
Microsoft 'mulled Nokia buyout, ran away screaming' - antr
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/11/microsoft_nokia_merger/
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mtgx
"Elop has already halved the time it takes for Nokia to make a smartphone,
simply by shifting to Windows."

Yeah, that was because before that Nokia had double the time it takes to get a
phone on the market compared to everyone else who has already joined Android.

HTC, Samsung and Motorola can put a "next-gen" phone on the market within 10
months, maybe even 9. So can Apple, but they prefer to keep it on a 12 month
cycle. Same goes for Sony Ericsson until more recently, but they've almost
caught up with the others now. It's not a coincidence that the former 2 phone
manufacturing leaders were the slowest.

Nokia's "last good Symbian phone", the N8, took like a year and a half to get
launched, maybe more. The "Meego based" phone, the N9, was also delayed a lot
(had different name for a while).

Does this mean they have caught up with everyone else now? I don't see it.
Maybe it's because WP7's slow adoption rate for latest hardware, or it's
Nokia's fault again, or maybe both. But I still see them using very old
hardware in their phones, which means their development cycle for "current"
phones started quite a while back. Otherwise they should be able to make
phones with cutting edge technology, like most Android manufacturers _and_
Apple can.

~~~
simba-hiiipower
_But I still see them using very old hardware in their phones, which means
their development cycle for "current" phones started quite a while back.
Otherwise they should be able to make phones with cutting edge technology,
like most Android manufacturers and Apple can._

I wouldn’t say any of the new Nokia Windows Phones (Lumia 710, 800, 900) use
‘old’ hardware at all. You have to realize the WP OS currently doesn’t support
dual/quad-core CPUs and has a fixed screen resolution (800x480); so if that’s
what you’re referencing, I’d say that’s not a case of slow development cycles
but a limitation of the OS that Nokia must abide by.

And what’s the value in just looking at something purely based on hardware?
What should matter is how it performs. WP is optimized to work with the
minimal hardware specs MSFT has called-for and is remarkably snappy with it's
single-core processers, and gets great battery life, so how would ‘newer’
hardware add-value here?

So, given the above, what ‘cutting-edge’ tech would you have them add?
Resolution aside, the Lumia 900 has one of the best screens around, it’s 4G,
I’d say it has the best offline navigation around (Nokia owns Navteq after
all), and I’d say the phone's design itself is pretty cutting-edge as well.

~~~
gnaffle
So in other words, Nokia is now stuck in a world where they can't be
competitive with other smartphones because of the software engineering
decisions made by someone else. How do you think that is going to work out for
them in the long run?

~~~
Xuzz
The important part is using it, not specs. My Lumia 900 scrolls faster than my
Galaxy Nexus, and I don't even really care why. But, it's still a better
experience for scrolling through a list of items, even if the specs on paper
are technically less powerful.

~~~
gnaffle
I agree with you on that. Although at some point regular people will ask
themselves "why should I buy a phone with a crappy display when I can buy an
iPhone which also has smooth scrolling and good battery life?

But if Nokia can't have a say in what display resolution or camera to ship,
how can they ever hope to produce _anything_ that differentiates them from
other WP7 licensees?

Value-added services such as Comes with Music and Free Maps Forever doesn't
help here (or at leat it hasn't in the past). It'll be interesting to see how
this plays out.

~~~
ja27
So compete by doing something innovative on the phone hardware. Who was the
first to have a self-portrait mirror on the back of the phone? (Palm I think.)
Who had the first forward-facing camera on a phone? (Not sure.) Things like
that sell a lot of phones to Joe and Jill Sixpack. Put a dedicated flashlight
LED and button on the phone. Make it waterproof and/or drop-proof.

But the number one way to sell more Nokia Windows Phones? Get on the other
U.S. networks besides AT&T. AT&T is still the king for iPhone but Sprint and
Verizon combined sell about as many iPhones as AT&T does, so Windows Phone is
missing half the market by only really being on AT&T. (Yes, there are other
Windows Phones, but no serious handsets outside of AT&T.)

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SlipperySlope
"The nightmare scenario for Nokia is that the one I [the author] described
here back in January: that there really isn't room, in reality, for a "third
ecosystem". In this scenario there's Apple and Android, leaving RIM and Nokia
fighting for crumbs. Today, the health of WP as an "ecosystem" isn't obvious:
Samsung, Dell, LG and HTC all seem to have given up. Only Nokia makes a
noise."

~~~
inoop
Windows Phone is not something that stands on its own, Microsoft is building a
powerful ecosystem comprising a desktop OS (win8), tablet os (win8),
smartphone os (wp8/apollo), gaming platform (xbox), and tying it all together
with a cloud infrastructure (skydrive, hotmail, bing, bing maps, etc.). Of
course, the desktop/tablet OS and smartphone OS are going to be merged in the
long run and it's possible (probable?) that eventually phones will even be
able to run the full metro desktop when inserted into a dock, to act as a
cheap computer replacement.

Of course, Apple has had this for years, but I think that WP holds some pretty
good cards for the long run ...

~~~
tsunamifury
Windows 8 Phone has nothing to do with Windows 8 Tablet. You have to build
from scratch for each. How in the world is that an 'integrated ecosystem'.

I've been to the developers conferences and tried to build products for their
launch devices. There is no grand plan, word on important issues come down the
pipeline in real time, are later taken back or only addressed when a
developers brings up a serious issue.

At close range, it often appears as if the Windows 8 team has no idea what
they are doing, and actually two silo'd communities of Mobile and desktop.

~~~
excuse-me
>How in the world is that an 'integrated ecosystem'.

It is to the marketing dept.

Suppose you are a huge and stupid corporate or government customer.

Your users want to have smartphones. A MSFT rep convinces you that using
Windows is the safe and reliable choice and with Windows 8 you have the same
OS 'brand' on your desktop.

The same argument has kept IBM's mainframe salesmen in new cadilacs for
decades.

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superxor
> Microsoft has time to generate an "ecosystem", the clunky technology
> buzzword for what the rest of the world calls "markets".

That was arrogant! Ecosystems are more than just markets.

~~~
pwang
Of course they are - but Microsoft only knows how to make platform plays.

It seems to have forgotten that platforms are bootstrapped on the basis of
killer products, and sustained by interop between a continuous stream of great
products. For so long, its platform play was based on extending the Windows
platform ("windows everywhere"), and it seems to have institutionally
forgotten that the only reason this worked is because WORD AND EXCEL ARE
KILLER PRODUCTS. If Word ceased to be the way that 99% of business users
interfaced with text of any significance, and if Excel ceased to be the way
that 99% of business users capture and analyze data, then the Windows platform
"advantage" would evaporate overnight.

So, Microsoft's DNA is to attempt to create "ecosystems" because it considers
itself a platform company, whereas most smaller or saner companies look to
build great products. Heck, even Apple has to do this. Could it have created
an iOS ecosystem if the iPhone was a dud?

(An aside: Android might seem to be an exception to this, because it's not a
killer product in the way that iPhone and iPad were. But that's only if you
think that phone subscribers are the customers of Android. They're not - the
carriers are. Which is why Google's acquisition of Motorola is so interesting
and yet so expected at the same time. They've gotten as about as far as they
can get on the back of an "OK" product, and need to make a stellar product in
order to build an ecosystem of users instead of partners. The carriers don't
have it in their DNA to deliver stellar software, and the hardware guys don't
either, so Google has to buy a hardware company so it can build a great
integrated device.)

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liotier
Why buy them when you have already infiltrated and neutralized them ?

~~~
Nelson69
The belief is that with China and Nokia building middle classes, there will be
a gigantic market for $25 phones. Not smartphones, but just phones, like Nokia
is really good at making.

Thing is, it's a telco company, they are all horrible.

~~~
fpgeek
I wonder how $25 Nokia dumbphones will do against the $25 Android phones that
are coming (a bit more than a factor of 2 to go - we've already $50 off-
contract during the right sale).

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Jabbles
There is no evidence to distinguish between "running away screaming" and
"eventually deciding not to buy".

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saturdaysaint
Buying a major phone company would have been a pretty risky strategy shift.
Google's Motorola acquisition is one of Microsoft's best selling points for
getting HTC/Samsung/etc. to take Windows Phone seriously, perhaps more
seriously than Android. With Windows 8, Samsung and others will have unique
incentive to push Windows Phones over Android - they'll have a full lineup of
modern phones, tablets and enterprise-ready PCs. Acquiring Nokia would soured
a lot of partners who are just as capable of delivering great hardware without
taking on the risks of a hardware company.

~~~
gnaffle
If Nokia has blockbuster sales with WP7, or other companies with Win8 tablets,
expect those companies to be on board pretty quickly. So far, though, it's not
happening. Also, those companies know that Microsofts strategy can (and will
if needed) change overnight just like it did with PlaysForSure (replaced by
the Microsoft-made Zune).

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chris_wot
Uh... perhaps I misread this story, but nowhere do I see Microsoft "mulling" a
Nokia buyout. Nice headline, but seems very misleading.

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junto
I love elreg. They have the best articles title ever!

