
Steve Ballmer email to Microsoft employees on Nokia acquisition - dmor
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Sep13/09-02email.aspx
======
kamaal
This is classic Microsoft strategy.

Note, as per a few people Microsoft trying to "build everything for everyone"
might sound like "lack of focus" but this has worked for Microsoft and will
work for them in the future.

In countries like mine(India), the common guy on the street buys things that
are cheap and durable. Which is why Nokia phones were such a huge hit for more
than a decade, anything Nokia launched would sell like hot cakes. You cold buy
a mobile for ~2000 rupees which wouldn't die for years. My dad used his mobile
for a decade, and then we had to buy a new one for him after it got wet in the
rain. He insisted we buy him Nokia and Nokia only. That's the brand power
Nokia holds in India.

You will see memes all over Facebook, depicting Nokia as Thor's hammer. That's
what Nokia is known for- ruggedness, durability, quality and amazing value for
money.

And now if they can really come up with something similar for tablets and
smart phone for the common market it will be a huge success. Apple makes very
delicate phones, which are also very expensive for consumers in developing
countries. And now with Steve Jobs gone, within a few years it will be price
wars all over again.

Though I appreciate what Apple has done on the usability end. I believe things
like price, durability and ruggedness are a big part of good engineering. And
this is where Nokia scores above Apple.

With the Windows mobile OS, Nokia can great traction in markets like India.
Especially if they can keep the price in check.

I just hope Microsoft doesn't mess up with Nokia, the last thing I would hate
to see is Nokia lose its hardware edge.

~~~
mixmax
The ruggedness part is very true, and I miss that. Some of my
carpentr/fishermen/boatbuilder friends still use old Nokias they buy used
because they can handle the rough conditions they work in. an Iphone wouldn't
last a week.

Back in the day I often used my Nokia 3210 to stir drinks and open bottles. It
would take an incredible amount of beating and still just work.

~~~
throwaway1979
These rugged Nokias you speak of .. these weren't all-glass-front/touchscreen
were they?

I feel all the new smart phones out there are a bit weak on the ruggedness
department. I recently lost a Nexus S (with a protective case!) to a drop of
just a few feet. I was actually surprised that the phone wasn't able to take
it.

If a touchscreen-based smartphone was truly rugged yet consumer-grade, it
would really have my attention.

~~~
freehunter
I dropped my Nexus 4 from the window ledge, it bounced off the arm of a
leather couch, and hit the carpeted floor. The screen broke near the bottom
(so the phone is still somewhat usable). Compare that to the Lumia 920, which
is classic Nokia quality. I dropped that without a case down a flight of tile
stairs, and it only slightly scratched the plastic on the back of the phone.

I've linked (months ago) Youtube videos of people trying to destroy a Lumia
920. One man used the screen to pound a nail into a piece of wood, tossed it
across a parking lot, drove over it with his car, and only got it to break
when he threw it screen-first into a concrete wall. It's still a smartphone
with the downsides of a giant piece of glass, but it's got the benefit of a
solid and shock-absorbing chunk of plastic surrounding it. You can't get it
wet, but you don't have to worry about it falling.

The Nokias might be thicker and bulkier than an iPhone, but an iPhone needs a
thick and heavy case. The Lumia doesn't.

------
tjmc
Ugh...

"Clearly, greater success with phones will strengthen the overall opportunity
for us and our partners to deliver on our strategy to create a family of
devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around
the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most."

Corporate beige-speak at its worst. How can anybody be inspired by this?

~~~
raverbashing
Well, it seems more human than anything Ray Ozzie could have every written,
even this phrase

~~~
InclinedPlane
That doesn't help. This sort of bs is mind poison. It's like saying that MS
wants to be a company that does stuff and sells things.

It is literally that vague and useless.

~~~
raverbashing
Well, I agree. Of course it is.

There's also an aspect of being a "mandatory blurb" for "market analyst
(drones)" because it hits the right keywords.

It still feels they don't have the slightest idea of what they're doing

~~~
InclinedPlane
Because they don't. At a division level people know what they're doing and
have more well defined goals at least, but that only helps so much.

------
aaronbrethorst

        In fact, Nokia Windows Phones are the
        fastest-growing phones in the smartphone market.
    

It's easier to grow by 78% YoY when you started off as low as they did. They
jumped from under 3mm devices in 3Q12 to just over 7mm in 2Q13 (slide 9).

For comparison, in April 2013, Google was reporting 1.5 million Android
devices activated _every day_. [http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/16/eric-
schmidt-google-now-a...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/16/eric-schmidt-
google-now-at-1-5-million-android-activations-per/)

~~~
robryan
Better comparison would be "Samsung Android Phones", is the figure you quoted
for all Android devices?

Granted they are a long way behind regardless.

------
csallen
"...our strategy to create a family of devices and services for individuals
and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on
the go, for the activities they value most."

So Microsoft's "strategy" is to build everything for everyone, everywhere, all
the time. Hilarious. This sounds less like a strategy, and more like a
sentence concocted to justify an inability to focus.

~~~
harrytuttle
I love the way people laugh at Microsofts services and devices proposition. It
is pretty good; way better than Google and way more stable. Seriously. It also
spans desktop, mobile, online services, private/public cloud and you can
integrate anywhere.

While people were slagging them off, they got their shit together.

The strategy is simply: _everything_ because they are big enough to do it.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Wait, their shit is together? I don't really think so. Their mobile situation
is zombie-ish, they still haven't really done much on the web, and as far as I
have heard nobody is using their cloud services. How is their shit together?

~~~
ams6110
Azure is in fact a bright spot for MS; no it's not as big as EC2 but people
_are_ using it. Where their cloud is not doing so well is on the private side,
I don't hear a lot about people running Azure private clouds in their own data
centers; contrast VMware, Eucalyptus and OpenStack.

~~~
atesti
Is that available?

When I read ScottGu's (a fantastic manager at Microsoft!) blog I always think:
If I was ever using cloud, that would look nice.

I was not aware that I could run all this stuff on our own servers!

------
Tloewald
Apple: * Fire Steve Jobs * Randomly follow pundit advice for twelve years *
Jobs goes and builds second billion dollar business and fantastic technology
no-one uses * Get Jobs and bis technology back at hour of need * Become
incredibly successful

Microsoft: * Elop leaves of his own accord * Microsoft continues to make money
but fails to create any new markets * Elop runs Nokia into ground with
Microsoft's conspicuous help * Get Elop and his now shattered company back at
Microsoft's hour of need (?) * ???

~~~
dodyg
Elop worked for Microsoft just for two years before leaving for Nokia.

------
hiccup
"Now is the time to build on this momentum and accelerate our share and
profits in phones."

Do they even have profits to accelerate on?

------
mmariani
Seems mostly everybody agrees that this is a great move for Microsoft, and it
might really be. But, what I'm really interested is how this is going to play
out for both companies in the long run. Specifically the integration of their
managerial cultures.

Now Microsoft being on top has an important decision to make. To force itself
onto Nokia, or learn their ways. In other words, they can suffocate Nokia's
engineering culture, or relearn it from them.

The later would be the best option for everybody including us all. However, I
don't have much faith in the managerial class to play this right.

~~~
taproot
In manager land its mostly jockeying for free and spending budgets anything
threatening that in any slight is met with extreme prejudice as far as I've
seen in the corporate world.

So I have to agree I don't see Nokia staff in a great position regardless of
how Steve spins it.

------
ape4
"... and IP" \-- I wonder if that's the main reason.

~~~
zeckalpha
In tomorrow's news, Nathan Myhrvold as new CEO. Watch out.

~~~
sytelus
His vision would be to lead Microsoft from "Devices and Services" company to
"Patents and Copyrights" company.

------
nly
At least they never got their paws on Qt.

