The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/for-nokia-design-will-be-key-to-future/

by suprgeek • 15 years ago

48 58 15 years ago

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Animus7• 15 years ago

Yet another validation of the long-standing hypothesis that in the age where a kid with a laptop can come up with technology that takes over the internet, pushing tech as a process in a factory is the path to irrelevance.

SafdarIqbal• 15 years ago

It is more of a "hardware specifications" driven culture, where design of the software experience is secondary. But in "touch phone" devices, just getting the hardware right can't even get you halfway into making a better product.

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

This is actually why I love Nokia phones. They have fantastic hardware.

I'm really hoping that letting someone else do most of the heavy lifting for the software will allow Nokia to focus on what we already know it does best.

bad_user2• 15 years ago

Yeah, but Microsoft?

If this partnership succeeds it would be the exception.

masklinn• 15 years ago

> But in "touch phone" devices, just getting the hardware right can't even get you halfway into making a better product.

That was true long before touch phones. I had an E70 phone as my second (? I think) smartphone. The software was complete shit and it was a pain to use, and the hardware was solid but way underspecced for the needs, especially RAM-wise (the thing had like 16MB ram, it would slow to a crawl at the slightest whiff of me having an idea of opening a web page)

aaronbrethorst4• 15 years ago

"Some Nokia employees continually disparage Apple, internally calling it The California Fruit Company," he said.

Classy. Nothing quite like mocking one of the companies that's been ripping you limb from limb for the past three-and-a-half years.

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

Can you blame them? Have you truly never made a bitter jibe into your beer at someone who has surpassed you?

aaronbrethorst4• 15 years ago

Better to take that energy and redirect it at kicking the crap out of your competitors than to waste it on schoolyard taunts.

greyman2• 15 years ago

I am afraid they mean it. I think it's about the perception how the mobile phone should be like. Not everyone considers the iPhone+iOS to be the best concept. I personally know people who think that nokia dumbphones are the best mobiles, or that Win 6.5. is currently the best mobile OS, etc.

I don't believe that most of the Nokia people perceive the situation as being surpassed by Apple.

barista• 15 years ago

Exactly just look at the ifanboys and droiddroolers. They never post anything disparaging about their competitors.

JanezStupar• 15 years ago

When ifanboy and droidroolers mock Nokia - its for a good reason, since majority of people agree that Nokia's smartphones suck.

While when Nokia's employees or fans mock ifanboys's and doridroolers's toys - its just, well sad.

mkramlich• 15 years ago

perfect culture fit with Microsoft then

wooster• 15 years ago

That's funny. We'd tell people we worked for a fruit company in Cupertino.

stcredzero6• 15 years ago

Say it like Forrest Gump!

statictype3• 15 years ago

that's been ripping you limb from limb for the past three-and-a-half years.

Even though Nokia was never really popular in America, they had and still have an incredibly strong presence in other regions - especially Asia which has a robust mobile market.

Sure, their smart phones don't compare to what iOS or Android offers, but there's a ton of people out there who aren't using phones like those.

I carry an iPhone 3GS and friends/family are always ribbing me because my 'smart phone' can't do basic things like send ringtones or songs to others via bluetooth or even contacts via sms.

I'm just saying that there's a whole world of people out there who have a completely different use-case for their mobile phone and Nokia still dominates that market.

stcredzero6• 15 years ago

I think your point is a very good one. But I think there are some important parallels to consider here.

Even though Windows was less popular with designers, Microsoft still dominated the business computer market in other areas. Sure, until recently their desktop OS didn't compare to what OS X or Linux offers, but there's a ton of people out there who aren't using OS like those.

I use a Macbook and friends are always ribbing me because I sometimes need to jump through hoops to read Word Docs and Excel Spreadsheets.

I'm just saying there's a whole world of people out there...

Come to think of it, Microsofties also ridiculed their competition.

thingie• 15 years ago

As if "funny" nicknames weren't almost the norm all around the globe. Would you be surprised to learn that Apple employees call Nokia the log makers from Finland or something like that? I wouldn't.

asmithmd12• 15 years ago

I would be surprised if Nokia ever gets mentioned at Apple. Apple has Android in their rear-view mirror -- Nokia is not even on the same lap.

carussell2• 15 years ago

Sorry, I don't find "The California Fruit Company" to be substantial enough to constitute disparagement or mocking. I think it's cute. That isn't to say that Greenfield doesn't know what he's talking about, but, alone, it's certainly not enough to corroborate the claim, nor to logically lead to the sentiment it apparently stirred within you (as apparent from your comment).

teyc2• 15 years ago

No. It is a corporate turf war. Like MS, the engineering departments have the upper hand and prefers control to continue in engineering hands. They'd rather die than let the design manager get promoted.

This is what you get if there is no strong alpha male founder leadership at the top.

Ellison, Gates, Brin, Jobs were there to make sure this doesn't happen. When the founders leave, chaos ensues.

r0h4n• 15 years ago

I cannot picture Gates as the alpha male leader. He is a intelligent leader, but alpha male leader?

krig• 15 years ago

Here's my theory: I think the key is that he, just like Jobs, is a leader who feels strongly about the product. There are lots of stories about how people would dread presenting ideas to Gates because he'd be brutally honest with how he felt about them. Same thing goes for Jobs - they care deeply that the product is good, so middle management is forced to focus on actually making good product. Whereas most CEOs and management care primarily about the process - we need the perfect process to make perfect product! Thus middle management that focuses solely on process. You never really hear much about the processes used at Apple, and I think it's because they don't really matter that much. What matters is the product and the consumer experience, and that is what Jobs cares about.

arethuza• 15 years ago

Here is Joel's account of a review meeting with Bill:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

"a person who came along from my team whose whole job during the meeting was to keep an accurate count of how many times Bill said the F word. The lower the f*-count, the better."

I don't think you get to be the richest guy in the world just by being exceptionally smart.

pnathan• 15 years ago

I've observed that this can be an issue when you get too many people out of touch with software involved in a company.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

I can't agree with this conclusion. Good engineers know amazing UX is part of the spec. I can't see engineers actively fighting against design, and if they do, there's larger issues at play.

rue• 15 years ago

I think it's simplistic to discount the effect that the bureaucracy, turf wars, and the split-up of the various units as well as trying to push dozens and dozens of different models would have had on the design ethos in the company. It'd say it's more that all these externalities forced the departments to focus on things other than maturation of design to stick around.

aphexairlines• 15 years ago

Great, another article pushing the viewpoint that hardware and software doesn't matter, that investment in technology is a waste of time, that what really matters is slick marketing and pretty packaging.

What do they think makes the iPhone battery last more than 20 minutes or an Android app pop up on your phone when you click install on their pc website -- pixie dust?

jujjine• 15 years ago

"He said the company’s engineering driven culture is also responsible, explaining that the engineers at the company see the design of the software on a mobile phone as secondary to the guts of the device"

The conflict is not between technology and marketing, but between hardware and software. The NYT columnist is using the term engineering in a manufacturing rather than intellectual sense.

wsf• 15 years ago

>"Because of the hardware similarities, the major differences of these devices appear within the software - specifically, the design, functionally and experience of the software."

It's not saying that hardware and software doesn't matter. According to their definition, Nokia lost because design (software) is secondary to hardware (engineering).

Actually, the article brought up a very good point: "In comparison to early mobile phones, most smartphones on the market today look identical."

And what do they look identical to? The original iphone.

Most hardware manufacturer are trying to compete on Apple's turf. The result is that most consumers will naturally compare their design to Apple's. It's going to be extremely difficult to catch up.

Remember the original Apple's phone collaboration with Motorola?

That's Apple trying to compete on Nokia's turf. Result: Failure.

Now the mobile manufacturers are trying to compete on Apple's turf essentially by mimicking iphone. Is it any wonder that they will find a hard time competing?

jlouis• 15 years ago

I'd like to emphasize the point that in the smartphone market, software is king to hardware. It is the software that ultimately determines what you can do with the device and the hardware is simply there to facilitate the execution of the software.

Hence the desperate need for a software ecosystemem.

statictype3• 15 years ago

And what do they look identical to? The original iphone.

Kind of a tangent here, but the reason they look identical to the iPhone is partly because the iPhone is so well designed but also because the competition is completely unimaginative.

Is the full-screen + one button the last word in smart phone design? I hope not.

asmithmd12• 15 years ago

I worked at Black & Decker when product engineer deservedly took back seat to marketing as the premier discipline.

Makita was cleaning B&D's clock in the marketplace and all engineering could say was, "But ours test better than Makita's"

Joe Galli took a dozen of the best Black & Decker tools; changed the housings from grey to yellow, and changed the labels from B&D to DeWalt. He hired a dozen new college grads to drive around to job sites and sales took off like crazy. The exact same tools labeled and sold differently outsold Makita. In a strategy masterstroke, when Makita dropped their price he sued them for dumping products on the US for below cost.

It was a true marketing breakthrough -- engineering had nothing to do with it.

winestock3• 15 years ago

That reminds me of a Microsoft situation.

This happened a year or so ago: Microsoft conducted a usability test where they put a different skin on Windows Vista service pack 2 and told the users that it wasn't Vista.

The users said that they preferred the Vista in sheep's clothing.

Anyone have a link?

winestock3• 15 years ago

"Great, another article pushing the viewpoint that hardware and software doesn't matter, that investment in technology is a waste of time, that what really matters is slick marketing and pretty packaging."

Bless your heart, my friend. You are dedicated to substance over appearance, and for that, I give you an upvote.

Sadly, most people are more complicated than that.

If engineering alone mattered, then the dominant desktop computer would be the Commodore Amiga. OS/2 Warp would be the standard business platform. TOPS-20 would be the server operating system of choice. They would all be written in concurrent versions of BLISS and run on multicore descendants of the DEC Alpha microprocessor. Microsoft would be a third-tier maker of programming languages. The Intel 8086 line would be long forgotten. Unix and C would be unknown outside of Bell Labs. Finally, academics and the cool open source hackers would be using different flavors of portable Lisp Machine.

"Man has as much of a sensible as of a rational nature." - Alban Butler

stcredzero6• 15 years ago

"Engineer-Driven" corporate culture is just another imbalanced over-reliance on one competence while neglecting other areas. It's like being the highly talented genius musician who doesn't have the social skills to market themselves.

Stephen Elop should've taken a play from Steve Jobs' playbook. Instead of making such a huge announcement, he should've quietly started a project within Nokia with backing from the highest levels, just like Jobs did with the Macintosh. This might've generated smoldering resentment and jealousy, but it would not have generated a 1000 employee walk-out and enough negative publicity to drop the stock price by 15% in under 24 hours.

kiiski• 15 years ago

Perhaps he thinks it's better to make sure that everyone is clear of the direction and committed to it rather than (potentially) wasting hundreds of thousands of hours of work on useless platforms.

stcredzero6• 15 years ago

The tricky part is the "committed." Tell me, have you tried to get someone who feels like they've just been slapped in the face by you to follow you? (Outside of discussions on the Internet, of course. Mea culpa!)

What if they didn't just have to follow you, but had to apply themselves to something difficult, challenging, and creative?

Sometimes a slap in the face is what's needed. Care should be taken to avoid backfire, however. This is why a slap in the face is a method of last resort. (Outside of discussions on the Internet, of course. Must eat own dogfood.)

Considering Nokia still has strong sales over the entire world, I don't think a slap in the face was really warranted. WWMD? (What Would Machiavelli Do? Actually, WWMWAD: What would Machiavelli write about doing?) The CEO should've been a lot smarter by being a lot sneakier.

gorgoroth666• 15 years ago

Nokia is very good in the design of usable mobiles. Since they acquired Qt, they are also very good in software design. Apple is not a good example. This article makes no sense.

The Engineer-Driven culture at Nokia and its problems

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