Nokia Windows Phone Revealed

DMiax writes "Nokia's controversial CEO Stephen Elop just revealed the prototype of the next WP7 handset. The CEO asked the journalists present to turn off the cameras because the new phone was 'super confidential.' Did he really expect them to comply? After all he must know that this has the potential to hurt the sales of the recently released N9, the last non-Windows Nokia smartphone. He would never want to do that, right?"

"To hurt the N9?"

[the linux geek]

Nokia has been pretty upfront ever since the announcement of the move to WP7 that it was their primary smartphone OS, and MeeGo was mainly an experiment. I really doubt that Nokia gives much of a fuck if this WP7 device hurts the N9 at all, especially since they appear to be almost identical in hardware.

N9?

[js3]

Isn't this the phone everyone raves about but nobody wants to buy?

Re:It's reverse psychology!

[Lehk228]

if you want not android and not ios there is already blackberry, which supports actual background multitasking at least back to OS 5 and i think OS4 did too, also RIM does not trust itself, if you install a RIM first party app from blackberry app world (RIM marketplace) it asks the same permissions requests that any other app does.

with a blackberry RIM recognizes that it is MY phone not theirs, i can install apps from the internet via blackberry browser and i can install apps via the BB desktop manager from my PC

Re:N9?

[DemonGenius]

Why buy a phone that you KNOW will not be supported well, or long?

Given the open source nature of Meego, I'm guessing Nokia is expecting the community to pick up the slack here. The Nokia Qt SDK is readily available and from what I've seen in the few hours playing with it, seems like a decent framework for developing "apps" for Meego. While that's all fine and dandy, it would be nice if there was a little official support so that developers can concentrate on writing "apps" and less time fixing bugs and implementing features Nokia should be handling themselves.

Re:N9?

[Microlith]

it would be nice if there was a little official support so that developers can concentrate on writing "apps" and less time fixing bugs and implementing features Nokia should be handling themselves.

The stock software on the device is a mix of the old Maemo understructure and a proprietary upper layer (the part that integrates all the social media services) that the community can't do anything with themselves.

Before long I expect MeeGo (as in, MeeGo Community Edition) to be up and running with full functionality on the device, which should be nice and fully functional by the time Nokia decides to give up the ghost completely.

Re:N9?

[wvmarle]

And then? Open source is great and so - but software is nothing without hardware it can be installed on.

Mobile phones are devices, not exactly what I see as a platform to install a different OS on.

Also while it may have a nice framework for app development, with a user base of 2 there will not be many app developers interested in working on the platform. Some hobbyists maybe, but nothing to take serious.

Really without at least one major phone maker behind it, MeeGo is going to die. Open source or not, it's going to die. Sad but true. Android is the future, iOS a good second (will be second due to it's restriction to Apple devices), WP7 may survive thanks to the deep pockets of Microsoft, but for the rest... well... what rest?

Re:Metro is ugly as sin.

[aristotle-dude]

If color is all you're on about, you can choose the light theme and the background (system-wide) is white. The dark theme is on by default, partly for style and partly because it's more energy efficient on the AMOLED screens.

So then everything is they the opposite might not be what someone wants either. You also don't address the fact that Metro is typography heavy which means it is English centric effectively.

Re:It's reverse psychology!

[terjeber]

Seriously, go to a store and try a WP7 device

Take that advice. As a mobile developer I obviously have an iPhone, I have an Android device (actually more than one) and I got a WP7 device as soon as I could. My iPhone has always been my primary personal device. When I get a new phone, I always make my self use it as my primary device for a week to get to know it. I did that with my WP7 device too. Back in the beginning of this year. It's still my primary device, and I cringe every time I have to use the iPhone. Honestly, the UX is significantly better with WP7.

Are there things missing. Absolutely, but not enough to make me want to go back to the iPhone, and from what I gather, the missing will no longer be missing come Mango.

Re:It's reverse psychology!

[xnpu]

Really? Because I can't do jack with my Blackberry without signing up for a BIS or installing a BES. It seems to be MY phone only as long as I pay my RIM taxes.

Re:It's reverse psychology!

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent quotes from terjeber.

See if you can spot a trend...

"Honestly, the UX is significantly better with WP7."

"Windows 7 as an operating system is significantly better protected than Linux"

"Windows is out ahead though. With a bit of a margin actually."

"Linux is a really bad fit for the desktop."

"Windows hasn't been that unstable since Windows 98."

"My personal workstation is a Windows XP thing"

"NET MVC beats both Play! and Spring hands down."

"you'll be significantly more productive with .NET than Java"

"compared to DirectX, OpenGL sucks."

Wanting what you cannot have

[SuperKendall]

They should have chosen either Maemo or Meego, ported the Symbian UI framework for backwards compatibility and developed a modern competitive UI to compete with iOS and Android.

That is pretty much what they tried to do though, and the thing is they simply could not do it. I do not understand the reasons why exactly, but it's not like Nokia did not see this same fact and try. It's sad they could not succeed at all, but WP7 really was the best path forward for Nokia - with Android they would have been a vendor very late to the game, tied to Microsoft they at least have the chance to affect development and direction of the platform as a preferred hardware vendor.

Microsoft seems like they are coming into this late but do not count them out. They have a LOT of money and they have to make something hit, and WP7 is actually a pretty decent base to build on once they catch up the internals.

What everyone seems to overlook

[MemoryDragon]

Nokia has been struggling, new ex Microsoft CEO was brought in, makes 100% turn by axing the entire software division and handing it over to Microsoft. The platform Nokia has been working on for three years finally is released (probabyl also due to contractual obligations) and gets raving reviews.
Ceo who killed literally every other road for Microsoft by telling upfront, forget about Symbian forget about Maemo stands upfront a crowd one day after the N9 is released and almost 100% raving reviews come in and he has nothing better to do after day one of the raving reviews to show his Windows 7 version of the same phone "accidentally". Ooops a leak, oh well never mind.
If this guy is not a Microsoft juggernaut than what. He damages his own divisions by using the old dont buy that we have something else in the line tactics, Microsoft used successfully in the 90s to kill off competition. But he is applying the tactics internally probably to kill of the Maemo division which if the N9 would have become successful could cause his pro Microsoft course to be questioned again and in the end his job.

The Microsoft Vaporware tactic used to be following:
Usually if a product had mediocre success, they instantly launched a press release usually showing some images of vaporware with the message dont buy from them we have something in the line. If the other product was killed then often nothing came from Microsoft if the product stayed on the market then Microsoft usually shoved a half working clone out in the wild with that and the back then we buy only from Microsoft crowd this was enough most times to kill the product. The prime example for that tactics was Borland C++ and their excellent Windows UI classlib and also the Star Division C++ UI Classlib, which went down the gutters when Microsoft forced anyone to the absymality MFC.
Another prime example was the famouse Cairo operating system which they instantly announced when Next showed off NextStep. They never could pull it off basically thanks to their broken COM component model which they shoved literally upon poor developers. The same they tried with Corba which they positioned their back then not even working DCom against. When they sold DCom as Corba competitior even their own examples they delivered with it did not work.

So to sum this up, accidentally leaked. Definitely not. This seems like a last stroke against the Maemo division to me so that they cannot gain control by releasing a successful (qualitywise they seem to have gotten their act right) product. If anything else did not show it this, action clearly showed that Nokia is fucked as long as this guy is at the helm, this is a juggernaut Microsoft sellout nothing more nothing less. Every sane CEO simply would have tried to keep multiple platforms, probably putting symbian on the roast releasing a Windows Mobile product and Android and given the state of the N9 also Maemo as successor to Symbian. Just as basically HTC and Samsung do it.

The Elop Conspiracy

[gman99]

OK, the conspiracy theories are getting ridiculous now. Full disclaimer: I'm an (ex)Nokia employee and was caught up in the great purge of developers following the feb11 announcement. So I'll very soon be out of a job (but as the redundancy package for all the employees at my site is extremely sweet, I'm very happy to bail -- plus this is not the company I joined all those years ago) Even as an employee, I could see that there is no consumer device they have released in the last 4years (since the N95) that I actually cared about (except the N900; which is not really a consumer device, but it's certainly the best mobile computer on the planet! :) Anyway, back to the article; that video was available on the Nokia intranet for employees worldwide to watch. The event was not filled with journalists/bloggers but employees (inside a Nokia site). This is not a vast conspiracy to hurt the N9 (as there are tons of similar videos released internally every week whenever an exec speaks "publicly" at a nokia site; that obviously no one bothered to leak) -- the difference this time is that there are a massive number of disgruntled employees worldwide who have been told their role is terminating/moved to Accenture/projects canceled etc. I assume a random employee leaked this. You could still say that it's stupid to have confidential videos available to employees worldwide, but that's just how Nokia operates. There is a large amount of trust towards the employees (which is regularly broken), and they've resisted from turning into a massively secret organisation in full lockdown mode (& this is one of the things that makes it a wonderful place to work) The above is not meant to be taken as me standing up for Elop. I disagree vehemently with his strategy; but there are parts of it that are yet to be made public (well, it is public now, but no one has joined the dots yet :). It'll make more sense in the next 12 months. It's extremely high risk and not guaranteed to succeed). But there is one thing most employees agreed with before he took centre stage; and that is Nokia's strategy before Feb11 was fucked. Of course, it's still possible Elop's an MS stooge trying to run the company to the ground. If so, he's doing an amazingly good job of hiding it (internally; where the strategy is known). The only really stupid (public) mistake he's done so far is to EOL Symbian before the successor was in place. I have no idea why, but I assume MS gave Nokia a billion reasons to force him to make that statement. Anyway, I think Nokia's finished. I'm glad the N9 is out. Full linux distro, root access with a shell out of the box (OK, you need to enable dev mode which is just a UI toggle) -- I have a phone for the next 3 years and a large payout & couldn't care less about what happens to the company But do keep the conspiracy theories reasonable, guys :)