik[1] to allow very
easy porting of existing Android apps to MeeGo, and make their 'app store' as
seamlessly alike to iOS and Android's (including working with top app
developers to encourage them to bring over the most desirable apps).

Once they can be seen as having the same big name apps as the other two, I
think MeeGo has much more of a chance of being competitive, rather than being
a 'third world country' of a platform.

[1]
[http://www.allaboutmeego.com/news/item/12571_Alien_Dalvik_ho...](http://www.allaboutmeego.com/news/item/12571_Alien_Dalvik_hopes_to_bring_An.php)

~~~
ponzi
While that is certainly true, MeeGo is much more of a linux system than
android is, and has great potential to attract hackers. The same tools and
libraries can be used to develop for MeeGo, as is used in any (desktop) linux
distribution. My point is, there is a lot of developers out there that already
know how to develop for MeeGo. Not a proprietary but only very lightly
platform specific tool chain is needed.

------
eibrahim
I think WP7 + Nokia is a great move. Nokia makes great hardware and Microsoft
makes great software and has a HUGE developer base.

I have switched from iPhone to WP7 after 3+ years and I am really happy with
it. I do miss some of the apps and games but love other features that make up
for it.

Hate Microsoft all you want but they have made great software (and also bad).

Great = win7, wp7, zune, visual studio, expression suite, office suite, sql
server.

Bad = well you all know the list: IE8,7,6,5,etc..., hotmail, windows me and a
ton of others that I am too lazy to list.

If history is any indication, Microsoft will eventually dominate the mobile
marketplace or at least be a very close second.

~~~
bakbak
Nokia + MS can give a good fight to others provided they work very closely and
act in lightning speed ... but this should be plan B and not plan A.

Also Nokia is HUGE everywhere (except north america). What they have to do is
to spend more on ecosystem to get things done as fast as possible and also
spend on marketing in north-america ...

MEEGO is a universal OS, it is used in cars, TVs, Games, tablets etc. so it's
better to make it part of Plan A where users can be switched flawlessly from
symbian with a solid ecosystem in place.

------
gacba
I give Nokia Plan B a solid D- for too little too late. MeeGo got a horrible
reception today by Intel ([http://www.slashgear.com/meego-preview-at-
mwc-2011-disappoin...](http://www.slashgear.com/meego-preview-at-
mwc-2011-disappoints-14133583/)) and it's obvious why Nokia abandoned it at
this point, even for a bad choice like Win Mobile 7...what other choice did
they have? Symbian? Bleeding market share like gutted cow. Android? Can't
differentiate in that space.

So to hear these 9 disgruntled folks say they're going to stick with a bad
plan and make it happen sounds like lunacy to me.

~~~
SwellJoe
"Android? Can't differentiate in that space."

I've yet to see an explanation for any way in which they can differentiate on
WP7, that they couldn't do better and more easily on Android.

Say what you will about Open Source development, but when it comes to
differentiation, there's simply no way to beat it...look at the variety of
Linux distributions, for an example of differentiation gone wild.

~~~
jsz0
Out of the gate WM7 is quite different from Android or iOS so there's that. I
think maybe the bigger implied message here is that Nokia was not confident in
their own software development teams to handle this transition. Look at what
they built on top of MeeGo -- it's not very impressive. Would having Android
underneath there make any real difference? I doubt it. They basically want to
outsource their OS development.

~~~
rst
Yes, but that's not the question. The question is, "how different is a Nokia
WP7 phone from, say, one from Samsung or HTC?"

If WP7 is a success, then by the time Nokia ships (late 2011 at the earliest),
they will be entrants in a crowded field --- and so far, Microsoft is
requiring most WP7 phones to be near-lookalikes, to get consistency of user
experience across the platform.

(Of course, part of the deal here may be that Nokia gets to differentiate
their products in a way that nobody else does --- but if it is, then the other
vendors may be ticked in a way that causes long-term problems for the platform
as a whole. Contrast to Android, where vendors have complete freedom to reskin
it right now.)

~~~
kenjackson
The difference may be who does the differentiation. I think part of Mokia's
problem is their developer talent isn't super strong. Them doing significantly
dev on Android is a problem. If MS adds support for Nokia functionality on
WP7, Nokia can focus on HW quality and drive requirements for MS to build the
SW that exploits it.

From what I can tell the negotiations with Google and Nokia went really
poorly.

------
azharcs
I think a quote by Henry Ford sums up the the whole Plan B and their approach.

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." ~ Henry Ford

------
beefman
_Increase the lifespan of Symbian to a minimum of 5 years_

Glad you're not going to any shareholder meetings of companies I own shares
in...

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haguhagu
Their statement sounds like ones that come out of politicians. That can only
end well...

I was watching some meego videos on youtube, it does not look that impressive
and launching the phone usually takes a full minute. Whats up with that. Its
an early build i guess, but as software ages, it generally gets more bloated
meaning even slower.

~~~
drdaeman
> and launching the phone usually takes a full minute

If boot time is tolerable (i.e. it takes not more than a minute) this is one
of the last things developers should care about. Users reboot the phone very
infrequently, like, once in a while, when they completely forget to charge it
and the power goes off.

However, when phone is booted, it should run as smoothly as possible. This is
the one thing I dislike in Maemo 5 - I managed to make my N900 run quite slow
(sure, I've tried lots of the unstable apps from devel-extra so it's mostly my
fault).

------
jfm3
Not all top talent is young...

------
pnathan
I like the "make Nokia leaner" part. But I don't think they are in touch very
well with the marketplace. Personally.

I'm considering putting together some fun and easy mobile games for some
mobile device in 2H 2011. I can select iPhone, Android, or, I guess, WP7.

I'm looking for a platform that has these features:

* Nearly free to register and start developing * Provides app store & DRM mechanism * Doesn't eat too many profits. * Ideally, lets me program _very_ fast, think Ruby on Rails or similar framework.

Okay, so that doesn't exist as far as I know. If Nokia can reboot to provide
the above - then they can probably provide a fourth option.

Nothing I've read so far indicates that they are going to roll that route.

------
kenshi
Plan B is the dream of what Nokia could have been. Unfortunately it should
have been enacted over 5 years ago.

It's too late for such a strategy now - by the time they delivered on their
promises, the competition would completely eat their lunch.

------
jan_g
Hmm, usually shareholders don't run the company. They own it. Stuff like
choosing the tools, organization of R&D department and so on should be in the
hands of the management. That's why you pay them.

------
ashr
Plan B? Not Really. More like a wish-list.

------
kongqiu
Long ago (~2002) when I lived in Beijing, a vendor at the city's Silk Market
had Nokia-brand socks on offer. I suspected they were fakes. The Marlboro-
brand shirts were decent, though...

------
tjansen
Actually I think Meego does not have a chance because of C++. It is Meego's
main fault. Qt is a great framework, but that won't help if you force
programmers to use languages from the stone age. Anyone who wants to establish
a new platform should make it at least as easy to develop for as Android. And
I also doubt that you can catch up with other OSes while using a less
productive development environment.

On the other hand, I never expected Objective C to be as successful...

~~~
pessimizer
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28framework%29#Bindings>

~~~
tjansen
I know those bindings (obviously not all of them), but AFAIK there is not one
binding that doesn't treat the programmer like a second-class citizen. For
example, is there at least one binding with a complete reference
documentation? From what I have seen, bindings typically document only the
difference between the C++ API and the target language. That makes the
documentation hard to read, especially for people who don't know C++.

~~~
pessimizer
More people that I know of use Python and PyQt to program for the N900 than
C++.

------
billbub
Wow! Who are these guys? What do they know about building a mobile ecosystem?
Young how young? Looks to me like a bunch of kids who are scared to put their
name out ..

------
nivertech
1\. They are right regarding bureaucracy reduction and sane R&D management.
They should migrate all their R&D to Silicon Valley and maybe Israel.

2\. The simplest solution to SW is to be OS-agnostic. Offer the same phone
model with different preinstalled OS choices. In the same way as you offer it
with different colors or panels.

Hell, let users change OS or use OS vrtualization, like one OS for Work (WP7)
and an other for Home (Android) with two different numbers.

------
ReadyNSet
Well all you want is Nokia's $billion to spend however you want and at the end
of the day if you couldn't make it you'll just stand up dust your hands and
move on. if the Plan is so good you can take MeeGo which is open source or
heck even Android and make the best phone/OS/EcoSystem out there surely you
wouldn't have any problem attracting VC funding would you?

------
oomkiller
Looks like a good start, but going with MeeGo is a fail in my book. Intel and
Nokia should throw their weight behind Android and focus on making the best,
fastest Android phone, with better features than anyone else.

------
bigB
Maybe if they leave things alone Nokia might just survive. If they do whats in
that list, they wont be shareholders or directors for long. Nokia fanboys need
to realise that they are on a downhill slope right now, and if they continue
on that path Apple and Android will bury them and Microsoft. I have owned
Nokia phones from Australia's GSM introduction until last year when the lack
of Nokia's software capability, in this country at least, forced my hand to
the iPhone. Id give anything to go back to Nokia's quality hardware if it had
a decent OS. Windows Phone 7 is a really nice OS, but for now is on some of
the shittiest phones I have seen. Nokia + Microsoft should hopefully make a
really nice bit of gear.

------
balkanboy
Nokia has the engineering/intellectual manpower to turn MeeGo into a diamond.
Currently, we have 2 solid contenders in the mobile market - Android, which is
encumbered by lawsuits from a 750 lbs gorilla (never mind the 500 lbs) Oracle,
and iOS, which is plagued by the departure of its iconic founder, Steve Jobs,
whose presence and vision is what made Apple's redemption possible. Steve may
be with us for some time longer, but eventually he will either retire or pass,
in which case, doubts remain about whether Apple can maintain its
innovative/technical edge.

The good thing about Linux is it is owned by no one, yet it is above everyone
else. This is good for _you_, all of the posters here, who own a mobile
phone/device/PDA/tablet/etc.

Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical has jumped on the Ubuntu on Wayland wagon too
- and guess what MeeGo is based on? Yep - Wayland. It will breathe new life
into Linux by giving a low-level, efficient display server that will supplant
X windows, and establish a new legacy for the next 10-20 years of Linux being
the premier mobile/desktop/server OS.

THAT is where you want to be going - into a future where no one owns the
operating system, and it has become a commodity, and it has a solid GUI, much
like OS X (or Windows, let's be honest, which has a top notch GUI), and a
gazillion C++ or Java or whichever applications on it.

If Nokia Plan B happens, which I have no doubt it will, Nokia can succeed
where Microsoft continues to fail - to recapture the hearts of developers by
giving them C++, Java, Objective-C - any language, available on the mobile
phone/tablets.

MeeGo is going to provide the default GUI shell for most if not all of Nokia's
phones, but they can create a platform that is welcoming to ALL developers of
all facets with knowledge of all languages, by leaving room for this on the
MeeGo tablet.

There's no technical difficulty in being able to run either DalvikVM or native
C++ or Objective C or heck, even Python or JAva apps on a MeeGo/Linux platform
- it can all be designed in such a way where it supports both.

My point is, by providing the freedom for devs to do what they do best, on an
OSS platform, Linux, and giving them a top-notch GUI API (Qt) w/bindings for
various languages (dynamic ones for rapid dev), they can rise into a very
dominant position in the next 5-10 years, and be a worthy competitor, and
perhaps even carry the torch of iOS and Android, if the other two come to a
sudden death because of lawsuits or health problems of its founders.

I am _super_ excited and thrilled that Nokia wants to make MeeGo its top
platform, and in my view, you ought to be too.

------
cageface
Interesting that they see outsourcing and distributed development as
bureaucratic and inefficient. I wonder if this sentiment is becoming more
common in the industry.

------
Kilimanjaro
I agree with all points, except one, spend half resources in meego and the
other half in android, just to be sure.

------
gills
"We're _young_ shareholders, and our plan is...get this... _young_ software
developers."

Riiiight...

------
olalonde
Would it really be possible to cancel the deal without getting sued by
Microsoft?

------
teyc
young chaps calling for a revolution. Not even listing credentials. This is
not going any where.

------
paolomaffei
Do they have a chance?

------
innes
_Increase the lifespan of Symbian to a minimum of 5 years. Reap the profits of
the existing market share and consumer preference that Symbian already enjoys
in Europe and Asia._

Delusional.

 _Transition to an R &D setup where 90% of all Nokia R&D takes place in only
two geographical locations. One of them will be in Finland and the other will
be defined later._

 _actively visit top universities worldwide to screen and and invite top
students for interviews in Nokia R &D locations._

That's a lot of long-distance flights to Finland.

------
Xpirate
I got sort of an open question: Is there a platform independent API for
development for WP7, iPhone and Android? It'd be great to write for one
idealized target and have it run on all three ... or more if they make serious
inroads.

~~~
mquander
Yes, it's called HTML5 and Javascript. (Seriously.)

~~~
edtechdev
yeah see phonegap or titanium appcelerator (convert html5/javascript to a
mobile app, with access to stuff like the camera, contacts, sensors)

also check out jquery mobile, sencha touch, cappuccino...

