For The Love Of God, Can You All Give Nokia A Break?

That’s exactly how I feel about Nokia and the current situation. I hate Android but I chose Galaxy S over an N8 a few weeks ago. I’ve hated everything Elop has done till now but i’m really really looking forward to the first Windows Phone 7 Nokia device infact saving money for it already. I know Nokia is in ruins right now but I am 100% confident I’ll see them on top again by the end of 2012. If only these armchair analysts can stop spreading rumours and give it a rest.

For Nokia Kitkat break banta hai bhai

Good points succinctly made, Rita.

It amazes me how many supposedly responsible people have jumped on the bandwagon to kick Nokia for finally doing pretty much what the same people criticised Nokia for NOT doing in recent years…

I have to admit here: I was party to putting the boot in after Feb 11th, but with the immeasurable benefit of hindsight I can see the potential of the Nokia/Windows Phone deal.

I say potential, because as yet this merger has not borne fruit. However, it is far too early to call Nokia’s decision a success or a failure – I think we need to get 12 to 18 months down the line before we are in a fit position to judge.

Many amongst us would’ve rather seen Nokia adopt Android (but not me, I might add) but that ship of opportunity has sailed amnd is over the horizon. Elop has been brave enough to highlight the end of the road for Symbian (albeit in five or six years time) and Windows Phone is the way they are going – so get over it and get on with it, all you armchair critics!

This is the most challenging and brave move in recent mobile history and there will certainly be collateral damage along the way. Like Nokia themselves, we all have to challenge our prejudices and look to the future of mobile computing and personal communication.

One thing is certain – Stephen Elop is risking his all in this deal: If Nokia fail, he’ll be washed up and see his own personal Nokia stock torn to pieces along with his CV and future employment prospects…

I think it’s time we stopped using Nokia and Elop as the industry Whipping Boys and got behind them. Sure – criticise where appropriate: the Anna update is late, but that is largely due to the change of focus from Symbian to WP and cannot be attributed to Elop’s time with the company – this, and the recent devices like E7, E6 and X7 were mapped out before he was appointed. Now Nokia have handed development of Symbian over to Accenture we should see the ‘Elder OS’ mature into something even more replete, usable and relevant in its twilight years.

So the best of Symbian is yet to come, and Windows Phone promises an even brighter future for Nokia and mobile in general.

If that’s not enough to be positive about – I don’t know what is!

Just as Symbian gets interesting, they kill it off, need i say more?

Well – not for five years or so yet…

How long did you expect it to survive without replacement: 20 years – or more?

Anyone who knows anything knows i advocated they take up Android Donkey’s years ago, it’s a question of focusing on the future, if there is any!

I think Elop has outlined their reasons not to go with Android well enough for me to not repeat them here.

Android is so huge – and so accomplished as an OS and ecosystem, Nokia will have to work hard with Microsoft and the other WP manufacturers to build the ‘third ecosystem’.

That said, other OS’s compete with less than WP has to offer, and iOS is a good example of how an OS can be almost barren of features at launch and go on to become highly successful – there are no precedents that apply here.

Above all, I think we need to remember that Nokia don’t need to hold on to their ‘world’s biggest’ titles any more – those days are almost gone now. They just need to survive and become profitable.

Brilliant post. Couldn’t have worded it better myself. However, living in Mozambique…I have a very different view on Nokia’s influence in (Southern) Africa. It’s absolutely massive in sales here, but I’ve noticed two things. The first being the amount of knock-offs being sold here, especially the 6300 with some quirky Chinese software. That’s sure to bite a chunk of sales in the near future here, especially as regulation here SUCKS. The second thing, is how western culture influences a lot of the region. Any good sci-fi tale will tell you that a group of people need to mature before they receive a tech advancement. Or maybe it’s a black thing…I am black myself. Brown…I digress. iPhones and Samsung devices are seen everywhere, to the point where taking out a Nokia phone seems…shameful. Remember, this is among the middle-class and up segment. Touch is a fancy new thing and everyone paying through the roof just to have a phone that has that capability, even if it is bad. It’s a real shame, as Nokia advertises rather extensively here. 

Lol, Symbian hasn’t been interesting since S60v3 Fp2. They’ve taken several years and haven’t released any major updates yet. On the other hand, WP’s first update is quite significant and really changes things up.

I loved Symbian just as much as anyone else, but the lack of updates was infuriating, you can’t deny that. Even now, the N8 is approaching it’s one-year anniversary and it still hasn’t received the mythical update that was promised when it launched. Originally it was called PR2, now it’s called Anna – who knows how else they’ll change things when it finally hits.

This is a really good piece and it all really needed to be said. Thank you, Rita.

I have a modification to suggest, to “Nokia’s only strategic mistake.” It’s an important modification, since the behavior is ingrained in the corporation and it needs to be rooted-out.

Nokia didn’t notice, too late, Symbian needed drastic changes. Nokia failed to listen to the many of their customers who were telling them Symbian needed drastic changes.

Nokia has, for a long time now, treated its customers with an attitude of, “Shut up and just buy the next model of handset we’re selling you.” We see that attitude expressed in Nokia’s online relationship with customers and we certainly see that in Nokia’s recent behavior with respect to OS updates and the newest models (new handsets are released with Symbian^3 PR2.0, while updates to so-called “flagship” handsets released a year or less ago continue to be delayed).

If Nokia + WP will succeed, it will largely be because Microsoft will replace Nokia as the principal respondent to customer demands. Microsoft hasn’t especially excelled in this area, either. But it can hardly do worse than Nokia.

Oh, and to the bloggers who continue to crank out photos of new typefaces, photos or new icons or even videos of functionality available in Anna, Belle, or Zena? They have my sympathies; writing about something moving as fast as the grass grows or glaciers recede is not easy. They need to broaden the scope of their reportage. There’s no longer any news in updates Nokia is unable to release on a schedule appropriate with This Modern Age.

What upsets me most about Nokia is how it’s saying, “I could have been a contender!” But now, it’s poised on the edge of irrelevancy.

Yeah, I felt that same way when The Powers That Be squandered the possibilities in the Palm OS.

 rofl at kitkat haha

i have the exact same feelings as yours toward nokia and all the things being thrown against it. as usual, I enjoyed reading your work.

Agreed. Actually my full point was: Nokia’s only mistake was that they assumed they had time to improve Symbian and assumed customers would wait with them. When they finally noticed that they should make the drastic changes, it was too late.

Oh please Rita. When I read you it seems so naive. Looking for good sides on everything isn’t optimism. Is just avoiding to see the truth when is too painful.

Nokia has accidentally put itself in a delicate situation. But is clear that Elop has consciouslly made it many times worser when he announced they were leaving Symbian without having an WP ready to sell. This its self sabotage. There was no reason for doing this on that moment except for damaging Nokia. 

Might seem like conspiracy theory but who told you that conspiracys doesn’t exists? What about the way MS robbed Widows from Apple in the eighties? Never heard of it? What about the mass destruction weapons on Iraq? Do you remember?

Conspiracys exists. And this one is about to make Nokia so cheap that MS will buy it for dimes.

I bet with you a full box of the beer in your choice MS will in some way, directly or not, try to take control of Nokia ownership and guarantee their path to mobile computing wich was getting almost impossible for them. 

And I hope so much to be wrong thay you can’t believe.

Rita, I told you many times I admire you. Your writing is charming touching and inspiring. You are talented, creative and smart. But without some courage you can’t use this for no good.

How patronising!

You obviously have not understood Stephen Elop’s recent keynotes which outline the reasons why Nokia chose Windows Phone over Android (if you in fact read them at all). You are obviously ignorant of the many, many tech and finance experts (like Goldman Sachs) who endorse Nokia’s decision to go Windows Phone.

You are so concerned with conspiracy theories you can’t tell a grassy knoll from a green field: Stephen Elop has stated on the record that there are no discussion between Nokia and Microsoft for MS to buy Nokia. If that is a lie, Elop can be imprisoned and both parties fined substantially through laws concerning disclosure of sensitive information. Do you really maintain that as credible argument?

Tech journos like Rita are in fact the brave ones: they are the prophets of a new era; the quiet, but growing voices who do not choose the easy ride on the rowdy bandwagon of Nokia and Microsoft haters. They are the ones with the courage to be the first to say ‘Hey, maybe this Elop guy is for real. Maybe what he says makes sense, maybe we should give him a chance’.

So let me be be as patronising as you have been: I’m quite sure that when Nokia’s Windows Phones are a success, you will be drinking that full box of beers all alone – and telling everyone who will listen to the bar-room bragger you obviously are, that you knew this venture would be a success all along…

agreed Qt like WOW but it’s elop’s HUGE MOUTH and ballmer’s wad of cash that messed up nokia since MSFT has nothing to loose they didn’t care but nokia has everything 

Re “explain Himself” and ” backpedal”:

How else could the new CEO of a massive, established Co tell his workforce that they have to abandon their safe, comfortable ideas and status quo and leap into the unknown?

If you have a fire in your house (nevermind your platform) you don’t go round with a nice cup of tea and a few biscuits and say “wakey, wakey, it might be an idea to get up and go outside for a little walk…”, you shout “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!” You imply the utmost urgency; you stress the imperative. You command, you don’t reason – you get everybody to commit to action as soon as possible.

I, too was incredulous at the tone and language used on that memo (but let’s not forget it was intended for internal use, not a press release to the outside world), but the more we hear about how things were going (or not going!) at Nokia, the more we can see the need for such a rude awakening.

Nokia are a company that have been steeped in their own way of doing things for years. Most people in large organisations like that only see a fraction of the whole situation and are largely ignorant of the Big Picture. Do you remember Elop’s disappointment at how few Nokia employees had experience of iPhone? This illustrates how removed from reality they all were.

To put some balance into that negative view of Nokia, some of the work carried out by those same people is hugely impressive; some of the technologies developed and new features dreamt up by Nokia are truly amazing – no wonder Nokia are so keen to protect their patents portfolio so rigorously.

The downside of a proposed change of product is the impact on sales of the currently outgoing product. Elop would’ve known this and been prepared to see Symbian’s sales drop off quite sharply; indeed, they foretasted as much.

What they were not prepared for was the rampant growth of Android into the low-end sector; sophisticated, feature-rich devices cheaply built in the far east sold by the millions for less than anywhere-near-comparable Symbian devices.

This was truly unprecedented, wholly unexpected and not really that predictable. IF Elop’s assessment of the market failed anywhere, this was it. We could argue that some of the existing devices from companies like ZTE (e.g. the Blade or San Francisco) showed the way, but those early cheap Android devices were not big sellers and not widely available across Nokia’s established markets.

What we need to remember is that however Elop handled the announcement of Symbian’s demise, or even if it’s shelf life was not discussed at all, those millions of cheap Android devices would’ve still killed much of Nokia’s sales like they did. This was all largely unavoidable, and Elop’s announcement would not’ve filtered down to the average buyer on the street to influence their purchasing decision anywhere near as much as the availability of cheaper, apparently better-specced alternatives running Android.

No matter how bad a battering Symbian has had (and yes -it has been bad) it continues to sell by the millions and is still highly valuable to Nokia as income over the next few years, so it is understandable that Elop and Nokia will ‘stand by’ Symbian and attempt to reinforce it for as long as possible – what on earth is wrong with that?

Symbian still has much to offer – especially for the millions upon millions of existing Symbian S60 3rd and 5th edition users who are more suited to the format and value the extra functionality, battery efficeincy and build quality they are used to with a Nokia device.

It’s also highly appealing for the millions of existing Nokia dumb and feature-phone users (S40) who are looking for their first (and affordable) smartphone. Symbian devices are better suited to delivering useful functionality away from data networks better than either iOS or Android.

As in so many things in life, change is painful, and costs somewhere along the line. As CEO of Nokia, Elop would’ve known that and fully understood what the rest of us have largely failed to grasp: The faster you make a change, the sooner everyone will calm down and get on with their lives.

I am confident that by this time in 2013 the ‘burning platform’ memo will just be a distant memory.

Steve,

Did you read Tomi Ahonen’s blog these last days? Cause I feel you are not aware of the situation. The problem isn’t the android competidors. Is about how Elop betrayed Nokia’s most loyal consumers AND RESSELLERS!!

It is happening a boycott of Nokia phones by carriers because for them it is not interesting selling Nokia phones anymore.

The reasons are because he started producing Dual SIM phones, gave away a carrier friendly system like symbian that all mobile companies always loved to personalise and sell with their own names and services and chose the most carrier unfriendly, a system who they will not be able to personalise, and fully and tottaly controled by a company who now OWNS SKYPE!!

Think well and you will understand that different from Elop, the carriers are not very interested on shooting their own foots. Carriers are a very important link on the chain because smartphones are expensive things and they finance the device for the user in exchange of his loyalty. In other words, users don’t buy phones, they buy services from carriers WHO GIVE THEM PHONES!

That’s why is such stupid movement

Carriers are maybe more important than consumers. That is why Nexus One, even taking Google’s Brand on it and being announced on one of the most visited website page in the world (the Google page) and being a better phone than all android phones in that moment was a fiasco.

Maybe that is also why android is selling incredibly faster than iPhone, BB and Symbian. Because Android is much more carrier friendly then iOS, BB and now Nokia Phones.

So don’t tell me that betraing your ressellers was necessary to “rude awake” people in Nokia because it has nothing to do it.

On my perspective there are only two ways to explain such nonsense.

A – Elop is the dumbest CEO in the world
B – He is a Troian

As I don’t believe nobody on such power positions can be so dumb or he would not be able to survive to competition and pressure that these kind of men like CEOs have to face it can only be explained by letter B. HE-IS-A-TROIAN

Steve,

Did you read Tomi Ahonen’s blog these last days? Cause I feel you are not aware of the situation. The problem isn’t the android competidors. Is about how Elop betrayed Nokia’s most loyal consumers AND RESSELLERS!!

It is happening a boycott of Nokia phones by carriers because for them it is not interesting selling Nokia phones anymore.

The reasons are because he started producing Dual SIM phones, gave away a carrier friendly system like symbian that all mobile companies always loved to personalise and sell with their own names and services and chose the most carrier unfriendly, a system who they will not be able to personalise, and fully and tottaly controled by a company who now OWNS SKYPE!!

Think well and you will understand that different from Elop, the carriers are not very interested on shooting their own foots. Carriers are a very important link on the chain because smartphones are expensive things and they finance the device for the user in exchange of his loyalty. In other words, users don’t buy phones, they buy services from carriers WHO GIVE THEM PHONES!

That’s why is such stupid movement

Carriers are maybe more important than consumers. That is why Nexus One, even taking Google’s Brand on it and being announced on one of the most visited website page in the world (the Google page) and being a better phone than all android phones in that moment was a fiasco.

Maybe that is also why android is selling incredibly faster than iPhone, BB and Symbian. Because Android is much more carrier friendly then iOS, BB and now Nokia Phones.

So don’t tell me that betraing your ressellers was necessary to “rude awake” people in Nokia because it has nothing to do it.

On my perspective there are only two ways to explain such nonsense.

A – Elop is the dumbest CEO in the world
B – He is a Troian

As I don’t believe nobody on such power positions can be so dumb or he would not be able to survive to competition and pressure that these kind of men like CEOs have to face it can only be explained by letter B. HE-IS-A-TROIAN

I did read Tomi Ahonen’s post(s) – they are always a good read and I have a huge respect for his insight, knowledge and experience.

But that doesn’t mean he  is automatically right, or that we have to accept all he writes without question.

Mobile phones are ordered months in advance of sale, and Elop has only been in the chair for a short while. It is therefore debatable if the drastic drop-off of Nokia’s market share (notice: NOT total sales volume, which actually increased) can be attributed to Elop at all – irrespective of what he said or did.

Tomi wrote a piece recently where he postulated that there was an artificially-high level of Symbian sales under the latter part of OPK’s time where devices were sold to carriers at artificially-low prices. If true, his would’ve flooded those carriers/resellers with devices that would naturally lead to them not needing to order so many devices in the following months, or even quarters.

Maybe Tomi was right about this, and much of this drop-off in Symbian is pre-Elop, and therefore not his doing, or maybe Tomi is wrong… If he was wrong about that, he can also be wrong about other ideas:

Dual SIM devices from Nokia are only now becoming available. Whilst they would’ve been discussed with carriers months ago in their early (and typically for Nokia, slow) model development, how can we only now blame them for the very recent drop-off in sales?

Besides, the markets where these dual-SIM devices (I think there are only two models, aren’t there?) are being marketed are already flooded with dual-SIM KIRFS and Android devices that are sold SIM-free on market stalls for a few dollars; Nokia’s dual-SIM devices would only allow carriers to compete with these devices, not rob them of sales, so I am not altogether convinced by that argument – it just doesn’t hold water.

As for Microsoft’s purchase of Skype and the perceived threat to carrier income; Well, Skype has been available of Symbian for some time now, and no-one has raised this as a problem before… Apple have FaceTime and Android has Google Voice – both  very similar concepts and no-one has raised that as a problem before, either. Their sales have not suffered the same nose-dive as Nokia’s.

Apple have also now introduced iMessage – a service that will directly compete with the SMS cash-cow  – so beloved of both the carriers and, of course Mr Tomi Ahonen. Are the carriers going to now boycott iPhone for ‘betraying’ them as well?

No, I thought not…

You say that Symbian was more carrier-friendly (I presume you mean Nokia were ‘abandoning’ a more carrier-friendly Symbian in favour of an (allegedly) less  than Windows Phone) and that carriers are now adopting Android because of that.

Well, here’s the strange thing: Symbian is STILL AVAILABLE and will be for the next five years or so. Furthermore, Windows Phone on Nokia is NOT YET AVAILABLE, so this argument that carriers are boycotting or punishing Nokia for ‘abandoning Symbian’ and/or adopting Windows Phone is patently ridiculous at this time.

This argument might be successfully argued if Symbian had been withdrawn, but new models are still rolling out. despite any ‘mixed messages’ taken from the Feb 11th memo, Nokia and Elop have been clear that Symbian would endure for at least two years (initially) and until “at least 2016″ more recently. This argument might be applied if Nokia are actually supplying Windows Phone devices now, but even that would not account for the fact that carriers are supplying WP devices from other manufacturers…

As for Elop being a ‘Trojan Horse’, well, he might well be, but he has his won personal financial stock, as well as his well-publicised multi-million $ bonus tied to Nokia’s success. beyond money, his future employment prospects at stake, so he’d have to be more of a Kamikaze than a Trojan…

As for Elop being deluded or plain stoopid, well if he really is, then so is The Chairman and the rest of Nokia’s Board of Directors, Nokia’s financiers and bankers and their shareholders. They are all key and party influencers in Nokia’s development path and either endorse or reject the recommendations of the CEO. No company is ever truly run by just one man; even Henry Ford in the 1960′s was no true dictator – he occasionally had to bow to his shareholders.

The point of the feature by Rita is that maybe, just maybe, Elop is right. I think we owe it to ourselves to fully scrutinize all sides of the argument and not just accept the views of the High Priests of our tech clergy just because of who they are.

Maybe some of Nokia’s more prolific critics are attempting to score political capital out of this; maybe they are building careers, selling books or advertising on their websites that require traffic to be driven to them by such sensational claims.

I don’t want to be patronising when I say this – I really don’t, but you are clearly educated, intelligent and erudite. Surely one of the skills you learnt along your own path was the ability to question what you are told by so-called ‘experts’? You have Common Sense, ‘nouse’ or ‘savvy’ – use it!

Tomia Ahonen, Eldar Murtazin and may others have huge credentials and nett worth – who am I to take that away from them?

But like us all, they have their own agenda, their own careers and businesses to look after. Above all else, they can also be wrong.

Steve,

We are talking about:
- a loss of 46% on stocks value since 11 february, only 4 months.
- Rumors about Nokia being bought by competidors (even smaller like HTC could).
- Boycotting from carriers.
- Hundred of thousands of angry customers posting on your page and through the entire internet things like:

“I’ve been a loyal customer since 1999 and I’m so sad that I’ll have to leave you Nokia!”

If Nokia was yours, and totally yours, and if you had hired Elop to be your CEO, would you really think that  “maybe” he is right?

No, I don’t think ‘maybe’ Elop is right, I am fairly certain he is right.

I am greatly concerned about Nokia’s loss in share value – that is a bigger hit than anyone envisaged, but it is not disasterous.

Rumours are just rumours. I don’t really who care who owns Nokia so long as they continue to build great hardware. What I’d really like to see is for Nokia to deploy great software on that great hardware. Much as I admire Symbian on my N8 and love Maemo 5 on my N900 I am no blinkered fanboy; Nokia are no good at building software fast enough.

Symbian had its legacy problems – as will Android, iOS and even WP one day, and Nokia had a good opportunity with Maemo/Meego. But we have to admit: they blew it. Had the Nokia of even 18 months ago reaponded fast enough we would not be having this discussion. Symbian would be way past where Bela hopes to be by the end of this year, Maemo/Meego would be competing effectively against Android and iOS and Windows Phone would be fighting to be the fourth ecosystem…

All that is water under the bridge, now; coins in the fountain, once-great devices that now languish in forgotten closets.

If carriers are boycotting Nokia, it’s probably because of Nokia’s poor software; I know retailers who have actively dissuaded customers from buying nokia because they know they’ll come back with complaints relating to software in such big numbers they’d rather sell them an Android – even though the staff prefer Nokias for their own use!

My faith in Elop is founded in the knowledge that he can actually see the problems and has the guts to take all this on. I know there are many baying for Elop’s blood right now, and many more hoping and prayiing he wil! fail or prove to be the ‘Trojan’ of legend.

That may well be because some love the Nokia that was, and that some love to hate the Nokia that is.

One thing is for certain: whoever is right, history is written by the Victorious. When the battle is over everyone is going to be saying ‘I told you so’

Whatever the outcome!

“One thing is for certain: whoever is right, history is written by the
Victorious. When the battle is over everyone is going to be saying ‘I
told you so’”

Steve

whatever is the point we are talking about here, I don’t think is nice to say something like that. You are assuming you are not “everyone” or you are saying that even you will say “I told you so” if Nokia go to bankrupcy. which means you are generalizing and judging something you can’t or that you don’t believe what you are saying and neither I should believe you.

I believe what I say, if Nokia don’t go to bankrupcy I will try to understand why and learn something with it. But tome seems very disturbing that only one action from a CEO can drop an 15 years empire to half of  size in less then 4 months.

If Nokia was mine would have fired him already. Anyway, I believe something will happen on the end of this quarter when Nokia show its results. I think would be very strange if the same stockholders who made pressure against Nokia for better results  in the end of 2010 keep quiet now.

I do not believe that Elop’s statement has had no effect on the continued decline of Symbian, but nor do I believe that all of Nokia’s recent failure can all be laid at the door of Stephen Elop.

I was making the point that Symbian was already in decline due to other factors that were manifest before Elop’s appointment (that’s why they appointed him, after all…) and that even more recent events (again some before Elop’s appointment) have probably accelerated that decline more than appears on the surface.

Elop seems to have quickly grasped the situation and recognised the need for Nokia to change – fast.

It is the necessary speed of that change that may turn out to be the problem. Symbian has huge momentum in the market, and Windows Phone (although it has speedily made some gains) has little momentum due to its limited uptake so far.

Not only did Elop need to bring a compelling, credible and attractive range of WP products to market within a very short 10-12 months, he also had to ensure these new devices had the best possible chance to thrive. All that momentum in Symbian could be to the detriment of WP if Symbian were allowed to co-exist alongside it for too long. That may be the reason for sounding so brutal about Symbian.

However, I’m sure Elop understands the value of loyalty to the brand. Even if it were possible, cutting Symbian dead more-or-less immediately and moving to any other platform would risk losing a lot of that loyalty. Symbian had to be seen to go down in a blaze of glory rather than die an ignominious death and WP had to be given centre stage – a difficult balancing act to perform.

Like you, I certainly think Elop knew his memo was going to be leaked. As CEO his message had to be unequivocal: Nokia were moving on to Windows Phone, and the only way to underline that message was to be seen to ‘kill off’ Symbian – at least initially.

I do not think Nokia are now ‘back-pedalling’ on Symbian. I do think they are keen to show the world that they can now deliver smartphone solutions comparable to other ecosystems. Anna, Bella and the devices being launched this year are part of that. Although Anna is undeniably late, it is imperative that it is ultimately perceived as successful over and above its timeliness.

I disagree that Elop wanted to ‘soften the blow’ – CEO’s don’t get where they are by way of tact as much as they do by getting things done. I also maintain that although he would no doubt have expected Symbian sales to drop along with Nokia’s share value during the transition the fall has been further and harder than even Stephen Elop expected.

I don’t know about you, but many were complaining about how Nokia failed to act quickly in the past, how they failed to deploy an engaging UI post-iPhone and how they were generally crap at executing and implementing things generally.

Now we have a guy in charge who is clearly breaking that tradition, getting things done and trying to move the company forwards and now everyone is getting nervous and blaming him for the changes we were all demanding in the first place…

To read your post one could be forgiven for thinking that all was well with Symbian and Nokia prior to Stephen Elop’s appointment.

Quite the reverse was true, it seems. Even Tomi Ahonen suspected that Symbian sales were artificially high during the last part of OPK’s reign.

We need to remember: Elop was brought in because Nokia/Symbian were doing so badly, not because they were doing well.

The saying ‘History is written by the victorious’ is used to underline the fact that the real truth is very often overlooked after the event. I don’t know exactly what is going on at Nokia – no-one except Stephen Elop and the Nokia board of  Directors and top executives are privy to that knowledge.

All the rest of us are doing is enjoying the cut-and-thrust of some good, old-fashioned speculation. I think Nokia are a long way from Bankruptcy; in fact I have every faith in their ability to survive this and go on to compete in the marketplace.

I’d like to think I’d give any of my staff time to deliver on a new enterprise, and I’d also like to think I had the courage of my conviction to hire them in the first place. Elop is no cuckoo; no-one parachuted him into that job as an unknown – he was recruited by the same board of Directors that still seem to be staunchly behind him.

I think we need to share a little of their faith, if not Stephen Elop’s…

“To read your post one could be forgiven for thinking that all
was well with Symbian and Nokia prior to Stephen Elop’s appointment.” Of course not, Steve. Read it again: “Nokia has accidentally put itself in a delicate situation. But is clear
that Elop has consciouslly made it many times worser when he announced
they were leaving Symbian without having an WP ready to sell.”What I and many people are saying is that what was supposed to be the salvation of Nokia is going to kill Nokia.And the market thinks the same as in the first day Nokia’s shares fell 11% and after 4 months more than 46%. Not that market is always right but such expressive numbers show something.

@twitter-126903148:disqus

Symbian was not the problem of Nokia. Being only attached to symbian was. Symbian phones where selling well since N8 and Symbian 3. Also, other good phones like the E7 was goind to market.

Was pretty clear that someday Symbian was going to die and the premium smartphones of Nokia would become MeeGo. The QT was a way of making this transition with less traumas. But killing symbian before its time was stupid. Now they are not attached to Symbian but to a dead Symbian and have no other option to sell untill the end of the year.

You said : “If carriers are boycotting Nokia, it’s probably because of Nokia’s poor software; I know retailers who have actively dissuaded customers from buying nokia because they know they’ll come back with complaints relating to software in such big numbers they’d rather sell them an Android – even though the staff prefer Nokias for their own use!”

Thats is not true. Carriers don’t care if your phone is going to have an update or not. Carriers care only about their own. Proof of this is how well MANY Motorola’s android phones without any update where sold, even
with android 1.6! They prefer android not becouse android is better but becouse they can personalize android with their own services. But can’t do it with iOS and WP7.

The boycotting is not because symbian is dead and has poor UI. Is because Nokia chose to kill a carrier friendly OS and go for a carrier unfriendly OS which now comes with the carrier bypassing service SKYPE
PREINSTALLED!

I use skype and fring on my N8. It allowed me to become a prepaid user and save 50% calling other cellphones and 90% on calling landline phones! None of my friends use skype, but if they used I would save even more!

When I’m home or in work I don’t even need to use 3G because I can use Wifi.

Tell me. Does this seems carrier friendly?? Is it a smart decision when most of your salles come from carriers?

It is funny to read your blog RnR …Rita and Ricky … you had nothing to say since long time … and you close your Symbian Guru … without ever been a guru …

You Rita, did support eFlop strategy form beginning … you said Nokia share would be bounce back from 6.6 … and we are now just above 4€

eFlop is a criminal … this is a fact …

In many aspect Symbian is still better then Android … it was just needing to be kept polish, and push some nice HW for make nice mobile phone with it …

But eFlop is not working for the good of Nokia … is working for the good of the Funds that put him and his weird board on Nokia power.

Since then … was only the worst possible marketing (announce the death of Symbian and hope to sell Symbian is pathetic) … the world worst strategy (why kill Symbain and Meego for gamble all in in WM 7 ?) … and then the worst execution on producing anything with a Nokia brand … we have seen the lowest new model phone presentation since ages.

Tchuss

e_lm_70

This site also died with Nokia news. Interesting parallel with Symbian-Guru.

Speaking as a North American, (Canadian) sometimes tech blogger, full time tech worker, (design, consult etc.) Most North American Tech Bloggers couldn’t find their foreheads with a map. I’m being polite here, however, it is true! They report on unfounded rumours as if they were fact, they speculate based on those rumours, and they do virtually NO research into what they are writing about. It amazes me what passes for journalism today! I rarely read any tech blogs written on this side of the Atlantic anymore. Too much praise for the latest igadget, too much negative attention towards Nokia, too many uniformed individuals working in a place of influence. Makes me ill to think about it.
 

Nice, that’s helpful for me!