
Ask HN: Why so much hate towards Microsoft-Nokia deal? - desigooner
Ever since the deal between Microsoft and Nokia was announced, everyone everywhere has done nothing but slate them and already pronounced the death of Nokia for agreeing to work with Microsoft. The question is: why? is it really that obvious and I'm overlooking the failure in the not so distant future?!<p>Is it still fashionable to hate Microsoft without analyzing the big picture from the POV of Nokia? Is it because it seems like an illicit move by Elon to sign up with his ex-employer? Or is it a manifestation of iOS/Android fanboyism?
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rst
Here's one take:

Look at Samsung, LG, and HTC. All of them are making both Windows Phone 7
devices and Android ones; if Windows Phone 7 takes off, they're in the race,
but if it doesn't, they'll have other stuff that's working for them.

Now look at Nokia. The difference isn't what Nokia _will_ be doing --- making
Windows Phone 7 devices; it's what they _won't_ be doing --- making Android
phones. They've taken a big, risky bet, which they could have hedged, and
haven't. And the platform they've bet on is one which allows manufacturers
_less_ freedom to customize and differentiate themselves than the one they've
shunned. Heck, if they just shipped stock Android, _that_ would differentiate
them from most of the phones on the market. (Contrast to Windows Phone 7,
where Microsoft is being very restrictive in what manufacturers can dink.
Nokia may get more freedom than some as part of this deal, but not nearly as
much as the HTC Sense experience for Android.) And you could try to say that
they don't have resources to handle multiple platforms --- but if that's the
issue, why are they still talking about shipping Maemo?

In short, this is still different from what other manufacturers are doing, but
based on the announced terms of the deal, it's not really clear why it's
better, and it is pretty clear why it might be worse. There might be
unannounced terms of the deal that change that calculus, but for now, people
can only judge from what they can see.

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gojomo
Lots of Apple/iOS fans. Lots of Android/'open' fans. Lots of europhiles
unhappy to see their continental champion cede platform leadership to Redmond,
WA, USA. Lots of plain old MSFT-hate. A perfect storm of armchair antipathy!

~~~
nailer
Also people who like nokia. I think wp7 is a great and original UI. I think
the phones will be cool. but this turns nokia into another LG. It also throws
away a really decent OS in the form a maemo, which due to nokias symbian
addiction was never given the proper place it should be.

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endtime
I think a lot of it is indeed "M$ bad herp derp" - I've seen about 30 separate
comments all making variations on the burning platform/sinking ship would-be
witticism, which is clearly not justified if you take an objective look at
MSFT since Vista.

Personally, I'm pleased by the news. I want WP7 to be competitive - that can
only help consumers.

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papaf
Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

I can't think of a single high profile company that has done well out of a
deal with Microsoft. However the the road through computing history is
littered with the burnt out wrecks of companies that did do deals with
Microsoft.

~~~
gojomo
Intel and Microsoft had a pretty good run. Also Microsoft and Dell.

Microsoft's 1997 investment of $150 million and firm recommitment to develop
for MacOS turned out pretty well for Apple, too!

Those who ignore history, indeed.

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chamakits
Well, the thing is (my own opinion though, so I could be wrong) Nokia has
invested in the past a lot of their time and money on their developers and on
creating a great platform for them. The had the Symbian OS which was very
popular as far as smart phones go, and they had more recently acquired QT,
which played nicely with the Symbian OS.

Now, it's worthy to note, that the smartphone market today and the one before
are quite different. Smartphones were way more expensive, and development for
them wasn't quite as easy. However, those that invested in having one, and in
developing for them found a great deep appreciation for their phones. These
smartphones had no restrictions whatever. You bought it, you own it. If you
can compile something that runs on it, go ahead! This is something that fans
of the Symbian OS praised, and followed them religiously because of it. So,
although Nokia's platform took a lot longer to spread in fame than say iOS,
they had existed for so long that they had built quite a large following of
dedicated and loyal users/developers. So loyal that even though their
smartphones are quite a bit more expensive than the competitors, they still
believe (and probably rightfully so) that the investment is worth it.

How did Nokia achieve all this? Again, they invested a lot of money and
resources on it. Nokia is a huge company. As a result, they are a huge part of
the Finnish economy as well. Their business is based around these investments
and the large user base that they have built because of them. Not only that,
but they were also in collaboration with other companies in building MeeGo.
MeeGo was meant to be a Linux based OS that would bring the gap between PC and
cellphones even closer, since it was meant more as a Linux distro (like say
Redhat, Ubuntu or Suse) rather than a derivate of Linux (like Android and
OpenMoko).

Now, taking all of this into account, they announce that they will be focusing
on Windows phones. Their huge user based is feeling betrayed because
essentially all the hard work they may have put into the Symbian ecosystem
(which I haven't personally experienced, but have heard it has quite a
learning curve) will go to waste, the MeeGo platform may not come to full
fruition because of conflict of interests, and surely a lot of layoffs are
bound to happen since it seems they are going to let the majority of their
software division die out. Not only that, but they had always been pro open
source and open platforms, and they are now announcing the will probably go
with the company that many see as a rival to these ideals. Is the user base
biased against Microsoft? Probably, but that isn't it either. I'm almost
certain had they announced that they were going with Android, there still
would have been a major backlash. Maybe less so of one because Android is an
open platform, perhaps facilitating porting efforts and the move to another
OS, but I'm almost certain there still would be a lot of people in uproar.

In conclusion, I think the problem here isn't that Nokia is investing in
Microsoft. Thats not it at all. Its that its not investing in itself and its
loyal user base. Thats what seems to be the problem....at least from what I
can interpret.

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TigerArnold
Nokia keeps on changing their strategies.

