Nokia's decision to go Windows Phone

[CLeonard]

Interesting on article on Nokia's forced decision to go with Windows Phone as their OS.

"What is clear is that something big has to happen. When even the credit rating agencies start sabre rattling, it’s time for a significant change in strategy."

Nokia Had To Choose Windows Phone, Can They Make The Strategy Work? - Forbes

[r0k]

That article links to another article about the "Burning Platform" memo from early 2011. Both articles were an interesting read. I'm not exactly a fan of Microsoft but I'd like to see more than 2 choices going forward. Perhaps RIM should join Nokia using Windows Phone. The last sentence of the article seems out of place. It says "don't count them out yet" but it doesn't fit with the rest of the article which focuses on how Nokia has bungled the switch to WP7. Like RIM, Nokia has made the mistake of announcing "something better is coming" while they are sitting atop a huge amount of unsold inventory. I might wish there were more than two platforms going forward but I'm really not sure Nokia or RIM or even both of them pulling together can pull it off.

[CLeonard]

I missed the Burning Platform article in the first pass. It's unfortunate. The article is a year old, but the Nokia's issues are pretty much the same.

[Varjak]

In retrospect, I'm not sure Nokia shouldn't have gone the Samsung and HTC route and offered hardware with MULTIPLE OSs. Yes, they'd have to have given up their 'preferred' status from Microsoft; but I'm not sure they've gotten that much from that. Then they could have let the market decide which platform would 'win.' Furthermore, it might have spurred on Microsoft and Google to even more impressive innovations.

[Mi An]

The choice was simple. Android or Windows Phone.

The article above lacks a lot of credibility with me -- not because the author supported the play originally and now, surprise surpise, still does, but because it distorts so much to make the case.

First, Nokia didn't, as Varjak notes, have to choose either WP or Android. They could have chosen both. If passing over MS's bribe, err, investment was an option at all, they could have offered their customers a choice. I'd love to see more platforms too, but I don't think artificial props will make for the best long term options, and Nokia's exclusivity is not born out of insatiable market demand for WP itself, so it's crutch for the platform. Nokia with the freedom to design ABSOLUTELY anything for Android, answerable to no one but their customers, in the pattern of their past endless array of innovative designs, would have been amazing, and might have influenced the direction of WP more that way than they can now. Imagine users eager to get another Nokia device looking at a full lineup of creative Android options and then one cookie cutter WP design with a few internal spec variables -- might that contrast have pushed MS to consider loosening the cookie cutter design limits a little?

What's innovative about Lumia? Sharp angles and colored borders? Whoopty do. No other mobile manufacturer on the planet can lay claim to the innovation Nokia has been doing from the beginning. Certainly not a serial thief like Apple (or HTC, Motorola and Samsung), but not even Palm. Now they look sterile and impotent. While everyone else was looking for 1-3 sizes to fit all, Nokia was running the gamet and tailoring to fit. Having never owned a smartphone from nokia, I'm still sincerely saddened by how limited their new vision seems to be at this stage. I used to admire them and look at their product line wistfully. A modern n97 with Android would rock my world.

they would be subservient to Google in terms of the core software, and both Samsung and HTC were already established hardware players who understood what was required to make the grade with an Android handset.

What does that subservient line even mean? The biggest complaint about Andorid is just how lacking Google's control over makers is. Nokia could do whatever they wanted with Android, just like Amazon and B&N (and ya know, everyone else).
What's more, Nokia could have bypassed Google's repository altogether, perhaps adopting cyanogenmod (or Miui or other distinct flavors) directly or designing their own flavor (and I mean more than just slapping a coat of branding UI on stuff). They could have launched their own store with a variety of perks to draws users and devs in -- and that can be done, Amazon did it -- and they could have done it without breaking virtually any apps, CM, as a case in point, is pretty compatible. Now I understand they managed to get preferred status with MS, but they're still more subservient (indeed, some of us suspect that word is very, very appropriate) to Redmond than they would have been to Google.

Android marketshare has been very dynamic. HTC wasn't just an established player in Android 1.x, they were dominant, and now they're barely profitable. Motorola stormed early Android 2.x big time. Now Samsung stands tall. Anyone who thinks there are no more shakeups left in Android share is naive. I absolutely think Nokia could have brought an appealing level of shine and competence to both hardware design and UI and staked out a serious position.

Nokia is far from finished playing out the Windows Phone strategy.

This is certainly true. I hope at some point Nokia shows more influence on WP than MS has on Nokia, because right now, they just look like a puppet carrying Redmond's water. A company with a rich history of mobile ultra success turned in their moment of decline to a company with an endless line of mobile disasters and idiocy, whose only serious mobile success came with the implosion of Palm and lasted as long as they had virtually no competition. MS could learn a lot from Nokia, but I'm certain Nokia has few positive lessons to learn from MS mobile.

[r0k]

It is interesting that you refer to Apple and others as serial thieves. If other industries had resisted following one another's good ideas, everybody but Cadillac owners would be starting their cars with cranks and the only model of refrigerator you could buy might be called Kelvinator.

Over the years, my favorite feature phone was a Nokia. I thought it was well designed, well thought out and much easier to use than any feature phone from Motorola, LG or Samsung. I never got a chance to own a Nokia smartphone but I played with one of their GSM models briefly in Microcenter and managed to ignore it as I was shackled to Verizon at the time. I think that by saying they were only going to sell Windows Phone, Nokia was hoping to use their brand equity to boost WP7. Guess what? In today's gadget world, brand equity is only as good as your last successful product. Look how quickly RIM declined. Dell and HP also crashed and burned. Even the vaunted Apple crashed and burned a few times (Newton, mobileme and ping).

So I must agree that it was foolish for Nokia to think they could somehow succeed by throwing their rapidly declining brand in Microsoft's incapable hands. Despite the fact there's a lot to like about WP, I would think that most users can't remember a time when MS produced a successful mobile product. Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, Windows CE and Zune are all in the Smithsonian category these days.

As for a Nokia device running Android, I'd love to see that happen. Perhaps Google's acquisition of Motorola scared Nokia away. Too bad.

A cartoonist might easily depict Steve Ballmer throwing a drowning Stephen Elop an anvil with WP7 written on it, but he would be holding the chain so as the anvil dragged Elop down, it would drag the SS WP7 down with him.

Hey it's only 10 minutes till the big MS announcement. I bet Nokia is gonna make a W8 tablet. What the heck. At this point Nokia is just a division of MS in everything but name anyway.

[Mi An]

It is interesting that you refer to Apple and others as serial thieves. If other industries had resisted following one another's good ideas, everybody but Cadillac owners would be starting their cars with cranks and the only model of refrigerator you could buy might be called Kelvinator.

I called them thieves not because I think stealing good ideas is bad, but because they don't hold claim to the title of innovation they often pretend they hold claim to, suing everything in sight. But I agree, it is interesting.

[Mitlov]

Both Engadget and The Verge just did reviews of the 808 Pureview, and while both absolutely fawned over the camera, both absolutely savaged the Symbian Belle operating system as antequated, buggy, slow, and difficult to use. In light of such reviews, I don't think there's much doubt that Nokia did the right thing in abandoning Symbian. Whether they should have replaced it with WP or Android is still an open issue. Obviously WP7 sales haven't been great, but we'll have to see what happens with WP8. But after reading those reviews, there's not a shadow of doubt in my mind that Nokia did the right thing in abandoning Symbian.

Personally, I'm crossing my fingers for a Pureview Lumia running WP8...

[Mitlov]

In retrospect, I'm not sure Nokia shouldn't have gone the Samsung and HTC route and offered hardware with MULTIPLE OSs. Yes, they'd have to have given up their 'preferred' status from Microsoft; but I'm not sure they've gotten that much from that. Then they could have let the market decide which platform would 'win.' Furthermore, it might have spurred on Microsoft and Google to even more impressive innovations.

Right now they're getting $1 billion/year from Microsoft (Nokia's woes might call for Microsoft aid | Reuters). If Nokia needs more to stay afloat through the Windows 8 push they'll get more (see: Nook). With no Surface phone in the works, Microsoft needs Nokia as much as Nokia needs Microsoft. What would Google have offered them that would have made up for the absence of that sort of financial support?

I think Nokia was in bad enough shape that it would have failed without serious outside financial assistance, regardless of the OS it switched to. Competing toe-to-toe in a crowded Android market (Samsung, HTC, Motorola, etc) without a big investment out outside capital doesn't seem like it would have worked for a company already in the dire straits Nokia was in. Just my suspicion.

[chimeraX]

I think Nokia should not have chosen Symbian as their OS for their smartphones. They should have opted Android like Samsung or HTC to stay on the market. A friend of mine bought a Nokia C-5 and found that it lacked a lot of features which were available in the previous releases. It went blank often and does not work properly. These things made Nokia unreliable which decreased their market share. Now they made alliance with Microsoft to stay on the market. I am hearing good things about Nokia Lumia. Even Steve Wozniak stated that the Windows phone looks beautiful when compared to Apple or Android. I think Nokia will regain their market share with Windows 8 phones.