

Rescuing Nokia? A former exec has a radical plan - castway
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/22/nokia_manifesto_risku/

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plinkplonk
From the article.

"Essentially, Nokia has forgotten how to bring innovative products to market.
This is despite a rich R&D base, which has pioneered many of the innovations
competitors now feature. Instead, a risk-averse bureaucracy has grown up that
stifles innovation – it makes progress slow or non-existent."

An old and familiar story.

"his diagnosis may be familiar, but the proposals quite radical. ... a
bloodbath of middle managers – starting with 300 to 500 staff at senior VP, VP
or director level. This he calls a GRO program, or Get-Rid-Of."

Yahoo had 300 or so VPs before its fall. How do companies end up with five
_hundred_ \+ VPs? What value do they provide exactly? (Genuine question, not
snark. From what I've seen _most_ people at VP level spend all their time in
internecine politics)

Does anyone know how many VPs Apple has? or Google? (though I suspect , with
no proof or numbers, that the latter would have relatively high numbers, given
the "middle agedness" Google seems to demonstrate these days)

~~~
retube
But what does "VP" mean? These titles are distributed pretty liberally, do not
have a consistent rank/role across employers, and tend to represent very
different things between say the UK, US and Finland. E.g - look at your
average investment bank: VP is basically rank-and-file, and form the core
group of the people that do the work.

~~~
plinkplonk
"But what does "VP" mean? "

Good Question. At Yahoo (and other places like Intuit) these guys are about
two rungs from the CEO. That is the sense in which I used it.

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koevet
I have worked in Nokia as consultant for almost a year and I have always
wondered how Nokia became Nokia, given they way they managed software
development internally. Several consultancy companies were working on the same
project - a communication nightmare and developers with little or no
experience were brought on board. But, as the book suggests, the main issue
was coming from the Nokia managers involved in the project. They were
absolutely unable to manage and run a large scale software development project
and, above all, they weren't able to take any decision, a complete, terrified
paralysis. Not sure how they ended up being like that, the Peter principle is
likely one of the causes. I hope Nokia gets back on their feet, they surely
have a massive technological asset and they can bring innovation to the telco
world.

~~~
bborud
This is what happens when a field matures; companies transition to "managing
assets" and source commoditized products and services rather than retaining
detailed control and knowlegde themselves. This promotes cost efficiency and
is a valid business practice.

At least as long as the field they operate in is stable.

The problem is that it makes businesses vulnerable to disruptive change, and
when disruptive change does occur companies usually struggle to re-evolve
talents that they shedded when their business matured. The trick is to realize
the necessity of restructuring what they do and how and to do so before loss
of revenue makes it hard or impossible. The first reaction, though, is often
to cut cost. Which is a great way to start the downward spiral.

It is almost like drowning: all your natural reflexes conspire against your
survival.

I can't remember what this cycle is called, but I read about it in some
textbook used at business schools, so it is probably part of a typical MBA
curriculum. (The rest of the book was too dull for me to actually remember its
title).

When Apple raised the standard for handsets and brought handset software
significantly closer to state of the art of software in general, handset
manufacturers were caught napping. Then they panicked. And now they are taking
on water.

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marty_himself
My experience with Nokia is: great hardware and absolutely awful software. How
to rescue Nokia? Continue making great hardware and switch to Android on all
phones, before everyone else does.

~~~
thewileyone
Exactly. I've been looking at the new phones coming out and I think that a
Nokia Android phone would kick everything else, including the iPhone4, out of
the water.

~~~
davidw
I don't know if they'd ever be as beautiful as an iPhone, but on the other
hand, they'd likely be able to make phone calls even if you did things like
hold them in your hand. And, joking aside, I have a suspicion that Nokia does
more in terms of design and testing to ensure that dropping the phone isn't
going to wreck it. Probably more so on the lower end phones that are likely to
be owned by teenagers, but my wife and I have had Nokia phones for a while,
dropped them every now and then, and (fingers crossed) never had a problem.

~~~
jonah
I love the durability of Nokia phones. They're tools rather than some kind of
precious object.

~~~
Maktab
Their low-end consumer phones, maybe. In my experience their smartphones have
been as poorly-built as everybody else's. My Nokia smartphones were the only
phones I've owned that didn't still look good after two years, with
discoloured plastic and loose parts.

~~~
jonah
My last Nokia ran Symbian. Lasted for years and years. Sure the case was
pretty scratched up, but I didn't have to replace it every time I dropped it
on the ground.

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juanefren
I (and also a lot of people) think they ought to ship Android phones, How bad
could be for them that option? my limited vision says it is an excellent
choice.

~~~
koevet
Shipping Android phones would be probably a smart move for Nokia but I don't
think the company wants to be bound to Google that much. Instead of insisting
on Symbian, they should have worked on developing a proper Linux-based OS.
Maybe is not relevant, but Linus Torvalds is Finnish and the country, even if
rather small, has the brain power to do that. Maybe now is too late and
probably the Android move would be the smartest but I don't think it'll
happen.

~~~
bawatski
maemo?

~~~
zandor
And MeeGo.

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mike-cardwell
Nokia simply isn't capable of producing a phone OS that is better than Android
or iOS. The sooner they accept this fact and migrate to Android the better.
The software side of their business is doomed. They can save the hardware
side, but they need to migrate to Android in order to do that.

~~~
rue
"Google simply isn't capable of producing a phone OS that is better than the
iPhone."

"Apple simply isn't capable of producing a phone OS that is better than
Symbian."

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Setsuna
IMO, the problem with Nokia or for that matter MS/Palm/etc is not a lack of
innovation but rather a lack of _confidence_ in their innovations.

~~~
bigtones
Palm had confidence in it's innovations and look how that went. It's a very
long road from innovation to shipping product - just ask Microsoft's Kin team.

~~~
Setsuna
I like how confident Apple or Nintendo are in their products. Look at Wii- it
was launched against more powerful consoles, iPhone was launched when other
smartphones were more powerful, had multitasking, copy-paste(!) etc.

The fact that Nintendo was confident it could sell more Wiis because theirs
_was more fun_ and Apple confident about iPhone because theirs _was more
usable_. Nintendo revealing a DSi-esque 3DS when Sony is trying to make PSP
more iPhone like etc

It is this confidence that developers want to see when they want to _invest_
in developing for that platform. You cannot lead others when you can't even be
confident in yourself.

~~~
Tichy
Especially interesting about the Wii case is that I think Nintendo was
presumed to be a lost case before the Wii launch. Not sure how much of what
they did was inspired by confidence and how much was just desperation.

~~~
Setsuna
I think they changed their approach to the market. I guess they have capable
people at the top who think clearly.

When asked about how they felt about their rivals, Iwata responded

 _"... rather than trying to identify a specific rival and to think about how
to fight against it, it is more important for our unique business to always
ask ourselves, and try to answer, such questions like "What does it mean to
make people interested in something?", "What is worth spending people's time
and energy on?", or "What do people find amusement in?" We would be glad if
you understand that, as the basis, we are not conscious of any certain
rivals."_

from here:
[http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/meeting/100629qa/02....](http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/meeting/100629qa/02.html)

I don't know whether this is scripted or not, but it was certainly a good
read.

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asmosoinio
One page link:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/22/nokia_manifesto_risk...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/22/nokia_manifesto_risku/print.html)

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kmfrk
I may be the only one, but I would gladly pay $50 for a Nokia 3210 - at the
very least as a party or back-up phone. I think that it still holds up well
today, and if not, they could just improve the hardware and add a camera and
colour screen: "3210S"? I have actually tried finding and ordering a mint 3210
on eBay without any luck.

I don't see anyone beating Apple in the app phone market - maybe Google
themselves might fare adequately with a new Nexus and some Android tweaks. I
am not an Android person myself, but I am sure that others are.

~~~
zokier
Or 6310i. Its beautiful and functional.

I was actually thinking the other day that there could be a market for rock
solid, no nonsense businessphones. Which makes phone calls. A week or two of
battery life. Small but legible b/w display. Good, physical buttons. Solid
construction. It couldn't be that pricey to make and if marketed correctly, it
would probably manage to get its niche market.

Too bad that nobody is interested in niche markets these days.

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mattmanser
_‘We can’t find the piece of code that could shift [a dialog on screen] up
5mm.’ They said, ‘There’s 20 million lines of code in the phone – it’s
impossible.’_

Ouch. That sounds like a code base seriously out of control.

