

Stephen Elop Costs Nokia 10 Million Dollars of Lost Profit Every Day - vrruiz
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/07/stephen-elop-costs-nokia-10-million-dollars-more-of-lost-profit-every-day-he-stays-with-nokia.html

======
pavlov
Ahonen is deluded and has no idea about the state of the smartphone
competition. He seriously seems to believe that Symbian in its current state
is up there with Android, iOS and Windows Phone:

 _You the reader may think that Symbian was a dead OS, it was undesirable, it
was failing in the market, it was obsolete etc. That all may have been true of
the older versions of Symbian, up to September 2010. It is not true now. The
facts are irrefutable. From October 2010, Nokia had an honest hit OS that
powered increasing sales, increasing ASPs and most importantly for Nokia -
dramatically increased profits! Only a complete fool would step on this
incredible success, and kill it._

He thinks the Nokia N8 is a great phone. It isn't. I had it for 5 months until
I gave up and switched to a Samsung device (after 10 years with Nokia).

Symbian^3 on the N8 didn't deliver half of what was promised. Horribly broken
web browser, no portrait keyboard, unusable app store that spent two minutes
downloading updates for itself whenever it was opened, outdated version of the
Qt API on the device... The list goes on.

Nokia said last year that there would be quick updates to Symbian to fill in
the missing functionality. Rumors said that a revamped browser would be
available by the end of 2010. Then Nokia officially extended this deadline to
Q1/11. Guess what? The new browser still isn't available for the N8. The
update, now called Symbian Anna, may be available to N8 users next month, if
they're lucky and their operator approves of the OS update...

This lethargic pace of development makes it clear that Symbian development was
out of control and the whole OS is unsalvageable. They had thousands of
engineers working on this system, but it had grown so complex that they
apparently couldn't even update the browser without breaking everything,
leaving the OS stuck with a 5-year old branch of WebKit.

Nokia never understood software. Giving it up and letting Microsoft have total
control of the user-facing operating system is the best thing they could have
done.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Yeah, the entire blog post is clearly not neutral at all. Claiming that people
LOVED Symbian ... It had fallen so far behind.

Nokia faced a similar platform hurdle to Apple in the mid-90's, they needed a
modern OS, and brought one in from outside. It is a painful transition but I
think they made the right decision.

------
Steko
Probably the worst analysis you will read today.

How bad is it? He spends 12 paragraphs "justifying" 7% future growth
alternative scenario based on the 7% observed growth from Q3 to holiday Q4.

Then he doesn't use this. He instead goes with a linear assumption of
decreasing market share. Again ignores the holiday quarter and historical
decline (-14% drop from Q4 09 to Q1 10 in a much better environment for
Nokia). And spends the next 20-30 paragraphs fencing with straw men.

~~~
reitzensteinm
> How bad is it? He spends 12 paragraphs "justifying" 7% future growth
> alternative scenario based on the 7% observed growth from Q3 to holiday Q4.

Haha, that's incredible. Lies, damned lies and statistics.

------
chollida1
> Now in the Steve Ballmer era, Microsoft is interested only in screwing
> everybody, including its own developers

Come on, atleast try to pretend that you didn't have a predetermined idea of
what you want your solution to look like before you make up your numbers.

This really causes the authors credibility to take a hit here.

~~~
marshray
I would agree with you if the subject were anybody but Microsoft. But it seems
extremely rare for any big business partnership with Microsoft to go well for
the other party (unless their plan all along was to exist solely as a nice in
the MS ecosystem or sell to MS altogether).

I think there's enough evidence to call it a debatable fact.

------
peteri
I have to say that I think Toni is wrong over symbian. It has the same set of
basic problems that Windows Mobile 6.5 had, basically it's a system designed
for resistive screens in a capacitive world.

Nokia needed to make that decision to kill off Symbian in the same way that
Microsoft made the decision to kill off Windows Mobile in both cases there is
only so much lipstick you can put on a pig.

The decision process then becomes what OS choices are available to you:

Maemo - Dead killed by Meego but I rather liked the N900 I have and in many
ways it's a better OS for hackers than Android (On the N900 it came with a
terminal, a copy of vi and getting root is a simple download from the
repositories) .

Meego - Alive but unclear if it's ever going to be good enough and it's
probably at least a year away from shipping commercially (note this is at
decision time presumably around December last year) Judging by the progress on
the back port to the N900 it's still not all there.
<http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Status> (see the notes on receiving a call)

iOS4 - Good luck there

Android - Definite maybe here but then you're in a very me too space.

Windows Phone 7 - Plausible and possibly Nokia are able to push Microsoft into
giving more customisation than other vendors.

If you're the Nokia board that leaves you with three options - Meego,Android
and WP7. I think they've done the right thing by putting Meego on the back
burner and going with WP7.

Toni seems to have a hard on that Elop is a trojan horse, sadly while I don't
think announcing the death of Symbian was a great idea it's really hard to see
why anyone with an iPhone or Android phone would buy a Symbian phone. The N8
burnt a lot of folks with it's poor firmware (and slow upgrades) So I think
Nokia was ALWAYS going to fail hard this year.

I like the look of the N9 and N950 but after my N900 experience I wouldn't buy
either of them as who (outside of the OSS folks) is going to develop for them
commercially?

WP7 has it's problems the Mango update took too long and I don't believe that
tethering is properly supported (some phones have a "modem" mode in their test
menu) but when I've had a quick play with it I rather liked it (and I haven't
heard many users complaining) The developer tools and APIs seem to be getting
there.

Finally I would like to point out that when I buy a Nokia phones (9500 & N900)
the OS seems to get killed so I'm not very trusting in Nokias long term plans.

------
bukster
This is the same guy who predicted that iPhone sales would peak in April 2010.
Judging by the length of his blog posts his mind is a cluttered mess. Do not
blindly trust his opinion even though he may sometimes be right.

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/20/tomi-ahonen>

------
scriptproof
I am sure WP7 + Nokia will be a winning strategy. But it can not work until
the phones are available! Android would be a good choice also unless the
system become so encumbered with patent costs if become unusable, which is
possible.

------
rbanffy
While it's clear Symbian is going nowhere in the smartphone space (it could
have a temporary future in the high-volume dumbphone segment as S40 gets
pushed down by better hardware) and that MeeGo took ridiculously long to
mature into a non-competitive-but-cute OS, the idea to bet Nokia's future on
the unlikely success of Windows Phone 7 is one of the stupidest mistakes I
ever saw. The only explanation would be that this was the _only_ way Nokia
could raise the money needed to continue operating.

But this whole thing looks suspicious to the point I can risk a couple
predictions:

\- Microsoft will become immune to lawsuits for violating Nokia patents
(either by eventually acquiring whatever will be left a couple years down the
road or by licensing them for peanuts as part of a WP7-related deal). This may
be particularly relevant with W8's new interface.

\- The patents will be sold to a fund that will then use those patents to
extort Android phone makers (Apple is probably already immune), creating a
pressure for manufacturers to endorse WP7 as a patent-safe alternative

\- Elop will retire or be hired by a company where Microsoft holds a stake,
either directly or indirectly.

~~~
cube13
> While it's clear Symbian is going nowhere in the smartphone space (it could
> have a temporary future in the high-volume dumbphone segment as S40 gets
> pushed down by better hardware) and that MeeGo took ridiculously long to
> mature into a non-competitive-but-cute OS, the idea to bet Nokia's future on
> the unlikely success of Windows Phone 7 is one of the stupidest mistakes I
> ever saw.

Why was this stupid? The Android space is way too cluttered to really make an
entrance. Nokia probably couldn't get much marketshare from Samsung or HTC in
either the high-end or low-end Android markets at this point. They have years
of experience in getting the software to work with their hardware, and are
making great phones at this point. Nokia, as a newcomer, can't really compete
with them.

Symbian is basically dead, so what would they put on their phones? Win 7 makes
a lot of sense in that context, especially with the discounts that they're
surely getting from MS. Google doesn't have much incentive to give anything to
Nokia, considering the overall success of Android with everyone else.

~~~
rbanffy
> The Android space is way too cluttered to really make an entrance.

It's a huge market and Nokia's handsets have always been very high-quality. I
doubt they would have a problem competing on quality.

> Win 7 makes a lot of sense in that context

Why? Any other manufacturer has been able to make it sell? When the same
manufacturers that sell Android well can't make an attractive WP7 phone you
start suspecting the difference between the products may be the problem.

------
apol
I have an n9(50) myself. It's the best mobile device I've ever had... I think
they are beeing foolish because Microsoft forced this move.

