Operators: Nokia Would Sell Better With Android 439
nk497 writes "Mobile operators are complaining that Nokia's Lumia line of handsets would sell better if it ran a different OS — or if Microsoft was more willing to put marketing money behind Windows Phone. 'No one comes into the store and asks for a Windows phone,' said an executive in charge of mobile devices at one European operator. He said Microsoft's software worked nicely with PCs and allowed you 'to do tons of cool things,' but few customers knew this. 'If the Lumia with the same hardware came with Android in it and not Windows, it would be much easier to sell,' he said."
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that article is mostly a "duh". Of course people come in wanting one of two things- #1 Android or #2 iPhone. It is going to take a LOT of work on Microsoft's part to try and get visibility now.
Nokia ditched perfectly good Linux based mobile OS's for their high-end phones and now they will have another uphill battle.
Re:A true story (Score:3, Insightful)
You know MS... never buy something until SP1. I assume the same should be true of Windows Phones.
Maemo/Harmattan/MeeGo even better (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an Nokia N9. The multitasking with swipe is brilliant. Did you close the app? (as simple as swipe down) No? Then it is still running. And by running I mean actually running, not the half-baked task-switching employed in Windows Phone or iOS. And it takes only a swipe to see which apps are running. Even on Android I am often guessing whether an app is still active or not, which can be quite annoying.
QML/QtQuick makes app development easy yet powerfull. The normal Linux kernel with X makes porting easier. The N9 truly is a great device for novices, power-users and hardcode hackers.
Re:A true story (Score:4, Insightful)
I usually recommend waiting to SP2 as SP1 is usually poorly tested. XP, for example, only truly became stable after SP2 due to problems with SP1, and Windows 95 SP1 was notorious for adding massive security holes (beyond the usual ones).
Re:A true story (Score:4, Insightful)
These things will not be fixed. They are part of the plan. Just like the extremely limited bluetooth-implementation in WP. You cannot even send or receive a vcard, let alone transfer a MP3. Microsoft "learned" this from Apple. It seems these ultra restrictive OSses are the new trend. Worse thing is: people don't seem to care - or more likely, they simply don't know it. Sad.
Re:Android? (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't. Elop did.
Re: Oooh, smart. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to be working for Samsung. Nokia made a terrible mistake with LIMITING themselves to Windows. They should have provided both.
Sorry, but no. (Score:3, Insightful)
No amount of marketing money would convince users to use a Windows phone. And seriously, it wouldn't matter if it was identical to iPhone, pixel-for-pixel. People don't want Microsoft on their phones. They think it means it will crash. It doesn't matter what reality is. It just doesn't.
Re:A true story (Score:5, Insightful)
Our company runs almost entirely on Microsoft products. We use Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook for our e-mail. We use self-signed SSL certs. This week an employee got a Nokia Lumia 900. He brought it in for us to help him get the e-mail set up. It won't accept self-signed certs. It's a pain in the ass to get set up. He took it back and got an iPhone. We have people running iPhones, Blackberries, and Android phones all connecting without problems. But you got a WP7 device? Sucks to be you.
Congrats. You saved $99 for your entire company. Get a cert if you allow data you care about to be exposed to the public Internet. Ever hear of man in the middle? Train your users to purposedly accept self signed certs from their personal devices, it's asking for it.
Re:A true story (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's MS's biggest misstep - In the process of redesigning their OS, they basically threw the entirety of their existing market out. Their Windows Mobile core userbase was more enterprise-oriented. WP7 was a massive step backwards for many WM6.x users - nearly all of whom went over to Android. So MS now has a "me-too" "shiny UI" OS, with very little app development, and little prospect of app development because they keep dicking around with developers - http://www.xda-developers.com/feature/enjoying-chevron-say-goodbye-to-your-developer-unlock/ [xda-developers.com]
Re:DIY (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would want to do that? Meego is a much better software platform. I don't care what people say, Android is a mediocre piece of shit that only succeeded because it carries the Google name. The runtime sucks and the SDK is a complete joke. It is also made by a company with dodgy ethics.
--
Disclaimer: I work for TAGA (The Arrogant Google Assholes)
Re:A true story (Score:2, Insightful)
Typical result of a project where Scrum was applied. You end up with exactly what you need to do the job, but don't expect any extras.
Re:Customers don't know about windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems natural to me that if you have windows at home, and on your laptop, you'd want it "on the go" as well.
People who use Windows at home and at work probably know they don't want it on their phone as well.
I was shocked a few years ago when I rented a car in Italy and it had a Windows logo on the steering wheel; no idea what it was running, but I was continually expecting a BSOD across the dashboard.
After decades of dealing with Microsoft crap, Windows is a negative branding, not a positive one.
Re:False choice (Score:0, Insightful)
No, you're a tool if you use M$, regardless of prevailing opinion.
For instance, you're also a tool if you say "Faux News". Even though Fox News is pretty much ridiculous. You're a tool if you say Republicon or Demoncrat, and I've totally seen both used unironically and defended as though it were some clever political statement. Whether your target is morally corrupt or pure, you're a tool.
Re:Android? (Score:3, Insightful)
The N9 wasn't advertised, wasn't sold in most countries and Nokia had already announced that it wouldn't be developed even before it hit the stores.
Re:Customers don't know about windows? (Score:4, Insightful)
People who use Windows at home and at work probably know they don't want it on their phone as well.
That's exactly what I was thinking when I read that. Considering that it's an OS almost, but not completely, unlike Windows, it was a stupid branding decision. All it's going to accomplish is to scare off people whose computers have pissed them off (which is probably everyone with a computer), and confuse the others when they wonder why their PC software doesn't work on their phone "because they both run Windows."[0]
[0] True story.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which most of the planet does. For the rest of us, Google/Android meant slightly open, which huge range of alternative suppliers. Apple meant not at all open, and Windows meant "looses your data and keeps crashing". Not much of a choice there.
Re:Android? (Score:5, Insightful)
Elop _is_ Nokia, at least until he reaches Microsoft's goal of turning what was the best cell phone manufacturer into dust.
Re:Wait a bit (Score:4, Insightful)
What a silly question. Microsoft can afford to wait until October ANY YEAR. Remember that Xbx thing that took 20 billion and 7+ years to become a success.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's a sort of karmic process to watch Microsoft struggle in this situation. They successfully kept both Apple and Linux on the margins of the desktop for years, and now they're being marginalized in a very similar way.
I think part of the problem is there's just not really room for a 3rd platform. In a lot of these kinds of markets, most people think of there being a default option and then an alternative, and then anything after that is "another alternative that I don't want to have to think about." I think that's what Linux has struggled with in trying to attract both commercial developers and users, because Microsoft Windows was the default, MacOS was the alternative, and no one wanted to go past that.
Developers can be persuaded to support a second platform. They might feel forced to, or they might feel like they're hedging their bets. It lets them make claims about being "cross platform". There are benefits. But a 3rd or 4th or 5th platform? Where does it end? Similarly, users might be convinced to learn a second UI, but most don't want to learn the UI conventions of several different systems. They don't want to have to figure out the ins and outs of, "All of my friends can do this thing on their computers, so why can't I on mine? Oh, I have the one kind of system that doesn't allow that."
I think that's something that a lot of tech people misunderstand. Many users simply don't want to think about their computer or phone. They don't want to be asked to understand what the advantages and disadvantages are. It won't work to ask them to keep track of the differences between several different operating systems and evaluate which is best for themselves. Because they don't want to be overloaded with options, they simplify it down to 2 choices: there's the thing that everyone uses, and then there's the thing you use if you don't want to use the thing that everyone uses.
So close but you missed the point (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with part of what you say (the WinMo back-compat being killed, the abandonment of some enterprise features even though they included some anyhow), you're just pretty much wrong about the app developers thing. BTW, I'm one of the first Recognized Developers on the WP7 section of XDA-Devs.
ChevronWP7 (Labs or otherwise) wasn't useful for Marketplace developers (who would have already had developer-unlock through their developer accounts), it was used by people who wanted to install non-Marketplace apps. Microsoft, for reasons completely unclear to me, appears to be very anti-homebrew in WP7, and the people who care about that but don't care about developing official apps are the people hurt by the ChevronWP7 Labs fiasco. Everybody else, both those who don't care about unsigned apps at all (the vast majority of users) and those who develop (or even think they might at some point develop) apps for the Marketplace, are unaffected.
That's not to say Microsoft isn't being stupid here, because they really are. ChevronWP7 Labs was late, was too limited, and is now being discontinued... all for cheaper access to a built-in-but-paywalled feature of the OS (although iOS seems to do just fine without any equivalent feature at all...). Homebrew development was one of the things that kept WinMo alive as long as it was. The interop-lock in Mango blocked access to a bunch of apps that implemented unofficial but badly needed features, ranging from the superficial but highly in-demand (custom themes) to the critical (the ability to migrate app data and message history between phones).
I will also say that the article you linked contains a fair bit of senseless foaming at the mouth. Things like questioning how you'll be reimbursed for the free year of AppHub (it's a credit on the credit card you used to sign up, just like every other time Microsoft reimburses a cost) and claiming that WinMo was "immensely popular" (in any timespan even vaguely relevant to WP7, that's just not true) suggest an author whose frustration is overriding rational thought.
Re:DIY (Score:5, Insightful)
If Nokia had pushed MeeGo they would have been absolutely shocked at how well it would have sold. People are DESPERATE for an iOS alternative, and Android is such a sucky, laggy, buggy piece of trash that consumers would have lapped MeeGo up like water in a desert.
Re: Oooh, smart. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now, they're Just Another WP7 maker. Which is far worse, because they're competing for low single digit total smartphone market share instead of almost half of it.
Re:False choice (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't have android on the lumia because it doesn't exist that way. Is like saying, iPhone would be better with android on it.
It's more like saying that an iMac would be better if you could also run Linux on it -- which you can. There is no reason whatsoever for phones not to be the same way. And it seems unfathomable that Nokia could possibly be selling more phones by offering solely Microsoft products than they could by offering both, especially since the non-Microsoft alternative is what most of the customers are actually asking for.
Re:They're *partially* right, see the *Meego* N9. (Score:2, Insightful)
Here [blogs.com] you go.
Sorry, that's a typical Tomi Ahonen rant that only references some comment thread which does not cite anything of substance. My request stands.
Re:Invest in advertising? It's free until the 20th (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is microsoft doesn't have anything to say that makes windows phones obviously better, there's no killer app. Whether you think its better or not is another matter, but google can point to 'we're more open than those guys' (and have more diverse hardware). What does MS have? Yes, it's a different experience, but no one is saying 'see this thing WP7.5 does that none of the others do? We want that'. Google and sony are cannibalizing themselves with semi competing PS vita and android phones, and the fractured tegra zone and everything else. Apple is such a well walled off garden you can't have a lot of fun without technical know how.
Windows phones could (and should) offer you something, office documents, integration with windows 7/windows 8, in a way people actually care about. It seems like MS gets this, with skydrive, Xbox, windows 8 etc. But they don't seem to have delivered yet. Which is bad for Nokia, and might be too late. It might also be that the integration will suck balls and end up a disaster.
Windows on a slate (tablet, iPad like device, whatever lingo you choose) makes a lot of sense on the productivity side. The phone is a harder argument. If Nokia had somehow gone with an x86 CPU with a WP7.5 that could run any windows app, just with a different skin than regular windows 7 (even at 1024x768) that would have been interesting. As it is they have a very different approach to icons/tiles... and uh... a minuscule app store? Customers need something to say 'I want that device because __________" and right now MS hasn't got that. I would have thought they would have realized this was their DS/PSP/Blackberry/iPhone all in one moment. But apparently if they got that, they did so quite late.
Re:Invest in advertising? It's free until the 20th (Score:5, Insightful)
They're literally giving the phones away until April 20th. (snipped for brevity) Maybe the problem is no one wants a Windows phone?
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner here
Re:A true story (Score:5, Insightful)
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
And you talked right past him missing his point completely... how is that any better?
MiTM is easier to perform if you use 'official' certs (from CAs already in browsers/etc) than self-signed ones.
Yes, and no. Often no.
If the end user is allowed to accept a self-signed cert that is presented to him, and is trained that this is in fact necessary then a MitM is trivial, all the attacker has to do is present your user with a self signed cert. The end user will accept it. The attacker doesn't have to compromise YOUR certificates at all as the user can and will accept anything he is presented with.
This is clearly less safe than using "official" certs. This is what the person you replied to was talking about, and he's absolutely right.
If YOU install your own own self-signed certs for the end user, and the end user is not able to do this, and the end user is only allowed to accept certificates signed against installed root certificates and then you subsequently present the user with a connection signed against that root certificate then that is indeed potentially safer than official certificates... (depending on how secure you own certificate infrastructure actually is).
You may have done this, but that doesn't make the other poster incorrect. Self-signed certificates ONLY add security if they are added to a device directly by IT in a highly controlled environment; as soon as end users are interacting with self-signed certificates over the internet and accepting them its no security at all and the most common situations involving self-signed certs do expose just that situation.
Re:Invest in advertising? It's free until the 20th (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:DIY (Score:5, Insightful)
People are DESPERATE for an iOS alternative
They are?
Re:False choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly the problem isn't with the hardware. It's just that people see no reason to buy the MS phone OS, even with very steep discounting. .
Re:Invest in advertising? It's free until the 20th (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a bug, not a feature. Unless the phones are simply defective, I don't want some salesman at a shop deciding for me what phones I can and cannot buy. This is the missing piece that no one can do anything about - phone salesmen will refuse to even suggest phones they don't personally like. Look at your example - is that an answer to your question about why the salesman thinks the phone is "crap"? No, it's nothing of the sort, it's a garbage answer from someone who doesn't know what his job is. It's some buffoon with a high school diploma (times 10,000) perverting the wireless market in favor of existing big players.
Re:Invest in advertising? It's free until the 20th (Score:4, Insightful)
I still think it's hilarious that Microsoft probably would have sewn up the tablet market if
MS have a pretty good history of completely misjudging new technologies. For a long time they considered the internet to be a fad and refused to invest anything in it (hence Trumpet Winsock instead of an official IP stack, no MS web browser until quite late on, etc). Luckilly for them, they have usually had the resources to catch up enough once they realise they've screwed up (often by buying up the companies who had become successful through MS's lack of foresight).
the Office division actually reworked the Office UI for tablets instead of refusing to change anything [the tablet OS guys actually had to code all kinds of hacks to get the on-screen keyboard to hide/show properly with Office, particularly Excel.
I think you're wrong. If you're using a word processor, spreadsheet, etc. in any serious way on a tablet then you're insane. Tablets lend themselves to surfing the web, browsing photos, watching video, etc. and 10 years ago these things were largely not mainstream, so very few people would've spent a reasonably large chunk of cash on a tablet to do them.