Looking forward to the upcoming announcements during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I’m wondering about a few things and I just want to share my thoughts here. It’s all a bit off-topic since it’s not just about PureView, but about Nokia and platforms in general. There are a few things I just don’t get. Maybe you do.
After the jump
Since we all know since Elop’s memo from February 2011, we live in a war of ecosystems. Nokia jumped from it’s own “burning platform” and the company needed to be saved by Microsoft, to join forces on an ecosystem to integrate smartphones, tablets and laptops. It took a while, but true: it’s there now with Windows Phone 8, Windows RT and Windows 8.
Symbian
But I never really understood ditching Symbian, especially not after all the obvious progress made. Nokia Belle FP2 looks full of potential and I don’t see why it just had to be thrown away completely. Maybe supporting its development (and I understood there were offices filled with different teams of developers) was too expensive. I just don’t know. Anyway: it’s gone, the Nokia 808 PureView will be the last device proving the decision to kill Symbian is confusing, to say the least.
MeeGo
MeeGo is another OS ditched, and there are a few reasons to mention it as well. Its development would have been way too slow, it would take way too long to get the first smartphone running on MeeGo on the market. That may be true, but it took quite a while for Windows Phone 8 to be ready as well, and I think the only thing that made people really look at the first Lumia 800 was it´s brilliant design – copied from the Nokia N9, running on MeeGo. People loved the hardware more than the OS it offered back then.
I can’t help but notice many people still adore their Nokia N9. These people eagerly await what the new company Jolla is going to announce – be that during the Mobile World Congress or later. Jolla will be taking MeeGo to a new dimension (as Sailfish) and in doing so they will prove Nokia’s decision was wrong – or not.
Blackberry
Meanwhile, Blackberry just released its completely renewed OS that seems to be very similar to the MeeGo swyping interface – “blatantly copied” another company would scream and start a trial. What will this new OS mean for Jolla’s Sailfish? Will people be attracted to it now that Blackberry clearly has an interesting alternative?
The company formerly known as RIM still has a huge fanbase – like Nokia still has an enormous fanbase for Symbian ánd MeeGo. Yes, everyone loves a comeback: I’m sure the former Blackberry users are very happy with the new OS. And it’s not like this planet has an endless desire of new platforms, right?
Microsoft
Nokia decided to put all its faith in Microsoft and by now it looks like their marriage is pretty successful (or promising at least), but it doesn’t really look like “a match made in heaven”. Microsoft was a bit too fast showing its love for HTC and soon, Nokia will have to pay Microsoft royalties for every handset sold. I’m not sure how much (I’ve read $50 per handset), but it´s business as usual after all. No matter how much we personally love our “own” OS, there clearly is no place for romance in this “war of ecosystems”.
One more thing I never really got, and I don’t think anyone has. Nokia sunk all of its own (“burning”) platforms and devoted itself completely to Windows Phone. I wouldn’t like to be this dependant on one company during this “war”, but it seems Nokia is comfortable with the idea.
Android
But it’s not just the company that surprises me: I know a lot of Nokia fans downright hate – and here it is, I know you’ve been waiting for it – Android, and they would never ever buy a Nokia device again if the company would produce smartpones running on Android as well. That’s something I really don’t get either.
I know the OS is “horribly fragmented”, but that doesn’t keep companies like Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony to produce smartphones people crave for: the Note II, the One X+, the Nexus 4 and the soon to be available Xperia Z are smartphones that make a big impression. And you don’t have to be rich to buy an Android device – just like Nokia is bringing very affordable Lumia devices to the market.
Samsung, HTC, LG even Huawei (but not Sony) are producing Windows Phone devices as well. Why would it be so unthinkable for Nokia to produce Android smartphones? Would that be some kind of treason? To what? Certainly not to their “marriage”?
Tizen
Samsung is working together with Intel on its own platform, Tizen. I don’t want to become too technical, but It’s based on Linux and embraces HTML5 and it will give Samsung the possibility not to be completely dependent on Google (more background here).
It looks like a logical and even essential thing to do. Just as Nokia has always said it will be looking for the best way to survive in this war and keep all options open. But what are the other options right now, besides Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS?
Now what?
iOS and Blackberry are out, of course. I don’t think Samsung would be looking forward to join forces on the Tizen platform – and I’m sure Intel won’t be interested after Nokia ditched MeeGo it developed with them. What is that other OS Nokia is looking at as an alternative then? A further development of its own S40 platform it uses on the Asha devices? What is plan B?
Maybe on a secret floor below the deepest basement somewhere in Finland, a few dozen of developers are working on the newest Symbian platform to secure Nokia’s own independence, but somewhere I doubt it. So if Nokia is really keeping an eye open for any plan B, isn’t it most likely to be Android after all?
Some people say they would buy a Nokia smartphone running on Android “in a heartbeat”. Other swore never to buy the brand again. I’m sure the stock market would jump when Nokia would make the announcement, but I don’t expect it anytime soon.
Personally, I love a lot of different platforms, I might even consider trying to get my hands on the new Blackberry Z10 if only to experience what it has taken from MeeGo. I still want a Nokia N9 in my collection. And yes, I’d buy high-end Nokia hardware running on the newest Android platform too. In a heartbeat. Why not? It’s not platforms, it’s people who create wars.
PS: I borrowed the illustration from badcompany2
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Well, I think it’s already game over for all mobile OSs aside from Android and iOS, unless someone comes up with something truly disrupting. The iPhone was a disrupting concept executed to the highest degree and it destroyed Nokia and the established platforms. WP is nothing like that. It is nice and all, but with a nice OS you don’t take the market from the leaders.
The leaders are not the best, like MS knows all too well with PC DOS and Windows. OS2 was much better. But once an OS takes 50-60% market share, it is almost impossible to topple it unless you have something unique. Android is at 70%, iOS at 20%… (on PC, Win is about 85%, Apple is 10%). Do you see Linux killing Win on a PC? I don’t see WP taking significant market from Android.
It’s done already.
How i see the problem, nokia was very big contributor to numerous projects that no other mobile company was like jpeg, mpeg, linux souce code, they also had bigger r &d than many desktop producing companies like apple, they also had beautiful concept phones but with nokia burning through cash and becoming dependant on ms for software, all this innovation will suffer, they will definitely innovate new services, apps and hardwares but scale is going to go down, you won’t see them doing purchases like scolado and navteq in future, cause being dependent on some one else you don’t need and can’t afford such luxury of seeing yourself forerunner in techs that are not your primary businesses. World needed nokia to be independent, i have nothing againgst wp despite its limitations.
While I like the idea of having so many options when chosing a device, the large choice can be a nightmare for people who need a new phone and don’t want to buy the next thing that falls into their hands. I have a colleage who wanted to buy her first smartphone. She’s been evaluating for months now, and got so confused that she postponed her plan and bought a Nokia Asha that will keep her going till her 100%-Device comes along.
What most people don’t realize was the deep problems Nokia was facing a few years ago. The so called “burning platform” was really burning. I understood that the effort needed to develop Symbian was high and expensive and there weren’t other companies that were using this OS that could lead to joined development. Why not go open source than?
An other thing is the patented drivers within Symbian, I understood when I was playing with hacked firmware on my Samsung i8910 (HyperX) that there were a lot of bits and pieces within the firmware that couldn’t be used by anyone.
Imagine you’re a stockholder of a company on the edge of bankruptcy and there is a company with loads of money that is willing to support this company. That comapany is Microsoft and they have two conditions:
1. We deliver the new CEO
2. The ecosystem for the flagship devices must be Windows
The development of windows is much cheaper as Symbian because it’s multi-device. The core of the system is developed for PC, tablet and phone and many manufactures license the system. Synergy and a large install base. As Nokia you only need to develop specific tools and support for specific hardware (for Nokia mainly the camera api and interface), this can be done by a dedicated small team.
I really don’t like that Symbian development has come to an end, but I’m certain Windows 8 will improve quickly.
I think there a few difficult issues with platforms that are not discussed so much.
One is that it is very hard to produce a whole new modern platform and still run old software. Microsoft worked very hard to achieve this with Windows and MSDOS, but at huge cost to the size of the system and bloat supporting legacy software. At the same time, if you ditch all your old software, then your developers get very upset and so do users whose applications no longer work. Blackberry, Microsoft and Nokia all ditched old successful mobile operating systems to produce their new modern operating systems, and although it leads to a new efficient OS, it’s hard to bring back users and developers who see their past investments in software wiped out.
Another issue is the difficulty of bringing the latest hardware to less-established operating systems. If you roll your own OS, but don’t roll your own processors, then you’re not able to combine the latest OS with the latest processors. The latest processing technologies appear on the established platforms first, and then back-ported to the other platforms later. It makes it difficult for Nokia to stay up-to-date. The pipeline for this is extremely long (3-5 years) hence the 808 appearing on Symbian after Nokia had switched to Windows: there was very little time to switch.
I think the last issue is the one that Elop correctly identified, but hasn’t yet been able to follow-through on: how do you differentiate if you all use the same OS? Hopefully, Nokia and Blackberry can get that right and return to glory. But right now, both of them are producing phones that look like Android or iPhones, but with worse graphics and processing tech, fewer apps, and less mature software. They both had clear differentiating advantages: keyboards, battery life, camera quality, low bandwidth usage. But in their panic to compete they copied everyone else.
They need to be clear about what they are offering: me-too but cheaper (not a good business plan for anything other than a Chinese company right now)? Or are they offering something better, but niche (no so good for massive companies, maybe)? Or absolutely better and stunning and prestigious to own? (I don’t think they’ve managed that, yet).
Life for a tech company that has lost its confidence is extremely tough. Without confidence, you can’t make the massive investment risks necessary to stay in the game. Making massive investment risks and then not delivering can be catastrophic in tech.
I hope that both Blackberry and Nokia can pull this off.
“But right now, both of them are producing phones that look like Android or iPhones,” I don’t know of any Lumia device that looks like an Android phone or an iPhone.
Give me a break Chani. Andrew is right. Lumia is a screen with three capacitive buttons at the lower part. just like any basic Android phone.
I respect your opinion – although I don’t agree with it – but I’d prefer you to remain friendly towards the other visitors of the PureViewClub. Thank you.
I remember when I got the Nokia N8 and remembering how bad the Symbian OS was … but surprisingly the OS got better and better with each update. After more than 2 years of using the phone, I was actually hesitant to give it up. It was because the useability actually got much better over time, which can’t be said with many other OSs, which requires you to ‘upgrade’ the phone to ensure that it can keep up with the OS. Now with the 808, the OS appears to function extremely well and it seems most of the bugs have been finally ironed out… which is sad, because like Marc said, I also don’t understand why it’s ditched. There are so much potential indeed and we saw it come out in the 808. The performance I feel comes close to Android and IOS and with more development has potential to equal and surpass it.
I think the question is if Windows will survive. And if Nokia Maps has a chance against Google Maps, because there is a lot of profit coming from people using your maps. If we leave out apple, which is only for rich people (here in Switzerland, mobiles are mostly iphones, and there are also a lot of apple computers), there is only windows for comupters. Now the question is, if people and app developper, want more than just android. Windows seems like a very nice OS for mobiles, but the lack of apps might kill them, nearly all the apps are just iOS and Android. Why should there be more space for mobile OS’s than for PC OS’s…
I don’t know how different a new OS would be, if Nokia is thinking of one. I like whatever I’ve seen of Sailfish, Tizen too may be interesting. And since these are open source, in theory they could be adopted by Nokia.
iOS, Android, S40, BB10, Ubuntu, Firefox OS, Sailfish, Tizen – lots to choose from!
I don’t understand why Nokia didn’t make an spin-off to continue the development of Meego, like Jolla but made by Nokia decision so they could improve the existing Meego UI, grow a new platform at no cost to Nokia, and when needed Nokia will have an alternative OS ready.
I don’t understand that part either. Why not having a second leg to stand on in case one breaks. Maybe they don’t have the funds right now, but there’s always hope for later. Or so I hope. That wonderful hardware and inventions deserve more than one OS, IMHO.