

Why Did Ballmer Throw Nokia Now Under the Bus? - Toshio
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/07/why-did-ballmer-throw-nokia-now-under-the-bus-lets-dig-windows-phone-lumia-insights-from-kantar-stat.html

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astral303
As much as I really want to like the Windows Phone and would love it to
succeed, Microsoft doesn't seem to have enough control over the experience to
guarantee that.

Small data point: went to the AT&T store yesterday and, while waiting for a
rep, played with a Nokia Windows Phone on the wall. I was meeting someone for
beers in town and wanted to map out how long it would take to walk there. I
looked and looked for a Maps choice in the home UI and I couldn't find it. I
stood there for 3 minutes, scrolling up and down and nothing. Instead, there
was AT&T Navigation (I didn't need navigation.. I just wanted some walking
directions as an overview). There was also some app store showcase thing,
which looked like something I would never want to use. It also displayed
confusing messages in the square now and again, e.g. I think it said "Show
Your Maps", which must've been an app they were promoting in the app showcase.

So if I, an experienced geek (and an iPhone user), can't figure out how to
bring up Maps on your AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone, then you have failed
BIG TIME. I moved on to the Android phone next to it and got the job done.

~~~
excuse-me
Microsoft have never needed to appeal to a retail customer.

So long as you can say to corporates: you want your staff to have access to
your MS email system on their phones? Then they just need Windows Phone with
Windows Phone corporate Email Server - just sign here.

Exactly what RIM did with Blackberry and BES

The question now is - is it too late? Are companies happy enough with
connecting to corporate email from Android and iPhone to just let their users
use what they want - or are they going to buy Windows Phone handsets for
everyone?

~~~
protomyth
Well, licensing Exchange ActiveSync to Apple for the iPhone might have been an
error then.

[http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2480?viewlocale=en_US&loca...](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2480?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US)

~~~
excuse-me
Not necessarily, it stopped Apple developing their own - and you can always
"embrace and extend" so the next version of Exchange onyl works fully with
Windows phone

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bcbrown
That author sounds like he has an axe to grind.

What did Ballmer/MS do to "throw Nokia under the bus"?

~~~
Geee
Osborne'd Nokia's whole product line-up with the WP 8 announcement. Nokia's
devices don't receive updates.

~~~
rogerbinns
For the WP7 versus 8 thing, there is a fundamental underpinning change from a
Windows CE kernel to the Windows 8 kernel. This is an important change as it
means that apps for the phone platform will have commonality with other
Microsoft platforms rather than being their own silo. Microsoft needed to make
this change, and the sooner the better. But of course compatibility is lost in
the process.

As for updating the phones, the ARM embedded platform has a bewildering array
of SOCs and doesn't have platform commonality like there is for x86. You can
see how in the Linux world they keep trying to reduce the number of kernels
needed (last I read was around 5) and then GPU support also has issues (binary
blobs). I suspect it is far too much development effort to add the platform
and driver support for existing WP7 phones. The best thing Microsoft could do
is provide an upgrade program for the early adopters, but not announce details
in advance.

One important bit of the initial iPhone was realising that there was no need
for a constrained software platform, and instead using a Unix kernel and user
space. Platforms like RIM's, Windows CE, Symbian, PalmOS etc were all focussed
on being in a very constrained environment (memory, CPU). They jumped through
hoops in the name of efficiency and made application developers do the same.

iOS is profligate, with kernel commonality with MacOS, wasting huge amounts of
CPU and memory by comparison. But that doesn't really matter because there are
hundreds of megahertz and megabytes of memory then and gigas of both now. You
can take advantage of them to provide a far superior user experience and
developer experience. And that is what matters these days.

~~~
bergie
_As for updating the phones, the ARM embedded platform has a bewildering array
of SOCs_

I thought only Qualcomm SoCs (or just a particular SoC?) was certified for
running WP7? That doesn't sound like a bewildering array.

From [http://www.mobiletechworld.com/2011/05/20/nokia-to-use-st-
er...](http://www.mobiletechworld.com/2011/05/20/nokia-to-use-st-
ericsson-u8500-soc-for-its-windows-phone-8-devices/)

 _As you already know Qualcomm is the only certified SoC manufacturer for
Windows Phone 7_

~~~
rogerbinns
My quoted statement is true - I didn't mean to imply that WP7 is supported on
a wide variety and it is effectively just one small family.

But I believe Windows 8 hasn't been ported to that SOC, and making each ARM
port is significantly more effort (especially logistical) than x86. Windows CE
drivers won't work, so they'd essentially have to do most drivers from
scratch. And such a port would only be pertinent to the "legacy" installed
base of WP7, and not to the shiny tablets Microsoft is obsessed with today.

More accurately this is what I think Microsoft would have to do in order to
provide a WP7 upgrade:

* Reimplement drivers for the SOCs and other hardware used

* Provide a compatible system initialization mechanism (aka boot loader). Note "secure" UEFI being used for Windows 8 but not WP7.

* Provide an upgrader program that downloads your data, wipes the device and puts the new operating system back on with a close to zero chance of bricking should anything go wrong during the process. (This is very hard.)

* Put your data back onto the device, including conversion of file formats where the app implementation is different between WP7 and WP8.

* Ensure reasonable continuity of system apps between WP7 and WP8

* Refund all app purchases since WP7 apps won't work on WP8 (or store credit)

* Implement a DRM mechanism compatible with WP7 content

* Do lots of testing to make sure the OS and apps don't break in the more constrained hardware of WP7 devices which predate WP8 hardware specs by about two years.

This is a huge amount of work for little reward. In their shoes once WP8 is
released and devices available then I'd go to existing WP7 owners and provide
a simple upgrade path (eg trade in your device and get $200 credit to a WP8
device). But I wouldn't announce this in advance otherwise people would take
advantage of it.

~~~
jinushaun
You say a lot of work for little reward, but the cost of them giving a big
"fuck you" to WP7 early adopters is a much higher cost than the salaries
required to pay programmers/managers to port WP8 to WP7 hardware. Why would
anyone buy a WP8 device after this debacle? They basically killed WP8 before
it even started. In order for WP8 to succeed, they need early adopters and
loyalists to evangelise WP for them for free. They've killed any loyalty
anyone might've had for the WP platform. These users will ditch WP when their
contract expires and tell all their friends and family members to buy Android
or iPhone.

As I see it, MS has only two choices to save their WP platform: priperly port
WP8 to WP7 hardware, or give WP7 users free WP8 phones.

------
programminggeek
What people might fail to realize is that Nokia knew that WP 8 was coming.
They probably knew as soon as they started making WP 7 devices. That's why
they've shipped what like 2 or 3 devices on it?

Nokia didn't get thrown under a bus any more than RIM did by their own
platform. No, both RIM and Nokia could have seen the iOS/Android writing on
the wall 2 or 3 years ago for sure, or even 5 years ago when the iPhone
launched.

Instead, they buried their heads in the sand and hoped that iOS and Android
would be a fad that would pass. Instead RIM and Nokia might have just been a
fad for a few years. Already happened to Palm. Already happened to Windows
Mobile.

The only reason Nokia went with Windows Phone was the billions of dollars in
platform payments that Microsoft made to keep Nokia alive long enough to make
the transition work. That might not have been enough money and MSFT might need
to outright buy Nokia to keep it afloat, but the good news is that by the time
they do that Nokia should be cheaper than Skype was when Microsoft bought
them.

~~~
milesskorpen
Totally agree.

I'm not sure what alternatives people see for Nokia. Symbian clearly couldn't
compete, and their "next-gen" OS was deeply troubled. They could have gone
with Android, and been competing directly against Samsung (who is, honestly,
better at manufacturing) or tried to be the dominant player in a new market.

Clearly, they've had issues. I continue to hold out hope that they'll pull off
a pivot, though.

------
bluesnowmonkey
> 1 + 1 = more than 2

Or you might say, 1 + 1 > 2.

~~~
sp332
I think he meant 1 + 1 = x and the rest of the article was trying to figure
out what x was. x > 2? x = 2? x = 0.5?

