
Microsoft is cutting 1,000 jobs in Finland as it stops phone production - dacm
http://uk.businessinsider.com/microsoft-cutting-1000-jobs-in-finland-as-it-ends-phone-production-report-2016-5
======
dijit
I was around when the takeover of Nokia R&D happened in Febuary 2011, I
remember walking around the offices of Ruohulati in Helsinki and seeing a
massive queue to the IT room, previously linux laptops were being reformatted
to run windows.

I asked one of the project managers: "why, will it really change that much for
us, I mean, there's hope right?"

they responded: "This is a takeover, I've seen it before, they're just not
calling it that- they'll kill MeeGO in it's crib.. and for us, it's adapt or
die".

By the end of the second week (Elop did an eloquent speech about the future of
Meego) all the really senior technical experts were working for Intel despite
Elop saying "they just want to sell chips" and being generally derogatory to
Intel), all the designers and senior management went to Jolla (which tried to
enter a market which is fairly dominated already as a startup), myself, I was
fired.. and everyone else is still running the ghost ship, I wasn't a large
fan of microsofts products going in to Nokia, which is why I liked Maemo/MeeGO
for the phone and I could use Linux at work- but this move cemented them as
assholes in my mind.

Nothing they do nowadays for good PR is going to change my mind of how
surreptitiously they took over nokia and sent it into it's death spiral.
Microsoft really loves to own and eventually destroy Nordic companies. (skype,
minecraft, nokia) - lets see what they do with TeacherGaming.

~~~
pjmlp
I too was there during those days, in Espoo.

But to be honest we also had our share of alienating developers, it wasn't
only MS fault.

First the Symbian development was a mess with the Metrowerk tools and that
Symbian C++ dialect, then came PIPS, followed by Carbide (Eclipse based).

Followed by the whole mess of open sourcing Symbian and closing it again.

Or the Symbian model moving from Symbian C++ / PIPS to Qt, also in the middle
this process.

Maemo was GTK, but then everyone should move to Qt. Better not lets also move
the OS into Meego.

I remember asking why the Nokia 770 didn't had a GSM modem and the team saying
to me that wasn't the market they wanted to target. When they did the usual
roadshow of upcoming devices.

Nokia was already quite bad in terms of relationship with app developers
before Elop came into the party, due to the internal politics.

Of course, the famous burning platform memo was just the last way to alienate
developers that were slowly accepting the new Qt based model for Symbian,
after all the previous pain points.

~~~
mongol
What if Nokia 770 also was a phone? History could have been so radically
different. I will never understand...

~~~
honkhonkpants
If the 770 was also a phone, it would have been a ghastly tablet with a phone
inside.

~~~
orbitingpluto
But in 2007, the n800 would have been a ghastly tablet/phone with 2.5x the
pixels, expandable storage to 64GB, and several different media players that
sucked, but are still better than iTunes today. I'm still using the Canola
media player on an n810.

------
anjc
Hard to understand. They buy the one company division in the world who was
pushing the Windows Phone brand, a company who was innovating in terms of
design and cameras and who had finally cracked their own decent brand and
product line etc, and they immediately start winding them down. And they're
going to work on their own hardware now anyway.

At the same time they throw their own stable OS in the bin and release a buggy
beta version which has ruined the experience for WP users.

What was the point of this whole exercise? A convoluted way of getting Nokia's
masses of IP rights for mobile? Why not just leave Nokia to keep pushing WP?

~~~
stevehiehn
Seems clear to me. They executed on a strategy and consumers weren't
interested.

~~~
arielweisberg
My wife really likes Windows Phone and wanted a Lumia 1020 for the camera. I
offered her my 6+ and she refused.

Trying to upgrade her to a new model is basically impossible. At the time we
bought it if you went to any carrier store the Windows phones were clearly
second class citizens with the best models not present. Carriers like T-Mobile
wouldn't even sell you a decent model because they don't carry them at all and
if you buy one separately you find that carrier specific stuff (tethering) is
broken.

With Windows phone it was really like they weren't even trying to move units.
Sure they built the software and hardware, but actual retail presence seemed
pretty broken.

They also failed at continuity. There is no Lumia 1020 successor. The lineup
in general seems fragmented with no regular predictable upgrade path and
iteration.

~~~
GrumpyYoungMan
The wireless carriers have the final say on which phones they stock and
promote, not the manufacturer. There most likely weren't enough sales of
Windows Phone devices to make it worthwhile for them to bother trying.

~~~
sirkneeland
Carrier sales reps didn't like selling Windows Phones, and you can't blame
them. From their perspective, they want to sell you a phone in the shortest
amount of time that has the lowest probability of return.

Windows Phones had a different UI that meant the sales rep had to spend time
showing how it worked, and even if he/she did make the sale, he faced the high
risk of a Lumia getting returned because the customer found out some key app
wasn't available on Windows Phone but was easily available on iOS and Android
(their bank, or airline, Snapchat, and let's not forget Instagram wasn't there
for a while)

(source: I'm a former Nokia employee)

------
pjmlp
I guess it is about time I stop making my hobby coding portable between WP and
Android, focusing just on Android.

Sad, because WP is actually much better from tooling and architecture point of
view, but the way the whole WP 7, WP 8, WP 8.1 and the yet to become stable WP
10, just drove everyone off.

Personally I was kind of pissed off, when the 512 MB devices were left out of
the last preview update.

Also it was the only viable alternative to Android, on the countries where iOS
devices are seen as too expensive, specially the ones where devices aren't
subsidized.

~~~
criddell
Why do you think Microsoft continues to develop Windows Phone?

~~~
pjmlp
Maybe they don't want to loose their face?

You should follow this tweeter discussion from Sinofsky

[https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/733699065763004416](https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/733699065763004416)

It wasn't the difference between desktop and mobile stacks that pushed most
away, rather the breaking changes between WP 7, WP 8, WP 8.1 and WP 10. As
explained recently on the Ars Technica article,

[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/05/onecor...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/05/onecore-to-rule-them-all-how-windows-everywhere-finally-
happened/3/)

And as a developer I cannot really get why WP 10 is still so buggy (according
to the reports) versus the already stable 8.1.

~~~
user11768536
>And as a developer I cannot really get why WP 10 is still so buggy (according
to the reports) versus the already stable 8.1.

Microsoft eliminated QA as a job role and laid off all of its QA staff in
2014, with rather predictable consequences for both Windows 10 and WP 10.
Plenty of articles about it if you Google around.

If anything, it's surprising that things have turned out as well for them as
they have.

~~~
pjmlp
I completely forgot about it, yeah it might be a reason.

~~~
xufi
I only recognize it from its tile like interface... but yeah I think the ship
has sailed for them a while ago about recognition

------
gulpahum
Just few weeks ago, Nokia announced that Nokia branded smart phones and
tablets will be entering market soon. This time they are based on Android OS.
It'll be interesting to see how well they'll sell (compared to Windows Phone).

[http://company.nokia.com/en/our-businesses/nokia-
technologie...](http://company.nokia.com/en/our-businesses/nokia-
technologies/hello-again)

[http://company.nokia.com/en/news/press-
releases/2016/05/18/n...](http://company.nokia.com/en/news/press-
releases/2016/05/18/nokia-signs-strategic-brand-and-intellectual-property-
licensing-agreement-enabling-hmd-global-to-create-new-generation-of-nokia-
branded-mobile-phones-and-tablets)

~~~
unlinker
As the second article says, it's not Nokia building them, but letting another
company ("HMD global Oy") build them under the Nokia brand.

This is similar to what they did with the somewhat recent Nokia N1 tablet: it
was built by Foxconn.

~~~
Ezhik
This HMD global was founded by an ex-Nokia employee.

Seems like the sleeper agents are being activated.

~~~
greatnorthz
I long suspected something like that. Let MS purchase and restructure a
sinking ship. Allow the talent to move on and do R&D on the cheap via
startups. Once the restrictions of the deal end, see what's flourished and
return to the consumer market. I assumed Jolla but this other entity got it.

------
MrTonyD
We may never know the real story. Steve and Bill used to meet in Bill's jet
flying over the ocean so that they could avoid any monitoring as they made
deals to benefit each other (the whole "we're competitors" was largely fake -
I was in plenty of meetings with Steve and also worked for a direct report of
Bill. Their goal was to make each other rich.) It may not be a coincidence
that Steve dropped Flash (at the time considered the competitor to Microsoft's
CLR in the browser - their bet on the future of controlling future development
platforms) and Bill took-over the biggest competitor to the iphone. There were
plenty of other similar deals being made between them and the major computer
vendors (and, if it isn't obvious, we paid the price by the limited
competition and limited choices. Bill and Steve didn't just meet with each
other. People who think "free market" is real are both naive and arrogant.)

And in a court of law I will say that I just made all this up.

~~~
jtrtoo
How is two individuals doing what makes sense for themselves not a free
market? Free market doesn't mean altruistic

~~~
rue
Freedom requires transparency.

That’s what free means. Not “companies free to do whatever they please”.

~~~
krapp
>That’s what free means. Not “companies free to do whatever they please”.

The fact that you used the word "free" here to tell us what "freedom" _doesn
't_ mean implies otherwise, because I believe "free to do whatever they
please" is exactly what it does mean. There are no "requirements" in a free
market other than serving demand and making a profit.

------
jongalloway2
A much better writeup here: [http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-cuts-
another-1850-job...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-cuts-
another-1850-jobs-takes-950-million-charge-in-phone-hardware-business/)

------
AdmiralAsshat
A lesson from Palm, Nokia, Motorola, and every other small-to-midsize company
in the Telco arena: Never let yourselves be acquired. It won't end well.

~~~
slavik81
Nokia was a disaster for years before Microsoft bought them. Given that the
alternative appears to have been a steady decline into bankruptcy, I think
Nokia did pretty well for themselves in that deal. They sold the company for a
lot more than it was worth.

~~~
jpalomaki
For Nokia this turned out to be a good deal. They got good money for the
mobile phone business. If they would have sticked to it that might have been
the end of the whole company.

Now Nokia got several billions, bought Alcatel and continues other business.
The feature phone business ended up in new company which is using Nokia's name
and IPR and pays per unit royalties to Nokia. If this venture proves
succesful, Nokia could just acquire them.

Years ago there was speculation that Elop was a trojan horse, placed by
Microsoft. After things turned out as they did, I have started thinking that
maybe it was the other way round. Maybe somebody planned all along that hiring
Elop would open the opportunity of dumping the business to Microsoft in case
it would nit start generating profits.

~~~
pjmlp
The Finn press discovered that the Nokia board had offered a contract to Elop
where he would get a large bonus if he managed to sell the company.

This was talked a lot in Finland, you can easily find it if you google for it,
but Microsoft haters like to ignore this _little_ action from Nokia board.

------
tommeader
The table graphic in this article really eschews clarity. The most recent
figures on the left and a giant emoji slapped over it? Seems like a graph
would've been better suited. The source even has the table in text format for
easy processing.

~~~
stinos
_eschews clarity_

Those are rather nice words, I'm tempted to use plain 'ridiculous'. Feels like
a child could do better. Ok it's not some scientific article, but still, you
could put at least some effort in it.

~~~
feintruled
I had an image of Businessinsider as something staid like FT, but on clicking
through some of those links it appears to be more like a non-ironic version of
Clickhole.

------
tim333
I wonder how it would have played out for Nokia if Microsoft had not bought
them. Rather better in some ways I'd imagine.

~~~
pavlov
I don't think so. Nokia got $7.2 billion from Microsoft for a loss-making
device business. Nokia still exists today and swallowed Alcatel-Lucent last
year.

It's hard to imagine a better outcome for Nokia than Microsoft buying the
phone albatross in 2013. I honestly believe that it was part of a contingency
plan that had made Nokia's board approve the Windows Phone plan -- that
Ballmer basically promised a buyout in case WP doesn't fly. (I don't have
evidence of this, but clearly Ballmer really, really wanted Nokia's phones and
Nadella really, really doesn't.)

In the alternate universe where Nokia's board decided to go with Android
instead of Windows, I think they would have ended up as a kind of European HTC
or Sony in the Android market. And in that scenario the Nokia phone unit
wouldn't have been worth $7.2 billion either.

~~~
vesinisa
Either way, how was the unit worth $7.2 billion in 2013 to anyone? Why did
Microsoft pay such ridiculous money for a loss-making business, only to
essentially burn it down over the next two years? From April 2014, when the
deal was finalized, to May 2016, when the last employees are being laid off,
the damage Microsoft incurred from this deal amount to about $1.8 million per
HOUR of business. Did they really think they could pull off some magic trick
to make Windows Phone fly, or were they bound by some backroom deal to buy the
phone business at set price in case it started to weight down on Nokia?

~~~
sirkneeland
It was driven by Ballmer's ego more than a rational plan.

They imagined they could speed time to market for devices by eliminating
frictions inherent in being 2 companies working on 1 product (and as an
employee I can say there were indeed inescapable frictions). But ultimately it
couldn't get around the core problem: (almost) nobody wants a Windows Phone.

------
ensiferum
I'm just surprised how long this took. I was expecting this to happen for the
past few years already. Thanks and goodbye.

~~~
pasiaj
It has been already happening for the past few years. The first round was
handled by Nokia. Last year MS announced layoffs of 2300 people in Finland.
After this there is pretty much nobody left.

------
steeleduncan
"The Californian search giant" \- typo, or am I missing something?

------
greenstonekid
I remember reading an article which explained the pragmatic reasons for the MS
purchase of NOKIA.

Namely that MS wanted to bring back some of the billions they have offshore
without it getting heavily taxed. Taking this into consideration the
acquisition of NOKIA and eventual write down as a loss is not that bad.
Especially considering it has kept it windows phone alive, and most likely
moved any essential expertise to their other departments

------
stevehiehn
Makes sense. The sooner they cut their losses and focus on cloud/productivity
apps the better off they'll be. IMHO

------
nedsma
There's an interesting article over at Anandtech discussing the fate of Nokia
and what projects might occur under Nokia licensing contracts.
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/10333/foxconn-and-hmd-to-
retur...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10333/foxconn-and-hmd-to-return-nokia-
smartphones-and-tablets-to-market) I hope that some of the folks getting the
boot by MS will join the Helsinki based HMD Global who got an exclusive global
license to create Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets for the next ten
years.

------
patkai
I see it as Nokia was a very good hardware company that couldn't turn itself
around into a software company. Before iPhone you needed many moving parts,
good supply chains, great hardware variety, spare part production and who
knows what. Now you need good software. Nokia was less likely to turn itself
around than IBM.

------
shmerl
The best thing that happened after MS essentially killed mobile division of
Nokia is that Jolla was created. I hope Jolla will succeed. Their latest
troubles and tablet project failure were unfortunate (I was a backer and won't
be getting the tablet).

------
censhin
[https://youtu.be/2e_YBgh9O48](https://youtu.be/2e_YBgh9O48)

------
reiichiroh
I wonder what Tomi Ahonen thinks of these latest developments.

~~~
Nokinside
May 20, 2016 So the Nokia brand returns.. with a Vengeance

[http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2016/05/so-
the-...](http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2016/05/so-the-nokia-
brand-returns-with-a-vengeance.html)

------
znpy
Nokia is dead.

Get over it.

------
chflags
"... linux laptops were being reformatted to run windows."

Microsoft/Windows is a cancer. Ballmer once said Linux was a cancer. He later
retracted, after it was well-known Microsoft itself uses Linux.

There's nothing more pathetic than when you see Microsoft's businesspeople or
lawyers at conferences all faithfully using Windows, as if there was no other
choice, and rambling on about how their products can solve any problem. These
are not stupid people, but they are blinded to independent reasoning about
computer software.

And then there are the people at Microsoft Research. What a waste (not for
them -- they probably get paid handsomely). It is like MS is keeping these
minds locked away, so the zombie-like adherence to Windows can persist. Keep
the monopoly going.

Microsoft is a cancer on the brain. It creates a zombie-like, tunnel vision of
computing. Everything must pass through Redmond.

Microsoft continues to remain dangerous to the future of computing, because
they continue to work dilgently to effectively quell all independent thought
from being implemented and made accessible to users.

Intent, malice, etc. is irrelevant. Regardless of why they do it, the end
result is suppression of non-Microsoft software.

And now hardware.

~~~
dang
This comment breaks the HN guidelines by calling names. Please don't do that
on this site. The old-fashioned technology flamewar is one of the things we're
trying to avoid here, regardless of how one feels about Microsoft etc.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11770051](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11770051)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
chflags
OP: "... cemented them as assholes in my mind."

That's "name-calling".

But I understand the need to detach the silly hyperbolic responses my comment
triggered. I was not expecting those.

Please accept my apologies for any incomvenience I may have caused.

------
sickbeard
Can we start saying Ballmer was a better CEO than Nadella?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is all happening because of a decision made by Ballmer. Disclosure: MS
employee whose wife was a Nokia employee.

~~~
sickbeard
Everything was in place for UWP to take over the world, but they failed to
produce a good phone OS, or produced one that was worse that what it was
supposed to replace.

