MNB Reader Stories: The Burning Symbian Blog
Here is a story sent to MNB by Janne who has decided to collect some of the thoughts and discussions over the past week or so. We occasionally get articles sent in and most of the time it just goes under our own post, but now I’m going to start putting them into their own writer column, “MNB ReaderGenerated”. If you have articles you want to share with MNB’s readers, send them in to tips[at]mynokiablog[dot]com. We can also discuss for those who’d like to share Nokia news directly on the longer term, but that’s another topic. Let’s get onto Janne’s post
Thanks folks!
BR,
Jay
________________
Last weekend the mobile blogosphere noted the first anniversary of Nokia’s February 11th 2011 announcements and reminisced on the famous Burning Platform memo by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. Understandably the entire spectrum of human emotion and technocrat opinion still linger over these events. One of the more prominent, or at least lengthy, analysis of the Burning Platform memo and subsequent events came from Tomi Ahonen in his Communities Dominate Brands blog, where also I myself commented on his analysis. Later I quoted and discussed my comments here atMyNokiaBlog, where “arts” inspired me to collect my thoughts into a separate article.
The big question I, like many, have asked themselves when analyzing the post-Feb 11th Nokia strategy is: Why? The previous Nokia Qt strategy was solid, potentially spanning a compatible software ecosystem from “the next billion” Meltemi, midrange market dominating Symbian and high-end MeeGo – price points from $100 to $1000. Why drop it all for the unproven Windows Phone? The obvious answer for many has been Stephen Elop and his Microsoft background. While for an objective observer it is impossible to completely dismiss any such backroom shenanigans, there are reasons to consider Elop’s trojan play unlikely. Not the least of which is the sheer number of old-guard Nokia executives and board directors approving the new approach. In fact, if the public version of the events is to be believed, it was Nokia’s Kai Öistämö who raised the flag to him saying he fears the MeeGo strategy will not be enough. The now-famous “Oh shit” moment.
In his Communities Dominate Brands blog Tomi Ahonen makes a commendable effort of taking us through the numbers involved in the pre- and post-Feb 11th Nokia. No doubt about it, since February 11th, Nokia’s position has crashed. The company went from smartphone dominance and profits to losing the leadership and recording losses, all the while shedding tens of thousands of employees bordering a national tragedy in Finland and local tragedies in many other places. Make no mistake: When Nokia jumped off that burning platform, hitting those North Atlantic waters clearly hurt it bad. Stephen Elop has admitted as much at least on two separate occasions. The effect on Symbian sales was more severe than anticipated. First signs came during the Q2/2011 results and the verdict during the Q4/2011 results:
“The challenges we are facing during our strategic transformation manifested in a greater than expected way in Q2 2011.”
“Specifically, changing market conditions are putting increased pressure on Symbian. In certain markets, there has been an acceleration of the anticipated trend towards lower-priced smartphones with specifications that are different from Symbian’s traditional strengths. As a result of the changing market conditions, combined with our increased focus on Lumia, we now believe that we will sell fewer Symbian devices than we previously anticipated.”
Arguably part of the damage stems from the way Symbian was effectively end-of-lifed on February 11th, and the rest from the competitive landscape. I have no quarrel with those who say the Symbian announcement reminds them of the Osborne effect and that it was ill-considered. It is a compelling argument to make and certainly one worthy of consideration. I am confident that corporate communications experts and organizations will continue discussing that for years to come. As they should. But what about that competitive landscape? Over the course of the February 11th weekend and at the Nokia general meeting in May 2011 Stephen Elop and later Nokia Chairman Jorma Ollila made a series of interesting comments on the state of Symbian.
Two of the comments around February 11th that stuck with me, were from Stephen Elop explaining how he had discussed the time needed to modernize Symbian vs. the time needed to adapt Windows Phone with his teams, and they had come to the conclusion – apparently even a head of the Symbian program – that going Windows Phone would be faster than fixing Symbian. Speed being the essence, this apparently was an important consideration for Nokia. In the second notable comment, and Elop reiterated this in a couple of presentations and interviews in different ways, he explained that they had found it hard to adapt Symbian to some future technologies. He did not elaborate what these technologies were, but it is not very hard to guess as the industry is on the verge of moving wholeheartedly to multi-core processors and fourth generation communications technologies.
I don’t have the exact quotes from the Nokia general meeting, but I was present in the audience and according to my notes Jorma Ollilla used a part of his speech to discuss how the previous Qt strategy change at Nokia had been well-timed in his opinion, but had failed due to two reasons: failures in management and the poor state of Symbian’s codebase. I remember thinking that it must be significant when Symbian’s code, something so technical, is actually brought up – by the Chairman to shareholders no less – in conjunction with leadership woes as one of the two major reasons of strategic failure at Nokia. Later, in the CEOs speech, Stephen Elop again reiterated this point and explained that Symbian had become, quote, “fragile” and that changes were costing too much and taking too long. Clearly, reading between the lines, Nokia management was telling a compelling story here.
What went wrong with Symbian? We know about its eccentric British roots in form of EPOC, a quaint legacy that bugged Symbian C++ developers for better part of the platforms heyday. While frugal, it was hard to develop and to develop for Symbian, which meant things took more time and the code wasn’t as easily compatible elsewhere. Qt was going to solve this issue for application development, but who knows how the plumbing beneath still looks like and what it was like to develop it further. Some have argued that as a hardware and telecommunications organization first, Nokia’s software credentials were lacking. Indeed, before the cuts Nokia was employing far more people to implement Symbian than, say, Apple or Microsoft had working on their mobile operating systems (perhaps even more than their desktop operating systems) with arguably much less results to show. Even before Stephen Elop’s watch, the wait for Nokia N8′s Symbian^3 to release and mature was long and unsatisfying, not to mention the Nokia N97 debacle.
Clearly, not all was well in the land of Symbian. But I would like to especially revisit those Stephen Elop’s comments from around February 11th above. Nokia specifically seemed concerned about two things: the speed at which Symbian could be developed reliably as well as difficulties adopting future hardware features. Compared to contemporary mobile technology, which approaches desktop and gaming console levels of performance and complexity, Symbian (and EPOC before it) was originally designed with a very different kind of mobile device in mind – one that had very limited resources and none of this multi-core hoopla. Symbian is comparably frugal, but also quite alien compared to other smartphone operating systems that have adopted internals more akin to those in desktops and servers. Different internals also mean, that less reference drivers and software from chip manufacturers is readily available for Symbian (unlike, say, for Windows or Linux-based systems), and more needs to be done internally.
And I think, at the end of the day, this probably was the reason to ditch Symbian. If recent leaks are to be believed, Nokia is having trouble with their sole dual-core Symbian design and are considering abandoning it completely. These are rumors, of course, but to find more confirmation for this line of thinking, one doesn’t have to look any further than towards the current crop of Nokia Belle devices on the market (e.g. 701). Released last fall at a time when the competition was boasting dual-core processors, modern resolutions and specifications, Symbian’s finest were released with a single-core processor, and an aging ARM11 one at that, upped to a gigahertz and otherwise specs not that much different from the Symbian^3 brethren of yesteryear. These devices were likely in the pipeline before Stephen Elop started, or had a chance to impact their development, so any conspiracy theories probably must go out the window. I doubt this was just inventory or bill of materials control either. Symbian has been technically lagging for a long time. Much has been explained by its frugality, cost savings and not needing more, but combined with the quotes above I doubt that has been the only reason. Much of the reason why we often critique Nokia and Symbian for delays and disappointments seem to result from the fact that Symbian is “fragile”.
Would the axed Symbian^4 have made a difference? While boasting a compatibility-breaking user-interface that might have been an improvement, it would have been another departure from Qt development for Nokia (it was not written in Qt) and I doubt it would have made a difference for the fundamentals. And I think it was the fundamentals, the plumbing, the codebase and the development that was so different from the other major players, that made Symbian an impractical proposition going forward. Nokia could have tried to modernize it, but it was losing the pace, the battle – and felt that it would lose the war if nothing dramatic was done. And this was not happening only in the long-run, but was already evidenced in the past 12-24 months of smartphone advances that Symbian had missed.
With the emergence of dual-core and quad-core processors as well as a host of new faster, fourth generation communications technologies (not to mention user experience improvements and whatever ecosystems and services the future would require), Nokia would have had to adapt Symbian to techno-realities and architectures quite distant from its origins. Symbian Donna and dual-core may still emerge of course, and Nokia probably has some really nice Symbians still up its sleeve in the camera domain, but the writing was on the wall for the software. Symbian will be sufficient for the short-term, but the long-term would have been too big of a hill to climb. Software architectures on mobile devices will keep on getting more and more complex and a more modern approach is necessary. Even RIM/BlackBerry realized this and is moving from their original to a completely different operating system for their multi-core mobile phones.
The implications of this Symbian realization must have been quite significant, because the whole Qt strategy relied on Symbian being the base upon which to build. It was to be the dominant force, which would help MeeGo enter and eventually expand. It was to be the Qt mass-market that would support the MeeGo niche while it grew. With that base crumbling faster than expected, MeeGo would have had to go more of it alone – and to build an ecosystem which nowadays needs to include everything from mobile apps to televisions to books to media content to office to gaming to advertising. Not only wasn’t MeeGo ready to cover all pricepoints, MeeGo was continuously late as well. Again it came down to speed of execution. On February 11th, Stephen Elop put it like this in their media Q&A: “Our belief, and this was an important driver on our decision-making, is that we can move faster in the introduction of new devices across the price-range… through this partnership [with Microsoft] than what we’ve ever done before.”
In hindsight, Nokia probably should have started the move away from Symbian already back in 2007 and done everything to advance Maemo as a sort of Symbian NT – as one commenter so pointedly put it. In the beginning of 2011 it was, or at least Nokia felt it was, too late for that. The rest is history of course. Nokia chose Windows Phone as their new primary smartphone operating system after concluding they could best be competitive by focusing and helping push that ecosystem, and by being a preferred player within that ecosystem – instead of joining the crowd at Android or trying to build an ecosystem alone with MeeGo. Short-term pain for long-term gain, goes the hope. The state of Symbian seems to have been a major factor behind that choice.
Update:
Symbian^3 resurgence myth. How Nokia Q4 2010 results show smartphone sales collapse well in progress
http://www.staska.net/2011/07/
Why did Nokia Symbian smartphone sales crash this year? Infographic
http://www.unwiredview.com/
Category: Maemo, MeeGo, Nokia, Symbian, Windows Phone
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@incognito good thing you are finding time to share what you know with all of us here.. it really adds a great deal to the blog and it’s content.
I agree. incognito has added valuable input in the comments, even if I disagree with come of his conclusions.
Hurrah, thats what I was searching for, what a material! present here at this web site, thanks admin of this website.
“Maybe Elop wasn’t a Microsoft plant, but there’s no way the CEO of Nokia would have gone running to the Microsoft platform almost from day one if he hadn’t worked at Microsoft previously.”
word.
I don’t think that is true. Given the situation Nokia was in when a new CEO came in – whomever that may be – if the CEO decides to check the external options as well as the internal one, what options would he have had? Android clearly, but Windows Phone was another obvious candidate at least to be researched. Was webOS open then, I don’t recall? What else is there? Nothing?
I think there is hardly anything suspicious about Nokia checking out the internal MeeGo and then Android and Windows Phone. To me that sounds like a very natural trio to assess in a new CEOs shoes.
Of course that does not mean there couldn’t be trojan play going on, but it also does not prove it. Any new CEO might have done the same. It is quite possible Elop and the rest of the Nokia management genuinely considered all three options, like they have said they did.
But now I find myself coasting a bit too far from the original premise of the blog above.
Better reel in a bit. I have no desire to be a defender of Stephen Elop, mostly my point here was to address the Symbian question.
if he isn’t plant why is he so keen on destroying symbian and took out Meego so fast for WP7 without actually making new handset for all 3 platforms and see where they took off
That is an odd remark to make. You think Nokia should have democratically given an equal chance on the market to all three platforms and then chosen the one showing most sales?
While I can see that is a nice idea, I doubt the realism. It would have lacked clear focus and caused resources to be spent on multiple directions.
Not to mention the fact that initial response in a market is no indication of what future success might be, an early success for one platform might not mean long-term success, while a floundering start for another might turn into a long-term hit.
Very few business plans are formulated as tests on the marketplace. The selections are made beforehand, based on plans, projections, or perhaps as was the case of Steve Jobs if you believe the biography, gut feeling (you don’t see Apple trying three different platforms at once for the same thing).
No, I don’t think that is any proof Stephen Elop is a plant. As for “destroying Symbian”, I think I made my case in the blog entry above. It needed to go, I argue. As for MeeGo, that was their assessment where Nokia had the best chance of success. It may be right or wrong, but it was approved by the board and much of the executive team, not just Elop.
one thing i have to say is you have alot of energy to reply ALOT of things. =D a good thing =)
@yasu
“I always raid agaisnt Nokia, they had the technology, the manpower, but the less said about management, the better. And Elop managed to limbo under the low bar set by his precedecessors.”
That’s the point I was trying to make: Perhaps Nokia did NOT have “the technology” in Symbian. Maybe they once did, maybe they never did. It was originally built for Psion EPOC and very frugal devices that came up with some quite eccentric ways to achieve that frugality, e.g. coding wise. Symbian is not at heart a modern, desktop/server-grade operating system unlike operating systems like Maemo, iOS, BB 10, Windows Phone (especially Apollo) or to an extent Android that bring desktop-like plumbings to mobile. Symbian was for these class of devices that was completely different. And now we have mobile devices that need these desktop-grade underpinnings – and Nokia had a hard time delivering with Symbian. The answer would have been transition away from Symbian years ago.
So yes, in Maemo Nokia definitely did have “the technology” needed, but they squandered their precious time with thousands upon thousands of people slaving away on Symbian and coming out with stuff like the N97 and Symbian^3 PR1.0. In Symbian, Nokia did not have “the technology” needed since 2007, I argue. Symbian is, at heart, a late-1990s pocket computer. Worse still, the layers of updates it had received had made the codebase “fragile”.
All this before Stephen Elop. He was called in to clean up the mess – and he did. We can disagree on the way he did it, and why he did it, but I don’t think there is much arguing a mess was there. And that mess was Symbian.
“I always raid agaisnt Nokia, they had the technology, the manpower, but the less said about management, the better. And Elop managed to limbo under the low bar set by his precedecessors.”
“That’s the point I was trying to make: Perhaps Nokia did NOT have “the technology” in Symbian.”
They had the technology in house. Qt, Maemo in addition to Symbian. That they didn’t work in Synergy is a management failure from where I stand.
“(…)All this before Stephen Elop.”
Didn’t I say that I didn’t repeatedly that I didn’t have the previous management in high regard?
“He was called in to clean up the mess – and he did.”
And created a mess of his own. Ah, no, sorry, I forgot. Nokia is no longer standing on the “Burning Platform”, every thing is good and fine now, as said the great man.
“We can disagree on the way he did it, and why he did it, but I don’t think there is much arguing a mess was there. And that mess was Symbian.”
I still think that Nokia management was/is more problematic than Symbian, that, despite all its shortcomings, real or imagined, was earning its keep and was able to hold the fort until a *proper* Qt transition.
Look at DOS/Windows 3.x/Window 9x/WinNT transition, or MacOS 9.x/MacOSX transition and compare it to the WinMob 6.x/WinPho or Symbian/WinPho transitions. Striking difference.
Agreed, I think the previous management did fail in capitalizing Qt and synergies – even to the extent that it allowed the Symbian^4 developers dismiss Qt as the development platform. Of course the previous management is also responsible for allowing the so called “Symbian religion” take so much resources and mindshare within the company that stifled Maemo for so long, when the true hope of the company lied in Maemo.
Back in 2007-2009 Nokia should have placed the bet on Maemo, and nothing but Maemo with Symbian being transitioned away. We are in agreement on that. But in 2011 their options were more limited and going Windows Phone is not as preposterous as it would have been earlier. It is a valid option, in my opinion, but of course there were other valid options as well – at least valid arguments.
“And created a mess of his own. Ah, no, sorry, I forgot. Nokia is no longer standing on the “Burning Platform”, every thing is good and fine now, as said the great man.”
Yes, Stephen Elop has probably created at least some messes of his own. Where most disagree, though, is whether or not those messes include the fundamental one. Missteps in the Symbian transition and treatment of N9 (understandable pet peeves of many) may cause damage, but the real mess is if the Windows Phone strategy doesn’t work or they fail to execute.
One thing does not necessarily follow from the other. One mess does not yet a failure make. The big question, the big open question, is will the Windows Phone strategy work (in conjunction with the Next Billion strategy). That is the long-term question. Obviously Nokia management judged that is where their best chances lie. Many people disagree with that assessment, and that is fine. There are valid reasons for either way.
But nobody, not anybody, can yet say if they did fundamentaly fail or not, because this moment in the transition was always going to be starting from the bottom. That is the nature of that beast. Even quoting low Windows Phone sales elsewhere isn’t proof, because we all knew Nokia would be the one making or breaking the Windows Phone ecosystem, not the half-hearted attempts from LG, HTC or Samsung.
Worry not, time will tell – soon enough – whether or not Stephen Elop and the Nokia management judged right or wrong. And luckily we have RIM/BlackBerry going with their internal option, so we can at least get a glimpse if there is room for one more major “ecosystem” in the world, or not like Nokia judged.
“(…)But nobody, not anybody, can yet say if they did fundamentaly fail or not, because this moment in the transition was always going to be starting from the bottom. That is the nature of that beast.”
There was no need to torpedo the current product without a replacement *up and running*.
Have you seen Apple pooh pooh MacOS 9.x? No, it was Insanely Great!™. It was sold along side MacOSX which was even greater and had a measure of compatibility to boot, and was even an Apple product.
Maybe they should have just gone the Nokia way and spinelessly surrender and peddle Windows boxes. *Barf*.
Churchill said. Between war and dishonor, you’ve chosen dishonor. You’ll have war.
I think that it completely applies to Elop’s Nokia.
Do you consider WP a drop in replacement for Symbian?
“Even quoting low Windows Phone sales elsewhere isn’t proof, because we all knew Nokia would be the one making or breaking the Windows Phone ecosystem, not the half-hearted attempts from LG, HTC or Samsung.”
That’s exactly one of the point I object to: Nokia is a tool to prop up MS’ struggling OS.
“Worry not, time will tell – soon enough – whether or not Stephen Elop and the Nokia management judged right or wrong.”
Sure. I still think that long term, getting dependent on a third party, and MS of all choices – if I go by history – is a mistake.
If you’re not strong enough to be a platform owner, by all means, become an OEM and don’t chose sides.
“And luckily we have RIM/BlackBerry going with their internal option, so we can at least get a glimpse if there is room for one more major “ecosystem” in the world, or not like Nokia judged.”
I would say like *Elop* judged. He is the one extolling MS’ ecosystem virtues. I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes.
RIM has *nowhere* near the same scale in terms of resources, user base and available tech as Nokia has.
Funny you should quote Churchill, because Stephen Elop actually quoted the same man at the start of his February 11th press conference:
The quote: “A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
“There was no need to torpedo the current product without a replacement *up and running*.”
Agreed. Many times.
“Have you seen Apple pooh pooh MacOS 9.x? No, it was Insanely Great!™. It was sold along side MacOSX which was even greater and had a measure of compatibility to boot, and was even an Apple product.”
I have watched that space closely, so yes I have. And the Mac OS X was certainly a better executed transition than the planned Copland one would have been. Apple also did twice a commendable job of transitioning between processor families.
“Do you consider WP a drop in replacement for Symbian?”
No. I consider it a very risky compromise, prompted by the inability of Nokia to transition in 2007-2010 to a consumer-friendly version of Maemo.
“That’s exactly one of the point I object to: Nokia is a tool to prop up MS’ struggling OS.”
I know you see it that way. But the other version is, Nokia is enlargening the Windows Phone ecosystem pie for Nokia’s benefit. That Microsoft benefits as well is just a byproduct.
“Sure. I still think that long term, getting dependent on a third party, and MS of all choices – if I go by history – is a mistake.”
That may be for some of their partnerships, but I’d say many PC manufacturers did well for a great number of years being dependent on Microsoft’s software.
Microsoft also saved Apple once. What if hooking up with Microsoft for a couple of years let’s Nokia’s Future Disruptions cook up something cool in the labs and five, ten years down the road Nokia owns the next big thing.
Or at the very least, let’s Nokia become the number 1 player in the mobile part of Windows 8+ ecosystem.
“If you’re not strong enough to be a platform owner, by all means, become an OEM and don’t chose sides.”
That sounds awfully black and white. With Windows Phone Nokia hopes to become, if not the platform owner, the major mobile player within that platform with special status at Microsoft too. There is arguably merit in that as well.
People often forget, that Symbian was not originally just for Nokia either, or just Nokia’s. They were the major player and developed it, but not alone. Nokia claims they have a special role in defining the mobile future of Windows, maybe that role will turn out to be a significant one. Maybe not.
“I would say like *Elop* judged. He is the one extolling MS’ ecosystem virtues. I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes.”
Well, it is Elop’s job to judge. But apparently most of the management team and the board agreed. And again, the story goes that Kai Öistämö was the one who blew the whistle on the old strategy not working.
“RIM has *nowhere* near the same scale in terms of resources, user base and available tech as Nokia has.”
True, but rest of the analogies are striking. Especially if you consider Symbian was failing to move on to the next-generation and thus was not quite the Qt massmarket Nokia had hoped for. MeeGo was just as fledgling as BB 10 will be.
Correction:
“I have watched that space closely, so yes I have.”
I meant I have seen what Apple did there, not that I saw Apple badmouthing their Classic OS.
They did, when transitioning to Intel, make some explanation and note of the PowerPC problems though.
And Apple did announce the Intel transition a year before any Intel products were available – and already then did some badmouthing of PowerPC.
But overall they did it very well and the Symbian transition should have benefited from similar communication, on that I agree.
@Janne
“Funny you should quote Churchill, because Stephen Elop actually quoted the same man at the start of his February 11th press conference:
The quote: “A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.””
Churchill quoted by a man that surrendered the company he is supposed to run without a fight. I like the irony.
(…)
““That’s exactly one of the point I object to: Nokia is a tool to prop up MS’ struggling OS.”
I know you see it that way. But the other version is, Nokia is enlargening the Windows Phone ecosystem pie for Nokia’s benefit. That Microsoft benefits as well is just a byproduct.”
Way too many signs for the cynic in me to have that vision. I posted some of them already repeatedly.
““Sure. I still think that long term, getting dependent on a third party, and MS of all choices – if I go by history – is a mistake.”
That may be for some of their partnerships, but I’d say many PC manufacturers did well for a great number of years being dependent on Microsoft’s software.”
And what happened? They live happily ever after in MS’ lovely embrace? And what about their previous mobile partners?
“Microsoft also saved Apple once. What if hooking up with Microsoft for a couple of years let’s Nokia’s Future Disruptions cook up something cool in the labs and five, ten years down the road Nokia owns the next big thing.”
Microsoft lended them money, Apple continued to do its thing. Apple now dwarfes MS. I loath their practice, but at least they are led with people with backbones that only have Apple benefits in mind. A bit like Samsung. Not spouting MS’ propaganda.
With an Elop at Apple at that time, they would probably be peddling Windows boxes with razor thin margins.
“Or at the very least, let’s Nokia become the number 1 player in the mobile part of Windows 8+ ecosystem.”
Or run into Samsung if Windows 8+ becomes interesting enough. Makes no difference for MS.
““If you’re not strong enough to be a platform owner, by all means, become an OEM and don’t chose sides.”
That sounds awfully black and white.”
And Windows Phone or bust is cornucopia of nuances?
“With Windows Phone Nokia hopes to become, if not the platform owner, the major mobile player within that platform with special status at Microsoft too. There is arguably merit in that as well.”
Elop != Nokia. Two different entities. What special status? Do you have some inside info?
“People often forget, that Symbian was not originally just for Nokia either, or just Nokia’s. They were the major player and developed it, but not alone. Nokia claims they have a special role in defining the mobile future of Windows, maybe that role will turn out to be a significant one. Maybe not.”
Do you expect to buy MS’ Windows Phone shares and take control? Elop didn’t say that Nokia is paying licensee fee like any other OEM?
“Well, it is Elop’s job to judge. But apparently most of the management team and the board agreed. And again, the story goes that Kai Öistämö was the one who blew the whistle on the old strategy not working.”
Do we know for sure *why* they agreed to do such a bad risk management move? Why Nokia is the one bearing all the risks? Why all the unnecessary destruction?
Try and forget the parties involved and look at the situation. Does that look like sound management for you?
You don’t need to answer me. It’s just food for thought.
@yasu
My comment on Churchill went to the main thread below. Here are the rest of my comments, in brief as we have gone on a bit.
“Way too many signs for the cynic in me to have that vision. I posted some of them already repeatedly.”
That is OK. I disagree on the likelyhood of that, but certainly what you suggest is not impossible.
“And what happened? They live happily ever after in MS’ lovely embrace? And what about their previous mobile partners?”
Previous mobile partners did not fare well, I agree. The PC partners, well, other than IBM’s initial woes with cloning I think most did well for a great number of years. The one’s which could transform to something more when the commidization began have fared well. I don’t think Windows Phones are yet commodities that could not offer Nokia more. Android probably would have been.
“Microsoft lended them money, Apple continued to do its thing.”
That is mostly true, but they did adopt the Internet Explorer as default browser which was significant at the time – yet now Safari is a significant force at least in the mobile domain. The deal also guaranteed Microsoft Office for Mac, but Apple also went on and did their own office applications eventually.
Nokia will still continue doing it’s things outside Windows Phone smartphones in The Next Billion and Future Disruptions “pillars”.
“With an Elop at Apple at that time, they would probably be peddling Windows boxes with razor thin margins.”
That is your assessment. I don’t think that is the nature of Nokia’s Windows Phone play. If they had gone Android, then perhaps that would be the case.
“Or run into Samsung if Windows 8+ becomes interesting enough. Makes no difference for MS.”
It might make a difference for Microsoft depending on their deal with Nokia and whatever ecosystem components Nokia brings e.g. in location. And besides, Samsung played in the Symbian fields as well. Nokia could well handle Samsung if the get a dominant position within the Windows ecosystem first.
“And Windows Phone or bust is cornucopia of nuances?”
You are missing The Next Billion and Future Disruptions pillars. But my point was, the Windows Phone choice does not necessarily lead into Nokia being another WP OEM. It might, but not necessarily. And thus there is merit in not being just another OEM shipping whatever operating systems are on the market.
“Elop != Nokia. Two different entities. What special status? Do you have some inside info?”
I think Elop has Nokia’s interest at heart. Who wants a legacy as the trojan who destroyed Nokia, he may be wrong but I find it unlikely he is wrong on a purpose. As for the special status, no I don’t have any inside information, but Nokia has discussed the special nature of their contract on many occasions. Again, you choose to believe the worst about that, so I doubt my opinion on it has any bearing.
“Do you expect to buy MS’ Windows Phone shares and take control? Elop didn’t say that Nokia is paying licensee fee like any other OEM?”
Sure, Nokia is paying license fees, but the deal is more complex then that. YouTube the February 13th media briefing from Mobile World Congress 2011 for example.
“Do we know for sure *why* they agreed to do such a bad risk management move? Why Nokia is the one bearing all the risks? Why all the unnecessary destruction?”
No, we don’t know for sure. And I don’t think Nokia is bearing all the risk, Microsoft needs to succeed on mobile badly as well and, if we believe the public information, are placing monetary and strategic bets on Nokia. As well as the bet of falling even further if Nokia turns out to be a bad significant other. As for the unnecessary destruction, if you mean the Symbian transition, then I agree that was miscommunicated. I just don’t think it was necessarily out of malice or intent, but rather mistake or hurry – nor do I think it is the sole reason for Symbian doing worse. Symbian is bad, hence it is doing worse.
“Try and forget the parties involved and look at the situation. Does that look like sound management for you?”
The way Symbian transition was communicated? Hell, no. A play out of Osborne’s book for sure. The move to Windows Phone? Potentially a great move, possibly a disaster, perhaps necessary.
“It’s just food for thought.”
Thank you for it. I do read and think about the comments, even when they disagree – especially when they disagree.
For those wanting to hear Stephen Elop how the special contract with Microsoft would work, here is the Mobile World Congress 2011 February 13th media briefing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1QSixAE4F8
This was two days after February 11th and I think a better presentation than the original February 11th one.
Obviously Nokia has discussed these elements later over the year in further detail, but this video gives in my opinion the best overview.
Believe it or not.
Putting Symbian on the side, even if the move to WP was judged by the Nokia BoD/Elop/whoever as being the most viable – to which I wholeheartedly disagree, but that’s just my opinion and we’ll see who’s right soon enough – that certainly doesn’t mean they should destroy everything they’ve worked on for years. That especially goes for the Maemo/MeeGo lineage given how well was it received even by the most harsh of Nokia critics and despite many of its shortcomings at the moment. Really, when was the last time when the Engadget/The Verge crew practically wept for a sad fate of a Nokia device – in any other case they’d add ‘good riddance’ as the closing statement. That says a lot.
There really isn’t a sound argument why Nokia should abandon a clear winner and a great potential, especially since it really doesn’t cost Nokia all that much – since it’s a proper GNU/Linux distro they already have most of the drivers ready-made for practically any piece of hardware they chose to use, and a huge part of the underlying structure is already done by the FOSS community. Assuming that they’re not lying, they’ll be working on the Swipe UI anyway, as well as Qt, so what goes on top of that GNU/Linux stack will cost them either way and they practically have no additional expenses with Maemo/MeeGo – the cost of adaptation would not even fit the footnote of their annual expenses, while it has a huge potential to bring in a considerable amount of profit. However you look at it, abandoning such possibility with so little financial risk is a shear act of lunacy.
If they are afraid that they’ll split their user base – they are sorely mistaken. WP and Maemo/MeeGo target a completely different audiences and it certainly wouldn’t endanger their WP strategy. I’d argue that going with it they’d at least keep a portion of their disgruntled long-time users who just don’t want to play in the ‘walled garden’ that Microsoft is erecting. Left with no choice, practically every Symbian user I know plans to switch to Android given the philosophical and structural similarities – Maemo/MeeGo would suit them better but since there’s no future in that lineage… With the bold ‘WP or nothing’ statements coming from Nokia they’re creating the ‘New Coke’ paradox that continues to hurt Nokia.
Sure, Microsoft probably wouldn’t like that, but at least last February Microsoft needed Nokia far more than Nokia needed them. They had the weight to throw in the equation to strike more favorable deal for themselves. Allowing Microsoft to dictate Nokia what they’ll do within their own business specialty, especially given the long track record of Microsoft’s utter failures to understand the mobile market, is everything but a good business decision no matter of how Symbian was ill, or Maemo/MeeGo was late in the game.
And just a note about RIM – you really cannot fairly compare the two situations. RIM is a pebble in the grand scheme of things and they don’t have half the weight of Nokia to throw around in order to force their ‘ecosystem’ in the game – need I remind you that Nokia was bigger than its two next competitors, Samsung and Apple, combined at the time of the strategy shift announcement? RIM has nothing even close to that power to force their way. Knowing that, should they be successful for which there is little optimism, the new CEO of RIM should be declared as Time’s Person of the Year, while the upper management of Nokia should be sent to prison for clearly acting against Nokia’s (and their shareholders) best interests.
I agree, it would make sense for Nokia to release – call it a hobby – a single high-end Linux-based smartphone every 12-14 months. Especially once the Lumia is entrenched enough and Meltemi is out. Lord knows I’d buy one.
Or three.
Well that is one of the main issues.. Why go against everything they’ve worked on for years so aggressively ? No matter how we spin this, it still doesn’t make much sense…
Part of the reason why I think Elop is not being real with us..
I think it makes sense, even if one disagrees whether or not it is the best strategy.
Clearly Nokia management chose to put their full focus behind the ecosystem they are now targeting, in the hopes that will give them the momentum needed as they transition away from Symbian. They probably consider MeeGo a distraction from that beyond N9.
It probably also allowed for a better deal from Microsoft, which is footing quite a bit of the transition and marketing bill for Nokia.
But we can hope for a Maemo 7, of course.
“Look at DOS/Windows 3.x/Window 9x/WinNT transition, or MacOS 9.x/MacOSX transition and compare it to the WinMob 6.x/WinPho or Symbian/WinPho transitions. Striking difference.”
True, a solid transition path is usually better than an abrupt change of direction. However, there are also many more transitional stories forgotten because the products disappeared due to lack of sufficient progress. Transitioned into oblivion. If you can successfully transition with good continuity, by all means do. But even worse is transitioning so slow and so long, that you run out of time and inertia. Sometimes dramatic change may be warranted. In the case of Nokia, one argument is Nokia themselves failed in 2007-2010 to create the peaceful transition and arguably by 2011 it was too late. One can disagree with that of course, but it is one argument. Others make other arguments, obviously this is a judgement-call type of question with no clear right answer.
Apple discarded a lot of their previous mobile attempts when they introduced iOS (originally iPhone OS). It did not run iPod games apps or Newton stuff or anything from the Mac either. It was a paradigm-shift for the company with obvious results.
@dr_zorg
Commenting on some things from previous comment page.
Jay Montano: “Attacking self. Your left arm is necrotic. Amputate it to save the rest of the person or nah, just don’t attack and leave the whole thing being to die.”
dr_zorg: “Saying an arm is “necrotic” requires further analysis of said limb. As a medical student you should know that. We are told the arm is necrotic without being given proof of this.”
The problem is, the patient in this case is Nokia – not you.
Your example is like saying, your neighbour has a necrotic arm, goes to a doctor, but before he can get it amputated and save his life, he has to come home and offer evidence to you – his neighbour – before proceeding.
You don’t believe in them, but in this case the Nokia management and board are the ones with access to all possible evidence and analysis, and have the job to decide what to do based on that. We are just bystanders in that sense.
dr_zorg: “Even more shockingly, the arm is still functional and able to move! ( – re Symbian sales are still eclipsing anything from the WP camp, also Belle, Carla, Donna etc.) So how can you truly believe in terminal stage necrosis when empirical evidence suggests otherwise?”
I am no medical professional or student, but isn’t a necrotic arm still able to function as well? But it will kill the person, if nothing is done. You can disagree with the judgement of the “doctor” in the case of Nokia, but it is still possible they were right and you are wrong. Or vice-versa, of course. (Apologies if I misunderstand the medical side or the English language, but I believe my point is apparent nevertheless.)
We have discussed the rest of the points ad infinitum, but let me try again:
Although Symbian has crashed faster than planned, it was always to be that during transition Symbian will first sell more and slowly the ratio will change in favor of Windows Phone. You can not judge by current numbers whether or not this will happen, so you can not really use it as an argument. Sure, the new plan may still fail, but it was always going to start slow.
As for Nokia Belle (Carla and Donna are unknown quantities)… I’m at a loss. Really. Honestly. It is better, but not all that great. I am definitely going to pick up the next monster camera from Nokia despite of Symbian, but with a bunch of modern, fluid competing platforms (like the N9 and even N900) here to compare to, I can not for the life of me say Nokia Belle is on par with them. The browser is from hell, the experience is still far from fluid and the number of features is pretty much the only unique selling point, there is no speciality like in the swipe N9 or tile/hub WP. It is like Android, but much worse.
When Symbian^3 first arrived, I forgave a lot because it did have some cool features like USB-On-the-Go and the N8 has a fabulous camera that I still use as my main point-and-shoot. But all this time down the road, with all the promised updates still delivering a sub-par experience compared to the competition, for me it only servers as further proof how low Symbian has fared. I mean, come on. It is 2012. Look at the Nokia Belle browser, look at the frequent delays in the user-interface, look at the specs and what those specs can do in apps compared to the competition. Look at the slow pace of updates.
Symbian had, due to it’s market size, inertia that kept it going – not competetive products. I’m sure Nokia saw that inertia waning, saw the shape of the codebase and made the conclusions.
Yes, perhaps going MeeGo would have been a valid alternative too. But I believe Symbian had to go.
sounds like Nokia PR…
You disagree? If so, which part of it do you disagree, please be more specific? Look, I have a dozen of modern smartphones and tablets here, including a bunch of new Nokias.
I think I have made valid comparisons. I also have background and software development knowledge regarding Symbian, so I’m not just inventing some opinions out of thin air.
So please, explain and let’s discuss.
ps. I want to see that Nokia Belle you guys are using, why do I have some different version that is completely different than your Android-beating Belles.
Do you really think that all people want a smartphone? There are plenty that just need a phone to call other people. Symbian works much better compared to expensive smartphones if you just need to use a phone as a normal phone.
I would argue that Nokia Series 40 is better suited to the basic phone tasks than Symbian. It is simpler, faster and more reliable for that. Nokia has done a fine job with Series 40 (which is not Symbian).
Funny coincidence: As I write this, a person near me actually just bursted into loud curses when his Nokia E7 running the latest Symbian Belle crashed in the middle of a conference call and had to be rebooted.
Whats the price for a Symbian phone compared to a smartphone running WP if you only need the phone as a phone?
Do you think WP work all the time?
WP has very little support for different hardware, now it is only one CPU it runs at.
Some here are using Symbians strong points (good support for different hardware) as a problem and are saying that other system that us much less support for different hardware because it is less.
Where is the logic?
No, I think when you need a phone and not a smartphone Nokia already has a good product for that: Series 40, the Asha phones for example. They are NOT Symbian devices. Series 40 is a solid platform for basic and feature phones. Unlike Symbian, Series 40 is not a mess. They also have interesting things cooking there, like Smarterphone ja Meltemi. These are cheaper than Symbian phones too.
None of these have anything to do with Symbian. Or Windows Phone for that matter.
Having said that, Nokia and Microsoft have stated Windows Phone will go down in the price-range as well, that is one area where Nokia will bring expertise into the alliance. If you believe Stephen Elop, he has said Nokia believes they will be able to cover the range of prices with Windows Phone faster than they would have with MeeGo – or by trying to keep Symbian competetive there (which would require fixing it).
Eventually Nokia believes they will have low-end covered with Series 40/Meltemi/Smarterphone and in the middle of the pricerange the lowend meets Windows Phone, which will cover the rest of the range up to the high-end.
If you don’t believe Stephen Elop, well, then just watch and see what happens – either you were right to doubt him, or you are not. Pretty simple.
Time will tell.
Just to be clear, when I say…
“Eventually Nokia believes they will have low-end covered with Series 40/Meltemi/Smarterphone and in the middle of the pricerange the lowend meets Windows Phone, which will cover the rest of the range up to the high-end.”
…I don’t mean *middle* of the pricerange literally. I expect Windows Phone to cover perhaps $200-$800 and the $10-$200 range will be covered with Nokia’s Series 40 and its followers. These are just rough numbers and guesses based on all the interviews and presentations and rumors out there, but I guess you get the picture.
Of course, all numbers above excluding operator subsidies and taxes and the like.
And under the Series 40 label I included Series 30 as well, for sake of brevity.
Stephen Elop has a very big mouth
WP phones will not be cheaper compared to linux based phones. Microsoft is nog giving away its system for free.
Open Source systems are often free
I have no idea how that is relevant to what I said about Series 40 or Windows Phone?
But yes, Nokia’s Series 40/Smarterphone efforts and the remaining Linux effort in Meltemi are expected to be at the cheaper end of the pricerange below Windows Phones.
It is not like Symbian was exactly free for Nokia, employing far more people to develop it than competitors like Apple and Microsoft have for their operating systems…
How do you know what the cost is for Nokia to support Symbian development? Is it Elop or do you have any credible source?
If cost is important Nokia should have selected MeeGo Harmattan for smartphones.
The cost of Symbian R&D has been documented by many sources, including Nokia’s on financial statements. Comparisons to other major mobile operating system developers are a plenty. Symbian took A LOT of man-power to develop compared to the competition, yet the results were what they were.
The MeeGo question is of course a completely separate one and arguably would have been a good choice too.
where?
Sorry, no link handy.
If you take my word for it, it is true and widely acknowledged.
If not, if I were you I’d start the googling from Nokia’s investor sites and mobile blogs.
http://www.mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1323
Janne / Per, Having a 20+ years experience in Software development including Language transformations, the costs of upgrading an existing platform is always high is you leave the costs estimation to the technical staff.
Migrating the existing (S60) Symbian to a new multi-tear hardware platform should have been reasonale considering the available knowledge inside the Nokia organization 6 month ago. On the condition that the people involved would be open and reasonable.
I get the notion that the nokia management (Incl. BOD) does not have feel comfortable with either of the technology directions choosen. So trust among the players is a likely issue for having caused the problems for Nokia Corp.
http://allthingsd.com/20110203/not-seeing-much-return-on-that-massive-rd-spend-are-you-nokia/
Arts, If you call customization R&D you maybe right. The qualification of R&D is misplaced!!
Have no idea if Nokia had automated language translations tools in place for the Symbian platforms. Other Tech companies I am and was very close had those to control the R&D processes and related costs.
I don’t really want to go all off-topic, but since you insist on pursuing the analogy..
A necrotic arm (and we are talking terminal stage necrosis here, where amputation is an absolute necessity) is not able to function properly, as the nervous tissue gets affected just as the muscles and subcutis. Raising/lowering and general movement is extremely painful in majority of patients that I’ve come across (and we are talking single digits here, usually we are able to treat it before it reaches this stage).
The treatment consists of iv antibiotics and surgical cleaning of the infected area (that means mechanical removal of affected tissues and flushing), with subsequent antisepic topical treatment of the wound(s) and antibiotics iv and orally.
In NO case do I decide on an amputation unless I’ve seen positive blood test results and personally examined for symptoms. It is the absolute last resort when the patient’s life is at stake (i.e. the infection starts spreading into shoulder area).
Now for Nokia.
The proofs I require would be the blood tests and physical examination (i.e. financial reports showing an irreparable loss of sales and financial losse – WHICH DID NOT HAPPEN UNTIL ELOP TOOK THE REINS). What we have here are just the patient’s mother/wife/brother insisting on an amputation because they’ve read something in a medical journal (bloggers screaming that Symbian is crap and Nokia is dying).
Do you understand what I’m driving at? Jay’s analogy is not only hasty, it is completely erroneous. Nokia was never “necrotic” until Elop took the helm. The “arm” was healthy, if there was any infection it was in beginning stages and could be non-invasively treated. NOW however, one year after Feb 11, we are seeing a progression and REAL necrosis of the operated area.
So in effect, the patient lost a perfectly healthy arm, the wound has been horribly treated (no wonder, after all we are talking about an inept doctor here who made a wrong diagnosis in the first place) and now is in danger of infection of the shoulder and lower neck, which can easily be lethal.
Such things happen, though happily quire rarely and thankfully not to me. This is reminiscent of 1800′s battlefield surgery.
“A necrotic arm (and we are talking terminal stage necrosis here, where amputation is an absolute necessity) is not able to function properly, as the nervous tissue gets affected just as the muscles and subcutis. Raising/lowering and general movement is extremely painful”
Sounds like Symbian all right.
“The proofs I require would be the blood tests and physical examination (i.e. financial reports showing an irreparable loss of sales and financial losse – WHICH DID NOT HAPPEN UNTIL ELOP TOOK THE REINS). What we have here are just the patient’s mother/wife/brother insisting on an amputation because they’ve read something in a medical journal (bloggers screaming that Symbian is crap and Nokia is dying).”
The problem with analogies is, they rarely fit all the way. In the case of a necrotic arm (and I concede all medical expertise to you gladly) perhaps there are universally agreed tests to make. One should hope so, of course. But with business strategy things get more vague. Some of the analogy still stands though – if something is threatening the entire existence, drastic action may be warranted.
Now, you say what we have here (the opinion of Stephen Elop, most of Nokia management team and the board) is just “patient’s mother/wife/brother” insiting on amputation. You seem to insist that the evidence should be visible for us outsiders for it to be real?
What I say is, in fact we do have the relevant “medical” professionals with access to all the knowledge and evidence inside Nokia (info which we have no access to, nor are entitled to) that have decided amputation is the best chance.
They have done the bloodtests – the projections, the analysis, the data – and decided this is a fatally downward trend that requires drastic action. It would be foolish to assume they have not done the math, I think it is claiming otherwise that requires proof.
Maybe they are incompetent or wrong. That is certainly possible. I’m sure even doctors disagree with diagnosis all the time. It doesn’t automatically mean it was the wrong call to make, though.
Sorry quite busy at the moment, don’t have the proper time for a longer reply right now.
But one key point:
“They have done the bloodtests – the projections, the analysis, the data – and decided this is a fatally downward trend that requires drastic action. It would be foolish to assume they have not done the math, I think it is claiming otherwise that requires proof.”
They have not done the tests. The proof of that is Q4 2010 report. It shows absolutely no signs of “death” for Nokia, but quite the opposite: A steady growth.
To claim otherwise would mean flying in the face of factual evidence.
What factual evidence have you that Nokia was “dying”? None. None were presented by Elop or the BoD either. The financial figures were healthy, the sales figures were on the rise, Nokia’s brand name was still strong and Nokia smartphone department was making good profit.
I will never agree with your premise that Nokia was in a downward spiral as I simply see very opposite things happening prior to Elop. End of story as far as I am concerned. It’s not even a debatable question for me.
So, the proofs of a healthy business are there, in the Q4 report. Where are the proofs of imminent death?
here is a copied pasted answer i find supports janne arguement.
Maybe,last year, Elop just saw the internal numbers, actual end user sales and reception of Symbian 3/N8. And those numbers indeed showed that it was a burning platform?Nokia shipped 5 million Symbian 3 devices last in Q4 2010.Shipped. Not sold to end users. There is no public evidence that users bought those 5 million S^3 devices. Unless you have access to paid Analyst House reports. None of them said publicly that n8 and other S3 end user sales in Q4 were good. Not Gartner, not Strategy Analytics, not Canalys, not IDC. And there’is quite a few indirect signs of inventories piling up already, unhappy users, high return rates, etc;. Especially since N8 was shipping with a buggy pre-Anna version of Symbian then.The big profits in Q4 2010 could have been a one quarter phenomenon, based on unsustainable shipments into the channel and previous Nokia carrier relationships. But with much lower end user sales. And Q1 drop in sales could be more about the market realities catching up, then a huge damage of Burning Platforms. After all, the old Symbian^1 smartphone sales were crashing in Q4 201 already. They sold something like 3 million less S^1 then they did in Q3. Cannibalization can not be a big factor,, given the price difference between S^1 and S^3 phones.Also, market share loss in Q1 2011 was in line with losses in Q3 and Q4 2010. Nokia managed to grow Q4 numbers because market grew smth like 40% QoQ. When QoQ market growth stopped, and the inventories in the channel didn’t move – there was nothing to propel unit volumes too. Hence Q1 drop.You probably know about this better then me, having worked at Nokia and Elisa. Isn’t there something like 4-6 week lead time in operator/wholesaler orders to OEMs? When the contracts for phone deliveries are signed and pretty hard to cancel? If that’s the case – orders for 2/3ds or, this being Chinese New Year quarter, even 3/4ths of the Q must have already been in, before Feb. 11th. And those Nokia customers who decided to cancel – had to go and find the replacements in few weeks, before the end of Q1. Which probably was an almost impossible task back then, given the demand and manufacturing capacities. So the amount of damage Feb. 11th could do in Q1 2011 should have been pretty limited?
@dr_zorg
I must disagree there. If the only test companies faced was a quarterly report, they would be screwed. It is a moment in time, not a strategy.
In fact, that is the problem with many companies – only looking at the next quarterly targets, the next quarterly fiscal reports, instead of thinking about the long-term successes.
“They have not done the tests.”
I doubt you know what tests the Nokia management did prior to February 11th. Neither do I, but I do know they did some considering that February 11th was actually Nokia’s Capital Markets Day targeting shareholders (people often forget the Microsoft press conference was only a small part of the day). Much of the day was spent listening to the Nokia Chief Financial Officer Timo Ihamuotila spelling out the numbers and justification for the Windows Phone strategy, we must assume Nokia did extensive tests because a publicly traded company can not just pull numbers out of their arse. They had teams looking at three different options – internal, Android and Windows Phone – for quite a while. They had all this internal data, fiscal and otherwise, and analysis we have no access to. They knew what all the potential partners and operators were saying to them. What the different technical teams were saying.
“The proof of that is Q4 2010 report. It shows absolutely no signs of “death” for Nokia, but quite the opposite: A steady growth. To claim otherwise would mean flying in the face of factual evidence.”
Yes, but if this is your proof, then you have no proof. There is no way a quarterly fiscal report could ever prove or disprove such a thing as an impending failure of a company, unless that upcoming failure was crystal clear or very near. A quarterly report may (or may not) include so called “guidance” where the company spells out its future estimations of success, but even then this guidance is often only for the next quarter or so. But there are some alarming numbers already in the Q4/2010 report, such as Nokia growing less than the market and loosing marketshare – a trend since a long time. If I recall, Nokia lost to the tune of 10 percentage points of the smartphone market in 2010 – before Stephen Elop did anything significant. That number alone should have been very alarming. I’m sure it was, too. During 2010 Nokia also lost all (!) their western partners in the Symbian Foundation, the Symbian ecosystem outside of Nokia vanished almost overnight because others lost faith in Symbian.
Here is one picture from Wikipedia, not just Nokia of course (Symbian number includes some other manufacturers as well), but you can see where Symbian was headed. Look at the direction prior to Q1/2011 – the trend is pretty much the same, to the naked eye almost like February 11th had no effect, Symbian keeps plummeting at the a similar rate as it had since the start of 2010 when Android started its big leap:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/World-Wide-Smartphone-Market-Share.png/500px-World-Wide-Smartphone-Market-Share.png
Look at that Android trend. Absolutely devastating for Symbian.
But I doubt it all is in the numbers, even for a doctor looking at laboratory results. And certainly, it is not for a company like Nokia. They also have qualitative data concerning the future at their disposal. They know what the operators, the sales channel, the consumer feedback says about their current products and future plans. They have extensive market analysis, competitor analysis, as well as data on the status of their own R&D efforts, their schedules and so forth. Just as an example that comes to mind, Nokia mentioned during the general meeting (May 2011) that the rumoured/leaked AT&T Nokia X7 was canned last spring by AT&T because it failed to pass consumer focus groups at the operator. It was all set to go, work of months behind the scenes and then cancelled at the last minute because Symbian^3 did not satisfy those consumers testing it. Nokia would have, at their disposal, all sorts of information like this that we do not have, when they make their tactical and strategy decisions. And clearly they saw something which worried them greatly. To say that they should ignore the business intelligence they have, and just blindly look at the last quarterly report is insanity.
I fear, that was exactly the insanity driving the old Nokia. As long as the financial numbers looked swell, nobody noticed anything being wrong. Until the critical mass was reached and Symbian’s weakness popularily exposed in the face of more competetive rivals. This was already happening in western markets, more and more. It would have spilled elsewhere eventually if nothing was done. This is why Symbian was the culprit. It wasn’t competetive enough and fixing it took too much time. They just couldn’t get it done in time. They had to bet on something else, such as MeeGo or Android or Windows Phone.
Nokia had earlier chances to fix this, of course. They could have bet heavily on Maemo already back in 2007. Unfortunately they didn’t.
“I will never agree with your premise that Nokia was in a downward spiral as I simply see very opposite things happening prior to Elop. End of story as far as I am concerned. It’s not even a debatable question for me.”
You don’t think Nokia was in any kind of downward spiral prior to September 2010? Have you any idea what you are saying – just a while ago Nokia was enjoying a smartphone dominance of 60+%. Before Stephen Elop came on board, that had diminished due to iPhone, Android and RIM by half. You don’t call that a downward spiral? I call that a leap off the edge. Nokia had stabilized for 2009 from the initial iShock that itself saw them loose over 10 percentage points, but by the start of 2010 it was again in a free fall because Symbian just wasn’t passing muster compard to Android. Not to mention that by 2010 Symbian outside of Nokia was pretty much dead. Now, we can both agree the new strategy caused even more pain because of what they felt had to be done, but the strategy is that the short-term pain will help with the long-term cure. Time will tell if that will work of course.
But, man… come on, even if you wholeheartedly disagree with the new strategy, I can not see how you could not agree Nokia was on a very serious downward spiral before Stephen Elop started. Something needed to be done.
“So, the proofs of a healthy business are there, in the Q4 report. Where are the proofs of imminent death?”
Imminent death is too strong a word, that is the problem when analogies are taken too literally – especially because Nokia has a relatively healthy feature phone business to keep them afloat even with a smartphone failure. But Nokia was bleeding mindshare and marketshare in smartphones well before Stephen Elop was selected. He came on-board because of it. Something was wrong and I’ve made the point that especially wrong was Symbian. Eventually, if nothing was done, Nokia was in danger of loosing smartphone leadership not just short-term as is the hope of the current strategy, but loosing any kind of significance there for the long-term as well. And long-term is worse. (Yes, again the disclaimer: the new strategy may fail or it may be a bad one, but that does not mean some drastic change away from Symbian wasn’t necessary.)
I commend the energy you put into both the article and in all the responses here!
Thanks! It has been an interesting discussion. Great to see a lot of people pitch in with diverse views.
I must say the biggest thanks go to Jay and the gang for making MNB the place to come for Nokia stuff.
“Sounds like Symbian all right. ”
Symbian is still churning out sales by the dozens of millions quarterly. Compare it to WP and Lumia who barely scraped the 1 million mark. I do not see it “dying” any time soon either. Forced euthanasia, that’s another matter. But it has nothing to do with Symbian itself.
No denying that, I was actually just making a joke that my Nokia Belle devices feel a bit like “raising/lowering and general movement is extremely painful”… Just a joke.
And just to re-iterate one last time:
The only relevant “blood test” for a company is their quarterly report. It contains all the relevant information from which judgements should be made.
Everything else (like analyst projections, blog opinions, etc.) is just hearsay and playing on hopes/fears etc.
I hope you understand that the quarterly report is the only factual item you can base any opinions on.
“I hope you understand that the quarterly report is the only factual item you can base any opinions on.”
Are you saying this goes for the Nokia management as well? They should base all their opinions on the last quarterly report, and not for their own instance internal analysis of their business? That Stephen Elop should have just looked at the Q4/2010 report, concluded everything is fine and dandy, and continued on the old course because of it? Have you any idea how strange this suggestion of yours sounds? Maybe I misunderstand you.
One big problem for Nokia in smartphones was, that where they were growing it was often by cutting prices – or by growing at a rate significantly less than the market. These were not healthy signs, even though looking at a financial paper by itself (without context) might look OK. Even one considers the marketshare trends and the qualitative information regarding Symbian, the picture is far gloomier.
You can not just take one paper, be it a financial statement paper or a burning platform memo, dissect it without context and make claims based on it, ignoring all others. At least that will not give the correct overall picture. For one, no matter how Nokia was doing in Q4/2010, Android had a plan quite its own outside of any Nokia fiscal paper…
I’ll comment on both of your replies, in short:
——————
“Neither do I, but I do know they did some considering…”
How do you know that? You only assume they did, you do not KNOW.
———————–
“Much of the day was spent listening to the Nokia Chief Financial Officer Timo Ihamuotila spelling out the numbers and justification for the Windows Phone strategy, we must assume Nokia did extensive tests..”
Note the word “assume”. What were those justifications again? I would like you to quote them and explain where they are based on fact and not conjecture.
————————-
“…because a publicly traded company can not just pull numbers out of their arse.”
Yes they can. I send you back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and such other, publicly traded companies that base their whole existence on numbers pulled out of their arse. What makes Nokia so particularly unique that a set of managers would not be bribed to do just the same, if they were so inclined?
———————-
“They had all this internal data, fiscal and otherwise, and analysis we have no access to.”
Why don’t we? This analysis and data should be public, should it not?
Not only that, you yourself do not know anything about the existence of the said “secret” data yet you claim it exists. Paradox?
———————-
“What the different technical teams were saying.”
What were they saying? I have not heard any evidence of Symbian/Maemo teams saying it wouldn’t be feasible to continue with the Qt integration. Have you? If so, put it out here.
—————–
“Yes, but if this is your proof, then you have no proof. ”
A quarterly report is real, solid numbers. Do you agree? What other real, solid numbers besides the report do you have to back up your claims? The answer: None. Only conjecture.
——————-
“You don’t think Nokia was in any kind of downward spiral prior to September 2010? Have you any idea what you are saying – just a while ago Nokia was enjoying a smartphone dominance of 60+%. Before Stephen Elop came on board, that had diminished due to iPhone, Android and RIM by half. You don’t call that a downward spiral?”
I have a very clear idea of what I am saying. However I doubt that you do.
You are confusing market share with actual sales. A “downward spiral” would entail a loss of sales. Just like we have now, after a year of Elop’s mismanagement.
In Q4 2010 there was a GROWTH of sales. Do you understand that an exploding smartphone market cannot and does not retain the same marketshare numbers for participants?
But as long as there is healthy growth in sales and profits, there is no downward spiral. Period.
——————
“But Nokia was bleeding mindshare and marketshare in smartphones well before Stephen Elop was selected. He came on-board because of it.”
Wrong. He came on board because Jorma Ollila was threatened with immediate dismissal had he not nominated Elop for the post (as per chief editor of Kauppalehti in Sept. 2010). Let me remind you that Ollila’s own candidate was Anssi Vanjoki.
Elop was a non-entity and a nobody for Nokia prior to Sept. 2010.
—————-
—————-
Hmm, I don’t quite understand your position.
On the one hand you are demanding proofs of success and saying that the Q4 report (a factual piece of evidence) is not enough.
On the other hand you are offering vague inferences to some secret and undisclosed “tests” neither you nor anybody else knows about.
You demand proof beyond a factual Q4 report and in return offer only hearsay and conjecture.
Do you see the problem with this setup?
I am a Nokia shareholder. Was I offered evidence of these “tests” or other facts that would support a drastic change in company policy? No, I was not. Were you? If so, out with it.
That was a wall of text there, but nothing factual to support your premise except what we already know – and that’s all conjecture based on the “burning platforms” memo and the verbal diarrhea that we have got from Elop during the past year. Nothing more nothing less.
I’ll get back to you for more comments, but as a quick note: A new CEO was brought in because Nokia was on a downward spiral, that is the reason even if the CEO would have become Vanjoki. That is also the reason Nokia tried one more re-org in summer of 2010. So I think my point stands on that even if we believe Jorma Ollila was pressured to choose him, which he BTW denied. But of course he must lie, no other possibilities?
Secons point is, you demand evidence from Nokia while I understand that not all such information can ever be public. Good solid information may have been behind the scenes and still be there, but not disclosed due to competetive reasons, confidentiality agreements with partners, marketing reasons, or because Nokia just feels they made their case good enough. Of course it is possible they lie, but it does not automatically follow nor is in my opinion the likeliest scenario.
@dr_zorg
““Neither do I, but I do know they did some considering…”
How do you know that? You only assume they did, you do not KNOW.”
Look, I have made it clear from the get-go that I can see multiple possibilities to what happened, including the theory that Elop is a trojan and that they cut the Qt strategy for no good reason. (I do maintain, though, that there was good reason to transition away from Symbian.) It is possible. I don’t think it is likely, but more importantly I don’t think it is the only theory. It would be quite a bit more pleasant to have this conversation if you made similar concenssions to me, yet you insist you will under no circumstances even entertain the possibility that Nokia was on a downward spiral – all based on one quarterly report. There are many things we don’t know. I admit that. Yet to continue insisting for some reason you know what the evidence is or can be.
No, I do not know what calculations CFO Timo Ihamuotila did when talked to us on Capital Markets Day. It is possible he made all the numbers up and their whole strategy is based on a Microsoft conspiracy. Personally, knowing what finance people are like, I doubt that though. What I find more likely is that they made a series of assessments internally, based on on the things available to them internally, and came to the strategy conclusions that they did.
It is possible their plans and projections were wrong or incompetent, and certainly it is possible they were sugarcoated, but overall I find it more likely that they did make such plans and projections, than that they invented everything just to pitch us a Microsoft takeover. Especially considering that the Nokia board and most of the old executive team we in on the plan and approved of it. Why on Earth would they go along with a faked Microsoft takeover, I mean these are long-time Nokia people?
“Note the word “assume”. What were those justifications again? I would like you to quote them and explain where they are based on fact and not conjecture.”
The justifications in public have been explained many times over. You choose not to accept them, and that is fine. I have no doubt there is quite a bit more analysis done at Nokia internally that is not public, or the whole of which is not public and thus is not available to us. For some reason you are stuck in the notion that unless Nokia can prove themselves in the court of public opinion, then there is no evidence and the strategy was chosen without any evidence to support it.
I maintain the opinion that even if the public “evidence” were lacking (I don’t think it necessarily is but that’s beside the point), there is certainly good reason to find it likely that the Nokia management internally has more information and “evidence” about things than the public, and had when they made the decision to pursue the new strategy. Is that an unreasonable likelyhood that the management would be privy to more information than the public?
“Yes they can. I send you back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and such other, publicly traded companies that base their whole existence on numbers pulled out of their arse. What makes Nokia so particularly unique that a set of managers would not be bribed to do just the same, if they were so inclined?”
Certainly the financial market has seen its share of frauds. Yes, to clarify, certainly fraud is possible. (That is not what I meant, though, I meant publicly traded companies when they offer their numbers and stuff like that have a protocol to follow. Of course criminals can fake things and break rules.) However, naming a possibility of fraud, while possible, is quite a stretch from the adamant position that you have taken. It is also quite possible that instead there is no fraud and Nokia based their decision on honest internal assessments and internal analysis.
What you are saying, though, is that there could never be any internal analysis or assessments that could have validly resulted in their decision, no other test that could prove the need for action, other than the quarterly fiscals. That is quite a statement to make. Apparently you feel the management should only look at quarterly numbers and not base their decisions on any of the other inputs such as market analysis or whatever qualitative business information that they have about the state of their business and that of the competition. Wow.
“Why don’t we? This analysis and data should be public, should it not?”
Why on Earth should Nokia’s internal business analysis and data be public? Confidentiality is one of the major cornerstones of how business works. It is up to the management – and trading rules – to what they choose to disclose. For example, Apple is a master of secercy for good reasons.
“Not only that, you yourself do not know anything about the existence of the said “secret” data yet you claim it exists. Paradox?”
Not really, no. I don’t think the assumption that Nokia has private, secret internal data about it’s business beyond the public fiscal reports is a paradox. Do you? Really?
“What were they saying? I have not heard any evidence of Symbian/Maemo teams saying it wouldn’t be feasible to continue with the Qt integration. Have you? If so, put it out here.”
You are nitpicking my list of Nokia internal information, I was listing things that Nokia management had access to that we don’t – and that won’t show in fiscal report numbers. My point was this: Nokia had access to whatever the technical teams were saying, all of them, access to information we do not have. It was one more example where Nokia management had more information beyond the fiscal reports, that we do not have. It is thus possible this information supported their strategy change, even if the fiscal report would not show such data directly. You can not critique them just based on one fiscal report, because there is a multitude of other private data they would have had access to. That was my point.
It doesn’t mean you can’t critique them, of course. You can make other overall assessments that may be just as valid. But using just one quarterly fiscal report does not give a total picture of Nokia’s business at the end of 2010. Heck, the fiscal report even says: “It should be noted that certain statements herein which are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding: A) the timing of the deliveries of our products and services and their combinations; B) our ability to develop, implement and commercialize new technologies, products and services and their combinations; C) expectations regarding market developments and structural changes; D) expectations and targets regarding our industry volumes, market share, prices, net sales and margins of products and services and their combinations; E) expectations and targets regarding our operational priorities and results of operations; F) the outcome of pending and threatened litigation; G) expectations regarding the successful completion of acquisitions or restructurings on a timely basis and our ability to achieve the financial and operational targets set in connection with any such acquisition or restructuring; and H) statements preceded by “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “foresee,” “target,” “estimate,” “designed,” “plans,” “will” or similar expressions. These statements are based on management’s best assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it.”
As for your question, of course we only have anecdotal data points here, all the Nokia management interviews (others than Elop too) and whatever commentary Nokia engineers have made online and elsewhere. Certainly there are opposing points of view too there (and certainly valid opposing points), but I have very little reason to doubt the poor situation of Symbian. And then there is the wealth of knowledge, experience and opinion on Symbian in the technology comminity. You, of course, will ignore whatever I say and stick to your guns without moving an inch, it seems.
“A quarterly report is real, solid numbers. Do you agree? What other real, solid numbers besides the report do you have to back up your claims? The answer: None. Only conjecture.”
For one, I do have the dramatic Symbian marketshare trend to back up the fact that the whole industry moved away from it, leaving only Nokia with an already dwindling smartphone marketshare in 2010. If not Nokia, at least let’s agree Symbian was on a downward spiral, right? Because most of my argument is, Symbian had to go – rest is up for debate. You don’t even have to agree that Symbian had to go, of course, but agree that Symbian as a platform was on a downward spiral, yes?
“You are confusing market share with actual sales. A “downward spiral” would entail a loss of sales. Just like we have now, after a year of Elop’s mismanagement.”
Now, this is a better argument to make. But is also begs the questions: Why is Nokia not growing at the pace or above the pace of the market? Would it not need to do so to maintain leadership? What will result if Nokia grows but continues to grow significantly slower than the market? Is this a long-term negative trend? If so, what would it take to fix this trend for the long-term? I am pretty sure Nokia management asked similar questions themselves. But sure, it is one argument to make that marketshare means nothing if you still have positive sales. I doubt it would be what Nokia is trying to achieve, though. I am inclined to believe they are aiming higher, even if we are to disagree with the methods at which they are attempting with (which is hope of short-term losses for long-term gains).
“In Q4 2010 there was a GROWTH of sales. Do you understand that an exploding smartphone market cannot and does not retain the same marketshare numbers for participants?”
I agree with both statements. I disagree with the conclusions made from them, though. I don’t think the Q4/2010 numbers are proof of a healthy Symbian, nor do I think Nokia’s shrinking marketshare is something to just gloss over and let happen. I do agree, though, that there were several options to try and reverse the marketshare trend, including trying with MeeGo.
“But as long as there is healthy growth in sales and profits, there is no downward spiral. Period.”
The question is: Yes, there was growth, but was it healthy? Numbers won’t say that. They just say it is growth and how much. The numbers won’t say if it’s sustainable or improveable growth. There was much pent up demand for Symbian^3 from loyal Nokia customers due to the lackluster products of previous years and all the delays and the overall market was recovering, improving sales of all kinds of devices for Q4/2010. None of this proves Symbian was going to continue being competetive. In fact, the market response later to Symbian^3 left much to be desired and I can’t blame people for that.
Personally I think there were other reasons to call Nokia being on a downward spiral, but I guess on much of that we should agree to disagree.
“Elop was a non-entity and a nobody for Nokia prior to Sept. 2010.”
Well, actually he was heading (amongst other things) at Microsoft the development of Qt Office for Nokia’s Symbian devices – the one we are now finally seeing trickling to Nokia Belle. So at least Nokia people knew Stephen Elop and had dealt with him directly in Nokia’s past Microsoft deals.
“Hmm, I don’t quite understand your position.”
Ditto.
“On the one hand you are demanding proofs of success and saying that the Q4 report (a factual piece of evidence) is not enough.”
Actually, I doubt I was demanding proof of success – at least that was not my intention if I did. If I did, forget it. More important: I was trying to get you to entertain the thought that not all was well at Nokia – and that there might well be valid internal information that lead the management to that conclusion. Even if we don’t know all of it in public. So for one: That management could, just think about that word could, have made the right call based on sound information even if we don’t have that information. It is possible that such evidence existed inside Nokia.
And secondly, overall I was hoping you’d agree that Nokia was having a hard time already when Stephen Elop came on board, as even with public knowledge that much is clear to me and I’d say anyone who has followed Nokia closely for years. I don’t ask for proof to either way from you, I was just trying to get a feel if there is any shades of gray in your opinion. But now you seem convinced that Nokia was growing healthily and thus the old strategy was working, no problems whatsoever, so I guess we just have to agree to disagree on that.
“On the other hand you are offering vague inferences to some secret and undisclosed “tests” neither you nor anybody else knows about.”
This I have to disagree with. I was trying to go over, at a very generic business level, why the management of a company has more factual information to base their decisions on than the public with only a fiscal report in their hand. You say only the fiscal report is evidence upon which company altering decisions can be made. That is your argument. My argument is, again at a very generic level applying to any company, that company managements have access to all sorts of private information that they add to the publicly known information – and then make decisions.
I hope you are not seriously suggesting Nokia does not have internal analysis and communication that produces private information (or that they shouldn’t use it unless they make it public), but in fact, I have to conclude that you are suggesting that. Wow.
“You demand proof beyond a factual Q4 report and in return offer only hearsay and conjecture.”
Actually you are the one demanding proof, when I am saying we are not necessarily entitled or have access to all the relevant proof that may – or may not – have been available to Nokia’s management at the time of their decision-making. Thus, we can not conclude with any certainty that they made an evidenceless decision “to amputate”. It is certainly possible they did it without prover information, but it is also very possible they did a very thorough diagnosis internally and had valid reason.
“Do you see the problem with this setup?”
I see a problem with your setup. You say that becuse you can not see the evidence in the public domain, that it is impossible for it to have existed for Nokia management when they made the call. I find that notion quite preposterous actually.
“I am a Nokia shareholder. Was I offered evidence of these “tests” or other facts that would support a drastic change in company policy? No, I was not. Were you? If so, out with it.”
We are both shareholders in a publicly traded company, which usually means we have no access to information beyond what is available in public. Nokia is certainly under no obligation to provide us with such information, beyond that they are probably even prohibited due to insider trading rules from disclosing many things to individual shareholders – at least not those on an insider trading list.
But yes, I think Nokia has offered many plausible explanations as to why they chose their new strategy. Some elements are debateable, sure, but I am satisfied that at least dropping Symbian was justified. No, they have not provided me with bullet-proof evidence of such, but then the fiscal report is not bullet-proof evidence of the contrary either. Company mangement is a multi-faceted thing, as is any strategy. I agree the new strategy is risky, but staying with the old strategy was risky too. Time will tell.
As for Symbian, I base my experience there more on the technical side of my understanding and experiences, than on market information or company statements. I know I mostly quoted latter in the blog above to keep it readable for all, but the rest I base on personal experience and insights I have gathered as professional in the software industry. Symbian is a mess. Even if Stephen Elop himself would make a U turn and praise Symbian, would no amount of his interviews – or Steve Jobs raising from the grave with his reality distortion – lead me to believe all is well with Symbian. All was not well with Symbian. That much is clear to me.
“That was a wall of text there, but nothing factual to support your premise except what we already know – and that’s all conjecture based on the “burning platforms” memo and the verbal diarrhea that we have got from Elop during the past year. Nothing more nothing less.”
To quote Stephen Elop, I am simply going to choose to respectfully disagree on multiple fronts.
What is the purpose of all this blogging? Will this discussion make any of us more prone to sucess or failures?
If not, this is a waste of time, which we better use to improve the NOKIA environment with creative new ideas!
I would rather see a discussion on how to influence the NOKIA BOD, the present CEO and his direct staff to get them out of the “perceived mess” .
Well, the purpose of the blog above was to formulate and communicate a thing about the Nokia transition I thought was often missed or glossed over. Namely that of the state of Symbian. I think it was useful.
This commentary is, I guess, just for fun. Or masochism.
But maybe, just maybe, it improves the understanding of the MNB reader community into different directions, then it may be useful as well.
I agree that this discussion has passed its peak usefulness and now I guess we are just tying up some loose ends and seeing where we can agree and where to agree to disagree.
Well written piece, thanks.
From a managerial perspective, I wouldn’t call the “burning platform” speech a complete failure. Did it hurt their business? Yes, but you also have to realize that management also has to manage the human resources within the company, and that speech was a clear and frank assessment of the situation from the CEO to the staff, and also to position himself as a leader of change.
Just two days prior to last the February announcements, I happened to be at Nokia House attending a workshop with a few people from middle management and was really curious about knowing their thoughts on the situation. To me, they all sounded very excited about the things to come, and the anticipation was what I would call electric. I think they really knew where the company was heading and were hoping for a change at last. Since Nokia had become a monolith, the change became more seismic than anybody had anticipated, bordering on national tragedy with massive lay-offs, as Janne pointed out. Some would call Elop a trojan horse, but I would call him the outsider that was supposed to do the very painful decisions that the Finnish executives were hesitant to administer.
And to see the bigger picture, the management had to reposition the company anticipating the next shift from phones to tablets, and eventually the convergence of mobile and desktop. Nokia simply did not have the resources to be competitive in the next transition, or were too late for that. You didn’t have to be in the loop to see the financial figures of Android manufacturers a year ago, even though the sales were stellar, many of them were struggling already. Those that didn’t, namely Samsung, are huge general manufacturing corporations with lot’s of engineering and manufacturing muscle, but less original design. Or some generic OEM manufacturer like LTE. To me already at the time, Windows Phone was the only alternative. Sure, Android allows for customization, but the designer in me says that the underlying UI is an unelegant, ugly iOS knockoff.
For the less cynical like me, the fact that Elop was from Microsoft, states that the board already were anticipating the software decisions to be made, and wanted the advantage of having an insider with close contacts within Microsoft work to their advantage. From what I’ve seen within a year, I think that Nokia has seen a renaissance, with finally having a design strategy to differentiate themselves, and a software strategy to be able to focus on that strength. I think the N9 and what it’s heritage brought about, was a massive change in the design philosophy of the company. Unfortunately that also meant throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Just like the buzz Elop created in Nokia House, I think the same kind of buzz has trickled down into consumers minds, and there are people like me who are at least mildly interested in giving Nokia and WP7 a try.
“and that speech was a clear and frank assessment of the situation”
The ‘burning platforms’ memo was everything but that. It was full of false statements, opinionated views and downright lies – even Elop himself retorted most of the very same memo in the following months. That’s precisely the reason why the most people disregarded it as false and a hoax until the Feb’11…
I know many feel that way, and Tomi Ahonen certainly has dissected it well to offer another very opinionated view on its merits.
But even Tomi agreed on the sentiment. And I think, the thing with many here and perhaps us engineering folks from places like Finland and Germany, is that we tend to love the facts and details over a good story. In that, I think Elop could have done a better job, he told an American story and not all bought it elsewhere. He could have communicated the same sentiment without factual errors.
However, Stephen Elop was also clearly communicating a story – a point of view. When you do that effectively, you may have to simplify things a little, cut corners a little. It is a sales-pitch. There are bound to be inaccuracies and things that can be misinterpreted with a devil’s eye.
I know because I got similar treatment here for my writing above.
Not that I was selling anything, but communicating an idea. People taking bits and bobs of the things I wrote, even analyzing things like the figurative prices ($100-$1000) I threw in, dissecting them separately and offering their critique. Certainly much of the feedback was deserved and some of it brilliant, like incognito weighing on with his views… but not all of it.
Not all. Had I laced the text with every possible contigency and detail and disclaimer to satisfy every angle, the point would have been lost. Not only would people not have read it all (as likely), they would have missed the story I was trying to tell.
And, by the way, the sentiment in the story that I was trying to tell in this blog entry I believe to be absolutely true. Or at least as true as an outsider analyzing public information can make it. But still, it was necessary to cut some corners to tell it fluently.
More important than were the facts all in place in the burning platform memo is, in my opinion, assessing was the sentiment correct and is Nokia taking the right direction – and are they doing it for the right reasons. One can not judge that by simply analyzing one text over and over again, attacking every word from every interview, but by looking at the entirety of the picture that is forming. (And I know some do that and still disagree, and that is perfectly valid.)
Thank you, Antti and others for the positive feedback as well.
Interesting comments, but mostly representing views from small technology angles! As a long time user of Nokia products (9500 / 9300 / S40 since 2006) I have always been impressed with the overall quality of the products. Hardware cycles performance does not matter to the end-user as long as the phone works properly.
As a technologist the functional integration between the hardware logic, the OS and the applications were good and Nokia was able to build an eco-system around this. Giving this up was a major mistake. But Nokia can still count on a lot of loyalty from their partners. My suggesting to the Nokia management would be to keep the SYMBIAN, Linux products alive in parallel to the Windows path taken. The costs of this approach is minimal for NOKIA from a financial perspective. As to this relates to SmartPhones the following:
For The Symbian base (ANNA/BELL) the next generation is already in place. Based on the Linux (MEEGO) this is proven as well.
The Windows experience would be just incremental!!
Forgot to indicate that I am presently using an E7:00 hence my Symbian (ANNA / BELL) updated experience.
@janne
You made lots of posts without result, I think you don’t understand the situation.
Like I said before, there are various type of Nokia fans, some of them can’t accept WP or other closed OS.
I don’t ask to abandon WP, I just want smartphone with open OS. It shouldn’t be difficult for Nokia.
Or will you say : “use WP smartphone or S40 dumbphone or leave Nokia”?
Oh, you haven’t responded my statement, N9 is the most popular Nokia device at gsmarena.com
“You made lots of posts without result,”
That is probably true.
“I think you don’t understand the situation.”
I think I understand, I’m just masochistic in that way.
“Like I said before, there are various type of Nokia fans, some of them can’t accept WP or other closed OS.”
True. Open was a big merit for the Qt strategy, especially the Maemo/MeeGo part. I understand that – and lament its loss.
“I don’t ask to abandon WP, I just want smartphone with open OS. It shouldn’t be difficult for Nokia.”
It shouldn’t, I agree. This point isn’t really that pertinent to the Symbian mess that I mainly discussed, but sure, it goes to the “focus” issue that I briefly addressed. Clearly Nokia is sharpening its focus, and a MeeGo device would blur that sharp focus a bit, but I agree it could get similar results by not completely abandoning a open, niche product-line. They could call it a hobby, which seems to work for Apple. How about it, Stephen Elop, a Maemo 7 hobby device next year?
“Or will you say : “use WP smartphone or S40 dumbphone or leave Nokia”?”
I would say, enjoy the N9 and hope for many more software updates and something interesting in the shape of Meltemi. However, I would also say, don’t hold your breath and feel free to enjoy whatever great open products come from other places. Nokia is likely to disappoint you in that.
“Oh, you haven’t responded my statement, N9 is the most popular Nokia device at gsmarena.com”
I’m sorry, that is not intentional. The comments system here is a bit hard to follow. I guess it was posted while I was responding to another post. Now I found it:
“I agree, in the long term, Symbian need to be replaced. But I much prefer MeeGo / Maemo as replacement. WP isn’t too bad, it just doesn’t fit with my style & personality.
Nokia still has good chance with MeeGo, check gsmarena, N9 is the most popular Nokia device. Public responded it positively. Just yeah, I don’t know what inside the head of Nokia director is, they prefer losing great revenue, by not selling N9 properly.”
It may surprise you, but I wish Nokia would also have gone with MeeGo. I just feel there is merit to them feeling it wouldn’t have worked. They should have gone Maemo full-blast years ago. I blame Nokia mostly for the latter, now I have resigned to the fact that maybe WP is the thing that was needed. And WP isn’t bad, actually it is brilliant in ways, but certainly it isn’t the open heaven Maemo is.
And N9 is very popular for good reason. It is a fantastic device. I am contemplating buying a white one in addition to the one I have, just to put on a shelf somewhere. A masterpiece. Look, don’t think for a moment I would not have wanted to see the N9 rise and shine – truly, with the full backing and might of Nokia, not just as an obsoleted study.
MeeGo could have worked. It is a debate. Symbian, on the other hand, I think not.
If I may compare the Nokia product lines to to-days (classical) car manufacturers product lines, one could draw a nice similarity. After 50+ years of industrializations they clearly identify platforms and components. Some of these platforms are used cross the industry. From an commercial perspective there is nothing wrong in doing so. In fact it helps to keep “good” technology in place, Technology which could have otherwise been dumped.
Symbian may still have a change to survive. I do not know the technology status of the OS. Comments in this blog suggest that it reached it EOL in 2007.
Thank you for collecting my posts.
Yea, for me, the problem is not “going WP” but “going WP ONLY”.
@yasu
Janne: “Funny you should quote Churchill, because Stephen Elop actually quoted the same man at the start of his February 11th press conference: The quote: “A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
yasu: “Churchill quoted by a man that surrendered the company he is supposed to run without a fight. I like the irony.”
Debatable. Arguably Nokia is also fighting the good fight in their view, you just view it as surrender. Churchill called in the Americans and surrendered the position of Allied Supreme Leader to them, for a greater mutual goal that he understood the British could not achieve alone.
Monty and the gang were still there making their own history, give or take a missed Market Garden transition or two. The end-result was better than inaction and the British retained their independence, so that fifty years later they could bring us the Psion EPOC.
if elop where to shut up and listen to the user base instead of some American smucks this never would of happened
we saw a pic of belle a year ago it happened but why so late if the leak and the new batch of symbian belle phones where out already
plus where is our video calling support
we can only take pic and video mostly with it and there are hardly any 3rd part applications that support video calling specially on symbian and to make it worse on symbian^3…they have the Nokia mail service they could have used that as the video calling service to attract customers and gain traction with the users already with Nokia using symbian
lack of accessories specially from 3rd party once again
like like the battery pack case
if i where them i would have had a silicon case for the N8 with a battery pack on the back juse below the camera bulge since the charging port is on the bottom…and as for the updates they don’t even bring small performance tweaks and bug fixes…it’s just in one huge update we all have to wait for which fucks everything up even more since we are stuck constanly re flashing/reinstalling our phones just to keep the bugs not from happening
i have faith accucent will be able to do those things but…all in all ELOP has to leave that company and someone from a user perspective needs to be hired since they have more connection with what needs to be done to save the company
If only i where ever hired/appointed as the CEO i would drop WP7 in a heart beat get back the MEEGO team set fire to accucents ass to ASAP the development of Symbian and shorten the release date,have small performace update every 2.5 – 3 months till the big one and add all these extra services that should be avaiable to all symbian,Meego,s40 users to keep them satisfied and happy to show how connected the company is with it’s users and non users
i even had an idea for a few models with a solar panel back cover as an accessory for the ones that go hiking/camping …things like that would give notice to the general public and more showing the company actually cares about it’s users and eviroment
Thank you, one of the few sensible voices in 250+ comments of drivel
like always i think wisely before i type …i really want to get a few model designers to make a few concepts
i don’t understand if they can frequently update the Nokia store why can’t they do the same with symbian itself
Product updates are the distributed responsibility to the network operators! Nokia store is controlled centrally.
Read my blog and, say, incognito’s comment links. Symbian is a pain to update. It has become so fragile and fragmented, and the overall development is harder than more modern systems. Everything takes ages and end-results are often unreliable.
You lack realism when you blame Nokia for not doing a better job with Symbian nowadays. The mistakes at Nokia were made years ago, and now Symbian is what it is, and that was the argument I pointed out in my blog entry above.
dude Qt come on
As far as I understood from Nokia documentation Qt is the UI and app framework to a certain extent.
A load of the core OS apps, mail client, browser etc. aren’t Qt based. Maybe they are with Belle, but it appears they aren’t. Also, there have been several articles over the past that described the lack of modularity in Symbian. This caused the inability to develop a newer version of the say the browser without also affecting core OS parts.
The above was said at the time Symbian 3 launched. They did get some core OS apps separated so they could be updated without affecting anything else. However I doubt they did it with everything.
Just a disclaimer, I cobbled this assumption together from Nokia info at the time of S3 launch and questions surrounding its update process. It could very well have changed, but if not it does clarify why Symbian always took so long to update and nearly never saw small patched or updates.
All things aside, the lack of modularity never poisoned Symbian – it actually is very modular by design, it took years for Linux, which was conceived as a modular OS to start with, to catch up to the Symbian in that regard.
The only modularity problem that Symbian had is a lack of common APIs for all those modules, so the whole package had to be put and glued by hand in order to work. Think of it as a system of defective Lego bricks, where all the pieces are there, and you can build the intended structure, but you have to glue them to hold together as their connecting parts don’t really fit snugly. And as the teams adapting Symbian for different devices, or even purposes (s60, s80, s90…) went, they ‘connected’ the parts in different ways; then they evolved their parts separately, ultimately causing a bad case of code base fragmentation where, despite the modularity potential, the whole lineage couldn’t really benefit from it without additional effort.
This, tho, unlike some other more problematic parts of the Symbian play field, would be quite easy to fix, especially if you give up on some of the backwards compatibility as it was planned for the S^4.
Now, why did they let that happen in the first place probably baffles any software engineer. Based on my limited knowledge on what was going on, I can speculate that the managers were insisting to shoehorn some features for which Symbian as a whole wasn’t ready, just to promote their new device. Combined with probably tight deadlines, a lot of the work was hard-coded and made to `just work` disregarding the rest of the Symbian `ecosystem` – which has ultimately lead to the situation where even the devices of the same generation and quite similar hardware, had more differences on the OS level than similarities. I personally find it hard to believe that the programmers didn’t protest and warn on time what will eventually happen by abhorring good software engineering practices just to meet the deadline or some funky idea, but they probably encountered deaf ears and ultimately had to do what their project manager (and by extension the upper management) has decided.
Still, Symbian had a lot of problems, lack of modularity was barely one of those.
I’m only going by what was said at the launch of Symbian 3. I recall Nokia explicitly saying that they had separeted some core OS apps from the OS itself in order to be able to push updates more regularly and easily.
An example was a few videoplayer updates short after launch.
I didn’t mean hardware modularity, don’t know that much about that so I won’t comment on that. But going by Nokia’s comments the SW wasn’t very modular, the core OS apps weren’t well separated from the OS itself which I presume hampered updates.
You refer more to HW modularity, am I right?
Love this part:
..especially if you give up on some of the backwards compatibility as it was planned for the S^4..
They could have done that on 08/09 a time when breaking compatibily was easier than it has become now. There weren’t that many Symbian apps out there at the time, at least not OVI store ones. Heck, OVI was practically non-existent at that time.
Why they didin’t just break compatibilty then is beyond me. Why they had to put so much effort in maintaining compatibility is just mind boggling. Only because they had Qt? Perhaps, yet backwards compatibily was not even half as important as it is now.
You have no idea what you are saying there.
Qt does not make the Symbian codebase easier to maintain because not all of Symbian is made with Qt.
Clarification: I was responding to deep space bar.
Not at all even, the implementation Qt might have even made it harder to maintain. I’d even go so far that Qt adoption failed because it was too hard to ‘bake’ into Symbian’s codebase.
Yes, possible.
Most things you bring up right there are just classic Nokia.
Classic Nokia right there, they had that strategy for years. Just sell the new HW with the newer OS in it before even thinking about updating existing hardware.
Another classic Nokia example. Put in hardware yet not utilize in software. Think accelerometer in the N95 and NFC in the C7.
How would that work? I fail to see the connection there, but I might just miss something here.
How is that Nokia’s fault? IF a 3rd party developer or accessory maker feels that the profit can’t outweigh the cost than I can’t blame them. Apple accessories just sell because of the unified ports on iPhone/iPod’s and to an extent iPads. Nokia changes port position on every new device they make.
Classic Nokia, they have done that for years. Due to Symbian and the way it is coded? Don’t know, but it has been Nokia’s modus operandi for as long as they delivered updates. Not incremental, just one big chunk and a whole load of waiting.
Bad idea to start with /jk
The idea you have is sound, that is how it should be done. But can it be done that way? Can Symbian be updated incrementally? I’ve read something a while back that stated that it was hard to do, only with S3 they started to modularize parts of the OS so they could be updated seperately.
Useless, just like 3D screens and image capture. Nokia even did a study on that recently and even in desert area’s with a whole load of sun it was far from sufficient to even keep the phone at idle. And you would have to carry it on your head all the time if you want to even get a charge. So gimmick at best, usefull no and probably even more eco-unfriendly than to not make it. After all, solar panel manufacturing isn’t the cleanest business there is.
A crap, HTML like code is thrown out of comments. Made it a little less readable, ah well.
I think we can all agree that symbian had to be dropped. However, building the MeeGo ecosystem wouldn’t have been a problem. What does MS have that Nokia does not? Office? Would have been sorted with quickoffice. Skydrive? Nokia could have easily built or bought their own dropbox-clone. Xbox live? Sure, that’s one thing Nokia doesn’t have, a gaming platform. A visionary ceo might have done a deal with nintendo? Apps? Porting qt apps would have been easy and quick. Range of phones? N9, n950 and 710 running MeeGo would have sorted out 2011. If they can make windows phones in six months, then there is no excuse. Get the team working on porting MeeGo to the intel medfield platform in early 2011, so that all 2012 phones run on that platform. All set!
does anyone btw have a rough idea of how long it takes to to convert an OS to a different platform – omap3 to medfield?
I agree that had Nokia placed similar emphasis on MeeGo starting in early 2011, they could have rushed more MeeGo devices to market than originally planned – just like they did with the Lumias. Indeed, they could probably have had MeeGo phones called Lumia in the exact same shapes at Nokia World 2011 and more.
The question of building an ecosystem is a of course a different and more debatable one. How much do smart televisions, tablets, things like Windows 8 mean in the future, and what about media deals, e-books, whatnot… Could Nokia deliver it all alone. And was MeeGo development progressing on track or was it too delay-prone.
Obviously Nokia decided they could not, but it will probably be a discussion and disagreement amongst many a tech-follower for a long time to come… As it should be.
@janne
I totally admire your restraint in the face of those who fail to see outside of their current world view. With disruptive technology’s it can take a while for it to sink in.
Aside from all the other arguments, Elop probably did the following when he arrived at Nokia :
latest Nokia phone (N8) v latest Apple phone (iPhone 4)
and he would have seen the N8 came off badly, even after 4 annual iterations of the iPhone all Nokia could offer was a very poor comparison. The 1st competitor to the 2007 iPhone Nokia released was unfortunately the N9, at the 5th iteration of the iPhone. And at that stage the N9 just couldnt offer what the iPhone4S + ecosystem could.
Its all about competing with the iPhone, as thats the only thing that is making any money, at the end of the day, selling 500M phones and making 10c on each, will not pay the bills for Nokia.
@John
“”I totally admire your restraint in the face of those who fail to see outside of their current world view. With disruptive technology’s it can take a while for it to sink in.”
And how are you guys different?
“Aside from all the other arguments, Elop probably did the following when he arrived at Nokia :
latest Nokia phone (N8) v latest Apple phone (iPhone 4)
and he would have seen the N8 came off badly, even after 4 annual iterations of the iPhone all Nokia could offer was a very poor comparison. The 1st competitor to the 2007 iPhone Nokia released was unfortunately the N9, at the 5th iteration of the iPhone. And at that stage the N9 just couldnt offer what the iPhone4S + ecosystem could.
Its all about competing with the iPhone, as thats the only thing that is making any money, at the end of the day, selling 500M phones and making 10c on each, will not pay the bills for Nokia.”
See? In *your* worldview, it’s all about competing with the iPhone. Straw. Beam. Eye.
In my world view, Nokia was about Connecting People™, that’s why they sell 500M phones and making 10c on each, making the world a better place by bringing technology to even the poorest and less privileged, while earning money (no where near Apple level, which is all about milking people and sitting on a pile of cash), enough to be profitable and a viable business, well till 2010, that is.
Now Nokia is all about pleasuring Microsoft at it’s own expense. Some of us object to that. The devastation that occurred since Elop took reign is well documented.
From http://www.ebnonline.com/author.asp?section_id=1061&doc_id=239279&itc=ebnonline_gnews
“Nokia has had its share of troubles these last few quarters — some of which stem back to its partnership with Microsoft and the increased competition from other companies such as Apple, Samsung, and other Android-based handset makers. Clearly, the Finnish company has to trim even more costs and keep its operational budget in line. (See: Nok-Win a No-Win Combination.)
The cutbacks, which will hit manufacturing facilities in Finland, Hungary, and Mexico, brings total planned job cuts to more than 30,000 since Stephen Elop took the CEO spot in September 2010, cites Reuters. And it comes on the tail of bad earnings news: Fourth-quarter smartphone sales fell 31 percent from a year ago, and the company had “a steep loss” for the quarter, according to the wire report. ”
In addition with the posting of losses and the collapse of smartphone sales.
Those are not assumptions. Cold hard, easily verifiable facts.
“In my world view, Nokia was about Connecting People™, that’s why they sell 500M phones and making 10c on each, making the world a better place by bringing technology to even the poorest and less privileged, while earning money (no where near Apple level, which is all about milking people and sitting on a pile of cash), enough to be profitable and a viable business, well till 2010, that is.”
Possibly overly idealistic, no? Also we can’t guarantee that Nokia could have continued selling that much volume given how strong the competition was in delivering better options for the consumer.
“Possibly overly idealistic, no?”
Maybe. It was working till 2010. However, I think that’s rich coming from the camp that believes that there is nothing fishy going at Nokia now.
“Also we can’t guarantee that Nokia could have continued selling that much volume given how strong the competition was in delivering better options for the consumer.”
That’s why it was *urgent* to crush the sales now, for fear that they would drop in a prospective future, do away with profits and destroy thousands of jobs in the process, in addition to damage to Nokia’s partners.
Nokia is doing that with the Asha line, very healthy Series 40 dual-SIM business that has nothing to do with the ailing Symbian. Don’t worry. Nokia World spent probably even more time talking about the Asha than the Lumia.
@yasu
““”I totally admire your restraint in the face of those who fail to see outside of their current world view. With disruptive technology’s it can take a while for it to sink in.”
And how are you guys different?”
Overall, at least myself (John was responding to me) I think I have tried to keep a balanced view and concede different possibilities. There are very few absolutes in a discussion and debate as complex as the state and strategy of Nokia – especially for outside without the insider information, but it would by nature be complex for even those on the inside. Like I’m sure it is.
“See? In *your* worldview, it’s all about competing with the iPhone. Straw. Beam. Eye.”
Perhaps John felt that way, or wrote that way, but overall those whom are of the opinion Symbian is failing, it is not just because of iPhone. Sure, iPhone made an impact but it is just one manufacturer. The far bigger problem was Symbian loosing its competetive edge to Android – and the argued fact that Symbian was a mess to keep up-to-date. Even Nokia said Android was their motivation, the terrible trajectory on which it has been. iPhone, that did not destroy Nokia’s marketshare, even though it did leave a significant dent.
Here is the Symbian marketshare from Wikipedia, see already before Q1/2011 what was happening:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/World-Wide-Smartphone-Market-Share.png/500px-World-Wide-Smartphone-Market-Share.png
“In my world view, Nokia was about Connecting People™, that’s why they sell 500M phones and making 10c on each, making the world a better place by bringing technology to even the poorest and less privileged, while earning money”
That never stopped being Nokia’s plan – and that has nothing to do with Symbian. What Nokia sells to the “Next Billion” aka the developing markets is Series 40 and related platforms, which are not Symbian devices. There is nothing inherently wrong with Series 40, it is a fine platform especially now that dual-SIMs are available plentifully from Nokia. Android and competition is certainly scroching that ground a bit as well, but for the moment Nokia has a healthy business there – and they have every chance of continuing to capitalize that healthy state with Smarterphone and Meltemi. Unlike with smartphones, they don’t have a mess there, and they have more time there to improve even more.
Were you at Nokia World this year? I was there prior to Elop and this year with Elop, and I’d say the attention the developing world got was perhaps even more than before. The keynotes spent ages talking about the streets of places like Lebanon and places in Africa and Asia and South America, I actually remember Stephen Elop starting his whole keynote talking about that – and then we of course had Nokia’s Blanca Juti dancing on the stage to some It’s time for Africa rhythms from Shakira. The diversity, the notion of doing good business while doing good… it is plenty alive at Nokia. Don’t worry. They have not lost that touch, it is one of the three main pillars of the new strategy.
“Now Nokia is all about pleasuring Microsoft at it’s own expense.”
But that’s just the thing, many of us disagree on that. We think Nokia is no such thing.
“Some of us object to that. The devastation that occurred since Elop took reign is well documented.”
Devastation to the smartphone business, yes. But that was always going to happen at least on some level during the transition. Sure, mistakes were probably made in communicating the Symbian transition, but it is at best an alwafully simplied view of Nokia and worse probably a completely false view of Nokia to see them just doing Microsoft favours at their own expense. They have a plan that from all this mayhem emerges a more competetive Nokia. It may fail, it may be the wrong plan, but that doesn’t mean it is done for Microsoft or some other sinister agenda.
“The cutbacks, which will hit manufacturing facilities in Finland, Hungary, and Mexico, brings total planned job cuts to more than 30,000 since Stephen Elop took the CEO spot in September 2010, cites Reuters. And it comes on the tail of bad earnings news: Fourth-quarter smartphone sales fell 31 percent from a year ago, and the company had “a steep loss” for the quarter, according to the wire report.”
True.
“In addition with the posting of losses and the collapse of smartphone sales.”
True.
“Those are not assumptions. Cold hard, easily verifiable facts.”
True.
But, and this is the big but, what if those short-term losses and cuts result in a healthier company in the long-run? What if they were necessary, because too much time had been wasted on trying to make Symbian work with hugely excessive manpower since 2007 – and it was just costing too much and being too late? There is certainly arguable merit to this line of thinking as well, considering the Symbian marketshare trajectory and other things, and no amount of throwing current numbers on the table will prove or disprove that because the argument concerns the future.
Feel free to disagree with the strategy, and project otherwise, there are certainly valid arguments for that as well. But current numbers do not prove us anything of the strategy’s long-term success, so even though they are hard, easily verifiable facts, they are not relevant facts because the Lumia strategy is just getting started. In a quarter or two we’ll be a bit wiser on how it is faring. It may fail, of course.
@Janne,
I don’t have much time to spend on this right now, but about market share.
WP was *also* losing some of it’s tiny market share. Nokia *sales* were growing (+50% in 2010, around 30 million units more that 4 times what WP sold on the whole 2011).
Market share != sales. The market share loss arguments doesn’t wash with me, I can count.
True, Windows Phone was also loosing marketshare. It was a risky move.
But the situation WHY these two platforms where loosing marketshare are completely different. Windows Phone was a praised, modern new arrival, but also a fledgling operating system with very limited OEM support, who were focusing their best work – as were the operators – on Android. Symbian on the other hand was a waning star, commonly disparaged, dumped by many former manufacturers, arguably very hard to move forwards.
Yes, going Windows Phone certainly was a risky move. But Nokia does provide the swing-factor which they hope will change things. Both Windows Phone and Symbian had market issues, what was the swing-factor Nokia could have brought to Symbian and would it have been effective? I don’t what it would have been, other than dumping it and going somewhere else – MeeGo, Android or Windows Phone. As for Windows Phone, the thinking goes, now that Nokia is on board they will be able start to grow faster than the market again and thus cut a marketshare-losing trend for the long-term, at the price of short-term pain.
That is why the current marketshare figures of Symbian and Windows Phone are not comparable. That doesn’t mean Nokia doesn’t have a HUGE job to execute to succeed with Windows Phone. It is a risky move. It has merit, but it is a risky move. It may fail, but it may also succeed. I personally think that Symbian was failing for sure.
“I personally think that Symbian was failing for sure.”
What you, or I for that matter, think < facts.
Symbian sales were increasing (despite the bad press), WP sales (despite free and paid promotion) was badly struggling.
It's an easily verifiable fact.
And to repeat:
Elop said it's a War of Ecosystems and took offensive action against Nokia's (thereby exposing himself as the enemy by his own definition/actions), causing a great amount of damage. A cold, easily verifiable fact.
No amount of apologizing will change that.
Of course these are views, opinions. Like I said, Symbian’s failing is my *personal* view, for which I’ve provided supporting arguments. It is still just my view.
But not even Symbian sales increasing is a fact. It is a fact they increased for Q4/2010 when Symbian^3 launched after delays, but there is no fact to say that trend would have continued even without February 11th. On the other hand, there is a long, long trend to suggest Symbian was loosing mindshare and marketshare prior to that and arguably even after that. It is all a matter of perception and projection.
Windows Phone is an unknown quantity, who knows what it can do now with Nokia. Anything prior to Nokia entering that market is comparing apples and oranges. Current numbers just don’t tell how Nokia and Windows Phone will fare together.
“Elop said it’s a War of Ecosystems and took offensive action against Nokia’s (thereby exposing himself as the enemy by his own definition/actions), causing a great amount of damage. A cold, easily verifiable fact.”
Again, that is no such thing as a cold, easily verifiable fact. Damage was caused and mistakes were made in communicating the Symbian transition, that is true, but it is no fact to say Elop took offensive action or was the enemy. It is quite possible him and Nokia management had Nokia’s best interest at heart and have been trying to strategize and execute to that effect. There is merit to the Windows Phone plan in many people’s eyes, even if many others disagree. Some argue that most damage was caused by Symbian being a mess (N97, Symbian^3). The new plan may fail, but from that does not follow a fact that it was the work of an enemy.
“But not even Symbian sales increasing is a fact.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/canaccordgenuity/2012/02/10/2012-smartphone-predictions/
Easily verifiable fact.
“It is a fact they increased for Q4/2010 when Symbian^3 launched after delays, but there is no fact to say that trend would have continued even without February 11th.”
Some more conjecture. I post fact, you post a wall of conjecture.
Yeah, they would have collapsed more than 30% three quarters in a row and caused massive loss. Nevermind that in Q1 2011, they were still growing.
“On the other hand, there is a long, long trend to suggest Symbian was loosing mindshare and marketshare prior to that and arguably even after that.”
Market share != sales. There was a long long trend of Symbian increasing its sales (the real world), despite bad press and lack of mindshare (the blogosphere). And profitable, to boot.
“It is all a matter of perception and projection.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/canaccordgenuity/2012/02/10/2012-smartphone-predictions/
Some projections for you. In 2013, Nokia sales would get back to their 2008 levels, with a sub 10% market share. A nice 5 years setback. But at least WP will not look as ridiculous as it does today.
Mission accomplished.
@yasu
I thought we were trying to assertain what the facts were? Predictions are not facts, although all throughout this conversation I have clearly maintained that predictions are important of course. It has been you and especially dr_zorg that have said I have no facts and predictions don’t matter. I do think predictions matter a great deal, especially internal predictions the companies make with all the data available to them internally.
As for my assertion:
“But not even Symbian sales increasing is a fact.”
It is fact that they did increase in certain quarters, but that fact does not translate that Symbian sales necessarily were increasing as continuing trend – they increased in certain points of time, would it have continued? That was the point I was trying to make in response to your message. Although it is beginnig to dawn on me, that it may be futile to try to find common understanding.
“ome more conjecture. I post fact, you post a wall of conjecture.”
Which fact? I acknowledge absolute Symbian sales by Nokia grew in Q4/2010. Fact. I agree. What I was saying is that, future prediction is not fact – but prediction. Just because Q4/2010 grew, does not mean it as a fact would keep growing for the foreseeable future. Fact “it grew” is different from fact “it is growing”. Also, I have argued all this time that predictions and trends too are important, only to be shot down time and time again by saying only the current numbers matter as proof. Which one is it? I think predictions do matter. They are important. But of course they are predictions, not fact. Both fact and prediction are important when creating and assessing strategies. Factually Symbian at Nokia grew (outside Nokia it diminished, fact too) at the time, but slower than the rest of the market – another fact. Arguably, Symbian predictions weren’t good, but that is just one prection of course.
“Yeah, they would have collapsed more than 30% three quarters in a row and caused massive loss. Nevermind that in Q1 2011, they were still growing. ”
No, predictably they would not have collapsed that fast if Nokia would have stayed the course. We all acknowledge that, even that the Symbian transition was miscommunicated. But beyond that, the whole argument goes, and you keep ignoring this, that it would have bled to death, so instead of long-term pain, Nokia chose short-term pain for hoped for long-term gain. Now, of course this is not a fact. This was a prediction, upon which they acted, if we believe them. I can see that you disagree, and disbelieve, and you have every right to, but I wish you’d at least acknowledge that following this train of thought the current loss is not the targeted end-result, but a step that was felt would necessary to get to that better place in the long-run. By attacking the current result time and time again, you fail or choose not to acknowledge this side of the argument.
Now, it is perfectly fine to argue that the current pain is not worth the gain they can expect to get. Many have argued that and time will tell.
But that is different from saying the current pain is an indicator of failure, compared to the old Symbian strategy. It is way too soon to judge that definitely.
“Market share != sales. There was a long long trend of Symbian increasing its sales (the real world), despite bad press and lack of mindshare (the blogosphere). And profitable, to boot.”
Fine. You and dr_zorg have argued that growth is enough, even if that growth significantly slower than the market is growing. Others feel that growth at a rate less than the market, if a long-term trend, would have been worse for Nokia than short-term pain for a targeted long-term gain. I also question, whether or not with Symbian Nokia could have even kept growing at all. But I agree that is speculative, it is my opinion.
“Some projections for you. In 2013, Nokia sales would get back to their 2008 levels, with a sub 10% market share. A nice 5 years setback. But at least WP will not look as ridiculous as it does today.”
I acknowledge the challenges. Again, the argument goes Nokia would be even worse off by staying the course with Symbian – having not even that if the Symbian marketshare trend would have continued. It may be the wrong argument, and predicting is very hard, and the execution of the new strategy may fail, but that is the logic anyway. These predictions are not in conflict with that.
“I thought we were trying to assertain what the facts were? ”
I don’t know about “we”. I post easily verifiable facts.
But since you seemed to be fan of predictions, I posted the Forbes link that corroborates what I said about Symbian/Nokia performance, and as a bonus gives you a nice prediction of a 5 years setback from the man whose actions need a lot, and I mean a *lot* of conjecture, acrobatics, apologizing and explaining.
(…)
We’ll probably rehash the same stuff at another time.
That’s just the thing, I don’t think you are posting only facts above, but also predictions when it suits your point of view. Forbes’s predictions are not facts. I was trying to separate facts and predictions. I think I did a pretty honest job at it.
As for the predictions themselves. Yes, there have been predictions saying that by sticking to their Qt strategy Nokia might have succeeded. I agree, they might have. On the other hand, they may not have. Similarly, there were many predictions saying Nokia would not make it with their Qt strategy.
Overall, there is one thing I most stronly feel about by now: Symbian was not the answer. If Nokia would have migrated fast away from it and gone full-blast MeeGo or Maemo, that would – to me – have sounded a valid strategy as well. Risky as well, sure, but a valid strategy too.
Choosing Windows Phone over MeeGo was a debatable judgement call from the Nokia management. They had their reasons, which they have explained, and some believe and some don’t. Time will tell if it works. Dumping Symbian? Necessary. Dumping Symbian so openly? Mistake.
“That’s just the thing, I don’t think you are posting only facts above, but also predictions when it suits your point of view.”
Can you point out where?
““But not even Symbian sales increasing is a fact.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/canaccordgenuity/2012/02/10/2012-smartphone-predictions/
Easily verifiable fact.”
Maybe I misunderstood, because the article offers predictions – and I thought you were answering my point about facts with predictions. That is why I responded to you trying to re-explain.
But my point was, just because Symbian sales had grown in absolute figures, that is not to say they would have continued to grow. That it would be prediction to say that they are growing. They had grown, fact. They will grow, prediction. In fact, I argue, year 2011 would have been very hard for Nokia anyway because the Symbian^3 portfolio was aging and successors delayed. But due to February 11th, it was of course much harder.
Do not the marketshare in the Figure 1, though, it was declining every year before 2011. Of course, it would also have been a prediction to say that is the way it would have continued. But now we are splitting hairs.
I have agreed – and I do agree – that in absolute numbers Symbian sales did grow in 2010. The problem is the trend with marketshare and Symbian mindshare, which first you think is not a problem as long as absolute growth was there and I guess the second one you disagree with.
I also agree that the shock to the system of February 11th has caused Nokia significant short-term hurt. Very significant. Some of it could have been avoided with better communication. It has also allowed them to change as a company, though. Time will tell if they can get their long-term gain in return.
“Maybe I misunderstood, because the article offers predictions – and I thought you were answering my point about facts with predictions. That is why I responded to you trying to re-explain.”
The article contains stats from 2008 to 2011 (supporting my point, the easily verifiable facts), with projections for 2012 and 2013.
(…)
@yasu
Yes, I thought you referred to the projections originally because that was the title of the link. But I agree with the facts there, no problem.
Fuck Elop if there is no MeeGo/N9 successor!
No way I’m buying a Windows Phone with its shitty Tiles UI!
+1000
On a more positive note, I hope the new Nokia 808 PureView will rock hard! It will an especially nice treat for all the Symbian uses and former Symbian users, that are comfortable with the user-interface. Symbian should be sufficient for this in the short-term. I’m sure the camera performance will be mindblowing.
Time to finally retire those DSLR’s and salute Anssi one more time, eh?
I’m definitely picking up the Nokia 808 (or whatever the camera monster will be called), no matter what…
Aww yeah, totally want one. Lets hope they dont screw it up somehow ! Seriously if its a 30M camera with EDOF, really …….
Im still waiting for N to deliver : great hw,great software, great camera and great loudspeaker solution.
Come on N you can do it…I hope.
oh and decent battery life too.
Okay, it’s official: If Nokia puts a 30M EDoF camera in the 808 with Carla, even I will believe Elop wants to sabotage Symbian.
Well of course he does, and by conjecture all of Nokia’s management, havn’t you been reading anything ????
@Janne
You know what would be the easiest way to get a good feel for Elop, which then would give a good feel for the whole situation ? Watch several video interviews with him.. his body language, the way he speaks, and the way he formulates his answers scream BS. It so clear, I don’t even want to hear what he is saying, and that, that is the main reason I don’t trust him, or his agenda.
I think I’ve watched them all, and also seen him speak live a few times. Clearly he is pitching his sale, but I don’t find it repulsive. Very focused message, of course to the point of inaccuracies sometime to help his message. I think he communicates well. I don’t think he is a saint, but not a devil either – a businessman in good and bad.
But we can certainly agree that people have different feelings on him, like of any salesmen.
Microsoft just posted some info on Tango.. it will work on 256 mb RAM, but there are soo many restriction. I fail to see how its better to use WP7 for the low end when you have Symbian, which does very well on 256 ram and 600 mhz. Oh, Nokia..
Perhaps Nokia wants to invade some of that space with Smarterphone/Meltemi? We’ll see how Tango fares..
you mean microsoft wants to take out the feature phone class if you notice s40 is running the same specs
Yes, that must be it.
that’s not a good sign for nokia at all since they are the ones that are well known for feature phones…it seems microsoft is doing what they do backstabing who ever they alliance with
Thanks guys for the thread, quite the debate.
Jane, I interpretate this as the finalization of this blog suspect. With the recent news that Elop is now talking about supporting upgrades after the Bell version, is probably also the results of your actions on this subject. Chapeau to all of you for spending the time on this! Mission accomplished. Elop training completed.
personally I am willing to be that what was fragile wasn’t the state of Symbian but of the development QA environment which had been foist upon developers BY Management. I mean seriously just look at a later 2009 phone and you can see the silo’s of development and the incessant patching when any decent agile development team could have got in and sorted it straight.
I reckon that Management sunk the ship not technology
mate this story is over 6wks old, why the necropost?
well I guess as I only just found it would be the reason. Weeks old … on an issue which remains current is hardly necro if you ask me … unless you suffer from the modern 2 second edit / ADHD view of things.
It still falls well withing the cat. of necro.
The fact that the issue is still unfolding is irrelevant.
Most users have moved onto much newer articles of related subject matter.
So your commentary is falling on deaf ears.*
Which kind of defeats the point of your post.
But go crazy if you want…
*at least compared to the volume of users originally following.