Submitted by “Despite Nokia’s decision to partner up with Microsoft and introduce a new ecosystem to the mobile industry, it was announced by Nokia’s CTO Rich Green at last months Mobile World Congress during his keynote speech at the Developer’s day workshop, that Nokia will still be launching a new MeeGo device this year. […] Green went on to give reassurances that Nokia will continue to be committed to the MeeGo, Symbian, Qt and S40 platforms and their future in Nokia’s three year ecosystem vision.”
Nokia’s product announcements appear fairly consistent – one MeeGo phone launch, a lot of Symbian products shipped, and perhaps a WinP7 phone announced this year.
Where I get mixed signals is Nokia’s vision.
At the Nokia / Microsoft love-fest, Mr. Elop state that Symbian is an end-of-life platform and MeeGo is a research vehicle like Maemo (I’m paraphrasing – it’s what I heard). Nokia’s future was all WinP7.
In these videos, I seem to hear Mr. Green more or less stating the tri-OS vision I expected from Mr. Elop. Symbian will remain the cash cow for a while, with some interesting new product for devotees. MeeGo will launch this year with a great new phone to succeed the N900. Qt will power them both. And WinP7 phones are coming and will eventually succeed Symbian as the high-volume platform for Nokia phones.
Mr. Green’s vision makes more sense to me, because WinP7 won’t power tablets and Win7 tablets sell poorly compared to (oh,say) the iPad. I had expected Mr. Elop’s announcement to be support for a third phone platform (probably Android, though I was hoping for webOS), with Qt support, plus exciting new tablets and netbooks (and maybe a Duo-like hybrid) based on MeeGo. Y’know, something like HP’s webOS announcement but with a “pocket computer” twist.
I’ll certainly take a look at the N950 – I’ve truly enjoyed my N770, N800 and N900 – but I’m disappointed that Nokia is mangling their message somewhere between their executive suites and my ears. Android is useful, but it’s not the full mobile computer experience that Nokia tablets have been providing for me since 2006.
*sigh*
You’re not the only one perplexed. Elop indeed did make it clear that Symbian was going the journey and Meego as something they were simply going to keep going just-in-case.
I need to sit down and watch all the videos, but this certainly doesn’t look like the ready made OEM with lots of market share Microsoft could ‘acquire’ that Elop painted and that they almost certainly thinks they’re going to get.
From what I’ve seen, certainly of the first video, Rich Green has basically ‘clarified’ Elop’s announcements by telling him, as well as us, that it doesn’t mean what he thought it meant. He calls it ‘giving us news between the lines and a bit of the backstory’. It’s always interesting when someone in a company doesn’t back up what someone else has said in the same said company. It’s the very first thing Rich Green deals with. He even says ‘what I think it means’ – ergo, he’s overriding his boss in double-speak.
However, I suppose politics and waking up with a hangover next to someone who doesn’t look that great after the night before has a way of sobering people up…….. Perversely, this might well wake up large parts of Nokia into ensuring that they succeed where they totally failed previously.
Edited 2011-03-06 23:23 UTC
Hmmmm. They’ve now sold Qt, so maybe they are as clueless and rudderless as they appeared?
I have a N900 but I don’t use it.
When I type on the top row of the keyboard, I bump my thumbs against the part that is above the keyboard and I can’t easily type on the top row.
That makes it pretty much useless for me. I want a device with a good keyboard.
Doesn’t look like the N950 will be any better, I might still get one. Because my N900 died and it probably will be the last mobile device where having root access is a feature.
Unless maybe HP does something I like with WebOS.
Edited 2011-03-07 01:18 UTC
So please send me your N900 because I would love having other one if mine dies
Thought something was burning … or was there a smoke without a fire? I’m confused.
Oops, I think I will not keep awake with overdoses of coffee again… The reality distortion field gets increased.
I used N950 prototypes running early Meego builds up until the beginning of this year. It’s FAR better than the N900 & Maemo, and I was pretty excited for it to be done (despite owning an N900 and working for Nokia, I’d bought an Android as my daily phone).
I’m not going to say anything bad or confidential about it, but my hopes are pretty much dashed, and I’m glad I left the company when I did. Meego + N950 + Qt had me believing that Nokia was going to have a killer product this year, at least for us geeky types.
My guess is they’re only continuing Meego development for Intel contractual reasons, and probably only paying lip service to doing so. It wouldn’t surprise me if the N950 never sees the light of day now. Sad. (disclaimer: no idea, I don’t work for them anymore, and I don’t have confidential information about the release schedules; I was on the Service Software team.)
That’s quite interesting. I just got an N900 a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely love everything about it save battery life (which is a given, I won’t be satisfied until we have a smartphone that lasts through a week of heavy use). I have no problems whatsoever with the keyboard, and my nickname in high school was “Lurch” due to my height and long hands. In fact, apart from getting used to the off-center spacebar I’d say it’s the best mobile keyboard I’ve ever used.
That said, I’ve heard the T-Mobile G2 has the best keyboard on an Android device, and from what little typing I did when playing with one a few weeks ago, it certainly seemed comfortable and usable. It may be a good solution for you (assuming you’d want an Android device on T-Mo) as the keyboard sits nearly flush with the phone body when opened.
I think one reason why for “us” Rich Green’s speech makes more sense is that while Mr. Elop is a CEO, and he talks to shareholders, Mr. Green is a CTO and talks to technologists.
And I would not exclude that if Nokia goes into a smoother transition that originally announced it is because of his own view.
can’t agree more.
i only fear the N950 will be “this year” as in “31december 2011” with “outdated specs” and such stuff Nokia usually pulls
that said i can only hope they prove me wrong, in which case, i’d get one.
Yup agreed
Hopefully that ‘N950’ will be ready somewhere before it’s completely obsolete. I also hope that they will make it very cheap, to the point that they will lose money on it.
Since he already stated that it will be a dead product anyways. So it will be crazy to again start asking 600+ euro’s for the thing.
Other thing I found in these video’s is that while he shortly talked about that ‘new disruptive technology’ the M$ guy was smiling beside him with a look on his face that basically says ‘through that Linux stuff in the trash already’…
Hopefully I’m wrong but I’m getting the feeling that this is just a bone to keep developers from leaving the Nokia ecosphere an mass.
Yes, I’ve been thinking about that also, and as you may have read in the news in these days, a more exclusive agreement has been considered since the day of the announcement, and it seems it still is a possibility.
Personally, I see your point but I am not sure yet it is really needed: unlike other hardware manufacturers, Nokia has the license to customize WP7. Actually, they claim they’ll be working in partnership with MS to that purpose. So, I’m aready assuming that the WP7 OS we’ll find on Nokia phones will be to some degree different (albait compatible, I really hope) from the one on other hardware producers. And yes, I too agree that the latter may quite dislike this.
I also think it will be quite likely we’ll see other features I can’t really understand why are currently missing in WP7, such as thetering and Sync with Outlook.
In other words, I think this degree of exclusivity may be enough to generate that uniqueness that is indeed needed to compete against the iPhone.
watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfWFvCJJaNs
Well, the video is an official Nokia production; of course it’s all gin and roses. The walkout and harshly honest forum talk by Nokia employees is completely overlooked. Imagine that.
You may be right in that Nokia may have special privileges that actually give them significant advantage in the WinP7 marketplace, but I fear it’s a no-win scenario.
If they do, then the other licensees will almost certainly focus on Android and neglect WinP7 – why should they compete against a stacked deck? So by the time Nokia gets a WinP7 phone out the door, its sales may suffer from association with yet another failed (in the consumers’ minds) Microsoft OS.
If they don’t, then Nokia is way late to a trickling WinP7 market that barely registers against the Android and iOS tsunamis.
Of course, it’s possible that WinP7 will suddenly surge this year aka Android in 2010, and Nokia will catch the wave and ride it to a renewed glory. Given the long list of missing features and slow rate of updates, and the momentum of its competitors, I’ll eat my N900 if that happens. But anything is possible, I suppose.