Nokia executive's stubbornness to changes is responsible for its downfall. Can't blame Microsoft entirely on this one.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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Jolla not mentioned?
In that photo, does everyone else see the birth control phone in the upper right hand side of the pile? I remember the razr phone and the Nokia brick and the sidekick and all the weird little cell phones we used to have but…I’ve never seen that birth control phone.
Not a Nokia and I can't find that exact model but it seems there were a couple of weird round phones floating around in the early to mid 2000's:
https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/c800
https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/xelibri-6
https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/panasonic-g70
There were some other weird as hell designs around that period, like the ones in this article:
https://medium.com/@samworldpeace/nokia-made-some-of-the-weirdest-phones-ever-a7e3412fa0c0
I recognise all but one of the phones in that link. The time just before smartphones was a weird moment in mobile phone history.
I just watched a video essay about design that talked about this, basically before the iPhone manufacturers were trying all kinds of crazy shit, after the iPhone it was black rectangles all around.
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2000/format:webp/1*PBXghb0XY5LEXJ-xhTDobQ.png
Oh shit I had this phone! It was cool. For the time. But the left side felt really flimsy when you opened it up.
I think you did find it. Looks like that xelibri 6. What a weird, not convenient design.
Want people to think you're on birth control but you're not? Get the xelibri 6!
I had completely forgotten that it was Microsoft that killed Nokia.
It wasn't really Microsoft that killed Nokia's cell phone division, but gave it the final blow that made the house of cards fall.
Nokia was basically getting super arrogant. "Oh, trust us, we're the #1 phone manufacturer on the planet. We know what's best for the market". They got caught completely pants down when iPhone came out. Despite the fact that they had already made successful smartphones (Nokia Communicator line). Despite the fact that there was this one small Finnish company that had made a touchscreen based phone and Nokia just laughed them off when they offered to help.
Every move Nokia made after iPhone was basically playing catch-up with some really strange decisions.
I believe that Nokia could have salvaged themselves if, instead of going with Windows Phone, they had just announced they'll be Yet Another Android Manufacturer. But Nokia had to be special about it. They had invested in Ovi (app store) and Here (map service) and they just had to be special. (And even more ironic is that HMD Global is doing just fine as a maker of Nokia-branded Android phones these days.)
To be fair, Microsoft only bought and killed off the phone division. The rest of Nokia is still around including their R&D department bell labs. You know the same bell labs that's developed some little know inventions like C and C++, solar panels, the transistor, and UNIX...
Nokia bought the parent company of bell labs in 2016. By that point bell labs had already been completely restructured to the point that it has basically nothing to do with the historical bell labs.
To be fair I think Nokia was already one foot in the grave before the M$ deal. Largely thanks to Mr. Ollila.
I haven't. The n9 with meego was amazing. The n900 too but I'm still sour thinking how great meego would be now instead of android.
I was just waiting for the n900 whining so that I could join in. Damn, I miss my n900. It had flaws but for its time, it was amazing. With a good CPU, I'd buy it today in a heartbeat.
N900 and Maemo were already awesome. There was absolutely no need to rewrite the entire operating system. Damn I am still angry.
Maemo was so much better than any os coming after it... Meego was in my opinion the wrong path to take. I still miss the N900, what an amazing device it was...
I read some articles in the past that before was Nokia bought they worked on some new os. Idk if it was based on android, but I think it might have been Linux. I don't remember. Microsoft, after the purchase, of course flushed it.
Meltemi. It was supposed to be OS for <100 Euro Linux devices.
The second elop, or how he is known by his friends flop, saw it and saw it was good he killed it. Can't have something cheaper and better then what daddy Microsoft has.
It would depend on whether you think elop was a Microsoft mole al along 😉.
By the time of the Microsoft acquisition, focus had already shifted to Windows phones.
Maemo and later Meego yes... I had a Nokia N900 and it was an awesome phone. Basically Debian in your pocket, easily accessible terminal with root etc.
It almost feels like if it wasn't for Microsoft Europe could have actually been a tech super power 🙄
Japan too. The U.S. Congress threatened Japan with a trade war if they didn't shutter their TRON project to create a domestic Unix. Nowadays it's almost entirely Windows, and Japan has stagnated in terms of technology. They might have another chance at it with the world searching for an alternative to Taiwan for semiconductors and the potential legal status of AI training in Japan.
This may have been the purpose all along.
Of course it was, Symbian is pretty alive and well, Nokia is still one of the main names, then that guy comes, says it's all burning, closes projects left and right, tanks the company, leaves to work in Microsoft. Oh, and I think he worked in Microsoft before coming to Nokia.
At this point I've seen that your comment answered another one, and not about Elop, but I've already typed that... Yes, it absolutely could. Nokia has done so many cool things.
Imagine if Maemo phones were a thing. Even if Symbian were still a thing. All that Android vs Apple crap would be happening somewhere far away in the tech third world, like shootouts in westerns.
And since Maemo is Linux, MS would also eat shit.
Yeah he worked in Microsoft before that and when he ended in Nokia the path was quite clear what it would be. But I've had the chance to talk with many engineers that were working at Nokia back in the day and the problems didn't start because of Microsoft.
Basically Nokia had the whole management divided between symbian, maemo, and windows mobile, and as they couldn't agree on a future path all the efforts were divided. Symbian was quite a disaster at the end and it wouldn't have gone far most likely, those that wanted to continue with it didn't have a clear view of the changes coming in the mobile world.
Maemo was great, really advanced, based on Linux, and working really well, maybe too advanced even, specially for your common users back then. The whole system was constantly put down and delayed and the first devices sold wouldn't even work as a phone, only the 4th ended up with mobile connection, which didn't help at all to make it useful (wifi was not as big as it is now) and sold.
Finally there was Windows Mobile which was still starting basically then and had far less strength, but with the support of Microsoft behind it it was easier to push it out. I don't understand why it still has such support when it comes to the UI, I personally never liked it and it felt too simplistic and boring, but the more options the better I guess. Of course once Microsoft managed to plant his own guy inside Nokia they managed to favor the balance towards Win mobile and the other two were left behind more and more.
So Microsoft was a key part in what ended happening but they were not the ones that put Nokia in trouble. That was a lack of direction in the management level.
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