It’s official. Dismissed as a silly rumour by many, Nokia and Micorsoft have just announced a very comprehensive partnership in which Windows Phone 7 will become Nokia’s prime smartphone platform. It goes a lot deeper than that, though. Update: Qt will not be available for Windows Phone 7. Qt will remain the development platform for MeeGo and Symbian. Update II: During its Capital Market Day event, Elop confirmed Nokia will not make a comprehensive MeeGo product line. It will be a platform to learn from, but it won’t become a competitive platform. Update III: Android was not an option because it would be difficult to differentiate there. Update IV: There will be ‘substantial reductions in employment’ in Finland and around the world. Also, before I forget, thanks Engadget for the live-blogging where I get this stuff from!
Nokia, powered by Windows Phone 7
The biggest aspect of the partnership, of course, is that Windows Phone 7 will become Nokia’s ‘primary smartphone strategy’ upon which Nokia will innovate. Nokia will “help define the future of Windows Phone”, bringing its expertise in hardware design and language support to the platform. In addition, Nokia will be able to bring the platform to a wider range of price points and geographies. The two companies will also collaborate on mobile development and align their roadmaps “to align on the future evolution of mobile products”.
Bing will power search on all Nokia’s devices, while Microsoft’s adCenter will take care of the advertising experience. In return, Nokia Maps will become a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services, which isn’t odd considering Nokia owns Navteq which already powers Bing Maps anyway.
Also, Nokia’s application and content store (Ovi) will be integrated into Windows Phone 7’s Marketplace. Obviously, Microsoft’s development tools will be used to develop applications for Nokia’s Windows Phone devices, but that’s pretty much a given.
“Together, we have some of the world’s most admired brands, including Windows, Office, Bing, Xbox Live, NAVTEQ and Nokia,” Nokia’s CEO ELOP and Micorosft’s Ballmer write in a joint open letter, “We also have a shared understanding of what it takes to build and sustain a mobile ecosystem, which includes the entire experience from the device to the software to the applications, services and the marketplace.”
“There are other mobile ecosystems. We will disrupt them. There will be challenges. We will overcome them. Success requires speed. We will be swift,” the two CEOs add. While they’re facing an uphill battle, we’re talking about two major companies – the biggest in software and the biggest in mobile phones – coming together to conquer the smartphone market. This is big.
This gives Windows Phone 7 an incredibly amount of legitimacy – something the platform needed since players like Samsung and HTC saw Windows Phone 7 as an also-ran. They didn’t commit fully to the platform, and while Symbian and MeeGo aren’t going away (see below), Nokia will position Windows Phone 7 as its primary smartphone platform.
Wither Symbian and MeeGo?
What’s going to happen with Symbian and MeeGo? Well, while they aren’t going away for now, it would appear Symbian is on its way out. “With Nokia’s planned move to Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform, Symbian becomes a franchise platform, leveraging previous investments to harvest additional value,” he adds, “This strategy recognizes the opportunity to retain and transition the installed base of 200 million Symbian owners. Nokia expects to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come.”
It would seem this signals the end of an era for Nokia. Leveraging previous investments in Symbian? Right, so no more money will be going that way. Symbian’s bye-bye.
MeeGo, on the other hand, will simply be moved off phones and unto other types of devices. “Under the new strategy, MeeGo becomes an open-source, mobile operating system project,” the press release reads, “MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year.”
Reorganising Nokia
Not just Nokia’s strategy is being reorganised – the company itself is also getting a major overhaul. “As of April 1, Nokia will have a new company structure, which features two distinct business units: Smart Devices and Mobile Phones,” the company announces, “They will focus on Nokia’s key business areas: high-end smartphones and mass-market mobile phones. Each unit will have profit-and-loss responsibility and end-to-end accountability for the full consumer experience, including product development, product management and product marketing.”
Smart devices will be the division taking care of the new Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices, while also having sub-units for MeeGo devices and Symbian smartphones. Mobile Phones will take care of Nokia’s regular phones, which are still selling like crazy and are arguably the best regular phones in the business.
“Nokia is at a critical juncture, where significant change is necessary and inevitable in our journey forward,” Elop said, “Today, we are accelerating that change through a new path, aimed at regaining our smartphone leadership, reinforcing our mobile device platform and realizing our investments in the future.”
Yay me. I’m a WP7 user, this is good news for me
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Uh oh! Apparently the angry mob doesn’t like what Thom does. ROFL
Windows Phone 7 is a great mobile OS. Just like Apple’s iOS. I encourage the angry mob here at OSAlert to put aside their unfounded hatred for Microsoft and try WP7.
I don’t hate Microsoft and I love Silverlight, but I like Linux and Qt much more. I was really looking forward to a meego device and have been a loooong time Nokia user and supporter. No more…Android for me (despite my dislike of various elements in android).
And just to add that if I get a wp7 phone ever it will not be a Nokia phone. I feel to betrayed by the Meego hope Nokia inspired in me
Edited 2011-02-11 11:56 UTC
It is not a dislike for Microsoft that fuels my reservations but, among others, my preference for an open system. Will it be possible to develop open source software for a Nokia Windows 7 device and also deploy it?
Also, as a Qt developer I would like to see Qt prosper. To what degree will Nokia invest in the further development of Qt? If Qt will only be used for (a dying) Symbian and (a DOA ?) Meego… What about the companies and developers that have invested time and money in Qt to develop mobile applications? The fact that there will not be a Qt for Windows Mobile 7 irks me the most.
I fear that Nokia and Qt are a dead end which makes me sad.
Simply because now Nokia has no reason at all to put resources into Qt.
Yeah that does not mean that Qt will die, since it is FOSS. Yet no free project would have enough resources to both maintain Qt and move it foward at the same pace.
A sad day to me at least. And that is only because of caring for Qt and KDE.
From Nokia’s POV this might even be a good decision.
Many of the “Angry Mob” your going to hear from, being an OS nerd site, are probably the now alienated Maemo/Meego folk left with no upgrade path. I did some serious research to the point of how-to-root and collecting packages of deal-breaker software titles and found nothing that wasn’t a downgrade; Android was, and still is, a mess unless you fork out for a developer phone with Google’s clean firmware, Ios is a tiranical dictatorship, WM7 sure isn’t going to run the deal-breaker titles in my list.. am I going to be seeing nmap, metasploit and have the ability to easily port python apps and debian packages.. nope..
Don’t discount the angry mob just because you don’t agree with the cause of the just anger.
can’t sync wp7 phones on linux dists
Thom, I think you and I are the only two people here actually excited about this.
Edit: And ronaldst too. Sorry mate.
Edited 2011-02-11 11:44 UTC
Dunno, mate. I’m seeing lots of happy kids on Engadget.
Meego is another dead end Intel project like Larrabee. Everybody knows it. It’s a good project that is burning money and never happening.
I disagree: there are good technical reasons why Larrabee cannot compete with high-end GPUs(*), while Meego is only software..
*the GPUs have far higher memory bandwith, so to workaround this issue, software must be coded differently to be efficient on Larrabee and the like : ergo current software won’t run very well on Larrabee and the like..
Negative. Larrabee was plagued with incompetent employees wasting away millions of investment dollars. It was a people problem just like Nokia and it’s Meego OS.
Everybody knew once Moblin became Meego, the project was going to fail hard. It went from a Clutter nettop/netbook OS to some onesize fits all OS then to a QT phone OS. As for QT, it’ll live on with Symbian and KDE.
Edited 2011-02-11 13:40 UTC
I shudder at the thought of anyone calling people developing gpu or cpu incompetent.
Sad but true. The Larrabee project burned thru billions of Intel dollars with nothing to show. It’s mind-boggling.
However, All the research put into Larrabee might surface again unlike in this situation where all the money,Manpower and research spent is being thrown out. .Net is not nokia’s core competence so they either have to completely shuffle the company out (bring new people in) or train. The still relatively cool Nokia is being subsumed by the Deeply uncool Microsoft and nokias old culture will not survive.
There is a reason why many people are upset by this as Nokia despite the state it was in had deep brand loyalty simply due to the way it did things. Nobody has brand loyalty to Microsoft except boring suits and I suspect that the same thing will happen to nokia.
Seriously? You decided to go with the only modern mobile platform that does not support HTML5, as well as the platform that is unlikely to support WebM anytime soon?
They’re more likely to support WebM than iOS. On top of that, I’m not buying Android until Google fixes its upgrade policy. The Nexus One doesn’t have 2.3 yet, and I’m afraid that if I buy the Nexus S, I’ll end up in a similar situation. A no-go for me.
Why do you believe that MS/Nokia will be better in this regard?
It’s an honest question as I’m not terribly familiar with either’s smartphone policies.
At least with the Nexus One (which I own) there is a community which supports it regardless.
Well, updates should be easier, since unlike Android, Windows Phone 7 cannot be customized, and only supports a single processor & screen resolution ( AFAIK). This means that updating the software should be relatively easy.
I don’t know about MS.
But Nokia has an interesting update policy.
If you buy a free of contract phone you will have updates even after more than an year (I had an 5800 XM).
Why interesting? Because if you have an Orange branded phone (personal experience), sorry, almost no updates.
Nice in theory, but I have never seen updates available for any Nokia phone I’ve ever owned.
Of course I have never bought fancy high-end smartphones, but still.. No updates, no fixes for glaring bugs.. That’s is not a good track record
Funny, I’ve owned three nokia phones (6301, 25xx, and my current E63), two of them were in the lower end, and at least two of them have received some updates.
You must have been unlucky.
Edited 2011-02-11 16:43 UTC
Or you got carrier customized versions which didn’t ever bother providing updates from nokia to end users.
No I have always checked on the Nokia website. I don’t think european carriers customize at all. I guess I have just been unlucky.
You mean using Nokia Software Updater, right ? There’s not much about updates on Nokia’s website itself…
It’s not always the carrier who restricts updates though. Motorola dragged their ass with the 2.1 update for the Cliq, and when they finally did release it, it was a buggy, unstable pile of horse dung. T-Mobile had nothing to do with that, as the update (or lack of it) affected worldwide Motorola customers.
Good point about Android updates. That’s the only reason I haven’t bought an Android phone yet.
Regarding WP7, I won’t even consider it until MS fixes their browser and updates it to at least IE9.
CyanogenMod7 (gingerbread) is already working very nicely with Nexus One… as in Milestone and *many* others…
That’s insensitive Thom, you should respect the grief we are feeling for the loss of Qt Nokia
Nokia announced its own demise. Nice…
Yes, because hanging on to an outdated platform and a platform that has been delayed like crazy and MIGHT be ready this year is totally not going to mean their demise.
Get real.
I am. I’ve seen so many companies announcing “partnerships” with M$. Then they’ve got “financial problems”, then they “closed down”.
And I am not impressed with WP7, at all.
MS with a dollar sign?
Go away, troll.
I’m not trollin’, just see how they rollin’. Remember Novell? This deal is obviously very good for Microsoft. But totally risky for Nokia.
I can imagine following conversation take place at Nokia in near future:
Engineer: Yo Elop, we have nice new product running MeeGo
Microsoft rep: So I head you have new product, make it run Windows, OR ELSE…
Elop: OK, Windows. No one wants that but we have to keep them happy, or our WP7 license will be revoked.
You wrote MS with a dollar sign. Therefore, you are a troll.
In his defense, I’m sure he somehow manages to put that fancy extended-ASCII Apple symbol in the words “Apple” or “OS X” when he types them.
The fact that it was (probably) the right move doesn’t make it any less true, or sad.
The fact is that, given the insane delays of MeeGo and that Symbian was not aimed at the high end, Nokia’s move was probably right. But this doesn’t leave Nokia on a very good place.
Stephen Elop’s memo talked about how Nokia needed to move away from the ‘hardware-only’ mentality and focus on the whole ecosystem around the device. Today’s news though seem contradictory. Nokia will essentially become another WP7 hardware manufacturer, with the only differentiating factors being hardware, Ovi and NAVTEQ. Mobile hardware has become so standardized these days (CPU, RAM, Flash, Sensors etc.) that the only thing Nokia can do is slap a higher MP count camera. Ovi will be yet another WP7 app store. I don’t know if NAVTEQ is so good that people are going to buy Nokia it, but I doubt it.
So the way I see it is that right now Nokia has nothing going their way. They are simply a WP7 hardware manufacturer, like many others.
Exactly, they are totally abandoning their software ambitions, a desperate move to let them keep their hardware-only mentality. The software part of it have been just outsourced to the makers of Windows.
Edited 2011-02-11 11:10 UTC
Much of the delay with MeeGo was just that, the transition from Maemo which was a relatively stable and complete platform, to MeeGo that is a significant departure and in need of significant changes.
Without their own OS, nokia will be reduced to just producing hardware and having to compete with the asians who can produce the same hardware more cheaply… Also to choose windows phone 7 over android is another black mark, windows mobile left a bad taste in many peoples mouths and while windows may be a well known brand, it also has negative connotations and is not generally associated with phones.
I liked the idea of meego/maemo, an open linux based platform for your phone.. Android requires significant effort to turn it into a regular linux system, and while the iphone can have a bsd userland installed you need to jailbreak it in order to do that.
Really? Are you sure Maemo was “relatively stable and complete”??? It broke binary ABI with every major release. So, on the N800 alone, we had NITOS2007 and NITOS2008 then there were the 2 or 3 revisions of NITOS2008… so, basically 2006 -> 2007 broke ABI. 2007 -> 2008 broke ABI. 2008 broke ABI on itself. This is well documented and people were talking about it back *in* 2007!!!
http://eugenia.queru.com/2007/07/06/compatibility-compatibility-com…
Every ABI break lost apps. Sad. The pool of apps reduced over time, not increased. It would have been okay if there had actually been more than 2 or 3 that were worth having. *sigh*
EDIT: and the fact that the only option for development was Linux (which I was okay with) but installing the SDK was completely and totally un intuitive and cumbersome, AND was RPM based, so made installing on Ubuntu (which I much preferred over RPM style distros) extremely tricky… I dunno… I’m a Windows and Mac guy. I like installers that don’t make me learn how to manually install software. ANd then, once installed – it was never straight forward to get it working and the emulation was flakey. A far cry from WinMobile, Android and iOS (all of which have their flaws, but at least they install without too many headaches and then just “work”)
Edited 2011-02-11 12:06 UTC
Interesting to see all that layed out having ridden it through from the N800/07 firmware. I really liked being able to mutli-boot.. my N800 kept my 2007 install and got the 2008 bootable.
Your mention of ABIs does explain some of my grief though; eg. Ruby/Maemo good on 2007 and 2008 but not wroth a sht on Maemo5’s Ruby.. booo.
The other side of this though; so what mobile phone/pda with standard Linux distro can I pick now cause it’s not Android, WP7 or Ios delivering a full Linux distro barely a single fork from Debian proper. That’s going to be my research project until this N900 gives up the ghost and an actual hardware/software upgrade becomes available.. from anyone.
(guh.. I really am re-living the Palm calapse.. hamstrung product line, no upgrade path, left to wait for another vendor to provide a viable option.)
Yes you are right. This confirms that meego couldn’t save them. Not because it was a bad plan, but because they were unable to act on a good plan. Which, regardless if how good or bad the most recent embedded os from microsoft is, WILL cause nokia to eventually die.
Yes, because hanging on to an outdated platform and a platform that has been delayed like crazy and MIGHT be ready this year is totally not going to mean their demise.
All this time Nokia has been pushing for devs to use Qt, they’ve actually invested a helluva lot of money to it and the whole point with pushing people for Qt has been that they’d be developing for MeeGo in the future. But since WP7 doesn’t support Qt they not only seriously shot themselves in the foot with this, they also instantly alienated all those Qt-devs they’ve attracted so far!
This has been a downright terrible move on their part.
Not making MS enable QT on Nokia WinMo variant (the only real ecosystem differentiator Nokia could save for themselves) shows what their negotiation positions were.
Were they as desperate? Seriously, what does this deal buys Nokia, after it’s has bet so much on yet unproven platform?
This is an emotional assertion, from an economic point of view your statement does not make sense at all. It does not matter what they have been investing in. At this point investing in WP7 is will be better than investing in Qt, so how could it matter how much money they already wasted on Qt?
True, but it is not only Nokia that has invested money in Qt. The Qt ecosystem – word of the day
– also contains third-party developers that have invested time and money.
Why not allow Qt development for a Windows Mobile 7 device? For technical, financial, political reasons? To me it appears that Qt development for WM7 would not only not alienate the aforementioned third-party developers, but would even attract new developers.
Exactly. I was looking forward to buying a Meego-based smartphone.
After reading this
I don’t have to wait anymore: I’ll go HTC/Samsung. Hello, Android!
Thom, are you an OS enthusiast or a business strategist? You do realize they have just announced the death of Qt and the death of the only true open platform for mobile phones? Are you really so clueless that you think this is a good thing because YOU are a WP7 user? How shortsighted can you possibly be?
This reminds me of when Palm bought Be. There were people which reacted enthusiastically, thinking Palm would continue development of BeOs. We all know what happened there.
As a Qt developer, when Nokia bought Trolltech I was very apprehensive and feared for the future of Qt. Nokia however proved to invest in Qt and foster a community around the project. There was a bright future for Qt. But now they have just raised a giant middle finger to all the devs working with Qt. I am deeply, deeply saddened by this news and quit angry as well.
So, because I happen to like a different platform than you I’m suddenly a business strategist?
So open source can’t stand on its own two feet without money pouring in from businesses?
On desktops yes, but it is really saddening to see the hope of being able to use Qt broadly on mobiles to die.
That I agree with. It would’ve been great – it’s just too late.
Sometimes people talk about the market like if it was made from parts that compete and the one that sells the best product for mankind wins, all without using things like…
– millions of dollars in marketing to make people buy a product and not the other.
– planned obsolescence and other unclear ways to earn the biggest quantity of money in long term.
– meetings with stakeholders where the target is “getting money now” (and in the forthcoming years we’ll see).
– deals with computer sellers which also go for their own interests and not for the interests of the others.
– deals with carriers, to include some features (and not include others).
– etc.
Do you actually read before you hit “Submit”?
You can’t even compare the two: There are many many many more “dumb” phones sold than smart phones (which need charging at least once a day – yeah, really smart that crap).
Aside that little detail (how good’s a phone when it’s out of battery?), MeeGo was a great migration plan to a modern phone OS. WP7 just simply doesn’t fit.
I guess, the dude from Microsoft did his job.
RIP, Nokia.
PS: I do like WP7, don’t get me wrong. But it just doesn’t fit in Nokia’s portfolio.
i.e. just commit suicide.
Doubtful. While I’ve never been a fan of WinMo 6 and earlier, I’ve heard some really good things about WP7. Given Nokia’s long history of great phone hardware, as well as their marketing experience around the world, I have a feeling we finally have some honest competition for Android. In fact, Apple may lose even more market share to Nokia/Microsoft than they have been to Android.
I’m also excited to know that MeeGo will stick around for MIDs and tablets, and will remain open source so it can grow and flourish. As for Symbian? Well, I knew my Nuron would probably be the only Symbian phone I’d have, and now I think I will try a Nokia/WP7 device when it comes to T-Mobile USA.
From flaming platform to flaming company. Sad.
And thus one of the powerhouses of the last 100+ years becomes another Samasung, Motorola or HTC. Not that there’s something wrong with these companies, it’s just that Nokia was so much more.
Meanwhile the mobile space loses 2 OSes, one of which had great potential. Sure, the market couldn’t probably sustain 7 mobile OSes, but we didn’t even get the chance to see which ones would win by their own merits.
Before people mentioning doom, I’d say this was a good move by Nokia. It’s very risky, however given all the other choices, it had the potential for most benefits as well.
With Symbian dying, Meego not being there fast enough, and too late to Android competition, there was not much choice left.
Hope they can succeed, so there more real competition in the market.
I understand the had to make a radical shift, but why to announce that new platform as a primary OS on the spot?
With this single move the have signed off the whole Symbian ecosystem they had (remember 2nd biggest app store), betting 100% in the future on MS. Samsung for one would have never done that.
The new boss lack of regard for their existing SW tech investments is evident in this announcement.
I also think it’s too early. I’d have put off partnering with Microsoft for at least another year. During which both MeeGo and WP7 would have proven whether they can swim or drown.
As I see it, now Nokia has two unknowns on their hands. They don’t know how WP7 will do and denied MeeGo the chance to ever find out.
It was a choice between certain death, and possible death.
I’ll be frank. Do you honestly think Symbian, or MeeGo could have saved Nokia?
MeeGo could still have saved them if played correctly, and atleast if they have played correctly from all the way from the start. Now they’ve thrown loads of money at tech (Qt et al) that they won’t be able to use on their top-end phones while also alienating their most-needed userbase: the developers. The shareholders also noticed this as Nokia’s shares dropped a jolly 13% in one day. Oopsie.
Symbian wouldn’t save them, that I agree with. It’s totally dead, it just hasn’t realized that itself yet.
You might be correct that MeeGo could’ve worked, but given their history I don’t think it would in practice. They either do not commit, or commit in wrong things (Symbian).
Before MeeGo they had Maemo. Nokia had spent a lot of time and money on QT, and we users also decided to depend on them (I was once an N800 user). But they scrapped it with no warning, and decided to start over with MeeGo. This is both a loss of their resources, and also developer enthusiasm.
I think it has been two years since they made this switch, however there is still no Nokia device running it (except for one cell phone as an alternate OS).
On today’s news, they mentioned 2500 people working on Symbian. Had they worked on MeeGo insted, it could’ve made a difference.
But it’s too late now.
I wouldn’t count this announcement does any good for competition. Nokia has just closed its paths for innovation in high mobile space. Currently the movement mostly is between sw ecosystem space and backend hw like CPU, just like it used to in PCs. Nokia has left itself as a basic HW composer.
Its ironic that Nokia’s choice of a Microsoft operating system will actually increase competition in the mobile sphere. Competition is always good for consumers.
I am very, deeply and truly sad now. Not just because I had high hopes for nokias meego strategy, and the effect it would have on the whole free-software ecosystem. It is also because I live in Finland and this can only be a sign that nokia is in much deeper trouble than anybody could ever believe. So it actually IS happening, samsung, HTC and others are slowly killing nokia, which undoubtely will cause another recession in Finlands economy.
How sad.
I’m afraid you could expand this to the rest of EU. Nokia is one of the biggest tech corps rooted in there.
I wonder what this spells for Qt and Nokia’s previous all-Qt vision? It seems Qt will not be welcome in WP7 development…
I guess that’s settled, then. I do not like Mr. Elop.
Hopefully, in time, I will still be able to put a community-built version of Meego on my N900. But it does leaves the problem of where to get my next phone (or pocket computer, as it were). I don’t really see any alternatives just now. Not for how I’m using the N900.
I guess I will just have to make it last as long as possible, and hope someone comes up with a sensible alternative in the meantime
Nokia will get the much wanted access to US markets through the power of Microsoft and Microsoft will get the market share & design power it needed.
When I recent re-read Steve Ballmer’s quote during iPhone launch “that they (MS) would like to be the smartphone platform for 60-70% of the phones as against being a niche player with 1-2% marketshare”, I was thinking that the only way Windows Phone can counter the onslaught of iPhone & Android will be through a strategic partnership with Nokia.
However, I think Elop negotiated a raw deal for Nokia. I think he should have asked for some kind of exclusivity deal (not for platform, but customization) so that they would have a differentiated offering from Samsung or HTC. However, may be he might have negotiated on the price of licensing. I think MS would have given free licenses for 2-3 years for this deal (atleast that way Nokia would have strong positive news from this deal).
I think Meego will be positioned for Nokia’s netbooks (not sure what was its name) & future tablet platform which will also do the OS some justice for all the power it offers to its users.
Edited 2011-02-11 09:39 UTC
Risky move, glad I didn’t buy a Nokia phone, it was going to be pointless. Actually, Nokia were told many, many times that Symbian is losing ground, but they stalled. Now, when Apple and Andriod are here and slapped the mobile world, it is easier to attach yourself to an existing platform, rather than developing new Symbian. And certainly – a guy from MS took the rule – did you expect to Nokia to turn to Andriod or Bada ? LOL.
It would have been a better choice to go with HP/WebOS, atleast they have more existing developers and it’s based on webtechnologies something which is something many, many webdevelopers are already used to.
As I did say on the earlier news item, this was an obvious move. Told ya so. [Sorry but I had to do it.
]
They can now use their large r&d budget to stop making so many devices (20+ ??) and build an ecosystem that leverages their partnership with MS.
As I said before, whips and chains for MS.
This will help W7 on phones to improve and also give Android and iOS something else to worry about at night.
Ah the smell of fierce competition…
Like they said:
“The former Microsoft executive selected Microsoft – what a suprise.”
Elop is also a guy who changed company 4 times in 6 years.
His former job was in Microsoft, from January 2008 to September 2010.
After telling his boss at Microsoft: “I’m going, I have been offered the post of president of Nokia”… we’ll never know what was the following conversation.
Edited 2011-02-11 11:27 UTC
i’m not going to buy nokia phones if they have wp7
It seems like to me that this move buys Nokia time to more fully develop Meego and to allow Intel to continue advancing Atom SoC’s to the point that they can be used in tablets and possibly (being generous here) smartphones. This helps both MS and Nokia. It will help MS grow against its competitors while giving Nokia high-end smartphones while it develops their own home-grown ecosystem.
There is no reason that the Ovi infrastructure can not be developed in such a way as to be platform-neutral. It seems like a logical partnership. MS needed a great hardware partner and Nokia needs at least a temporary partner for software. Nokia is a huge company and it should be able to support multiple software platforms at once just like HTC, Samsung, and their other competitors do.
At the moment, it seems like Android would have been a more logical choice given the underlying similarities between Android and Meego but maybe Microsoft showed Nokia some updates to WP7 that we just aren’t privy to yet.
See the updates, they have uncovered all the cards.
The Meego announcement is just to appease the dev teams not to abruptly leave the company. It will be developed semi seriously for some time by Nokia and Intel in order not to lose face.
Is it just me or does this remind anyone what happen with SGI (Silicon Graphics) back in the 90’s. Given how that worked out in the end I’m sad to say this is probably the beginning of the end for Nokia.
The King (nokia)is dead, long live the King (apple?)
((hugs N95))
SGI, Palm, Sun.. the story plays out frequently in tech and often with the better tech loosing to the better marketing.
It’s not better tech losing out to better marketing. It’s about products that meet their users’ needs winning out over those that are perhaps underpinned by better technology, but do not meet their users’ needs.
Technology needs to serve the user. If Nokia has better technology, and can’t make good products with it, then they deserve to lose out.
I think Nokia execs see it like a contention plan. Would they choose Android the market imbalance only grows and make Nokia own future movements and goals harder to score. Nokia would become irrelevant on future.
Nokia needs something it does not have now so, it tries to divide the market a little bit and get a bit more time to finish its own stuff. Nokia execs probably know the risks, have them evaluated and have some hope that, if WP7 become successful, their plan B will work. Good luck, most companies that tried such a path succumbed.
Edited 2011-02-11 10:35 UTC
Really whish you are right, but I just lost all faith in that. They had 5 years already to develop their linux platform. This move shows clearly that they were not able to finish it at all. If they just needed another year this wouldn’t be necessary, which shows clearly that the gigant is in a sad state. Why would this move change that? It can only worsen the internal problems that led to five wasted years.
Meego wasnt going to be Nokias savior. I know a person working on Meegos kernel and can say that FSF will tear them apart for all the DRM they will include in the final product just to appease movie and music companies etc.
Symbian was heavily outdated, Nokia needed an os and Microsoft needed a cellphone maker. 1+1 = 2
Those things are not simple to explain, it’s better if we see the information from the FSF:
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/gplv3-drm
In what way is it more difficult to differentiate with android than with windows phone?
With android, nokia would have been in control and would have been able to make any changes they wished…
With windows, they are limited to what changes ms will allow them to make… And if ms favour nokia over other resellers then those other resellers are likely to move closer to android.
Yeah seems like a weird response to me too…
…unless Microsoft knows something we don’t. I mean, HTC and Samsung etc. aren’t exactly pushing WP7 as it is, so maybe Microsoft is betting these companies simply aren’t enough to get WP7 out there. Maybe they’ll give Nokia a lot of say in how WP7 develops – something Nokia wouldn’t get from Google.
That was exactly my thought too.
With Android, Nokia could replace entire parts of Android (replace launcher, phone & sms apps, browser etc), add support for QT, add their own marketplace etc. They can use their own processors and different phone sizes etc.
With Windows Phone, they basically have to use what MS gives them. They can’t even differentiate much with hardware since they have to use only the processor & screen resolution that MS supports.
Update: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-will-be-able-to-customize-…
Looks like MS is going to allow Nokia to customize WP7. Nokia says they won’t make too many changes, but I guess this may have been a part of the deal.
Upto now, it looked like Nokia had been unable to get MS to make any concessions. Which was kinda odd, since Nokia has other options for an OS (read: Android), while MS really needs Nokia to make their OS successfully, since it looked like a commercial failure until now.
And the why I think it’s bad.
Nokia hardware is nice – yes. It’s also expensive.
Look at the N8, I’d rather get a Galaxy S AND a separate camera for that sort of price, thank you very much.
So if I want WP7, what are the odds that I end up with an HTC phone (which are ALREADY shipping)? High. Very. High.
Nokia software is bad – yes. Promises of improved browser on the N8.. it is still not there, and might never be.
Promises of improved Maemo.. they trashed the idea, started a merge (Meego), did not finish it, probably never will – thanksfully Intel might, but …
Promises of QT “all-around” compatible or easily portable code. GONE. It’s like giving the finger to their fellow developers before they could even really start to ship applications they did start to code.
What Nokia becomes here, is Microsoft’s puppet. +1 hardware maker with WP7.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the new Nokia CEO got some money under the table for that one – maybe even before he left Microsoft (!)
Edited 2011-02-11 10:52 UTC
I cannot see how can a company like Nokia, that is “burning” down the hill, decide to make such an important agreement with other company that all analysts are pointing that has been going down the hill.
Would have make sense to join the winners, Android, while quietly keeping developing the Meego, and come out strongly with it, when mature.
Its only because Nokia would remain a free company if going with Android, but with Microsoft they’re done.
I am really saddened by this whole thing: I’ve always been a faithful Nokia-user, they’ve always had such great hardware that has lasted for years and years without a hitch. As such I was counting on buying a MeeGo-device in the future and have been trying to learn Qt4 because they promised it’d work across all of their future devices. POOF, it’s all gone now!
And god damn, I ain’t gonna go for a WP7 phone even if I was paid for it!
I dunno where to go next when it’s time to upgrade, Android feels like a toy, WP7 and iOS are crap, and the few phones from the other manufacturers I’ve tried have always died within a year.
Phones are now just like toasters. Buy a cheap model and throw it out when it breaks.
Well, sure, if you ignore the environmental impact of such. I personally rather buy something that lasts a lot longer and thus reduce the environmental impact, even if a mobile phone isn’t all that much.
And secondly, I use a mobile phone for a lot more than just speaking and thus a really cheap model wouldn’t work for me anyways.
[q}And secondly, I use a mobile phone for a lot more than just speaking and thus a really cheap model wouldn’t work for me anyways. [/q]
Fully-featured unlocked Android phones cost less than $100 in China. They will be $50 within 2 years.
Maybe Samsung’s Bada ? I’ve got very bad memories of Samsung’s low end phones, but their mid-end sounds a bit more robust. Myself, I’ll try to learn more about this platform, in order to understand what it is and what they plan to do with it.
Edited 2011-02-11 16:44 UTC
Android phones cost less than $100 wholesale in China. They will be $50 within two years. There is no profit in making phones so Nokia made the right decision.
Anyone can now be a phone manufacturer. You get them designed in Taiwan and made under licence in China. Install Android for free and put your brand on the case. Voila!
Putting prejudice aside, WP7 is the newest and most modern smartphone OS out there (as in actually shipping).
I migrated from an iPhone to a htc HD7 a week ago and am very happy with it indeed (thoughts are on my blog). Most people I show it to think it does make iOS look a little dated at the moment.
What I don’t understand though is why Nokia think it would be harder to differentiate with Android. I would say the reverse is true. Microsoft have (quite rightly) retained a lot of control of WP7 but existing handset manufacturers are having a hard time differentiating their products.
Edited 2011-02-11 12:02 UTC
I for one welcome our Microsoft overlords.
I have been drooling over the N8 for a while as a good camera is important to me.
I want to get rid of my iPhone and move to WP7 but don’t think the hardware is what I am looking for at the moment.
We don’t know the terms of the agreement with Nokia, what has MS given to Nokia to get them to agree to this. I somehow doubt there is this big conspiracy that Elop had agreed this with MS before he moved.
This will have had to get past the Nokia board. I would think they had some good terms and a bit of clout in how they do things on their phones.
I would hope Nokia are also getting a cut of the apps sold.
I hope we see a new model soon.
I think there was a little bit of underhandedness taking place here.
Think about it, MS needed a large mobile manufacture and they want to reduce the number of competing OS’s so they have less competition. In one deal they getting everything they want with Symbian and MeeGo potentially major players in the mobile OS’s gone. One being the past and current and one potentially being a future major OS’s.
I am willing to bet that there was something in it for Elop in his personal capacity, even if he single handedly sinks Nokia he will probably be a rich many thanks to Microsoft.
Personally I think Nokia are now throwing lots of money away hoping to make money from somebody else’s software. All there investment in QT (a great dev platform) and MeeGo (possibly a great OS) is going down the toilet. And all their human capital wasting their time in the form of developers now have to learn to develop for a completely different platform that they have very little control of and throwing all their hard work out the window.
Unless Nokia were days away from shutting down I don’t know why they did not just push forward with MeeGo. The technology in MeeGo is brilliant and the iPhone and Adroid have proven that it is never to late to enter or re-gain a market. Even a highly competitive market can be changed in just a few years if you position yourself correctly with a very good product.
I hope the MeeGo devs prove everybody wrong and push forward hard with other devices like Tablet PC’s, Netbooks and In-Vehicle Infotainment systems, and I hope the Nokia management gives them the opportunity to prove MeeGo is worth it.
I will never run a Windows Phone. I was holding out for a MeeGo phone, now I dont know what to get. I dont like Android and I hate vender lock-in – iPhone. Maybe I will get one of the last cheaper Symbian phones and wait and see how everything turns out.
So, how long should I make my E63 last before non-touch Symbian reaches its optimal quality/price ratio ?
Nokia has chosen to die miserably, and this makes me really sad. But it’s time to investigate when is the better time to rob the corpse. I’ll lament about this shitty situation once Nokia’s done becoming the new LG.
Edited 2011-02-11 13:09 UTC
I think that states things clearly enough. So, the most open major mobile distribution is going to be an R&D afterthought. Boooo!
Aw well. I ran my Palm T5 into the ground waiting for a true system upgrade found in the N800. My N900 is still nice and fresh, I guess I’ll be running it into the ground until the maemo.org repositories stop getting package updates and some other company manages to deliver a true upgrade path from the N900 and it’s real distro based firmware.
Perhaps things are not as bad as they apear. It’s been said that patience is the best cure for all problems. But seriously disappointing so far.
well, back to talk.maemo.org for the latest news links and responses.
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=941517&postcount=632
(Ysss.. thanks from me also for this post)
I think what it all comes down to is that Nokia’s MeeGo strategy was not executed well enough. Rather than make massive changes to maemo, they should have made incremental changes and continued to ship devices based around the n series.
Yes I agree.
Though should have not switches to Mooblin (sorry but I never seen meego as a merger, only as a switch).
They should have continued on the Maemo path. Creating a second device on a improved Maemo 5/6 base as a successor to the N900. Quickly moving onto a QT UI and settle on ONE! (G)UI and API/ABI. (so no more continiously breaking of apps)
At the same time start rebasing Maemo on modern Debian, taking some bits and pieces from Intel/Moblin where it fits and improving the kernel with that Symbian knowledge. Then by the time Christmas this year there could have been a Maemo 7 or 8 phone. A small device with HD-camcorder and many apps, commercial and foss..
But that would have required one thing that Nokia never really gave to the Maemo/Meego platform… Commitment… True commitment…
Ah well.. guess HP is playing relatively nice now with WebOS… so maybe that’s the future instead…
It will be bought by people who try to differentiate from the rest of us by driving a Yugo
Oh, the younger readers may need to read up on what a Yugo actually was – just like future kids will have to if you mention “Nokia”…
OK, seriously though: I agree that Windows as opposed to Android does make a substantial differentiation. BUT. A customized Windows is still Windows for all it’s worth. And the industry didn’t manage to sell any Windows phones so far, so I don’t see why that would dramatically change with a slightly different Windows.
Here’s another differentiating factor, Windows-lovers: There will be a million Android and iPhone apps, and like 20 Windows apps, if developpers got a sense of self preservation.
IT-Darwinism at work
And I was so looking forward to the MeeGo phone!
Seriously,
Huargh.
This is just sad. Nokia is dead now.
It’s a shame because I really liked programming in QML.. Never had such joy on coding since when I learned Ruby on Rails back on my web dev days..
Now I’m stuck with fuckin Java on Android
(by the way, Windows Phone isn’t much better, I worked on a XNA project too and hated it)
Nokia, Reast in peace
Roast in peace, eh?
Auction: Advanced, well established Framework for sale…
IMHO Nokia will sell QT pretty soon as it doesn’t make sense to invest in or own something you can’t use to generate the amount of money you envisioned when you bought it.
Any bidders?
Canonical where are you?
Canonical isn’t a bad suggestion, actually. They are using Qt for their non-accelerated version of Unity, and as a privately held company funded by a Linux enthusiast (that is, a person who became rich from Linux and actually wants to give back to the community), they have less need for a quick profit from the transaction.
T’would be an awfully nice gesture, Mr. Shuttleworth. I’ll pitch in a Benjamin Franklin if it will help.
I suppose you can call it a partnership. A S&M partnership with rough deep penetration that causes severe bleeding of talent, loss of market share and eventually death.
It makes little sense these days to fragment an already fragmented market – if nokia were to introduce a entirely new platform it would be an up hill climb to win over developers. Nokia are better off to cut their loses, and pick a team – IMHO the best on offer being that of WP7. The interesting part will be how Microsoft’s partners will react to the double standard when it comes to the limitations imposed on mobile phone vendors versus Nokia that seem to have been given more leeway.
Here’s hoping Nokia fares better than it’s predecessors when teaming up with Microsoft in the mobile space…
http://www.asymco.com/2011/02/11/in-memoriam-microsofts-previous-st…
You are dead to me.
adj. Deep. E.g., “Deep Shit”.
In other words, Nokia jumped from one burning platform to another. Isn’t that the neatest trick of the week?
Now that Qt is essentially dead for the mobile marketplace, there is one less reason for developers to start using is.
This causes developers that target each platform to use the native toolkit which is a great thing. I detest “cross platform” toolkits like Qt because it simply looks completely half assed on all platforms and is un-usable IMO on the Mac.
Why is this great for Mac users? What I’m hoping for is significantly less use of Qt, thus less Qt apps – thus less suck ass cross platform apps on Mac and Windows. This might encourage developers to use the NATIVE toolkits on Mac and Windows.
Like a said before, Qt on the Mac is such a dreadful experience, that when I have to use a Qt app, I run it under Ubuntu in a VM.
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