Nokia CTO Rich Green Talks MeeGo, Symbian, Qt, Windows Phone and a new “disruptive platform”.
Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer, Rich Green talks about MeeGo, Symbian and Qt in the videos below:
- We do plan to ship a device from our MeeGo Programme some time this year. I’ve seen the device running and it is beautiful, elegant and the hardware is “interesting” and the software is powerful
- Third part of our strategy, were going to engage on the work on a new disruptive platform. We don’t want to get caught from behind. What’s this – a new OS? Or further MeeGo work?
- Feedback from MeeGo will be included in the platform technologies
On Symbian
- OS platforms don’t quickly go away
- New hardware on the pipeline, dew devices, GHz, chips to be delivered in these devices, very cool stuff
- Radical Updates to the display of the device, the user interface, the user experience is going to be radically improved
- 75 Million devices that use modern Qt QML, Plan to ship 150m more with that equivalent technology. Around 250billion devices. That’s still a unique opportunity.
On Qt – why no Qt on Windows.
- Qt is healthy and long lived. PERIOD.
- Qt and QML is frame work for MeeGo. We plan to ship the device this year. It’s critically important. It’s the way we recommend everyone write apps.
- Qt and QML technology to desktops, 4000 licensees.
- Stephen talked about disruptive technologies in the high end. We’ll use feedback from MeeGo programme to see what technologies from MeeGo will go into there. Qt is a strong candidate.
- One of critical things in building ecosystem is to give them a clear road ahead. Windows Phone is a SILVERLIGHT environment. To put multiple tools would dilutive and distracting.
- WP is a remarkably elegant device. I’ve used one for a while. I’ve chucked (chucked? or checked?) one of those iThings and I live on this (what handset is he using) as well as Nokia phones. The makers of the Microsoft phones have done a great job of integrating the applications with the operating system. When you build an app on Windows Phone it’s very difficult to tell where the App stops and the OS begins. If you think about another developer platform, they have to interoperate with core OS and talk to apps written in silverlight, and have a three way collection of features, all interoperating in seamless way- that’s a really hard computer science problem
Category: Maemo, MeeGo, Nokia, Symbian, Video, Windows Phone
all of this should have been outlined on capital markets day rather than plunge their future into mass speculation and watch the shares tumble as a result.
Well, it’s not really Nokia unless they poorly communicate their strategies. Some things just never change.
i guess ur right there
, that why we love nokia so much!(and their hardware of course)
All what, he hasnt said anything new.
QT developers are still being stabbed in the back, they can spout about 150million sybian devices all they like, nobody is going to invest time in developing new apps for an announced to be killed platform unless there is an easy transition to the replacement platform.
Meego, which would have offered that easy transition is still being effectively killed, its going to be one device, which much like the n900 will probably receive little backing.
As for QT, they are still refusing to port it, why? because its too hard? Thats exactly what QT has always been about taking a near impossible challenge(cross platform development with proper platform integration)and making it a reality, no matter how hard.
Nokia still expect both symbian c++ and QT(many who come from an open source background) developers to just drop all they know and care about and jump to silverlight, not something I can see many(myself included)being particularly interested in ever doing, android and webos offer far more familiar and friendly environment than silverlight seeing as we all have to start from scratch again anyway.
On top of that, according to the specs, the new WebOS seems to be shipping with Qt 4.6 by default.
so can update it to 4.7 manually
And yet, with all their developer community, there are only 120 million iOS devices out there with no realistic prospect of hitting 250 million for at least two years.
It’s a big market and perspective is good.
I do believe the 150 Mio Symbian devices to be sold when I see the sales numbers. After this strategy and announcement disaster, who will buy these devices? I for certain will not. I will upgrade 3 phones for me and my family this year, and I am going Android. And I am sure I won’t be the only one behaving this way.
150 Mio? Wake me up when they sold them!
How do you know that the android phones will get updates? they may not be able to use the next google update and then maybe you can not use newer apps either. Sony Ericsson buyers are disappointed by not getting more updates than Android 2.1
I don’t mind if a nice hardware and a decent MeeGo version will be out this year. If the device is good enough it will receive the supportit deserves from the community and at least the enthusiasts will receive a little comfort. In this stage I prefer Nokia’s hardware with MeeGo than Intel’s.
That event was a disaster for Nokia. Now they are mopping up with damage control, sprinkled with back-tracking. Truth is, I don’t even believe that higher-ups even know what is exactly happening at Nokia, so they’re just rehashing their older material.
> One of critical things in building ecosystem is to give them
> a clear road ahead. Windows Phone is a SILVERLIGHT
>environment. To put multiple tools would dilutive and
> distracting.
This is nonsense. It’s like saying one can’t choose different programming languages, because it’s dilutive and distracting and everyone should choose the “approved” one. If everyone would really think this way we would still be using machine codes for programming. I believe he doesn’t really think this way and just gives the insincere official talk. The real obvious reason – MS doesn’t want competing technologies on their WP7.
i still dont get why they are f**king killing symbian , just kill Series 40. And use symbian on ”feature phones” its light and effective and still has more features then all the other OSes.
i think the same as you, that was the initial plan from the start! to push symbian to the low-mid end!
i cant see the problem with that!
that is what we hate about nokia’s move (Nokia plans to sell high-end phones with wp os only). Other manufacturers like samsung don’t even make this kind of strategy. When samsung still has partnered with symbian they don’t make symbian phone for mid range device. With this partnership, we can clearly see that it is more favorable to mcrosft and wp os. Microsoft should be the one to adjust in the service names since they will be using the database of nokia’s properties(bing maps should be ovi maps and microsoft marketplace should be ovi store; instead of ovi maps to bing maps and ovi store to microsoft marketplace. Agree folks?
Get used to it. Microsoft has captured Nokia and locked it in a dungeon where it can be exploited however Microsoft likes.
That would mean that Nokia would have to put the Broadcome GPU in every device they ship which would not be cost effective at this point. It is cheaper to make S40 and S^1 devices and still get a phone into peoples hands that otherwise would not be able to afford a higher end for OR that didn’t need a higher end phone.
Not only would Nokia lose it’s ability to service all price points but then it’s market share would decrease as sales decrease in markets theat are strong in lower priced handset segments.
Sure, for the techies among us, it seems to make sense to cater to our needs but the fact is, Nokia has built their house on servicing and connecting people everywhere, in as many markets from the low-tier to the high-tier.
Because it is part of the deal. Microsoft does not want Symbian on top OS’s charts. If Nokia still makes cheap Symbians, It will take years for it to die even at the current rate of OS shares percentage. This way, Symbian may die earlier.
Symbian still competes with WP7 even though not in UI.
S40 on the other hand does not.
Microsoft basically said kill Symbian for this to work.
…..thats the only answer that makes sense, hope nokia does look back in 10 years , and think of what a stupid move it was .
no, i hope nokia thinks again, release the symbian products they promised this year with an updated UI, sell 250M devices instead of the planned 150 M , and decides to stick with symbian!
Microsoft’s strategy is to kill Symbian fast now to create a hole, and then pour WP7 into the hole. So that is what Elop is doing.
The incoming CEO doesn’t mind if this financial year is a disaster. He can blame it on his predecessors.
i hope nokia looks back NOW and realise what a stupid move this is..
microsoft is a user especially elop. They both use nokia for their own ambitions. Ambitions that they will gain for themselves and no profit and less advantage(or should i say no advatage)for nokia. Microsoft will use all the sources of nokia to develop their os,services and hardaware. That is really unfair for nokia.
So, why do you think the board of Nokia recruited Elop?
It’s quite odd that no one on behalf of Nokia talked about a possible rebranding of Symbian? As Green mentioned that they’re looking at Qt as an interesting development for featurephones, my guess would be that Symbian becomes S40?
Also, they haven’t mentioned the elimination of S30. From that perspective the addition of WP as the smartphone strategy IMO would be plausible.
elop must be replaced or nokia will be eaten by microsoft. There will only be a possibility for me of buying a window phone when all symbian features are put on wp-nokia and there will be at least 10,000 USEFUL applications. Hope that it will happen before the year ends or people will consider nokia as their last choice or worst is forget that nokia exists.
i am interested on the next os. Hoping that they will start developing the os next month. Also hoping that it will be an open source os and it will be like the resurrection of symbian with a different name(nex ux and ui and more promising features like what n8 has).
Did you hear what he said?
“I’ve seen the (MeeGo) device running and it is beautiful, elegant and the hardware is interesting and the software is powerful…”
Wow, that sounds exactly like something consumers would want. If what he is saying is true, I just don’t get it why they wouldn’t want to use MeeGo in more devices long-term.
yea , i mean just give me that bloody device i want that to replace my N900.
He is trying to say that they have the Meego device ready. It is just not able to be shipped, got it?
And note, that even with all that – Qt is just a “candidate”, and there seems to be no solid commitment to Meego except to “learn from it”.
Rich Green might like MeeGo, but Microsoft doesn’t like it, so Elop doesn’t like it. Elop is poised to remove thousands of staff from Nokia’s payroll.
:30 on the symbian video… the blurry gal in the background looks like she may be attractive
still 150million symbian phones… that’s really just 1 year and a couple months
I cant help but think Rich Green prefers Symbian , QT & Meego … see the 2 videos vs 1 short WP7 video…?
Like Pat said above, he sold the idea of Symbian , QT & Meego but not WP7. QT looks a great development platform + it would have worked across 2 OS’s (low end and high end)
Looking at it now if developers make apps for WP7, then older Symbian & the next disruption loose out?
WP7 is nowhere near as close as Symbian at the moment alrite Symbian looks out dated… but just because it doesnt look good doesnt mean all the features work?
As a Nokia user for many years Im going to take alot of convincing on this one to get a WP7 device.
it would have been better if this guy was the CEO at least he know the power of symbian/meego and Qt
Nice videos,
If Mr. Green is to be believed, then Symbian has got at least 1-2 years. I hope they give it one last push, especially the UI. And also it’s interesting regard the new devices in the pipeline he mentioned.
I’m also intrigued regarding the MeeGo device, dsmobile of the many members here(and on mobile-forums.com) said that the N9 looked really nice. I hope it’s that phone, without QWERTY(Sorry QWERTY fans but nowadays a high end phone is considered a monoblock, Apple showed that a properly done virtual keyboard can be great.)
Anyways, it looks like Nokia is planning to deliver some good phones in 2011. The 1GHz Symbian phones, N9 with MeeGo.
If they do deliver all those promises of:
-1GHz, powerful Symbian phones
-Symbian PR3.0, new Qt UI
-N9, a really high end MeeGo phone with a great, smooth interface.
In 2011, then IMO, they should dump WP7 or at least lower it’s priority by a lot and concentrate back on Symbian and MeeGo.
I WILL NOT BUY A WP7 PHONE, it’s just not functional enough, and I don’t like the UI, I MUCH prefer Symbian’s homescreens with widgets and the “Menu”. Not even WP7.5 interests me much, the multitasking they showed is not “real” and there really are not that many improvements or functions being added.
[...] nobody would be surprised to see the end of Qt in Nokia. And if you don’t believe or trust Rich Green’s latest communication regarding the future of Qt in Nokia, then I don’t think any speculations or promises from my side will [...]
The key highlights are this one: “One of critical things in building ecosystem is to give them a clear road ahead. Windows Phone is a SILVERLIGHT environment. To put multiple tools would dilutive and distracting.”
And this one:
WP is a remarkably elegant device. I’ve used one for a while….The makers of the Microsoft phones have done a great job….
—–
MS-Nokia’s only goal for Qt, IMO, appears to be maintaining control– for the purpose of preventing any sort of “open governance” which could allow the platform to make progress. Everything which MS-Nokia will do, from now on, will be to benefit WP — or to harm the LGPL version of Qt as much as they possibly can.
Both are key strategies, unfortunately. Nokia wants to “keep Qt” only to strangle it.