
Who killed Nokia? Nokia did - chmars
http://alumnimagazine.insead.edu/who-killed-nokia-nokia-did/
======
trm42
Nokia had long term plan which looked promising: They bought first Trolltech
for QT and after that started doing Meego* (albeit too slowly) but the idea
was to have one development platform for all their new and old phone platforms
and QT fit the bill really nicely. But in the end the QT plan was really half-
assed because getting it into Symbian took too long time and Meego was even
slower project.

The first Meego phone N9 and it's unpublished sibling N950 (with the best
qwerty hardware ever) were better phones than Android phones at that time, but
when they released the N9 it was already known that Nokia will switch to
Windows Phone and there was no point in buying N9 or developing apps for it.

They even had the QT + QT Quick setup working and showing lots of promise for
writing javascript apps for different platforms. Sigh.

So if they've had the guts to execute the QT plan and Meego as a first
priority projects + skipping Elop, the situation could be a lot different.
Meego still feels more Linuxy than Android.

* Of course creating first Maemo on top of GTK and after that switching to QT sounded weird and with Meego there was other parties like Samsung and Intel meddling around so they lost lot of steam in that transition too.

~~~
nextos
The N9 was one of the best designed phones I've ever seen [1]. It's really
frustrating Nokia did not follow the Maemo/Meego path. As a developer I'm not
so fond of smartphones because they are not little computers, but locked down
devices. Nokia's view was aligned with mine, as the first device of the series
was an "Internet Tablet" (N770, released Q2 2005!)

Why they followed an erratic path instead of going full steam ahead with their
Maemo/Meego platform is quite well described by the article, but does not
sound less stupid to an outsider. They had a device that was in some fronts
superior to iPhone much earlier, but they got stuck with Symbian first and
Microsoft afterwards.

[1]
[http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/22/2506376/nokia-n9-review](http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/22/2506376/nokia-n9-review)

~~~
hobarrera
Have you followed Jolla? Jolla's phone is a true N9 successor, and far from
being locked down.

~~~
trm42
They have done awesome job but the Jolla Phone is old (and was low-end even
when it was published compared to its price) and their tablet crowdsourcing
project suffered quite badly as they lost some other funding for a moment and
their device manufacturers sold the devices elsewhere as Android devices.

Basically Jolla has promised to refund the crowdsourcing funds within this
year, but still it was big setback for the project. I've tested the tablet and
it was surprisingly solid in H/W and S/W sense. Just hoping they'll survive
and can get meaningful market share somehow. Kudos to them anyway.

------
lordnacho
As one middle manager pointed out to us, at Apple the top managers are
engineers. “We make everything into a business case and use figures to prove
what’s good, whereas Apple is engineer-driven.” Top managers acknowledged to
us that “there was no real software competence in the top management team”.

That stood out for me. Whenever I've worked with managers who didn't
understand the field, interactions have always gone something like this:

Manager: Can we deliver X?

Team: Sure, it will take 3 months.

Manager: Can we deliver X in 2 months?

Team: No, I told you 3 months.

Manager: I need it done in 2...

And how it proceeded depended a lot on how bone-headed the manager was.
Sometimes they would effectively let someone competent on the team do the
management. Sometimes they would just try to bully until they got the answer
they were looking for.

~~~
kabdib
"What if I got some more people to help out?"

"Five months."

"You guys are too slow. I'm going to give it to team B over there. They say
they can do it in two months, no problem."

"You'll be asking us to help out _that_ team in about a year."

It is amazing how little value most managers add.

~~~
madeofpalk
Sounds like you're working in a pretty crappy place.

I don't consider my employer to be exceptionally great, but at least there's
no managers stupid enough to act like that, or developers to tolerate it.

~~~
kabdib
Oh, that's from very long ago. And most of them weren't that bad. And I _have_
had good managers, really good ones who added value, but only 3-4 really
qualify (in 35 years).

I work in a flat organization now. No managers at all. So it's an interesting
perspective.

------
zerr
At least they bought and LGPLed Qt before dying. That's a huge contribution to
world.

~~~
trm42
Nowadays QT is doing well with LGPL + Commercial licensing. It's really good
thing Nokia didn't hug it to death.

~~~
zerr
I also wander what would happen if Nokia have gone with Maemo platform with Qt
as an official SDK, instead of switching to Windows...

------
raesene9
My feeling for what went wrong for Nokia, which kind of chimes with what's
here is that the problem is that they couldn't decide a strategic platform and
stick with it. There was a lot of differences between the Symbian crew and the
Maemo crew.

The prime example of this , for me, was the Nokia N900. It was their flagship
phone, I got one in their store in London and within 6 months it was pretty
much unsupported, as Nokia changed focus again.

Also whilst the hardware was good the software wasn't great quality...

~~~
trm42
One of the things Apple changed was how the software was perceived for phones.

Nokia (or the others) didn't update that much the firmwares for the old
models. They just fixed the problems and added features to the new models.
They were coming from simple phones that were not flashable in the beginning
and they just wanted to sell more phones instead of supporting the old ones.

It's ironic how Apple is selling amazing amounts of phones with just few
models and upgrading the software and features few times a year.

~~~
seba_dos1
The Internet Tablet series, which is what N900 came from, actually was a bit
different. Nokia N800 got an update from OS2007 to OS2008, and Nokia 770,
while officially supported from OS2005 to OS2006, has been updated via semi-
official "Hacker Editions" all the way to OS2008. It was N900's Maemo 5
(Fremantle) where they finally stopped supporting earlier models.

------
kpil
At the time, the Finns seemed to be rather proud of the "management by
perkele" culture.

Also, the traditional industrial product development cycle (requirement
specifications document driven waterfall) does not produce good design, as it
takes many iterations to figure out what's good in reality. It's hard to
change an engineering culture.

~~~
seivan
You can still have management by perkele but make sure management understand
what engineers actually do.

~~~
hga
By this you mean management would better understand how their extreme perkele
is forcing those under them to lie, and they could construct a better view of
reality through better adjustments of how they view those lies???

How about focusing on creating a culture where the people under you don't have
to lie, who's jobs and careers, and therefore families, aren't threatened when
they tell the truth to those above them?

------
Geee
I think the biggest mistake in their engineering execution was skimping on the
specs of their phones. For example, the "flagship" N97 was released with a
resistive screen, 433Mhz ARM11 processor, and without a GPU (they already had
GPUs in some earlier models). N97 would have been a "decent" phone with modern
specs, and bought them more time to innovate in software.

~~~
trm42
Yep that was one their problems. Bought an used Sony Ericsson P800 running UIQ
and used it for years because it had ten times more ram than new Nokia Symbian
phones in 2005-2007. Something like 10 MB vs 128. Of course the UIQ system was
iPhone of the early 2000s but quite few noticed it and in Finland everybody
were chanting Nokia Nokia Nokia.

EDIT: Forgot to say that few earlier Nokia models had accelerated GPU but the
OS and the developers didn't use those, so they just stopped adding the GPUs
later on ;D

~~~
Ezhik
Oh man, I remember I wanted to get a P910. Interesting phone line, that was.

~~~
trm42
The UX design of the P* line and M600 was really something at the day. The
last ones P1i and M600 started converting more and more of the UI to finger
touch instead of stylus control. And it ran so smoothly on nowadays obsoleted
hardware <3

------
aleem
This article seems to have a personal axe to grind.

Building an OS is hard, building an SDK is hard and so is building an IDE to
go with it. Nokia is not a software company. It could not have competed with
Google, Apple or Microsoft on the software platform. These companies have
their own OS. They have their own browsers and even programming languages they
can claim their own. They have massive developer ecosystems.

The fact that Nokia failed has little to do with Nokia itself and more to do
with the disruptive power of software.

It really had just two options. Get acquired or adopt a third-party platform.
Google was not interested post Motorola acquisition. Microsoft had its own
demons to deal with. There was little wiggle room.

Had Motorola not been acquired, it would have gone the same route, fizzled
into oblivion. RIMM is going the same route.

For all their trying, these companies don't have the software DNA.

~~~
trm42
According to rumors Nokia had lots of discussion with MS and Google about
which platform they should take. Got the impression that the proposition from
MS was somehow better and at least initially gave more room to move for Nokia.
Later on got the impression that lots of things didn't went as was promised.

But, Nokia is still alive and the situation seems to be a lot rosier for them
after selling the mobile phone business. They got good price and got really
cheap loan from Microsoft as part of the deal. Of course in PR side Nokia
didn't have to kick out the phone engineers. Microsoft is handling that still
and getting the negative PR from that.

One has to remember that earlier Ericsson quit the phone business as well by
selling that to Sony. Actually those phones got better after that :)

~~~
aleem
Yes, that's exactly right. Ballmer wanted to react to Google's Motorola
acquisition and Nokia got a good deal out of it. Ballmer was heavily
criticized (by the board no less) and the acquisition was mostly a write-off
[1]. Compare this to Google's Motorola acquisition, it's clear that Nokia was
a bad buy and Elop netted the company the most amount of money possible so all
in all a good outcome for Nokia. As per Don Harrison, head of M&A at Google:
[2]

> I think the Motorola transaction has been a success for us. Financially, we
> bought the asset for $12.5 billion. It had $3 billion in cash; we were able
> to sell the Home division for $2.5 billion; we ended selling the handset
> division for $3 billion. There were some other tax assets as well. When you
> work through the math, you realize we spent between $2.5 billion and $3.5
> billion for the patent assets. At the time, the nearest comparable
> transaction was the Nortel patent auction where Microsoft and Apple teamed
> up to buy that asset for $4.5 billion. And there’s a good argument that the
> Motorola patent portfolio is a better portfolio.

Which is why the INSEAD article seems so off base.

[1]: [http://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-just-undid-
stev...](http://www.businessinsider.com/satya-nadella-just-undid-steve-
ballmers-last-big-mistake-2015-7) [2]:
[http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/12/a-peek-at-googles-
ma-...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/12/a-peek-at-googles-ma-
ambitions/)

------
dvirsky
It's interesting that Samsung were in a similar position around that time (and
also had Bada in the works at the time). But around 2010-2011 they just hopped
on the Android bandwagon and went all in with it, and won big time.

Which reminds me, what's up with Tizen? Are they still trying to push it?

~~~
trm42
It seems they are keeping Bada -> Tizen around just to have some leverage over
Google. If some negoatiations are really tough with Google, they can say "hey,
let's forget the whole thing and we'll start using Tizen instead of Android".
They don't really want to do that but it's a good plan B.

~~~
bitmapbrother
It's also a good way to commit business suicide. Plan B would relegate them to
a has been in the smartphone market as the others rush in to fill the void.

------
StripeNoGood
A trojan horse from the MS did it...

~~~
doikor
Nokia was in big trouble / dying years before that.

~~~
ryanlol
Nokia was in trouble indeed, but the damage caused by that memo was
irreversible.

I remember the day it came out, it was the day everyone who I knew at Nokia
realised that they'd soon need new jobs.

------
andmarios
My theory about Nokia's fall is that it was primarily driven by the company's
inability to succeed in the United States.

The first iPhone was indeed good, but still it wasn't a clear win for Apple.
Nokia had impressive software and features that took many years for the
competitors to catch up. In the same time, Nokia would have to catch up to the
iPhone's (usable) touch interface but couldn't make it in time.

Apple (and other US companies) have a huge marketing machine; hollywood,
various tv programs, music industry etc. Once this marketing machine worked
for Apple, Nokia had no chance of success since it hadn't an established
audience in the US to keep the company's image afloat until it delivered
something better.

I believe this is also the reason the shareholders accepted so easily
Microsoft and/or Elop. Elop did the worst possible move imho, during a period
of heavy competition, he changed the company's roadmap, without thinking about
the implications. You just can't pivot that fast on such a complex product.
Also by doing this he alienated the company's audience in Europe.

------
digi_owl
My personal take on it is "boardroom meddling".

Rather than allow the share price to slump some and their CEO to put his long
term play in to action, the board ousted him and brought in a short term sock
puppet. And he was given one objective, goose the share price.

You will find this behavior up and down the tech world.

Take a look at HP for example. They went through 3 CEOs in nearly as many
years. From that we have an aborted attempt at getting into the mobile
business with WebOS as just one example.

Hell, consider what Dell said after buying back his namesake company. That now
they were free to pursue less profitable long term goals.

------
Aoyagi
>Nokia needed a better operating system for its phones to match Apple’s iOS

I strongly disagree. Symbian just needed a few optimisation, which it got. It
got them too late, but it did. Maemo/MeeGo was probably more capable than iOS
is today. And what exactly are those "quality problems of N95" they speak of?

Nokia was indeed wounded by incompetent management, but Microsoft was the one
who stepped in and finished the job.

~~~
threeseed
> Maemo/MeeGo was probably more capable than iOS is today

This is just a ridiculous statement.

The iOS security architecture alone is more sophisticated and capable than
Meego was. When you add all the various _Frameworks and_ Kits iOS is an
extremely broad operating system that even Android can't keep up with.

> but Microsoft was the one who stepped in and finished the job

No. There simply isn't room in the marketplace for more than three platforms.
And Microsoft having better services, better engineers and a lot more money
was always going to take that third spot.

~~~
seba_dos1
I think "more capable" meant that Maemo was just a regular GNU/Linux running
in your pocket, adjusted just enough to work well in such form factor. The
system was yours just like it is on your PC.

iOS, when compared to that, is a child's toy, designed to keep you from
breaking it.

Of course for some it's a feature.

------
f00fc0d3
It is exactly the same what is happening to Nokia Networks. What saves them is
fact that mobile networks market is pretty much closed and there is very high
barrier of entry. If the market would be more open (patents!) - Nokia wouldn't
survive a day there.

Nokia top management have no clue about technology, they are not engineers so
you can sell them any s##t you what if you have smooth talk.

Nokia suffers also from politics and internal battles between sites and
organizations (basically Finns vs everybody else). This results in ubiquitous
NIH syndrome. Nokia Net reinvents wheel all the time, and almost every time
they get a square.

------
SixSigma
Hardware, software & management - I think someone is missing something
fundamental.

I had an N95, I thought it was quite a good piece of kit.

What people never seem to mention is that the iPhone had a generous data plan,
whereas I was paying by the byte.

That is a massive difference in use case.

~~~
trm42
The hardware of N95 was the pinnacle of Nokia engineering. They stuffed lots
of new stuff there like A-GPS receiver, accelerometer, 3D-accelerated GPU,
lots of flash storage, better camera etc but the Symbian UX was horrible (it
was from the beginning but tech feature -driven engineers didn't understand
that at all).

N95 had so much of features that nobody used them. They just were happy with
all the stuff they never used. Been talking about the subject to lots of
people who bought the phone then.

N95 was released the same year Apple demoed iPhone first time. N95 sold really
well then. Nokia's old management has told afterwards they were so lulled by
the success of N95 they were not worried about iPhone at all. They did N96
which was even more stuffed than N95 but with the same UX flaws.

~~~
Aoyagi
If I could choose between a touch-only sleek smartphone and modernised version
of N95 with all its original features, I'd definitely go with the N95.

~~~
trm42
I would like to have touch-phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. Just like the
dev-only Nokia N950 ;-)

In hardware design sense it's really well engineered:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N950](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N950)

------
perseusprime11
Isn't the bottom line technical incompetence more than anything else?

------
vatotemking
They should have released an android phone when android came out. They lost a
lot of time trying to make symbian work as a smartphone and later using
windows phone os which is the smallest ecosystem among the 3 (iOS, Android,
WP)

~~~
4ec327
Hope you realize Symbian was in the market several years before Android
arrived.

