Elop explains: why Nokia didn't choose Android to replace Symbian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/12/elop-explains-nokia-android

by AndrewDucker • 13 years ago

35 61 13 years ago

guardian.co.uk

RyanZAG5• 13 years ago

You're still competing with Samsung whether you're on Android or not. So now Nokia is competing with Samsung with both inferior hardware verticals and incompatible software. Obvious bit of common sense that a lot of experts seem to miss. It's like Linux competing with Windows on the desktop.

They have a nice camera on the latest phone though - pity it's not Android or it might even be worth trying out. I'm sure if it takes better pictures though, by next year some Android phone will be offering something similar. Open platform and all that.

fpgeek6• 13 years ago

Might not even be next year. Even if you don't count the new Galaxy Camera since it is a connected camera, not a phone, Sony is rumored to be pulling technology from their camera division for their next flagship phone, due this fall.

fpgeek6• 13 years ago

Also, it's not like Samsung and several other Android OEMs aren't keeping Windows Phone projects going on the side. If Windows Phone does start to get any traction, Nokia will soon see exactly sort of competition they were trying to avoid on the Android side.

bsaul2• 13 years ago

Except the situation would be reversed : they would have more experience and samsung would have to catch up.

I think that's actually pretty smart on nokia's part.

imaadrashied• 13 years ago

I think this was/is a smart move for Nokia.

They were right to predict Samsung would be the major Android player.

Instead of competing against a company that already had a major lead and essentially becoming one of the smaller fish in a larger Android pond, it's taking a bet on becoming a large fish in a smaller pond that has very real upside potential. I stress potential because we've all been a little disappointed with Microsoft's latest maneuvers, but there's still a chance for the company to turn it around.

At the end of the day I respect such a great risk being taken at a massive firm (you don't see a lot of that these days). Nokia still believe a third ecosystem can be a very real option for smartphone consumers and they want to be that third option. Takes guts. I'm all for a little more competition.

product50• 13 years ago

It has been 2 years since that decision was made. Where is the "very real" upside potential you are talking about. Windows Phone has been an underdog since 2010! Claim your argument based on facts and what is going on - rather than what you feel like.

RyanZAG5• 13 years ago

I don't understand your point. Nokia competes with Samsung regardless of OS choice. Not using Android does not mean Nokia gets out of competing with Android or Samsung. There is no big pond and little pond here. They are all in the same ocean.

Drakim• 13 years ago

The two ponds are one and the same. There isn't one "android phone" market and one "windows phone" market, there is a smartphone market that both draw customers from.

Zigurd3• 13 years ago

It's no "great risk." It's about as dumb as a strategy can get. And on top of it all, characterizing it as a choice is at best prevarication. No other OEM makes an exclusive choice of operating systems.

Nokia could have, and probably should have run Windows Phone, Android, and Meego on their smartphone hardware. And the likely result would have been that WP would not sell well compared to the other choices.

EDIT: The parent post here sounded just a little too pat. But I didn't check until after I had posted a response. Yup. It's this first post even for this user. Hello Nokia PR!

barista2• 13 years ago

Open platform? BS! Google has milked the term to its benefit. There have been many discussions here that question the openness of android.

nileshtrivedi• 13 years ago

Which other major mobile OS has the equivalent of Cyanogenmod?

miguelrochefort2• 13 years ago

The only reason Windows Phone is not the dominant mobile OS is because of the social stigma around Windows.

For most people, Windows Phone is a MUCH better experience than Android.

The problem is that no one gives Windows Phone a chance. I don't know many people that used Windows Phone and switched back to Android/iPhone. Beside the app factor (which is much less of an issue than what people think), Windows Phone is an excellent mobile OS.

bhughes• 13 years ago

The reason why people don't use Windows Phone is because they don't want to.

It's easy to say in a place like HN that there is a "social stigma" around using Windows, but for the average consumer this is clearly not the case. For a lot of typical desktop users, Windows is the computer ("reboot your Windows", "start up Windows", etc). Microsoft simply couldn't find a way to leverage that in the mobile space.

cheery• 13 years ago

Shut up Microsoft shill.

Most people do not even have a clue about which operating system their phone has. And they do not care. Just like they do not do with PC either.

If Windows Phone doesn't interest anyone. It is because they were unable to fit a niche. It is because their phone is a disaster. The operating system is irrelevant for most of phone users.

igravious3• 13 years ago

Where I'm at, I'm the geek. I wouldn't ever recommend a Windows Phone to any one of my less tech savvy relations because I haven't liked Microsoft the company for years. It was with joy that I watched Android getting all shiny and polished and taking off in a big way and getting loads of developers. Microsoft long long ago used up the last remaining goodwill I had for them, that's just the way it is.

For example: My sister wanted a laptop, I recommended a Macbook even though I'd never used one; she bought one and loved it and now I do have one too. My Mum has a Samsung S3 Mini, I have a HTC One X, all the rest have iPhones. Microsoft would have to radically alter their DNA before I'd take a look at any of their software or hardware offerings.

obtino• 13 years ago

I would have given MS a second chance - until I found out about their level of co-operation with the NSA.

snom3804• 13 years ago

No. the reason Windows Phone is not dominant is because it came too late to the party, and offers no real advantage over iOS or Android. Both Microsoft and Nokia made the fatal mistake of announcing the death of their old mobile operating systems way before they had shipping WP devices.

In the meantime, everyone I know working in enterprise transitioned to Android and iPhone (except some on BlackBerry) - this happened as soon as those platforms had working Exchange sync, encrypted storage and remote management. To get any significant market share Microsoft now has to pay their way to it with extreme subsidies and massive marketing, or wait for Apple and Google to stumble, something they have yet to do.

cdooh2• 13 years ago

The Maemo platform had so much promise, and it was open source too!! The original Iphone and the N900 were on par. I'd know, I'm using the N900 now

toyg2• 13 years ago

The original Iphone and the N900 were on par.

I wish. I own an N900: it's twice as big (and twice as heavy) as the original iPhone, with a very unsexy industrial design, and the OS is a hodgepodge of toolkits and hacks, deprecated the minute it came out. It was incredibly hackable and customizable, but nowhere as robust and coherent as an iPhone.

I loved the concept and would have loved to see it become a platform for commercial Python/PySide mobile apps, but it was nowhere near the iPhone when it came out. Its successor, the N9, was on par with the iPhone, but never got a chance, commercially, thanks to one Stephen Elop.

snom3804• 13 years ago

I find it interesting that Maemo/Meego was not mentioned as an option. Nokia had a platform they could have built off if they could have settled the internal politics, and they could even have made a compatibility layer to submit Android Apps to their store if they wanted to.

I think this, along with failing to see the threat from iPhone/Android will go down in history as one of the biggest business mistakes.

tkorri• 13 years ago

Maemo/Meego wasn't really an option. It wasn't ready back then and it doesn't seem to be ready now either, since rumours say that Samsung has axed Tizen development.

I think the only company currently developing Maemo/Meego succesor is Jolla with their Sailfish OS. Although they've also missed deadlines they've given themselves, so their product is starting slip more and more into to the vaporware category.

ac• 13 years ago

Maemo/Meego wasn't really an option.

Now, why wasn't it? It was a solid OS, and there were two great products running it (N900 and N9).

snom3804• 13 years ago

As it was running on a shipping phone, I think it was at least as ready as Android at the time of the iPhone launch. The difference was that Google did a U-turn quite quickly while Nokia just pressed on with Symbian which turned out to be a dead end (like WM6, PalmOS and BN).

Zigurd3• 13 years ago

Jolla has launch partners, and N9 was outselling Lumia when it was cancelled.

Harmattan and Meego did not have a managed language runtime like Android, but it sure looks as if Nokia would have sold more phones had they used anything but Windows Phone as an OS.

avemuri• 13 years ago

Some of the UI elements from Maemo/Meego live on in their low-end Asha series. You probably don't see them much in the US, but they're reasonably popular in India.

alipang• 13 years ago

So, now that we now Samsung is somewhat dominant in the Android space we get an explanation that the reason Nokia went with WP was that Samsung would be a dominant player in the Android space.

I guess I would have been kinda impressed if they actually gave this as the reason two years ago.

barista2• 13 years ago

It was quite obvious even a couple of years ago that Samsung will basically dominate Android to the extent that android == Samsung given the market share. The whole open platform is a façade that Google has created.

Zigurd3• 13 years ago

This is the second time this particular excuse has been trotted out. It didn't work the first time, either.

protomyth• 13 years ago

Was Symbian so far gone that it couldn't compete? They bought Qt and it seemed like they could make a go out it.

RyanZAG5• 13 years ago

As someone who gave Symbian coding a chance, Symbian was the most terribly badly designed platform I've ever seen. The distribution restrictions made it even worse. The core UI platform was truly awful.

The Nokia engineers on the N8 did an incredible job getting it to where it was - semi usable - but it simply couldn't compete with Linux/Android/iOS.

Ologn2• 13 years ago

You can tell what Elop is saying is nonsense just from the article title. Specifically the word "choose".

Choose? Why did Elop have to "choose" Windows? Did Samsung have to choose between Android or Windows? Did HTC have to choose between Android or Windows?

They did not. Samsung sells both Windows and Android smartphones. The Android phones have sold spectacularly, the Windows phones have not. HTC sells both Android and Windows phones. HTC's Windows phones do not sell. HTC's Android phones sell well enough to keep them in the game - their profits are not spectacular, but they're doing better than RIM and other companies. I'm happy with my HTC One.

I go into a Sprint or AT&T or T-mobile or Verizon mobile store, and up front I see the featured phones - an iPhone, a Samsung S4, and an HTC one. Way in the back is a Blackberry kiosk. Next to it is a Windows kiosk with the HTC Windows phone, the Samsung Windows phone, and - depending on the carrier - the Nokia Windows phone. This is what Nokia is crowing about?

Maybe this type of talk might fool non-technical stock buyers who do not know any better. All of us know that Nokia could have made both Android and Windows phones, just as Samsung and HTC (and other companies) do. So we realize that his invention of the idea that they were forced to choose one or the other is nonsense. It's too late for Nokia to come in and be a big player in the Android market now, but it was not when way back when he sent his "burning platform" memo out.

Of course, some with perhaps more knowledge than me might say that Nokia was in bad financial shape and needed Microsoft to bail them out financially or they'd go under, and they were forced to go Windows only in that sense. That may also be true, but again, it has no relation to the bogus reasons he says he had to make a "choice" in the article. He seems to be in the only company that had to make a choice.

throwawaykf026• 13 years ago

To me, choosing one and focusing on it seems the only rational choice, rather than making two halfhearted forays. Say Nokia did choose both. They'd have invested a huge amount of money and resources (comparable to what they invested for on WP), and most likely they'd just be down there with HTC (despite the One), Sony and LG, who are all struggling in the smartphone market. How is that better?

Samsung can afford to make that investment, of course, as well as experiment with alternatives like Bada. They have a huge amount of resources at their disposal. Nokia saw the coming adversity and realized they had to choose.

There were many reasons affecting that choice, of course... such as Google's insistence that the Android trademark only comes with the full host of Google apps, including their navigation app, which directly undercuts Nokia's Navteq investment. Or Microsoft's willingness to pump billions into joint marketing efforts. Even HTC realizes that heavy marketing is needed to compete with Samsung.

Ologn2• 13 years ago

Former Microsoft Business Division head Elop became Nokia CEO in September 2010. In February 2011, he wrote his burning platforms memo. By the time April 2011 rolled around, Nokia stock was still worth more than HTC's. That month the stocks would meet in (market cap) price, and then HTC would begin pulling ahead of Nokia.

You say Nokia could be "down there with HTC (despite the One)" and that "HTC realizes that heavy marketing is needed". HTC is worth $163 billion. Nokia is worth $15 billion. For the first seven months Elop was CEO (late 2010, early 2011), Nokia was worth more than HTC. It would be a shareholder's dream for Nokia to be "down their with HTC" right now. People were making the same arguments back then (including Elop). If the market is the ultimate arbiter, Nokia, which as worth more than HTC when Elop wrote his burning platform memo, is now worth less than 10% of HTC. Investors who are putting their money where their confidence of future prospects are don't have much confidence in the decision for Windows. Nokia felt it had to make a choice and focus, and went from being worth more than HTC to worth $15 billion. HTC put out two products and is worth $163 billion.

HTC might be struggling to compete with Samsung and Apple, but it's still in the ball game, Nokia has been left far, far behind. Even if Windows market percentage does start picking up - Samsung and HTC put out Windows phones as well. Nokia has to compete in the big smartphone picture, and they have to compete even in the Windows smartphone picture. As I said, I go to the Windows smartphone kiosk in the back of the store and Samsung and HTC have phones alongside the Nokia. Wasn't one of the comments about Windows phones how they're all more or less the same with tiles and such, while Android phones could have their homescreens changed so much? So you have a Samsung, Nokia and HTC Windows smartphone which in software is less distinguishable from one another than a Samsung and HTC Android phone. It's more of a commodity. Plus IDC says for 2013 Q1 sales, Android has 75% of the worldwide market, iPhone 17.3%, Blackberry 2.9% and Windows 3.2%. So Nokia competes with Samsung and HTC for that 3.2% of the market, instead of competing with Samsung and HTC in that 75% of the market.

Google Maps does undercut Navteq, but that's going to happen no matter what Nokia does. If Apple can't move off Google Maps without a disaster, then it's nothing that a company like Nokia can affect by its choice of platform.

You're right of course about Microsoft's willingness to pump billions into joint marketing efforts with Nokia. It still doesn't seem to have helped though. For 2013 Q1 sales, Nokia is fighting for a piece of Windows's 3.2% of the marketplace against Samsung, HTC etc. Android's market share is 75%, with all the benefits behind a market of that size. Many developers are focused on Android. It's openness has helped it in many ways. Manufacturers get Android for free, while they have to pay Microsoft for its unpopular OS.

I think Elop made a mistake back in late 2010, early 2011. The market seems to agree with me. Nokia had a decent brand name in many parts of the world, they were known to have good cameras and such. They could have had a chunk of Android's 75% market share. Instead they fight for a piece of Windows's 3.2% market share with Samsung, HTC etc.

JanneVee• 13 years ago

Abandoning Maemo/Meego made me sad. I'm not going to second guess the decision. But when that decision was made they lost me as a customer forever. My last Nokia was the N900. I loved that phone.

speeder• 13 years ago

I still think Nokia did a major shit.

First, they did not needed to replace Symbian in first place, for example here in Brazil 60% of the mobile market was Symbian, until Nokia decided to kill it (in two years almost all Symbians are gone).

Think about it, Nokia was selling in Brazil alone more than 100 million phones.

People were perfectly happy with Symbian, people here LIKED Symbian, we had huge internet forums for Symbian fans, we had Symbian software developers, and so on... Nokia announcement that they would not use Symbian anymore killed all that overnight.

And then, they choose Windows, and went for the high-end... They basically dumped their old market, and tried to pursue what then was Apple and Blackberry markets, they basically threw out all their loyal costumers.

I for one got really disappointed, I loved Nokias, I had a couple of Nokia phones, a developer account, I made even J2ME stuff for non-Symbian Nokia, and all of that, started because OTHER PEOPLE made me like it, because Nokia was wildly popular (mostly because of its crazy resilience and quality engineering, something more prized in a developing country than flashy features). And they threw it all out in one shot.

Most people I know still feel that noone has risen to substitute Nokia, some people think Nokia is 100% dead (along with Blackberry), but are unhappy with Samsung... I personally saw so far a single android phone that impressed me (that is the Xperia Play, that I own), and was quite disappointed with Sony abandoning it too. I am yet to see a phone that make me want to buy it to substitute my old Xperia Play

igravious3• 13 years ago

Does not sound like the actions of a rational company.

toyg2• 13 years ago

To be fair, in developed markets Symbian was crashing well before the "burning platform" memo came out. The disappearance of Symbian in developing markets has a lot to do with Android-induced price drops, which would have happened anyway.

But yeah, they had a Qt-based transition roadmap that could have saved their ecosystem, and Elop threw all that out of the window. The rational move would have been to make Qt run on WP and salvage at least some of their developer partners.

fpgeek6• 13 years ago

The could have done even better. Qt for iOS and Qt for Android existed at the time and have now become officially supported (despite all of the major cutbacks Qt development has gone through since then):

http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2013/07/03/qt-5-1-released/

If they had embraced Qt as a cross-platform layer back then, they could have been "a better Xamarin than Xamarin". That would have been a great way to get developers and users into their ecosystem. Qt apps could "run everywhere", but they'd run best on Nokia phones (where it would be built-in and integrated). Instead...

Elop explains: why Nokia didn't choose Android to replace Symbian

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