
Today was the last day of Nokia as we knew it - sirkneeland
http://kneeland.me/2014/04/24/the-end/
======
metafunctor
In the minds of most Finns, Nokia ceased to exist a long time ago.

Not saying that this was not personally significant for sirkneeland, and it's
a nicely written piece. For myself, for the past few years, Nokia has ceased
to exist a little bit more every day. This is just one more of those days.

Somehow, I feel this is appropriate here:

    
    
      The computer center is empty,
      Silent except for the whine of the cooling fans.
      I walk the rows of CPUs,
      My skin prickling with magnetic flux.
      I open a door, cold and hard,
      And watch the lights dancing on the panels.
      A machine without soul, men call it,
      But its soul is the sweat of my comrades,
      Within it lie the years of our lives,
      Disappointment, friendship, sadness, joy,
      The algorithmic exultations,
      The long nights filled with thankless toil,
      I hear the echoes of sighs and laughter,
      And in the darkened offices
      The terminals shine like stars.
    

– Geoffrey James, The Zen of Programming (1988)

~~~
sirkneeland
Thank you for the kind words. Yes, my Finnish friends (and thanks to Nokia I
have many) have expressed similar sentiments about when Nokia "died" to them.
But for me it hit me today, when as I walked out the doors of the office I
realized that while I would walk out of the same doors ~24 hours later, I
would never walk out the doors of Nokia ever again.

~~~
nyrina
What really struck me, was that for the first time, even though I've read it a
thousand times before, was the fact that Nokia had one of those impossible
goals.

Connecting people, is somewhat like the Microsoft vision of giving everyone a
personal computer. And while there are people in certain parts of the 3rd
world that doesn't have mobile phones, I would say Nokia did an amazing job to
get a mobile phone into everyone's hands.

My dad worked for Ericsson, so I've never owned a Nokia phone, you were the
"evil rivals" after all, but I bow my head to Nokia for what they did, for how
many people they connected with mobile phones.

Nokia might not have been the company that profited from SmartPhones, but they
were the company that created the market for SmartPhones.

~~~
savv
I work for Ericsson - we are now allowed other phones after the partnership
with Sony dissolved.. That said, the patent lawsuits related to Samsung have
previously interfered with the selection.

~~~
jacquesm
What an excellent way to ignore valuable input.

If your employees would rather have your competitors product then you need to
get to work rather than to forbid them to use it you need to make it so they
would _prefer_ to use their own.

~~~
nyrina
Back then, Ericsson (And later, Sony Ericsson) was working really hard to make
great phones, as well, and they certainly did. I never felt like I was lacking
with my Ericsson phones even if it wasn't the same as everyone else's Nokia
3310.

Just like it's hard to make the new Facebook, it was hard to beat Nokia.
Remember, back then, everyone was using Nokia 3310. It didn't just take a
better product to become the thing everyone wanted to have, because everyone
didn't want a mobile phone. They wanted a Nokia mobile phone.

------
frik
The Nokia fate will be remembered as hostile takeover. Everything worked out
in the favor of Microsoft in the end. Though Windows Phone/Tablet have low
market share, a lot lower than expected.

* Stephen Elop the former Microsoft employee (head of the Business Division) and later Nokia CEO with his infamous "Burning Platform" memo: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia)

* Some former Nokia employees called it "Elop = hostile takeover of a company for a minimum price through CEO infiltration": [http://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-m...](http://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-microsoft-takeo-1243832372)

~~~
kyrra
But Nokia was a company that was already starting to falter when Elop came on
board. What else could the company have done to survive? Their options seem
limited from what we know about the marketplace. They could have release an
android phone, but then they just would have been fighting for a piece of the
pie that Samsung, Moto, and other phone makers are eating. They could have
stayed with their phone OS and probably would have had just about the same
fate as picking up Windows Mobile.

Maybe they would have had more sales with an Android phone, but I'm not sure
it would have made a bit enough difference to prevent this buyout. Elop set
Nokia up to be bought out by being a major windows phone maker. It may have
been a better long-term bet than Android.

~~~
jsight
Fighting for share of the pie in the Android market would have created far
more sales than fighting for crumbs of a virtually non-existent pie in the
Windows market.

Having said that, I agree with your final point. If you view the whole thing
as a setup to extract maximum value via an acquisition, it might make sense.
They may have been worth more as a MS acquisition target selling Windows
phones than they would have been had they gone down the Android path.

It's entirely possible that neither path would have led to sustainability as a
standalone entity.

~~~
funkyy
Release 3310 in smartphone world. With their strong brand they could create
another indestructible phone in smartphone era that would sell for $199.

The specs could be weak, as long as it would be easy, durable and fast for
regular users.

Nokia 3310 was phone for regular users. Phone that could drop, had few games,
allowed you to download some ringtones. Strong battery, good screen,
water/shock proof. Put 8GB memory plus one SD slot, some ok-ish processor and
2GB ram (so it wont age after 1 year) + make put really good battery. No
ridiculous screen resolutions, fingerprint readers etc - just durable
smartphone for regular user.

With specs like that they might break even - but for sure they would steal
european and growing APAC regions easy. Once they would get back they would
release business versions that would help them to correct their profitability.
Its not difficult for such a strong brand like Nokia. I was amazed how
Scandinavian way of thinking (simplicity) vanished from the company.

If Nokia could deliver mentioned phone - I would use it for sure.

~~~
mahouse
A lot of companies are trying this, even CAT (known for their excavators, etc)
and I would say it's not working very well for them.
[http://catphones.com/phones/b15-smartphone.aspx](http://catphones.com/phones/b15-smartphone.aspx)

~~~
funkyy
CAT is not Nokia. Nostalgia after Nokia in Europe is HUGE. I know that
majority of my friends is vouching for old ways Nokia was doing business and
they still believe that if Nokia could create 3310 smartphone way - they would
go all in.

~~~
eli
I don't think it's possible to roll back the clock like that. Nokia's Windows
phones weren't that bad. Very well built, as far as I know. Yet no one bought
them, so clearly there's a limit to what the brand alone could carry.

------
VSpike
The radios in Nokia phones were always superb.

I live in an area of poor mobile coverage [known as "the UK" ;)] and Nokia
phones were amazing at operating reliably in marginal signal conditions.

The last Nokia I had was an N95 which was a pretty good phone. The 6310i was
probably the best of them all (up till quite recently there were people in the
UK, usually travelling salespeople, who were hoarding these and buying them up
on eBay for when theirs broke).

Although the phones I've had since are smarter and shinier, none of them have
a radio of quality remotely close to the Nokias. They won't operate in places
I know the Nokias worked fine. And they often seem to lose mobile signal
completely, requiring a restart (or switch to flight mode and back).

Many things get better over time, and I love the features of my Android
phones, but I do miss that quality RF design. RF is hard ... just look how
long it took Apple to get it right! [1]

[1] Although that did mean that the first iPhones had amazing engineering
debug screens for the mobile network side as a side effect of the problems
they had.

------
nabla9
Nokia as phone manufacturer is gone.

Nokia the company still exists. It owns the Nokia brand and has massive mobile
patent portfolio (only licensed to Microsoft). Nokia is made of NSN (Nokia
Solutions and Networks), maps and The Nokia Research Center.

Nokia is prohibited from using the brand to sell mobile phones for few years
(ending 2018). It's completely possible that they come up with new gadgets or
even phones with Nokia name.

~~~
yitchelle
Nokia is like one of the Japanese/Korean conglomerate where it touches
everything[1]. Looking back at its stories, it got involve in power
generation, TV manufacture, even forestry. I am sure that this is only part of
its evolution.

[1] - [http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/about-us/the-
nokia-s...](http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/about-us/the-nokia-story/)

~~~
nabla9
Not any more. Those parts of Nokia Keiretsu that once was exist today as
independent companies.

[http://www.nokiantyres.com/](http://www.nokiantyres.com/)
[http://www.nokiantires.com/](http://www.nokiantires.com/)

[http://nokianjalkineet.fi/en/](http://nokianjalkineet.fi/en/)
[http://www.nokianfootwear.com/](http://www.nokianfootwear.com/)

Nokia Cable is now
[http://www.nkcommunications.com](http://www.nkcommunications.com)

~~~
wodenokoto
Conglomerate is not a Keiretsu and a keiretsu is not a conglomerate. Keiretsu
is cross-ownership of shares centered around a bank.

If you absolutely must use a Japanese term, go with Zaibatsu.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu)

~~~
nabla9
Ownership of big Finnish companies formed Keiretsu type arrangement until the
beginning of the 80's. Finland had two big banks, SYP and KOP, and they formed
two camps that cross owned large sectors of Finnish business.

Nokia was mostly in the SYP camp. SYP owned directly 20% of Nokia and even
more trough it's insurance companies and other investors.

------
whizzkid
Huge respect! This company once built a mobile phone that everyone could buy.
Cheap, works forever, does the job.

It is really surprising, and awesome to see that they built their products to
last, not for a year like most companies today.

~~~
edgarvm
Indeed, their cellphones were solid as rock, even the cheapest ones had a huge
usability, I still miss my first Nokia 1112.

------
nivla
Man, as someone who loves Windows Phone, I am sad to see this merger go
through. I wished if Nokia remained separate from Microsoft. Nokia as a
company and culture gave Windows Phone a standing chance where most had
already declared the market a duopoly. They had great products, amazing ads,
exceptional customer service and most of all, a good sense of future. Heck
even when MS failed to deliver decent apps, Nokia stepped in to fill the gap:
Nokia Music/Radio, Nokia Maps, City Lens, Transit... all with offline support!
If it wasn't for them, I would have never switched to a Windows Phone.

I wonder how its going to play out from here. Given the MS culture, are things
going to get slow and bureaucratic?

Whatever happens Nokia is always going to hold a special place in my heart
especially the 3310 [1], my first phone. :)

[1]
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nokia_331...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nokia_3310_blue.jpg)

~~~
HenryMc
> Given the MS culture, are things going to get slow and bureaucratic?

This is my worry. Nokia moves so quick on everything, and delivers great
products. While Microsoft is always slow, and the the products are always
missing features.

Hopefully all those Nokia employees will have an effect on Microsoft's
culture.

Microsoft makes products I like. Nokia make products I love.

~~~
Touche
Did Nokia really move quickly? As I recall, it took them a year (from
announcing they were going WP) before they released their first phone, the N9
running WP.

~~~
HenryMc
It was about 8 months. Deal with Microsoft was announced in February 2011 and
Lumia 800 (I have one) and 710 were announced in October.

------
001sky
_Even Nokia 's mobile phones business was on the chopping block for a time.
Boston Consulting Group did a thorough assessment of Nokia's business in 1991
and came to the conclusion that the company wouldn't be able to compete with
Motorola and the Japanese mobile makers._

> From the cross-linked article, on "what could not be done"

Amazing...

~~~
tormeh
Nobody could have competed with the Japanese manufacturers, if they had only
started selling their phones outside of Japan. The BCG guys simply lacked the
cultural sensitivity required to understand the extent of Japan's navel-
gazing.

Americans often act and think as if the rest of the world don't exist, but the
Japanese are far, far worse. Navel-gazing = size x ethnocentricity. What Japan
lacks in size compared to the US, it more than makes up for in
ethnocentricity.

I remember seeing an XKCD comic which featured a fact about "there only being
[x amount] of [x type] lighthouses in the nation". "In the nation". So
typical.

------
woogle
Melancholia, an ode to Nokia.

    
    
      Playing Snake until the death.
      While some create ringtones.
      It was an unbreakable phone.
      I'll remember 'til my last breath.

------
pradeep89
Wow, One of the amazing product (Nokia 1100) I experienced first. Thank you
Nokia. You really transformed communication industry for developing countries
where most of the people never saw/used apple devices as they saw/used yours.

------
reactor
My relationship with Nokia started with 3310, long live Nokia as we know it.

Can you believe that the mighty was once reached the highest market value of
any European company: 203 Billion Euros ($281 Billion as of today's exchange
rate)?

I'm sure many have learned more than one lesson already.

------
yason
This is how things come to an end but they had started slowing down a lot
earlier.

For any practical purpose, Nokia was dead around 2005-2006 at the latest and
dwindling at least couple of years before that.

Sure they sold lots of phones of good quality even after those years, but they
weren't riding the first wave anymore during those years. They were riding on
a dead horse, unwilling to notice it's not the 90's anymore.

------
peterwwillis
Can anyone tell me what's happening with the Nokia Berlin mobile/maps group? I
had interviewed for a position there and was on the verge of taking it, when
something more opportune and local popped up. I'm curious where I would have
ended up had I taken that job.

edit: now I have to hop on the poem bandwagon! here's my ode to Nokia:

    
    
      Star pupil of texts in cyberspace, taking his time, with each
      Pound of the keys pushing farther towards hidden powers.
      Seven days a week, fascinations with secret menus
      Seven times more interesting than COCOTs and DATUs.
      Eight friends, huddled around the brightly lit screen,
      Zero in on the hidden treasures of information obscured.
      Pounded into their brains, codes impregnate future hackers.
      
      One, two, three, four, five digits bring them into an obscure and secret world.

~~~
tellarin
HERE Maps is still part of Nokia. It's not part of the new Microsoft Mobile.

------
kisitu
Personally I've been saddened by Nokia's downfall. I still remember the time I
wrote Python code for both S60 and N900 series phones, taught a class about
this too... Nokia had some really cool funky tools to work with..

Perhaps W8 will do some wonders; I guess its nostalgia :-(

------
davidgerard
[http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-
technology/nokia-...](http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-
technology/nokia-with-broken-screen-is-best-phone-of-all-time-2013040464681)

------
gojomo
There's some weird fine print in the deal which could mean the revival of the
Nokia brand, from an offshoot of the original company, after January 1, 2016:

[http://followingjolla.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-small-
print-t...](http://followingjolla.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-small-print-three-
ways-nokia-can.html)

I wonder if that could work out like the weird 'sold Skype but not the key
technology' clause of the Skype-eBay deal...

------
general_failure
The Nokia story will always remind us of how quickly even large companies can
die in today's world. They didn't even see it coming.

------
shmerl
Mer (former Meego) is one good thing which came out of Nokia and doesn't
depend on it anymore luckily. The rest will be wasted.

------
badman_ting
I like that this person talks about connecting people and people having their
lives touched by Nokia. Nowadays we are very distrusting and dismissive of
such talk. There is a good reason why of course, but still there is something
reductive about the attitude of "it's just a fucking
app/website/phone/whatever".

------
croisillon
You mean Nokia is no longer a wood pulp mill? That's really the end of Nokia
as we knew it!

~~~
tellarin
For those downvoting, Nokia did start as a wood pulp mill in 1871.

~~~
croisillon
Thanks for getting it :)

I don't think I've been downvoted on this one, just sunk below the upvoted
ones ;)

------
sidcool
I do remember the small Nokia phones. They enabled to make me custom ringtones
from sounds of the keypad. It was great. But everything passes, so did Nokia.
It isn't literally ceasing to exist, but close enough. Long live Nokia.

------
neurobro
I'm still waiting for the "iCandybar" form factor fad to fade so we can get
the modern-day evolution of the N93, with 41 megapixels and real depth of
field, etc. I won't stop holding my breath.

------
HenryMc
I still think it's a mistake for Microsoft to not buy the Nokia brand. Why not
go the Motorola route (Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions)?

~~~
oblio
I doubt Nokia would sell the brand. Nokia has been a Finnish company for 150
years. They made several mistakes - including bringing Elop in - and they
probably wanted to get rid of the part of the company that was no longer
sustainable.

But I doubt they ever wanted to give up the brand, based on the details I read
these days about the deal with Microsoft (only sold the mobile division,
licensed the Nokia brand for several years, banned from producing mobiles only
until 2018, etc).

------
bws99
Sad times - although I look forward to what's next. More competition is always
a good thing.

~~~
throwawayaway
glad to see this competitor go, only more competition can result.

------
Spearchucker
I'm optimistic about the buyout. Nokia's dev site is clearly transitioning -
the place holder is cool [https://www.dvlup.com/](https://www.dvlup.com/).

The people will mostly stay the same, even though ownership has changed. I'd
still work there if I wasn't tied geographically to where I am now.

~~~
dictum
>DVLUP has joined Microsoft! We're serving virtual fruit punch and setting off
celebratory pretend fireworks on the DVLUP Blog. Head on over to learn more
and enjoy your extra-special Day One Badge. Things are about to get awesome.

I can smell the Pointy-Haired Boss from here.

------
debacle
Nokia is dead, long live Nokia?

------
niix
I wish all phones were as indestructible as the Nokia "brick".

~~~
namenotrequired
Yes... Nokia may be dead, my Nokia phone that I got for my 16th birthday is
still alive and well. :)

------
devx
How the mighty fall.

~~~
sirkneeland
There are so many beautifully worded encapsulations of this idea, in so many
languages, from so many ages. As close as one can get to proof that it is a
universal fact of the human condition that nothing lasts forever

~~~
Moru
Except a nokia 3210. I still have mine and it works fine even if it is
repurposed as a cheap GSM alarm for a summer cottage out in the nowhere. All
you need is a bit of wire, soldering iron and a magnet circuit breaker

------
ravin
It's a moment like "and then"

------
ajkumar25
Long Live Nokia.

------
moron4hire
Reading things like this always causes me to reflect on myself and my own
relationship to work.

I'm envious of people who can work a job. My wife, for example, has been at
the same place for almost 10 years. My father has worked the same place for
over 30. They have their complaints, but they get up every morning and they
go.

The longest I ever lasted anywhere was 2 and a half years. It was my second
job out of college. I've had 5 jobs over the course of 7 years. One of those
jobs only lasted 3 months. One was only 10 months. Both were a race to see if
I would quit or get fired first. I won on the 3-month job, I lost on the
10-month one. They never gave an official reason, but I think they would say
it was because I wouldn't show up on time. Really, it's because I had no
respect for management.

I've been freelancing for the last 2.5 years. Excuse me, let me correct that,
I was unemployed for 6 months after the 10-month deal. I thought I hated
programming. After getting fired, I didn't want to do it again.

A friend got me an interview at the place he worked, a small manufacturing
firm. We started as a 3 month contract-to-hire, they wanted to hire me after
the first month, and I stuck to wanting to contract. It scared the crap out of
me. We were doing good work and being hired as an employee just felt like
trying to ruin it. We worked out a consulting arrangement that, honestly, by
most accounts is consulting in name only. I work so much for them that I don't
have time to pick up other projects. After 6 months, _told_ them I was going
to primarily work from home. After another 6 months, I moved to a completely
different city and just kept working. They didn't even know I wasn't in the
area anymore for 3 months until we did a video chat session and they saw my
new apartment.

I don't know what any of it means. If my client doesn't add any new tasks and
I finish out the list I have, I'll have worked for them longer than I've
worked for anyone. Them not adding any new tasks is highly unlikely. At the
same time, I would see working for them for another 1 to be encroaching on
"failure" and another 2 years to definitely be "bad". Not in the sense that I
wouldn't be making good money (I'm making more now than any two previous years
combined), but in that I have this emotional snag that sees staying in one
place to be stagnating.

I don't think I hate programming anymore, especially now that I've gotten back
into running my own side projects. But I certainly _hate_ common corporate
organizational structure. I just can't stand going into an office when I'm
told, wearing what I'm told, _thinking_ what I'm told (which seems to be the
point of most employee handbooks). Every Joe Shmo with an MBA thinks he can
start a consulting firm and hire a bunch of cheap programmers and turn it into
a printing press for money. And they bring with them this cargo cult of
Fortune 500 practices that ultimately feel dehumanizing. It turns my stomach
even thinking about going to work as an employee.

But none of my family gets that about me. They just think I'm being difficult.
Maybe I am, but I make more than all of them, so what is their problem? Just
because I'm not clean shaven or put on pants most days means I can't support a
family? That's probably an aspect of why I want to stick to not being an
employee, out of spite for all of the people who have told me, "just get a job
already, just get out of bed on time and go to work already."

It's very stressful. I'm constantly thinking about work and wanting to do
something else. I don't get to just turn work off at the end of the day and
play a video game. And that's not because I'm freelancing--as I said, my
current client isn't going anywhere. That's my itchy feet, my knowledge of my
past, and this haunting specter of some compulsion to find a new job.

~~~
findingMyWay
For me it's always been the benefits (medical insurance, bonding, etc) that
makes freelancing hard, though maybe that's all changed now with Obamacare.

Do what makes you happy. There's only one go around.

~~~
moron4hire
People always say that, but it's not as bad as you think. I'm on my wife's
health insurance now, but I could be on my own and it wouldn't be that much
off the top. Certainly not the haircut most employers are going to give you in
their ludicrous "total compensation package" numbers.

I've never worked at a place that just gave me free health insurance. Early
on, it wasn't a lot of money, maybe $30/mo or so, but near the end, it had
gotten bad, more like $250/mo. Everyone I know with employer-provided health
insurance (with the exception of my wife, who works for the government) has
gotten their premiums jacked up on them. So from my perspective it's kind of a
fallacy that obtaining your own health insurance as a freelancer is "more
expensive" than what you receive as an employee, because what you receive as
an employee just ain't that great anymore. In my wife's case, they don't
charge her an arm and a leg for health insurance, but they do pay her
severally under the market rate for her experience and credentials.

And I definitely go on a lot more vacations now than I ever did before. Most
of my "vacation" time before I would spend on being sick, as I never had
separate sick leave. Now, because I don't have to go anywhere, if I get a
cold, I just work through it.

I'll even accompany my wife on her business trips, work from her hotel room
while she is working, and then we can have dinner together in whatever port
city she's stuck in that night. I'll go visit my parents on occasion, or
friends in other states. I just setup shop during the day in a coffee shop,
library, hotel or something and then spend the evenings with them. I still
visit with some of my friends about as often as when we lived in the same city
together, and depending on the city, I can take the train and work while I'm
riding.

Plus, I make a decent amount of interest on the money I put into savings for
paying my taxes (being self-employed, I don't have tax withholding, I pay
quarterly estimates instead). It's enough I can afford an accountant (well,
not that the accountant is that expensive) to file my taxes at the end of the
year. For me, it's a significant stress reliever.

And I eat and sleep much better when I'm home and not having to drive back and
forth to offices.

In short, not only am I making more, my free cash is still more, and my
quality of life is significantly better in every aspect. I don't even really
have that high of a consulting rate, as I'm really bad/lazy about marketing
myself.

------
MatthewWilkes
The St. Crispin's Day speech? REALLY?

~~~
205guy
On the one hand, I'd agree with you that it's a gross exaggeration. On the
other hand, I've always felt that corporate middle management was the new (and
less bloody) realm for what used to be tribal chiefs, lords of manors, and
dukes of minor duchies, and their associated battles for control of land.

