Nokia Windows Phone Revealed 211
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?"
It's reverse psychology! (Score:5, Insightful)
"This phone is super secret, don't say a word!" actually means "Please, please, please, please give us some press for this. Even bad press. Just anything you can say that isn't another iPhone or Android story is great."
Re:It's reverse psychology! (Score:5, Insightful)
This.
Color me uninterested. Windows Phone is too little, too late. To an entrant in the mobile OS market this late, they need to come to the table with something that can generate enough wow on it's own accord to get the press it needs.
WP7 doesn't do this. It's arguably more or less on par with the existing OS's (though I'd certainly debate that) but it definitely doesn't have anything making it particularly appealing in comparison. Why give up the huge support base and massive app availability of Android or iOS for.. well, Something Else.
As it stands, WP7's only feature is that it isn't iOS or Android.
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Why give up the huge support base and massive app availability of Android or iOS for.. well, Something Else.
on that note we should probably give up on OSX and desktop linux.
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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 w
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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 .
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Some of those quotes are taken totally out of context. Some of them are true! Carmack also says Direct3D > OpenGL [bit-tech.net].
How about I choose some quotes from terjeber:
"I also have to do cross-platform stuff. In such cases I am on Linux primarily. Some times I wander into Solaris territory."
"Ruby/Rails". (His preferred web dev platform, ahead of
"Being religious about what platform you use is a sure sign that as an IT prof
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You're getting a lot of people calling you an astroturfer
I am? I see one person. You. I have given an opinion, and that opinion is mine alone. Is the opinion at odds with some perceived majority opinion that you have sniffed out? Usually, when people are accused of lying about having an opinion, it is because the opinion seems to go against reason or common perception. From what I can gather, WP7 has received nothing but praise from people who have actually tried it. Given that, what would indicate I am an astroturfer?
If you base the "You spend a lot of time sayi
Re:Things missing (Score:5, Insightful)
Like customers for your apps, for example.
Didn't spot the transparent strategy then? Hmm, Windows 8 apps look a lot like Windows Phone apps, and something similar is moving onto the XBox too...
The implication is that they intend Windows Phone apps will be the same apps you use on Windows 8 which will be the same apps you can access on XBox. The famous "three screens". And if you're not coding specifically for Windows, well standard HTML5 and Javascript apps will run just dandy on Windows 8 and the future version of Windows Phone too. I don't see there being a problem with getting apps, or with getting customers for your apps.
It's plain and simple leveraging from the PC market into the phone market. And my goodness there are a lot of Windows PC customers, and neither Google nor Apple have that advantage.
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And my goodness there are a lot of Windows PC customers, and neither Google nor Apple have that advantage.
Actually Apple have a good market penetration among people who actually buy smartphones like college students [appleinsider.com] and people with the disposable income to actually buy these things. That's confirmed by studies like this [cnet.com] : "74 percent of iPad owners surveyed currently own a Mac, while just 26 percent own a PC." and "iPhone users twice as likely to own a mac" [chitika.com]
Most of the PC's out there are corporate desktops or owned by people who aren't interested in the latest in computing, these are not potential smartphone cus
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Then it should be huge.
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This.
Color me uninterested.
Let me color you: this (link from TFA) [com.com]
(looks like a blue shit).
Re:It's reverse psychology! (Score:4, Interesting)
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
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The version of WP7 that will ship with Nokia phones supports multitasking, at the same level as iOS. WP7 runs circles around RIM in most areas. And MS has embraced unlocking/jail-breaking as well, which will enable side-loading apps.
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Re:It's reverse psychology! (Score:4, Insightful)
And MS has embraced unlocking/jail-breaking as well, which will enable side-loading apps.
If they actually embraced it, it wouldn't be called jailbreaking, it would be called sudo.
Say what? (Score:3)
Most applications will simply continue to be killed outright.
Most applications will NOT be killed, they will be suspended until the memory is needed by something else, then they will be pushed out of memory, gracefully, after getting a last chance to clean up.
MOST applications do not need multitasking to begin with. Of the ones that do, 99% of them can run in the background just fine in iOS.
Anything that supports "multitasking" will be working through GCD, which requires Apple approval to use.
Whoa. WTF?
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Does it actually support it at that level, or does it (as I've heard) do the Android thing and just halt the application while in the background?
Er, no. Android does honest-to-god multitasking, with background applications running normally unless they choose to suspend themselves.
What's unusual about Android (for us desktop programmers) is that the OS goes into sleep as soon as nothing is running, so if your idle application needs the handset to remain awake (say, in order to receive network packets or to ring an alarm), it must program it to do so (using wake-locks or alarms). But as long as the handset is awake, it's real multitasking that's g
Re:It's reverse psychology! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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That's not quite true. In theory, you can use a standard APN for data instead of a BES or BIS.
The problem is that there's no global setting that dictates which communications method should be used. The app developer has to manually detect whether a BES, BIS, APN or WiFi should be used, and switch between them. What you'll probably find is that most won't support all four, especially as data over an APN tends not to be included in bundled data allowances on 'BlackBerry' tariffs.
Contrast this with Android
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but it definitely doesn't have anything making it particularly appealing in comparison.
It runs Microsoft office. Believe it or not, that might be enough, if they get all the other kinks worked out. Not that I want them to, I like seeing Microsoft fail (ooooh I'm bitter).
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Also it can run Xbox Live games, earning achievements and gamerscore. For some reason, that's a hugely valuable capability to some people.
Also it can use Zune Pass, streaming and downloading all-you-can-eat music on a subscription service. That one is actually pretty cool.
There are a few other interesting features (the live tiles thing has some potential) but those two are clear differentiators that will be a big deal to at least some portions of the market.
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"This phone is super secret, don't say a word!" actually means "Please, please, please, please give us some press for this. Even bad press. Just anything you can say that isn't another iPhone or Android story is great."
With the continuation: "What? You have no camera on you? Did the guy at the entrance asked you to drop it? Here... have this WP7 phone, 't has a great camera"
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reminds me of this http://www.ted.com/talks/gel_gotta_share.html [ted.com]
Re:It's reverse psychology! (Score:5, Insightful)
They have to show they have /something/ that takes away the impression that the next "real Nokia phone" is going to be released sometime Q2 2012.
But to everyone else with two brain cell to rub together knows that a mock-up is not a product.
Elop is an idiot. Not only did he piss everyone off including the developers and every single customer, but he /also/ did an Osborne.
Where is the outrage? Where are the shareholder lawsuits?
--
BMO
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Why do you call it a mock-up? The phone appeared to be fully functional in the video, running the OS and various apps.
Prototype, perhaps. There's always a cycle of development hardware to get the kinks out before the first actual retail devices are manufactured. Calling what was shown in the video a "mock-up" is just flat-out lying, though.
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It isn't just phone development.
I've interviewed at Nokia for a job in a team that was doing services; one of the questions was "how do you feel working in a company where projects get chopped and changed and people moved around very regularly?".
Reading between the lines, I suspect what was meant was "This huge company used to have a dominant position. They've been losing dominance for years, which is a bit of a problem if you're trying to keep shareholders happy , and as a result management have been panic
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I've interviewed at Nokia for a job in a team that was doing services
Ah, yes, services. I know those guys from when I worked in Telco. Honestly, Elop can do no wrong. A semi-trained monkey could do no wrong with Nokia. Nokia was doing all wrong all on their own. No matter what Elop does, except doing nothing, is going to make things better for Nokia.
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Doesn't surprise me.
I still think the reason I lost that interview is I embarrassed my interviewer. They were migrating a Windows-based platform to Linux, yet I couldn't for the life of me see why. It can't have been to save licensing costs, those had already been paid for. Unlikely to be because the platform was obsolete, it was only about 18 months old. Unlikely to be security, this was long after Microsoft had audited IIS and made it substantially more secure; if there were any issues it'd be with the ap
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Elop is an idiot because he certainly is favoring the interests of his former employer over the interests of his current one.
there you go, fixed that :)
The idea that going Android would have made Nokia into a 'me-too' re-branding phone company, but going with WP7 somehow makes them unique is an interesting concept. Unless Microsoft gives Nokia special privileges, whereupon they kill all the their other existing phone partners. Not that those partners will care too much, having sold so pathetically few WP7 p
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If he really meant it, he wouldn't have shown the phone...
marketing fluff, nothing to see here.
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It's sad that Slashdot put this story up. What more do they need to make this obviously not a leaked video? If it was "leaked" by someone with a camera phone, how did they get feed from the overhead camera? And how would the guy not see the people in the back with their cameras over their heads recording it? *sigh*
The sad thing is, this isn't a slashvertisement. It's just stupidity. :/
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If he really meant it he wouldn't have let cameras and smartphones into announcement.
If he really meant it he wouldn't have let journalists into announcement.
Somehow... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Somehow... (Score:4, Funny)
The gadget blogger sites missed an opportunity here to cut off Elop's spiel after ten seconds and interjecting, "Well, the CEO of Nokia said very emphatically that he didn't want his demo of their new phone to be shown. So instead, we'll show you a few things their competitors have been working on..."
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Clearly it was an internal meeting ("all hands") which are usually recorded professionally and put on the intranet for people who couldn't be there to watch.
"To hurt the N9?" (Score:2, Interesting)
N9? (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't this the phone everyone raves about but nobody wants to buy?
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Re:N9? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's the only commonly available follow up to the N900. After that it's only devices running WP7 from Nokia, at which point I will cease ever being a customer.
At least now we know the exact terms of the deal.
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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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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As a developer, I saw the N9 GUI and got totally psyched. Disclaimer: I like Linux and open-source. That said, the single-handed swipe mobile GUI is The Future and I can already see Apple, HP, Google, etc. photocopy machines switching ON. (I already got a feel for it first-hand using FireFox 5 Mobile on my recently purchased, low-price N900; ...but the price shot up nearly 175% after May 23rd when no N9 was announced at the San Francisco Meego conference and I digress).
More disclaimers + My Point: I am a D
Re:N9? (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
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It will run on rooted Android phones. Or will even dual-boot on them.
I am sure, there will be plenty of unlockable Android phones.
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It will run on rooted Android phones. Or will even dual-boot on them. I am sure, there will be plenty of unlockable Android phones.
You still need drivers for all the hardware, it's not just a case of loading the OS onto a different phone.
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And thankfully all hardware in Android phones has Linux drivers.
Re:N9? (Score:4, Insightful)
To some degree. The drivers tend to be messes that don't ever end up in the upstream kernel so they rot as the kernel moves on. Then you have the problem of graphics drivers existing in userspace, which leaves you in a lurch with things like MeeGo that use glibc and your only graphics library is compiled against Android's Bionic.
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Now, honest question: why in the world would someone want to dual-boot their PHONE?
For a PC I can somewhat imagine it: key applications available only on the other platform (dual booting into Windows to play games, for example, if it can't be solved by running Windows in VirtualBox like I have to do for e-banking).
Android is running on iPhones too (and I wouldn't be surprised if someone got it working on an iPad). There are plenty of rooted iPhones. But are there really people buying an iPhone to run Andr
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Now, honest question: why in the world would someone want to dual-boot their PHONE?
For development, or to import-export data in some asshole format that is only accessible through a library that runs under some particular system.
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I think you mean "runs on" as it is already booting on most ARM platforms to some degree.
The biggest hindrance to complete operation these days seems to be limited to graphics drivers.
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But nonetheless they are. Not everyone will do it, but then, few people install different OSes on the computers they have.
Well, since two out of three would be happy to see Free Software, open systems, and open source in gen
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Well, since two out of three would be happy to see Free Software, open systems, and open source in general die, it looks bad. And Android is a weak form of open source that isn't really all that helpful except to Google.
True. And I also find it sad to see a promising platform like MeeGo die. Not just because it's open source, also because we're not exactly spoilt for choice in the smartphone/tablet world. Sure there are dozens of handsets, a great choice of hardware, but just two serious software platforms running on it.
And when looking at choice, there is only one platform with a lot of choice, and that's a contradiction in terms really.
We have Apple with their iPhone (with just a few slightly different versions on the
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I'll buy it, unless the N950 materialises.
I 3 my N900 as it's basically a pocket sized computer with added phone function. The N9 is pretty and has better hardware than the N900 (though the processor is still something of a disappointment compared to the rest of the market), but it lacks the physical keyboard I like.
And yes, I know, you can get some tiny bluetooth keyboards these days, but it's still an extra thing to carry.
The N950 is supposed to be the same hardware as the N9, plus keyboard but minus teh
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The N950 isn't quite the same h/w as the N9 - close though. You can apply for it - I don't think it costs anything, if you are chosen.
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Nokia? (Score:2, Funny)
Is Nokia still around?
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In a manner of speaking - what happened is that, much like the liver fluke parasite [youtube.com] preying on an ant, Microsoft has taken control of Nokia's brain. Now, dazed and confused, Nokia is wandering up the stalk of Windows 7, where it will latch on in a vulnerable position and wait to be consumed.
The analogy kinda breaks down here, because they're probably gonna get eaten by Microsoft instead of a cow or a bird or something, but still - mind control is pretty much the only way to explain this move. Windows Mobile
Can't really hurt the N9... (Score:4, Insightful)
At least, not any more than Elop has hurt it already. If anything, this mad scramble and poor demo was his immediate reaction to interfere with and disrupt the positive press that built around the N9 and Harmattan. It had such a good immediate demo and favorable reviews that people were quickly looking at Elop as a complete fool, instead of the mere tool that he is.
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Re:Can't really hurt the N9... (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that he's a tool. He isn't supposed to think for himself, or do what 's best for his company. He's doing what's best to drive his company into a weak position so that they are dependent on Microsoft. His reaction here is to undermine the notion that Nokia could actually exist without the Microsoft dependency.
He is a tool, wielded by Microsoft.
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What you say may or may not be true but it was the Nokia before him that got themselves in a position where they could be run by a "tool".
Self-determination always belongs to the clever and successful, Nokia has shown to be neither in the last few years.
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And people who insist that the WP7 UI is somehow superior (despite the fact that you'll constantly be scrolling to read text that hangs off the screen) aren't either. There's nothing SPECIAL about the WP7 UI, similar things could be implemented on other platforms.
Or perhaps you can show me how exactly what we've seen falls apart?
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Could be, but the fact is that they won't be, certainly not on a consistent systemwide basis.
Metro is ugly as sin. (Score:4, Insightful)
That metro calendar reminds me of really shitty websites from the 90's. Calendars should be on a light background and you should use a high contrast colour for the text to stand out from the background instead of blending into it.
The entire metro "experience" reminds me of many flash websites from the late 90's to early 2000's and it will not scale well to other latin character set languages let alone non-latin ones like Chinese and Japanese.
Nokia made a huge mistake hiring Stephen Elop and going with WIndows Phone 7. 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.
I'll never buy a Nokia device regardless of OS.
Before you label me as a blind Nokia hater, my second cellphone was a Nokia (first being a Motorola "Brick" flip phone). I am also a Finnish citizen so I would like to see Nokia find a way to survive. I just don't see Windows Phone 7 as the right way forward.
Wanting what you cannot have (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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Sigh.
If the color is not to your liking, you change it. That was what he was trying to explain to you. Now that you realize color can be changed, that is no good either?
Metro isn't any more typography heavy than any other mobile OS. English centric? In what way specifically? You are desperately making up stuff as you go, are you not?
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Sigh.
If the color is not to your liking, you change it. That was what he was trying to explain to you. Now that you realize color can be changed, that is no good either?
Metro isn't any more typography heavy than any other mobile OS. English centric? In what way specifically? You are desperately making up stuff as you go, are you not?
It has "hubs" with Textual heading which might or might not make sense in non-Latin1 languages especially if some of the glyphs are cut off.
Hubs are a bad idea.
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It has "hubs" with Textual heading which might or might not make sense in non-Latin1 languages especially if some of the glyphs are cut off.
This assumes that Windows Phone l10n developers are hopeless dumbasses who don't check how their translated texts look on the screen. Have you actually seen a truncated label in WP7, or are you indeed making shit up?
Just a little bit of history repeating (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect [wikipedia.org]
Irrelevant (Score:2)
There won't be many Symbian, Android, iOS, etc. users buying WP7 phones. WP7 purchasers will mostly be existing Windows phone users and unlucky smartphone n00bs. M$ bought Nokia's industry connections, not Nokia's (ex)users.
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Emphasis added. This almost certainly was intentional, so I hereby coin the term Elop Effect.
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I heard it called the Elopocolipse.
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Oh come ON (Score:5, Insightful)
The CEO asked the journalists present to turn off the cameras because the new phone was 'super confidential.'
Seriously - the guy gives a presentation to a bunch of journalists - who I assume weren't just randomly milling around on the street before the Nokia folks brought out a podium and a microphone - and says "Hey!! Here's our super-secret WINDOWS PHONE! Ssh! Don't tell anyone!" Is there anyone in the world with a greater than room temperature IQ that'd actually fall for that? (and yes, that's room temperature in Celsius)
I see the former Microsoftie has brought along those mad Microsoft advertizing skillz for which the company is renowned...
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Give them some credit. (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize people love to dump on Microsoft, so they're going to be dismissive of Windows Phone 7 without even having tried it. It's the total opposite of how people respond to the iPhone. Anytime someone asks for suggestions for a smartphone people default to the iPhone like mindless drones.
I have an Android phone which I'm extremely happy with. However, a friend recently got a WP7 phone which finally gave me an opportunity to give it a try. I was extremely impressed. I felt like Microsoft, moreso than either Google or Apple actually put thought into usability, into how people will interact with the phone. Menus and settings are clear and better organized and the interface seems more consistent. I can navigate more efficiently and there seems to a good amount of customization. And I'll give them credit for not just going and cloning Android and iOS's look. Blackberries might offer some great functionality, but in terms of usability they aren't even in the same galaxy as their competitors.
Of course, not having to actually live with the phone I can't speak to how I'd feel about WP7 over the long run, if I'd find it as satisfying an experience as Android. My point is that Microsoft deserves quite a bit more credit than they're getting for this OS. I've found that friends of mine who've actually used a WP7 phone have been quite impressed.
How appropriate (Score:2)
I've just realized - Stephen Elop is only one letter away from 'flop'...
And it's a big secret indeed (Score:3)
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no button....at least, not on the front.
Internal presentation (Score:5, Informative)
This was a company internal presentation, not for journalists. If you watch the whole video, it becomes clear that this was not a controlled leak, there are other references to ongoing work which I seriously doubt Elop wants to have out in public.
What everyone seems to overlook (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Time for Nokia to quit with the confidential crap (Score:3)
Let's be realistic here. The handset market is very simple these days. You make a device, you choose an OS, you differentiate yourself with a new skin, maybe add some value adds, you ship.
1) You make a device.
You can either buy a reference design from a hundred different companies and add to it, or you can develop it in house... or you can combine the two. With a reference design, you really only need to put a logo on the case. If you design it in house, you're spending tons of time and money on something that will make your device not that much more interesting than the other guys. You better have an awesome idea to differentiate yourselves from the other guy if you design your own, otherwise you're spend a few million bucks that was just a waste of time because "We're special, we design all our stuff inhouse".
2) You choose and OS.
Android, Windows Phone, Palm... whatever. Any company who wants it can put Android or Windows Phone on their device. Palm, BlackBerry, iOS are developed in house by the phone makers, but really, Nokia has already proven they can't make their own OS, so it's better off they simply use someone elses.
3) You differentiate yourself
"Special Nokia Apps" are just plain stupid anymore. Use the ones built into the store or give away some of your inhouse developed ones, but sell them on the store to people with other phones. Don't waste your time making ones that only run on your phones... it's stupid and nearly impossible to maintain long term.
Make a skin. Well, you always have the default skins on the phone, but the user will want to install their own. So, if you're trying to have some fun while you make your phone... sure make a skin.. but don't interfere with the user's ability to change it. It's like when you buy a computer.. the default wallpaper might say Toshiba, Sony or HP on it. But you can change the desktop picture of your brother's computer to a picture of your bare hairy butt if you want.
4) Ship the thing
This is probably the hardest job in the business these days... managing the manufacturing and supply chain effectively.
But let's get to the point... Nokia will probably manufacture a slew of low cost, nifty little Windows Phone telephones and get them into the pockets and purses of millions of grandmothers across the world. But as far as being an innovator.... they should know by now... that's not their role in the tech world.
The Elop Conspiracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Elop Conspiracy (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry about the earlier comment eating all the breaks! That'll teach me not to preview before I post :)
Reposting:
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 :)
phone announcement schedules? (Score:3)
I just noticed an interesting difference between Apple and the rest of the cell phone market. When Apple announced the iPhone, or announces a new iPhone, it's available the minute the announcement leaves Steve's lips, or at least pre-orders are available for delivery in a few weeks etc. None of this "coming soon" or six months from now or "coming real soon" crap.
People watching the demo know that what they see is exactly what they will get, can get, right now. No vaporware, no feature cuts before launch, no failure to deliver, no cancellations. I wonder why more companies haven't found themselves forced to take on that sort of schedule?
Is it not that important? Are people just willing to take whatever they can get when it actually shows up, and treat announcements like this as teasers? And if a company can keep development under wraps anywhere near as well as Apple usually does, there's none of this sillyness of "no pictures please!"
No pictures? Ya, right. new product press conference and you really don't expect anyone to take pictures? that's a laugh, that was said for show purposes, nobody with two brain cells to rub together actually expected no pictures to be taken, they expected it and just said that to try to stir up hype. Anyone that didn't actually "sneak" a picture or two there was an idiot, that's part of what you were there for.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the bright side for MS, they can hardly do any worse than they did with the Kin.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
They'll be just another in the long list of companies that Microsoft has trampled in their mad rush for supremacy.
Yeah, you are right. All companies that are involved with Microsoft get trampled. Companies like Dell, Asus and all the other PC makers that Microsoft trampled in their mad rush for supremacy. They were simply doing the heavy lifting for Microsoft's own product entry. As I said, stop doing drugs and stop washing them down with that kool-aid.
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't say 'all', just that there is a long list. You haven't shown the list to be any shorter...
Re: (Score:2)
You haven't shown the list to be any shorter
I have to wonder if you are more than a little slow. It seems so. The vendors I listed have something in common, and they have something in common with Nokia. Stop reading now and let that sink in for a little bit. Think about it. Don't read further. Stop! OK, now you can continue. They are hardware vendors who run Microsoft Operating Systems on their hardware. What chances are there that Microsoft will try to produce WP7 hardware? Do they have a lot of positive experience in doing such stuff? Believe me, i
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft is copying Apple again and getting into the retail market with their own products.
Are you on drugs? Exactly how is Microsoft copying Apple here? Seriously. Stop doing drugs.
Apple invented mobile phones, you ignorant unbeliever.
Re: (Score:2)
It was an internal Nokia all-hands, not some publicity stunt.