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."
True stories (Score:5, Interesting)
People have been so fed of this that made a site with horror stories listed on a map.
http://wptattletale.com/retail-locations [wptattletale.com]
People who even walk in looking for Windows Phones are steered towards Android phones.
Re:Estimate numbers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:True stories (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh man, the MS fanboys are going to cry tonight (Score:5, Interesting)
The dutch wanna-be tech site tweakers.net ran this figure a day or two ago... and you had fanboy after fanboy proudly proclaiming that 1 million sales to vendors showed just how this was the end of Android and iPhone and the full victory of MS and Windows Phone 7... ignoring quite easily that Android has 700.000 activations a DAY and that the latest iPhone does something like 4 million in a weekend.
MS market share on the mobile market has always been and continues to be laughable but being outsold by a Linux phone that has no marketting and isn't available in the west? That is just beyond sad, it might even be time for shareholders to start questioning if Nokia is upholding its duty as a publicly traded company to maximize shareholder value.
Missing from this story is that MS is funding Nokia for quite a lot of money, I believe it came down to about 150 or so dollars per sold MS phone IS they actually sold 1 million (185 million subsidy).
Some MS fanboys already admit that 7 and 7.5 are already duds but surely 8 will be the lucky numbers (actually a far higher version number but who can keep track when failure comes so fast and reliable) but without any real claims.
The sad part is that MS doing so badly isn't helping the market any, competion is good for the customer and right now there just isn't any from MS.
Elop should just be fired by the shareholders, how can you claim with a straight face that your phone doesn't sell through the fault of the shops when the phone you won't put in the shops outsells it by a gigantic margin?
If any Nokia shares are still in private hands, I would be highly suprised if this story won't have a tail (shares owned by MS and MS friends don't count of course).
Re:True stories (Score:4, Interesting)
This actually happened to me this last weekend when I went to the T-Mobile booth in the mall and asked about the Lumia 710 and was strongly encouraged to look the other way. They did relent and show me the phone (which they said was charging because the battery was fully drained but when they handed it to me, it was fully charged) but I had to be persistent.
three words: WORLD'S SMALLEST VIOLIN (Score:1, Interesting)
For decades, Microsoft made damn sure that it was really hard to buy a PC with an operating system other than Windows from anybody other than Apple. And it didn't stem from a tendency of salespeople to seek commissions, it was done with draconian contracts and dirty back-room deals.
As soon as they enter a market where they don't have the clout to demand hardware manufacturers pay a royalty for every unit sold, whether or not an MS operating system is included, they start whining about salespeople pushing what they think will sell.
Re:True stories (Score:4, Interesting)
People who even walk in looking for Windows Phones are steered towards Android phones.
Had personal experience with this one. I went in to AT&T to see the new HTC Titan when it came out. Asked to see it by name and without skipping a beat he directs me to the Samsung Galaxy (II? I can't remember what it was). Now I can only assume what happens when someone goes in and asks "I'm interested in a smartphone, this is what I do, this is what I need, what do you have"... probably shows them right to an Android phone.
Re:True stories (Score:1, Interesting)
I think the issue is that they were told or remember that past Win phones were terrible, so they aren't in any hurry to repeat that.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you seen the sales figures? While it's true that Nokia loses marketshare percentage doesn't mean it is losing sales. On the contrary: iPhone and Android have just been outpacing Symbian devices in an exponentialy growing market (not only just of smartphones, but also developping countries).
Not just that; sales have been going up in Q4 of 2011 compared to Q3 of 2011.
And also; Nokia Belle (Symbian^3 Belle) is now the most advance smartphone OS on the planet. If you think I'm kidding, just look at this shit:
-Qt4.7.4;
-All UI features of Android and iOS combined and added upon;
-NFC;
-USB-host;
-Mini-HDMI;
-Running on monsterglas with Amoled and ClearBlack devices;
-Running on the phone with still the best camera to date: Better than iPhone4S;
-Media Centre;
-Microsoft mobile version of OneNote, Powerpoint viewer, Sharepoint and the rest of that stuff;
-Official Exchange compatibility;
-Swap (never ever out of RAM with these 250MB+16GB flash storage devices);
-HTMLv5 browser + mobile Adobe Flash;
-Facebook and Twitter VPN;
-VoIP (not an app; incorporated into the OS!);
-Build in internet Radio;
-Nokia offline Maps;
-Et-freacking-cetera.
The OVI store has more downloads per day than Apple's and Android's Appstore/Market. Symbian smartphones webbrowser agents are turning up higher in numbers than Android and iOS combined and growing still.
Also about 75% of the worlds 3G network is Nokia-Siemens.
You know what Nokia did to Microsoft? "Lol give us money and software", so then later they can drop it again, just like they did with European Union donations for open sourcing Symbian, to later close it again. Nokia demanded Qt software on WP7, and right now Nokia is improving upon the N9 UI and working on a long-taking Symbian replacement, based on Linux.
Who's fucking who?
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
For what it's worth, I had Windows Mobile 5, 6, and 6.5 phones. The non-touch Blackberry-style phones (e.g Moto Q) were decent but the touch phones were a buggy unstable mess in no small part due to the crapware that came pre-installed on many though I'm sure the OS design was the primary culprit.
After being convinced to go to Android and an EVO 4g, I had a chance to use a WP7 phone in the store and was pleasantly surprised. You can't really understand how interesting WP7 is until it's in your hands. I have owned the WP7 Phone (HTC Arrive) since last April and the thing has locked up on me exactly once, and it recovered about about 20 seconds (disclaimer: I don't install a ton of apps on my phone). It is a completely different experience. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but it is light years ahead of Windows Mobile and, in several ways that matter to me, ahead of Android and iOS.
The N9 is absolutely fantastic (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought one for myself, another as a gift and I'm thinking of buying two for my parents.
It has seamless Skype and SIP integration, so you can type in a number and choose which service to use from a drop-down box, all from the standard interface. Messaging is all integrated, with SMS, Google Talk, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The UI looks great and is very smooth. The phone runs Linux on a 1 GHz processor, with 1 GB of RAM, so you can do a lot with it, with true multitasking and a lot of features. Application development is really nice, since it's all based on Qt. And you can imagine how neat it is to run Linux on a phone, and use apt-get to install stuff.
I have no problem with Nokia making Windows phones. It's nice OS, even if it's lacking apps (in particular, no Skype and no SIP stack). But cancelling Meego was madness from a business perspective. Elop killed an amazing product, and what is in my opinion the best mobile OS out there, for both consumers and developers.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not actually true. Even just breaking even means that you don't have to lay off employees with important skills and knowledge, and watch them go work for competitors. It means buying yourself some time for R&D to catch up. It means time for a competitor or two to make a mistake. People forget how many years Apple struggled with "inevitable" bankruptcy, that as recently as 2003 you could've had a share of AAPL for $7.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
very heavily rewritten
A whole load of new bugs to deal with!
...and that's not just a joke.
I have a friend that bought a WP7 phone (she used to have an iphone, and loved it, but got a little tired of seeing the same thing every day and wanted to try something new) 'cause it seemed very slick and flashy in the store—only to find out it's insanely buggy / flaky / ill-designed in everyday use. She updates the software regularly and has actually had the hardware replaced multiple times, but things never seem to really improve.
She's not sure whether she'll go back to iphone or try some android thing next, but she's adamant that she's never getting another winphone...
Re:Sounds about right... (Score:5, Interesting)
T-Mobile has has the Lumia on sale since the turn of the year or so....
What's interesting is that *all* the "review" comments for the Lumia are glowing, all praise the technical features, and all seem to be quite well informed about the features and have correct spelling and grammar. While the review comments on the LG and other phones are more typical bitching and griping about how the phone quit working because the screen broke when the user dropped it....
The mind reels.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
You mentioned, "WP7 is designed *superbly*. It's immensely usable, it's very, VERY fast even on a single core processor." ...This sounds just incredible--not even close to what I would expect. The exact opposite of what we have been hearing from many others.
I don't know about the AC - or you for that matter - but i've used a windows phone (phone?) and it certainly is incredibly smooth (even if you haven't used one i'm sure you can have a look at youtube videos). As for usability i can't say i found it any less usable than any other smartphone, things are generally where you expect them to be just like on iOS, skydrive and office integration is pretty nice if you like that sort of thing. I think their zune (on the phone i mean) software needs some work though, for example creating playlists isn't exactly intuitive.
It's basically the modern smartphone experience (android, ios) just presented in a bit different way and with ties to xbox live, I don't see it winning over happy iphone or android customers by virtue of it not being something particularly revolutionary or anything like that but for what it's worth it does appear to be pretty well done.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
The live tiles. I have some complaints about how the tiles handle group contact alerts but I really appreciate their economy. Put the phone down for an hour and one glance at the start screen can give you 6 new data insights. For me it's normally: new work email, new personal email, new missed calls, new responses to Twitter or Facebook posts, new status updates from my family, upcoming calendar appointments. Also, the ability to deep link live tiles is great as well.
Yes, this is what I liked as well. The iPhone "sea of icons" is not as nice as tiles that actually do stuff, display information, etc. WP7 is a denser, more power-user-friendly UI.
Oddly enough, I know several WP7 people who love their phones and would not trade them for iPhone/Android competitors. I am forced to admit that their phones are very nice.
Me? No. I own too many iOS apps and the switchover is too much headache. Microsoft, you came too late.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
This just isn't accurate. It's not insanely buggy nor flaky, and so I'd like to know what your friend was seeing. I've switched from iOS to WinPhone 7.5 with an HTC Titan about 2 months ago, and I've found a couple of bugs:
1. The disappearing keyboard bug. This is sporadic, and easily worked around (by just refocusing the address bar), and is slated to be fixed soon.
2. Some web pages don't render quite as well as iOS Safari and Android web browsers. But this is pretty rare.
3. Music Hub needs some navigation work, certainly.
Aside from these issues, I've found it to be rather bug free, quite fast, and usable. I wouldn't at all characterize it as "insanely buggy" or "flaky" and I recommend it highly. Yeah, go ahead and accuse me of being paid my MS and what not. This is purely my point of view.
Re:Fine fanboy (Score:5, Interesting)
In which universe the N9 had 6 months on the market? Its official release date is 27. September 2011 ( http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/09/27/nokia-n9-is-heading-to-the-shops/ ) and the first reported online store (with 4 weeks waiting period!) appeared in mid October. The release was followed by a huge number of complains from people not being able to get it all over the interwebs throughout the whole October (read the news from NWC, 26. Oct, and read the complaints in the comments from people not being able to get it. That lasted 'til at least mid November after which the sales chain stabilized.
At best, N9 had a month more than the Lumia 800 + Lumia 710, it had much higher price, it was released in non-key and weak markets for smartphones (except China, where they'd surely release the Lumia if the designers of the Metro UI in their unfathomable wisdom didn't decide to make a typography-centric UI that takes quite some time to change the script, if even possible), some of those announced markets never received it, quite a number of them with people earning $1-$2/day on average so it could only be a niche device, it had almost no subsidization (and where it had, it lasted only for a month, those markets are now becoming Lumia markets), it had a measly marketing budget compared to the Lumia line, it had a DOA stamp all over it (including the Elop's own - even if it's a success, we won't be making any more MeeGo devices)... And it beat the Lumia sales at least 2:1, and some are even claiming 3:1 (of course, we'll hardly know the exact numbers). And nobody blamed/cheered the salespeople for its 'success' (well, it is quite a success compared the number of things it had against it, including the silent hate from the very company producing it).
Re:Sounds about right... (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. On certain business-oriented Finnish web sites I've noticed an odd pattern of posters who claim the Lumia phones are 'the best phone ever' and who attack any negative commenters on WP7 as "liars" etc. The pattern reeks very much of a deliberate marketing campaign either by Nokia's marketing department or desperate stock holders trying to cash out before the wheels come off. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was happening on English language web sites as well.
I've had an HTC WP7 from the company for almost 6 months now and esp after the 7.5 Mango update the phone has felt reliable (reliable enough where this is now the phone I trust to wake me up in the mornings) and the device feels quite responsive. The things which I don't like about the phone is a) the demented interface design which expects you to reorient the phone between landscape and portrait when navigating from one menu to another and b) the phone is lacking in apps which I'd personally find useful/interesting. The free apps tend to be ad-filled garbage and the paid apps are overpriced IMO - but I appreciate that my Nokia N900-based expectation of getting useful/interesting apps for cheap/free is part of any problem Nokia may face in trying to convince iPhone/Android devs to target the WP7 platform.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why the N9 is selling so well. It runs Meego, an OS with a paradigm similar to iOS. The market desperately wants a competitor to iOS that doesn't suck as badly as Android does.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:4, Interesting)
N9 was never on the front of the "MeeGo strategy", which was, frankly, a pathetic bungle. N9 software was a one-off project based on the older Maemo work, to get something out while MeeGo, the platform shared with Intel, was being developed for real. But they did brand it as some "MeeGo-kinda-but-not-quite" bullshit to create confusion which later contributed to the myth. The lack of focus caused real MeeGo to be hopelessly late in reaching any kind of platform maturity. Even the N9 was only released in late 2011, nearly a year after all major strategic decisions have been evaluated and made.
Re:"...only show phones they think might sell." (Score:5, Interesting)
"Nokia were up shit creek bereft of paddles before MS infiltrated them, with engineers incapable of finishing any of their new OS projects."
I would challenge that notion. Lot of feedback from internals indicates that this time management was that who blow it. Reasons where numerous, but mostly Nokia legal's deep distrust with open source and Linux per se. As far as I remember biggest problem was to provide closed DRM based system within Linux system (that wouldn't be so easy to override). As Nokia legals has always have been overzealous pro-IP, this isn't really a surprise. They could easily release normal working Maemo system year and half ago. I mean, that OS and stack were battle tested on N770 and N800/N810. But legal fears and trying to introduce half-backed DRM solution when world strictly moved away for them killed any hope for Maemo.
It also explains why Nokia management fell into Microsoft arms in nanoseconds. Unfortunately, they are made for each other.