I don't get this, what am I looking at in that link? Is there some data about profits?

You can lose market share but increase profits very easily if the market itself is increasing (which it is). If anything the projections in your link show that sticking with Symbian would have been fine since the market share plateaus with an advantage.

Yes, everybody with 100% market share can only lose market share, and they will except if they are Microsoft (clinging on to market share with illegal means). Even IE once had 96% market share, does it make it a failure having 40% today? No. It's just like every market where there are two or three big players sharing the pie. I don't say that symbian was the ultimate OS, but you don't ditch #1 for #NaN. And if you finally decide to do it anyway, help the damn transition.

Nokia has many times broken compatibility with old systems successfully. The N9(1-5) were a raging success even if they didn't play the old S60v2 applications. They could easily, if Symbian was really the problem move to meego, as the same toolset (Qt) enables transition to meego. Or even WP, but with a transition path, not "go sell all your software and hardware and come back next year"

And even if Meego "was not ready" we have proof that they moved faster than the WP train which took a year to deploy Mango, with not-so-awesome updates, and they 'll need another year to support NFC and MicroSD things that M*E*O already supports.

Anyway that is out of the current stream of discussion. We are discussing about the WP7 failure today and not the decision to go WP7 last year. And todays' condition is attributed to a million reasons, one being WP7 itself as a system (nobody seems to want one) and many others like bad execution, stupid campaigns, removal of Symbian phones from the shelves (not new models, old ones that cost nothing to be there as an option for the guy that's say... stuck to the past), no HWKB devices (a traditional Nokia strength) etc etc. It is also attributed to the market share Nokia already lost, that will never return due to platform lock on. Had they kept quiet, and ditched Symbian this february, with 3 Lumias ready to ship, they would have much more customers going to the store just asking for the new Nokia.

And finally, why ditch it at all? Make two Lumia Flagships, market the hell out of them, if they sell well, fade Symbian to oblivion, nobody will mourn. When they said the N8 will be the last Symbian N-Series the market didn't crash. When they said symbian is crap, then it did. And if not all goes well and you see people are not loving your new babies, repaint your N8, give it a new processor and a bit of more ram, buy some time until you have something people will love to buy.

EDIT: Bleeding money?? When did that happen?

No matter what you say, one thing is for certain, WP will fail worse than Symbian. Lots of people are aware of this fact and don't buy WP devices. Check out how much nicer Belle looks on the N9 design:



Much nicer, huh?

That's what I call an ecosystem. Buttonless, similar UIs, UX and services on all phones. However, functionality and OS differ on price. Ovi store and Qt applications are running on the whole lineup.

I think you all are arguing from different angles sorta the same thing. Let's put it this way... if your market share drops considerably, then your margins need to jump considerably - I haven't seen any proof of that yet.

If you switch to something that's not selling well, your profits will invariably decline as well as your valuation - case in point, Nokia's stock is less now than it was a year ago... under $5.00, I bought in at low $8.00, sold at $8.40, got out before this drop.

The point though, charts will prove most anything - but the above is a fact. Nokia isn't selling as much, they've dropped in valuation, they're supporting a lesser selling WP7 platform and they've yet to hit their stride in anything in their portfolios - heck, by most accounts, N9's are selling more than Lumia 800's.

That surely depends on the growth of the overall market. If unit sales are still increasing, then margins do not need to grow in order to maintain/increase level of profits.

I don't know if this applies in the case of Nokia. I'm not a shareholder and do not care about their financial position. Even less so now that they no longer produce devices that I would buy.

The main question that comes out of the argument is: Why put faith in an OS that is rejected and doesn't sell? Yes, obviously Symbian's fare share has dropped considerably, however new updates have arrived and are proving themselves worthy and are accepted by the consumer which should be of utmost importance for the company. Harmattan is also selling and is on the most wanted list, so what gives? WP is a joke when Nokia is concerned. Longtime loyal consumers have stayed with Nokia for their OS, design, reliability, services, etc. If all those consumers wanted Windows, they would have bought it by now. WM is as close as an OS will get to its desktop counterpart.

My conclusion is, Nokia's customers have been crying out for something new and flashy, but not different. Nokia has this inhouse and yet they throw their current and potential customers to Samsung, HTC, etc.

Even the joke that was the N97 didn't lose so much market share in so little time. So it's not crappy phones the only problem. It's mοrοnic management.

N97 sold quite well actually.

N97 sold nicely.... it unfortunately sold nicely. That phone alone tarnished Nokia's and Symbians image in West. Even Vanjoki admitted that the phone was a failure, something you don't hear everyday when the phone sold +2 million under 2 months.


Sorry but button-less doesn't make better. Symbian has some very deep problems and honestly it's pretty much only targeted outside Europe and North America. The market i'm not in.

While 200 euros or less Symbian device is all and well. I'll take Android, iOS, WP7 device that's +300e any day over Symbian device. Especially iOS and WP7 usability is from a different planet.

Symbian is already buttonless, it only has the menu button to take care of. And the problems you think exist, are gone. Symbian is on a whole different playing field. I had a play with a 701, pretty much flawless on that ARM11. Even though, the CPU is 2 generations old, the GPU more than makes up for it. It's currently the best in the market and is 1080p capable (software limited).

Nokia has taken care of their past mistakes, however, Elop didn't allow any of it to happen. He is either cancelling or delaying inhouse projects. Management was an issue in past development, and under Elop, it still is. Hardware, which was the main problem, has improved significantly compared to those GPU-less devices after the OMAP 2420 era.