Looking back and just what kind of pressure Nokia is in Nokia World 2012

Posted by in Editorial, News on Jun 15, 2012 | 3 comments

NOKIA’S PAST AND US NOKIA FANS WAITING FOR THAT MODERN N95

 

Oh boy i sure timed NokiaGadget’s comeback just right it seems. This is not the deepest crisis Nokia has been in it’s over 120 year of existence, it’s not even what Nokia experienced in early 90′s as it put everything it had left after disastrous years to this thing called GSM. Difference to those old days is that the the drop from the mountaintop is way longer this time.

I believe many Nokia fans can relate to me for waiting that killer Nokia device to take N95 place since 2008. Every Nokia event, teaser was analyzed to death on back then very active Nokia forums.
We wanted that Nokia killer device we had seen on multiple concept pictures and videos visualised by Nokia even before iPhone was announced in 2007. We all believed Nokia could do it, and why not? It’s Nokia after all.
That magical device never came out and i saw like many other phone nerds in Europe and North America that Symbian was way behind the competition with sales starting to lack bad in these regions, though Symbian did expand aggressively in Asia, masking in just what kind of trouble Nokia was already even with them generating record profits in 2008.

To me Nokia has always been about hardware, lets remind ourselves that even Symbian was truly Nokia’s as recently as December 2008. Sure Nokia has made short flashes on what it’s capable on with the massive resources they had back then, but the execution and making them a viable platform has been more than lacking.
There are multiple other companies who have managed to make amazing looking UI’s just to see them fail next day. The actual test is at making the OS a viable platform for developers and most of all keeping up with the schedule. Again, Nokia has had all the resources in the world to make that happen, but was not capable.

 

CYCLE THAT NEEDS TO STOP

 

In general we have seen one scenario repeat time after time with it even going back in time before Symbian Foundation. Nokia has been restarting it’s software foundations multiple times with never having solid modern foundation with enough of device, software cycles and popularity to reveal device with balanced, market leading hardware.
Neither Android, WebOS or iOS where capable to blow you out with their hardware support right out of the gate or even on their second or third cycle, it was not possible. Palm in the end just simply not having enough resources to make it ever happen with their own WebOS.

 

NOKIA WORLD 2012 AND WHAT’S NEEDED

 

Nokia’s Windows Phone 8 hardware announcements likely to happen in Nokia World this year are of course crucial to Nokia no matter how you look at it, but WP8/Apollo will also mark the first time in much over 4 years since Nokia has had modern, mature OS that it has been working on with Microsoft pretty much from the start and has had time since early 2011 to make the magic happen on WP8 release by end of this year.

To me the Nokia Windows Phone 8 announcements will mean so much more than just important product releases, it will also mark the day Nokia should not have big limiting factors to produce the best product in the market, neither us customers should anymore care if there are limiting factors. What we will need to see in Q4 is product that’s not a phone with world’s best camera, but the best smartphone out there with Nokia’s design and even something extra that will raise it above others, be it PureView or new innovation on touch screens.
It doesn’t sound too hard for a company like a Nokia multiple times larger than HTC, yet looking back 4 years it does make you wonder is Nokia still able to do that? Nokia World 2012 will tell us that and much more.

 

  • jiipee

    What is your opinion: if they had decided pro-maemo and WP alongside targeted specifically to US market
    1) could there be dual (or multi core) with Pureview Harmattan N900 (Lumia 900 clone to some extent) by now. If Nokia expects to have PV in WP within reasonable time, they would have had some more time to implement it in Maemo. They must have started the maemo port already before Feb’11
    2) would it be the killer device that has been expected so much? Some apps would be lacking. But with part of the WP marketing money and gifting same amount N950s – as they did with Lumia – they could have bought the essential ones. To my understanding porting games would have been much easier than to WP. One of the benefits would have been immediate global availability also in China, where the largest operator would have sold it.

    This wouldn’t have meant “Nokia has been restarting it’s software foundations multiple times with
    never having solid modern foundation with enough of device”

    If it had been a failure, they could have gone all in to WP8 with some background support to MS during development phase.

    • Nokiagadgets

      Let me start saying that my dream was always that Nokia had gone for Maemo and WP strategy.

      1) I have no doubt there would now be dual core MeeGo phone, ST-Ericsson U8500 was one of the two testing platforms for MeeGo right from the start no doubt just because of Nokia. Maybe we could have even seen that earlier if Nokia had not duplicated the same exact mistake they did with Symbian Foundation as they did with Intel on MeeGo.
      Just stayed on pure Maemo that Harmattan was and not spending months waiting time with the MeeGo open source mess and making harmattan API compatible with MeeGo, something that in the end was time wasted. 

      PureView has been kept totally secret by us, so who knows at what point was PureView meant to come for MeeGo. When Maemo and Qt where in development the Symbian castle was still very strong inside Nokia.

      2) Harmattan/MeeGo device that would had already had major updates and Nokia was fully behind it, true HD screen, PureView camera would have been a hit IMO.
      Though in my opinion WP would have still needed as the second spearhead, especially in North America. Though then does come the question if Maemo/MeeGo could have had large amount of apps from North America where most of the developers are.

      Meaning would could Nokia have made Maemo/Harmattan continuous success? Of course if Nokia was making profits still it would have been in it’s interest to keep it’s own platform in development. Luxury it doesn’t have anymore. 

      • jiipee

         This is still backward looking stuff (for some reason Im not interested in Nokia world anymore having ex-Microsoftians yelling how awesome WP is):

        Odin wrote:
        “Originally, Meltemi was developed in collaboration with subcontractor
        called Nomovok. In spring 2011, all subcontractor contracts were
        terminated. Meltemi development was continued in Oulu and part of the
        work was transferred to new location in Ulm,Germany (possibly because
        the termination of the Bochum plant was proved to be extremely expensive
        operation). If Nokia had continued to use subcontractors instead of
        moving the development to new people in new location, the Meltemi phone
        would have been ready last January. It is possible that McDowell got
        fired because she could not deliver the Meltemi phones in promised
        schedule.

        Meanwhile, the Android phones have become cheaper and are now competing
        in the same price points the Meltemi phones were planned to operate,
        which could be a reason to cancel the Meltemi project. However, Elop has
        not admitted anything yet. It could be that the Meltemi work still
        continues in Oulu and the reason to close the Ulm was that they were
        just incompetent. Nokia still continues to develop QT and now that
        Symbian is buried, the only reason would be that there will be another
        QT compatible OS coming. I hope that Maemo/Linux work still continues,
        but I’m getting more doubtful all the time.”

        If this is true, Im ready to say that Elop destroyed Nokia. Imagine having Meltemi ready Q1 this year would mean that they could have had fighting change in China. Also Qt as a mobile platform would be vivid. Elop was brought to fix the excecution problems and now he has destroyed maybe 50% of Nokia  product segments (price points * form factor matrix)

        http://mynokiablog.com/2012/06/15/no-meltemi-what-about-smarterphone-what-is-there-beyond-s40-what-of-qt/comment-page-3/#comment-594983