Nokia CEO Blames Salesmen For Windows Phone Struggles 435
An anonymous reader writes "Steven Elop of Nokia has placed some of the blame for the struggles of Windows Phone on mobile phone shops — for not pushing it. As The Register points out, sales staff 'want their commission,' and tend to only show phones they think might sell. Exact details of Windows Phone sales numbers are being covered up by both Microsoft and Nokia, who refuse to state specifics; sales figures to operators are stated at one million, but the majority of those seem to be unsold to consumers, and neither Microsoft nor Nokia will give numbers on activations. The best available numbers seem to be maximum Lumia sales estimates from Tomi Ahonen, a former Nokia Executive and the only analyst to correctly predict Nokia's market share fall for the end of 2011. Nokia's Lumia sold around 600,000 phones in 2011 (again, including the large portion in warehouses). One of the worst signs for WP8 is that Nokia's N9 — despite being crippled without marketing, and often selling at full price compared to the almost fully subsidized Lumia phones — is selling better than Nokia's Windows phones, with 1.5M or more phones reaching end users. Interestingly, if the Nokia N9 had been available in all markets, it might have sold almost 5M units and pushed Nokia into profitability."
"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:4, Insightful)
Then maybe you should fire your marketing department, because clearly you are trying to convert the wrong people.
You deserved it for abandoning Meego (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
The phones don't sell because they run WP7.
The phones run WP7 because Nokia sold its remaining soul to MSFT.
Nokia sold its remaining soul to MSFT in exchange for continued existence.
Prolonging the inevitable doesn't make it any less inevitable.
Could it simply be that WP Nokia are crap? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Elop, do you want to go down w/ the ship? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly, if the Nokia N9 had been available in all markets, it might have sold almost 5M units and pushed Nokia into profitability."
Truer words not said.
I noticed last week in a big electronics store in Germany, that N9s were now on sale there. Originally, they were not sold here . . . but Amazon Germany sold imports from Austria. It will be interesting to see if this starts to spread to other markets.
I'm sure the Austrian sales force made their quota for N9s.
The problem is the brand, not the OS. (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I've seen of the reviews, WP is a pretty good OS, and the Lumia phones are being sold at pretty competitive prices with lots of marketing behind them. So, now MS and Nokia are fishing around for explanations for why they aren't selling to consumers.
The answer is the MS brand. After years of pushing crap on users, using nasty and anti-consumer tactics to fight their competitors, and trying to harm the Internet, MS is a tarnished consumer brand - surprise, surprise.
Obviously, I think this is fair, but I also think it is fair that consumers and the industry re-evaulate brands. MS has been much better behaved in recent years (e.g. they are trying to win the browser wars by making their browser better) so maybe they deserve a second chance?
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
The phones don't sell because they run WP7.
Pretty much. I gave up on any Microsoft-based phone long ago. My last handset (HTC XV6800) was running WinMo 6.0 and it was such a piece of shit. I had to reboot the damn thing multiple times a day due to freezes and shit...
Never again...
Re:True stories (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know the salesmen motivations
They're trying to steer their customers away from a substandard product.
Always hard to be the third option (Score:5, Insightful)
I sold audio equipment for a couple of years and one of the first things I got to learn was to always give the customer TWO options. Unless the customer seemed unhappy with both choices, introducing a third option would only make the buying decision harder often resulting in a "need to go home and think about it"-response. This of course combined with lazy salespersons who doesn't feel they need to learn anything more than they absolutely need to close a deal.
This isn't exactly news to people in sales. Anyone trying to enter as a "third option" will have an extemely tough time trying to break through in the market, even if their product is better in many aspects.
(And as with any golden "rule of thumb" within sales, there is of course a shitload of exceptions, but I doubt the smartphone market is one of them)
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
very heavily rewritten
A whole load of new bugs to deal with!
Re:The problem is the brand, not the OS. (Score:5, Insightful)
MS has been much better behaved in recent years
Suing TomTom over ridiculous patents is not better behavior, especially since the only reason to use the technology in the first place is to interact with their OS and its ill-gained market dominance.
MS's marketing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not about the phone, I've never heard of it. But in NZ they're advertising the Windows 7 OS. The TV ads are absolutely terrible.
One is a father and son both on laptops, the son gets dad to help with division on his computer(which you'd expect to be easy on a computer [wolframalpha.com]), and the son goes onto his dad's laptop. He then groovies up his powerpoint presentation with noise, wallpaper, and 3D extruded text and graphs.
Compare this to the elegant and elitist Mac ads. They make you think that one becomes stylish and cool with lots of good-looking friends of all races with perfect smiles. This is proper marketing. Mac is much better at it than MS.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you propose Nokia will do anything now most of the engineers were either sacked, walked or were transferred out of Nokia along with the IP?
Nokia were up shit creek bereft of paddles before MS infiltrated them, with engineers incapable of finishing any of their new OS projects. MS and WP7 just took away the boat as well and put concrete boots on the company.
Re:Fine fanboy (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but sales staff don't make commissions on i he N9 (because they don't fucking OFFER it), and yet people get online, find an importer who sells this phone with the last-of-line OS and consequent grim support outlook (and, outside Europe, not even any warranty at all!), and buy them -- surely this sales mechanism is equally plausible for WinPhone7 phones, actually more so, since they are warrantied, and can expect OS updates for a long time, but it doesn't happen in volumes anything like the N9.
Possibly because (practically) nobody wants WP7 phones? This was the GP's point.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] I have owned the WP7 Phone (HTC Arrive) since last April [...] (disclaimer: I don't install a ton of apps on my phone).
No need to say the same thing twice ;)
On a slightly more serious note: App selection is one of most important aspects on a smart phone today, and Windows Phone is nowhere near the quantity and quality of iPhone and Android in this area.
Market saturation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fine fanboy (Score:4, Insightful)
And there are people who do want Nokia phones based on good quality in the past, so they go looking for one. Shop around and compare features and the N9 comes up on top.
Nokia is constantly shooting itself in the foot over this stuff. They had products essentially finished and starting beta in a week and the project gets shutdown and replaced with windows crap. That's the high end stuff dying, but high end is a small market for relatively richer customers. The real problem is the mass market phones are being undercut by cheap phones, ie a zillion people around the world just want to phone up relatives and use voice *gasp* with no data plans, no extra features, just something sturdy and with good voice quality. That's the market that Nokia used to dominate.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:4, Insightful)
According to this article [blogs.com] posted elsewhere on this thread, messaging and camera are by far the most important aspects.
As for quality and quantity, fart apps on Android and iPhone are like text editors once were on SourceForge. There is a lot of padding in those app totals. All of the apps that I've ever cared to use are on Windows Phone, but like I said I'm probably in the lame demographic when it comes to app demand. Things like a synchronized calendar with Exchange, Google Apps, and Facebook are what float my boat and that is built in.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:1, Insightful)
So says you. I run a businesses and I need a phone to communicate. A million badly written "apps" that make fart noises don't add any value to me. But, to each their own...
Re:The problem is the brand, not the OS. (Score:5, Insightful)
So WP could be the coolest, slickest thing on the planet, but the Microsoft AND Windows branding is just lethal. I mean, an outstanding Windows product has always been praised by "Well, it's not as bad as the last version", clear back to the birth of the brand thirty years ago.
I still use my 2007 N800.
Re:Hahaha!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
My last phone was a Nokia XPress Music 3510. The only reason I binned it was because, after 4 years, the screen cracked and began cutting out or losing backlighting. I was shocked at how few Nokia phones there were on show, either in the "Pay as you go" or Contract sections of the stores (I went to about 6 to find the best prices). If there were any Nokias they were relegated to the "Other makers" section, alongside makers. Blackberry's got their own (small) stand, as did iPhones, while about 2/3s of the walls were the myriad Android handsets from Samsung, HTC, et al. This is in the UK btw, and the O2 store in particular had probably two Nokia handsets in total. The had more Sagem handsets than Nokia. (Not to besmirch Sagem, I have owned TWO sagems out of 5 phones I've owned since 2002, the first was actually my first phone, and was fine. Simple, but fine. The second got wedged between the inside and the outside of a car and refused to work afterwards but was a good phone while it lasted).
Frankly, Nokia had a good thing making phones that were phones. Their attempts to break into the Smartphone market have been schizophrenic at best. S60 was supposed to be superceeded by atleast three different OSes IIRC. Maemo, Meego (Which was an evolution of Maemo) and Symbian 3. Now they're making Windows phones and, while I don't think anyone doubts that it's a capable OS (if not the best, I don't think anyone will say it's unusable), and requires only marketing and visibility to sell, I don't think Nokia realise that the name "Nokia" is no longer synonymous with "Good Phone", and hasn't been for some time. They've been overtaken by Samsung, HTC, Apple and RIM (and that's saying something considering RIMs in a bit of bother). And the reason is plainly one thing: They were late to the party and they brought more drink while everyone was already sozzled and sleeping comfortably with their poison of choice.
It's like what happened with IBM and OS/2, they've lost and don't know it yet. They need to refocus to survive. Maybe in a few years a gap will open up when the next big tech leap comes out. Bide their time and come back stronger.
Re:Fine fanboy (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why aren't they walking into the shop and saying "Sell me a Nokia Lumia 900, dammit!"? Why not the same level of determination for a WP7 phone?
Negative brand? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling that Microsoft have been mistaken branding everything they do "Windows something". People generally run Windows not because they like Windows (they curse it, generally) but because they have to have it to run the apps they want.
If that driver isn't there, people run a mile from anything branded Windows, because they see Windows as dull and a source of discomfort from their experience on the PC. Android and iOS don't have that baggage. Also, there will be a lot of negative baggage from memories of the old Winmo devices. Non-technical people don't realise that Windows Phone 7 is actually a different platform, they see the name "Windows", and remember what WinMo and WinCE (pronounced wince) was like. Also you'll get the folks who see "Ah, Windows, therefore it'll run suchandsuch an app for my PC too", then find that Windows Phone is actually completely different to Windows on the PC and is incompatible, and get disapointed.
Note that Apple didn't call the iPhone OS "OSX", even though they share a codebase - it got called something completely different, thus avoiding confusion and avoid having disappointed nontechnical people who think their Mac software can run on their iPhone or iPad.
In short, I think Microsoft should have invented a different name that's not Windows for their phones to break all the negative associations people have with Windows (dull, something I use only for work, etc.). But then again, we've seen Microsoft try to be cool in the past and it was painful to watch (Zune).
Re:Fine fanboy (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see a lot of evidence one way or another, but if people are coming and *demanding* the N9, but not *demanding* any of their WP7 devices, more is wrong than sales commissions....
The N9 could not have been hamstrung much more than the way Nokia handled it. Anyone in the market for it knows up front that Nokia shot their MeeGo efforts in the head, all of Nokia's positive efforts are behind WP7 now, and yet people are claiming N9 is outperforming their WP7 and no one seems to be challenging that assertion. A device running a confirmed dead-end platform as far as you are concerned should never ever perform better than your flagship endeavors.
Re:Negative brand? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's just about what I wanted to say. People don't WANT Windows. They have very little choice over Windows. Apple is more than just a choice, it's a frikken LIFESTYLE choice filled with things you can't do if you go that way. Linux, as much as I love it, takes work, skill, patience, aptitude and an appreciation for learning new things... these are traits that VERY few people have. (Admit it people! Frikken admit it! There's no silver bullet that Linux on a PC can deliver to overcome the damage Microsoft has done. Android has the right idea -- make a "new market" and dominate that one.)
To remind people of something they hate is simply a HUGE mistake and proves that Microsoft has NO idea how much people hate them.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:True stories (Score:5, Insightful)
People who even walk in looking for Windows Phones are steered towards Android phones.
I will recount my experience: I wanted to by a WP7 handset during the promotion Microsoft ran last year. I set up an appointment at the store to buy the phone. Get to the store and find out they are out of stock. Store people call around and find one left at a store a few blocks away, so I put that one on hold. Go to the other store to get the phone, and the sales rep suggests I should get an iPhone or Android handset instead.
I tell him I want the WP7 phone because I like the development environment for it. That still isn't good enough, so he asks if I am sure. I then ask him what he knows about WP7. Has he ever used it? No. I ask what he knows about WP7. He said he knew nothing about it, he was just more familiar with iPhone and Android.
After I finally convince the guy that I really did want the WP7 phone I had put on hold at the store, he activates it. Turns out he didn't really activate it, he bricked it. Obviously I should have checked it while in the store, but I never had a problem before. I took the phone to another store the next day to have it reset after spending an hour with customer support to try a manual activation which failed. Clearly the rep had no training for the phone. I have a hard time believing a typical consumer would put up with half of the hassle I did before they would say: "Give me an iPhone, this one doesn't work." It seems to me that Microsoft has totally dropped the ball with the sales force at the carriers. They should not be pushing the phone until the store reps are comfortable with it and show at least a little enthusiasm for the device. Microsoft should spend some of the marketing money flying reps to Hawaii or Vail or Jamaica or wherever sales rep paradise might be.
As for WP7, I do like what Microsoft has done in general. There are still rough edges here and there, but I would guess they will be addressed in future phone releases. The voice translation is amazingly good, and the Bing music recognition feature works really well. Turn by Turn navigation works well, too. I have not had any problems with crashes or the disappearing keyboard. The active tiles are nice, and a lot better than the icon infestation of iOS. I think it is at least equal to iOS and Android in terms of utility. But for me, the big selling point is not the phone, but rather Visual Studio and Expression Blend, which make app development much nicer that the pain of XCode. I haven't done much with Android, but colleagues who are developing for it tell me they would prefer to use Visual Studio, and that the fragmentation of Android really is a problem from a QA perspective.
Re:Fine fanboy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure that's a Windows Phone?
I ask because, as far as updates go, there hasn't been that many (nor a need for any).
I bought my HTC Titan in mid-November, which came loaded with 7.5. There hasn't been any OS updates since then.
Sure, a few apps have updated themselves here and there -- mostly games -- but nothing serious.
And, although it's just my own experience, so far using the phone has been fantastic. It's frozen once on my that I can remember, during a game. It's never rebooted or hung besides that. It's super-fast, very easy to use, and whenever I show it to people they are jealous.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't have text reflow in the browser. That's pathetic. Eventually MS will allow native apps and Opera will be released for WP7, but IE9 should have come with text reflow. And don't give me the stupid fanboy response of "I don't need it." or "It's woooorse with it". Screw those fanboys.