RIP, Nokia (1865 - 2014)

http://pandodaily.com/2012/06/16/rip-nokia-1965-2014/

59 50 14 years ago

fidz• 14 years ago

Nokia get rid this problem by doing some encouragement to develop in their old J2ME/Symbian platform in such country that still have good market share like Indonesia. In Indonesia, Nokia encourage developer to develop games in their platform in a contest named "Developer War", and now it has 4 episode/chapter.

mtts• 14 years ago

I hear Blackberry is still going strong in Indonesia as well. Still, worldwide, they're doomed.

joeguilmette• 14 years ago

Anectodally I saw 1 person in Indonesia with a Blackberry - and she hated it. I saw hundreds of (local) iPhone users.

obiterdictum• 14 years ago

old J2ME/Symbian platform

No. Just... no.

I'm really pleased that Symbian is dead (or on life support). It is, so far, the worst platform I have ever had to deal with. Eclipse-based IDE for €300-1300, partner-only premium APIs, completely unusable multi-gigabyte emulator (if you needed to run two instances, you had to install... two copies in different directories!), awful documentation, terrible system libraries, and quirky Symbian C++ dialect... it was quite an experience, but I will never miss it.

Anything we have today is better than Symbian.

icebraining• 14 years ago

For an hobbyist like myself, PyS60 was nice, though. Easy to install and really fast to code something up. Is there anything like that for Android?

nicholassmith2• 14 years ago

I don't think it's necessarily game over for Nokia, but they've got to drastically rethink their game plan.

They burned through cash getting the Lumia phones ready, gorgeous as they are, which is a gamble not yet to pay off. They're using the third horse in the race, a platform which it's creators have yet to successfully manage into the mainstream consciousness. Too many flaws to stand next to Android and iOS, but not completely down yet.

Lets not forget Nokia is still one of the biggest mobile handset companies in the world, they've got a solid brand name appreciation in areas of the world yet to be opened up.

Essentially they've still got chips left on the table, it just depends on the next run of cards whether they grow their stack or not. But lets not get in the way of a snappy headline.

bitwize3• 14 years ago

I don't think it's necessarily game over for Nokia, but they've got to drastically rethink their game plan.

Flash their back catalogue of 800s with stock ICS, call it the Nokia Lumia A, sell them for $200 a pop (sans contract). That'll stem the bleeding and give them time to come up with their real Galaxy-killer.

nicholassmith2• 14 years ago

I'd imagine they can't, under terms of their agreement with Microsoft, but that might not be forever so maybe they will. But is the market ready for yet another Android handset? It's a thin share of the pie as it is.

mtgx• 14 years ago

Nokia won't last until 2014. They are declining too fast. They went from 45% market share to 18% in China, one of their strongest and biggest markets, last year alone. This year they will probably fall way below 10%. Nokia will most likely be acquired by the end of this year or in the first half of next year (or go bankrupt otherwise).

sp332• 14 years ago

Who are they losing marketshare to in China?

bergie2• 14 years ago

It seems to domestic Android players like Huawei and ZTE: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-07/22/content_129...

josteink3• 14 years ago

Cheaper Chinese-made brands?

guard-of-terra• 14 years ago

Various chinese nonames? Some of those with Android already.

muhfuhkuh• 14 years ago

Samsung is king, then ZTE, then Huawei, then Apple. But, China is filled with domestic brands that pepper the market with Android phones (Honor, Huawei, Lenovo, Coolpad) that bite at mostly Nokia's well-chewed heels.

AlexFromBelgium• 14 years ago

And bought by Samsung.. That would rock. Make ALL the Android phones!

Tichy• 14 years ago

I wonder if at the same time markets still grow at an enourmous rate, so that even a declining market share could still be a net increase? Apparently it doesn't seem to be the case for Nokia atm, just saying that market share alone is maybe insufficient.

pilsetnieks• 14 years ago

Microsoft won't let them go under, they need quality WP phones that aren't an afterthought to their manufacturers. Worst case scenario, if/when Nokia is on the brink of bankruptcy, MS will take it over.

There was a story recently that Microsoft already had considered taking over Nokia but walked away from the deal after looking at their books, which may mean that MS is just waiting for an opportune moment to take over Nokia on the cheap.

josteink3• 14 years ago

Nokia won't last until 2014. They are declining too fast

If the failboat called RIM has managed to stay afloat for so long, I cannot see Nokia failing any faster.

At least Nokia has (finally) released something which belongs in this time and age, while RIM still insists it will release BB OS 10 "real soonish now", like it has for the past year. Or is it years? Plural? I don't know. I just know that their current premium product is something which was hard to sell 3 years ago. They're so dead.

Where I live, the Blackberry-stores have started stocking iPhones and Samsung Android-phones just to sell something. The Nokia-stores are at least still selling Nokia-phones only.

I have no doubt that Nokia tanking is a very real possibility. But RIM is going down first. Unlike Nokia, they have absolutely nothing.

greedo• 14 years ago

RIM still has secure enterprise messaging for large companies, something that Nokia lacks. Where I work, we still have a busy bunch of BES servers, despite making the iPhone an option for corporate phones; though the iPhone is clearly the choice for anyone getting a new phone.

Nokia has nothing like this in terms of stickiness for customers.

joezydeco• 14 years ago

Just got a little worse for RIM:

"Toronto-based original device manufacturer Celestica on Monday announced that it will stop producing hardware for struggling mobile device vendor Research In Motion. Celestica stated that it will wind down manufacturing services related to BlackBerry devices over the next three to six months, and it expects restructuring charges to be less than $35 million"

http://www.bgr.com/2012/06/18/celestica-dumps-blackberry-rim...

barranger3• 14 years ago

While I certainly wouldn't call Nokia's position anything but worrisome, I think it might be a little early to start planning the funeral.

One of the benefits Nokia has by going with Windows Phone is the relationship it now has with Microsoft. I'd be very surprised if Nokia's tablet offering isn't front and center in just about every piece of marketing MS does.

The biggest issue that Windows Phone has currently is a lack of third party applications. I really do think that standardizing the platform across Phone/Tablet/PC will help in a big way with this problem (not pushing them to higher numbers than iOS/Android, but much, much closer than they are today).

jinushaun2• 14 years ago

For the average non-tech user, is the lack of third party apps really that big of an issue? In all honesty, all they need is Facebook, Twitter, Angry Birds and sudoku, which WP7 has. You're really not at a loss for apps when it comes to the popular 1st tier apps.

The bigger issue, from my personal experience seeing people pick up and use a WP7 device, is that it's awkward to use compared to the grid of icons in iOS and Android. They're utterly confused and have no idea how to even begin. Metro, as executed by MS, is simply not intuitive. The starkness of the white on black text is cold and unfriendly. Interaction paradigms they learned from iOS and Android are slightly different in WP7, which results in frustration around every corner. The pure icon based menus make it a guessing game on which icon does what. From my personal experience, regular people have a much easier time switching between Android and iOS. WP is just too different.

barranger3• 14 years ago

I've found for the average non-tech user the only app they seem to really care about is the one that their friends are currently gushing about.

as an example (yes I read the anecdote article :) ) I spent the weekend with extended family who were going on and on about how great Instagram was and how they couldn't understand why anybody would even think about a phone that didn't have it. I'm sure when I see them again in 6 weeks or so, the argument will be the same, with only the specific app that changes.

While MS will have whatever "the" app is at a current moment from time to time, due to it's marketshare, iOS will almost always have it.

freehunter2• 14 years ago

Android: grid of icons, which you can pick some that you use most often and pin them to the first screen you see.

WP7: list of icons with names, which you can pick some that you use most often and pin them to the first screen you see, except these icons then change sometimes to display more information such as weather forecast, Facebook updates, etc.

This is too different how? The icons on the menus are pretty clearly designed to show you what they do. If you're still confused, there's a [...] in the corner which shows text. All of this is completely discoverable, explained in the manual, and should be showcased by the salesman who is trying to help you decide (rather than trying to sell you his favorite phone).

Too different how?

rplnt• 14 years ago

On the other hand, Android that is put on devices by (some of the) manufacturers is a big piece of shit. And they don't intend to update it either. Honestly, I would rather have a phone with confusing UI than one that is slow and keeps crashing.

That being said, I own a phone I have to root in order to get a decent system only because of the app base. Even average non-tech user browses sites and stumbles upon mobile apps every day. There is always an iPhone app, most of the time Android one and very very occasionally a Windows Phone version.

So windows seems to be an obscure choice in mobile market nowadays. Even though it's probably superior to Android.

seanalltogether• 14 years ago

"For the average non-tech user, is the lack of third party apps really that big of an issue?"

Yes - http://paidcontent.org/2010/09/09/419-average-number-of-apps...

jinushaun2• 14 years ago

"If Nokia had gone with Android, the best that it might have achieved was to become an also-ran—another in an endless stream of me-too commodity smartphone makers."

No. Nokia could've been Samsung, which has the lion's share of the Android market. And Android Lumia would be the prettiest Android handset on the market.

huggyface• 14 years ago

It's a bit of a bizarre claim to begin with given that there are a number of manufacturers pitching Windows Phone devices to very limited success.

So instead of being a possible also-ran me-too in a large, successful market, they're an also-ran me-too in a small, uncertain market. I'm not buying the logic.

If they used the Android bit to explain a wholesale adoption of Meego or Tizen or something then sure. But going to WP...that just doesn't make sense.

barranger3• 14 years ago

To be fair, I certainly wouldn't call the other manufacturers offerings for Windows Phone to be exactly whole-hearted. Have we seen a single non-Nokia device that isn't a port of hardware used for their Android offerings?

chris_wot• 14 years ago

I have to agree. My friend bought a Samsung SII the other day, and I was mighty impressed. However, we soon saw a number of shortcomings, and none of it was really the phone hardware or even Android itself.

Instead, it was the way that the phone software UI was put together. It was awful. So bad, in fact, that my friend replaced almost all of the software widgets and components with his own - by the end the phone looked amazing, and virtually nothing like Samsung/Telstra's UI.

And this is where Nokia could win. By producing amazing, kick-arse phones (which we actually know they can do!) and putting on Android, with a compelling feature-set, I believe they'd wipe the floor with Samsung, et al. Probably not so much with Apple, but they could yet compete head to head with them.

The innovation just isn't there. I don't see it with WP8. There's just not enough compelling reasons for me to go back to Nokia. And I was so badly burnt by the last phone I used, that I'm unlikely to go back without a good reason!

stcredzero• 14 years ago

However, we soon saw a number of shortcomings, and none of it was really the phone hardware or even Android itself.

Seems like there's a tremendous opportunity for the right group to prosper. I'm not sure that's Nokia.

Apple combines several factors:

    - A culture of good programming that works well
    - A culture of good design
    - A company where the efforts of different parts are well aligned
    - The ability to market

If Nokia can do all of the above, they would win. History has shown that they aren't this company.

bitwize3• 14 years ago

With Nokia on Android, we could have had top-rung Android phones with iPhone appearance and build quality, and greater-than-iPhone ruggedness.

josteink3• 14 years ago

Keep telling yourself that. When was the last time you used a Nokia phone? When was the last time you saw a Nokia UI?

The one thing which made the iPhone great was that it finally broke the streak of smart-phones all cloning the horrible, messy and unintuitive Nokia-model which had plagued the industry since the mid 90s.

Take my words for it: Nokia would have fucked up Android just as much as it messed up Symbian. Nothing pretty would have come out of this.

trimbo2• 14 years ago

The Pando author also seems to have forgotten that Android saved Motorola, took HTC to new heights and enabled Amazon and B&N to make tablet lines of their own.

Samuel_Michon2• 14 years ago

Android saved Motorola, took HTC to new heights and enabled Amazon and B&N to make tablet lines of their own.

Both Motorola and HTC's sales and profits are depressing. Motorola was bought by Google for its patents, not because it's such a healthy company.

Amazon and B&N don't share any data regarding their Android offerings, we have no idea if they are making any profit off it. Also, they're not exactly using stock Android — they're building platforms that have nothing to do with Google, its Marketplace, or any other Google services and apps.

ernesth• 14 years ago

Is this a serious piece of writing or just trolling?

> 2003-2008 = back when euro was worth real money.

1 euro was worth between 1.1 and 1.5$. Now, it is worth 1.25$...

> Rather than spend its resources on building an OS that depended on novel interfaces and sensors,

Like the first (and best) GPS phones?

> that allowed for outside development

Like symbian and the nokia owned qt creator.

> If Nokia had gone with Android[...] Windows Phone, on the other hand [...]

Aren't you forgetting the numerous other hands that are symbian and its successors: tizen, meego and meltemi?

> Elop [...] clear-eyed

Humm. Choosing to ditch their own system to use another one may have been a bold and smart move, but still developping 2 or 3 different systems while trying to integrate an external new (and unproven) one seems to me like increasing the problem rather than solving it.

krakensden• 14 years ago

> Is this a serious piece of writing or just trolling?

Note the author. All his articles are like this.

suprgeek• 14 years ago

(One person's anecdotes do not a trend make - I know) I can offer an Indian perspective - When I was first shopping for a good phone in India in 2008 or so, every single person (techie) said "Nokia" without hesitation. From the savviest Tecno-geek to the manual laborer at a construction site -everyone had a Nokia.

Fast forward to 2011 late/early 2012; virtually NONE of the techies I interact with recommended a Nokia. Infact, I haven't heard even one of my friends/acquaintances purchase a new Nokia; it is always Samsung/HTC/iPhones or rarely Blackberry. On the lower end, the flood of cheap Chinese phones in the Indian market means no cheap Nokia's.

Nokia was a name many people swore by in India, now not so much...I am afraid the end is near for them.

deepGem• 14 years ago

I met a Nokia developer evangelist at one of the events and asked him about some of the map features. The dude told me that he would get back but never bothered to. I'm not judging a company by one individual's behavior, but it surely gave me a negative impression about their developer evangelism.

itsbits• 14 years ago

Windows 8 preview is good..may be not windows7 killer with PCs..but surely can compete with Android OS in mobile devices....only problem with Windows 8 is free development tools..hope MS looks into it..else it may loose the race before it starts....

and saying 'RIP Nokia' is very bad...i feel Nokia is still the best with its hardware and looks..i like Nokia 900 looks n hardware rather S3....

Android would have been better option...but they can switch to ANdroid as well when Windows 8 is not helping..there should be no worries about that...

greyerzer• 14 years ago

If Nokia actually dies, Microsoft will pretty much have to buy them in order to ensure that they don't lose their (rather shaky) grasp on the mobile market (more of a foot in the door really...) That would make Microsoft the third company producing an entire mobile ecosystem of its own after Apple and Google. It's interesting to observe that the technological trend towards ecosystems is also happenning in the business sphere, albeit with some delay.

Also, I would be sad to see Nokia go - I always liked their well-built (dumb) phones.

RIP, Nokia (1865 - 2014)

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