Can Nokia Save Itself? 317
Posted
by
timothy
from the with-enough-phones-you-can-put-out-any-fire dept.
from the with-enough-phones-you-can-put-out-any-fire dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "When ex-Microsoft executive Stephen Elop took the reins of Nokia back in 2011, he memorably compared the Finnish phone-maker to a burning old platform in the North Sea. 'I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform,' he wrote in a widely circulated memo. 'And, we have more than one explosion — we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fueling a blazing fire around us.' Elop suggested competitors such as Apple and Google had 'poured flames on our market share,' with the damage accelerated by Nokia's failure to embrace big trends. His solution: abandon Nokia's homegrown operating systems, including Symbian, in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone. Nokia's Windows Phones managed to attract some significant buzz at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and early sales seemed solid. But now there are signs the situation could be deteriorating."
Nokia’s price for exclusivity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No they can't (anymore) (Score:5, Informative)
Two phones, the N900 and N9, and four tablets. N770, N800, N810, and N810+WiMax. That's if you're being fair by saying "Six years" in which case you have to include Maemo. If you're limiting yourself to Meego(tm), and not including Maemo, then they certainly weren't working on it for six years.
It's also worth pointing out that the entire point of Meego (as opposed to Maemo) was to get management behind what until then had been virtually a skunkworks project. Nokia's management more or less refused to give Maemo any backing initially because they were too committed to Symbian. It's an interesting question what would have happened had the N810, as originally intended, been released as a phone rather than cut down at the last minute and released as a tablet.
Re:yes it can (Score:2, Informative)
No, reports are that Google offered $250 million in cash. Nokia has lost more than $1 Billion now, so the MS money is long gone. The other support is essentially meaningless. Their licensing deal means they can't use Android unless they give the money back, so no option there.
Re:yes it can (Score:4, Informative)
It's their stock-ticker symbol. People often refer to companies by their stock-ticker symbols.