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Jaffa is offline Jaffa
2011-06-13 , 07:59
Posts: 2,535 | Thanked: 6,681 times | Joined on Mar 2008 @ UK
#1
MWKN: 13 June 2011

Nokia's CTO, Rich Green, allegedly leaving Nokia over MeeGo and Elop's strategy

BBC News, amongst many others, carried the news that Nokia's Chief Technology Officer, Rich Green, is no longer working at Nokia:
An official Nokia statement said he had left to resolve a "personal matter" and gave no date for his return. However, a Finnish newspaper quoted sources inside Nokia saying he had left because of differences over strategy and would not return. Mr Green was known to champion the MeeGo mobile operating system which Nokia recently sidelined.
If, as seems likely, it is a disagreement over strategy, it is unclear what - if anything - triggered Green's decision now. Recent statements from Stephen Elop, including those we covered last week, pour even more cold water over MeeGo; a move which does not seem sensible when about to launch a MeeGo-compatible device. This has led some to conclude the Harmattan programme - even at this very late stage in its development, and about to launch - may be cancelled.

Such an outcome would be very unfortunate, both for us in the community and those in Nokia who've been working so hard on it for so longer. However, in your editor's experience, it's not unheard of. Acorn's next-generation ARM-based desktop, Phoebe, was cancelled weeks before launch in a strategic shift of the company after a change in the board. After Acorn & RISC OS, Psion & EPOC and Nokia & Maemo, companies should strongly resist having your editor as a champion.
Read more (bbc.co.uk)



In this edition...
  1. Front Page
    • Nokia's CTO, Rich Green, allegedly leaving Nokia over MeeGo and Elop's strategy
  2. Applications
    • Fixing Twitter authentication in Maemo Conversations app
    • Tweed Suit (Twitter client) now in Extras-testing
    • Got a MeeGo ExoPC? Mong now available in pre-built binary
  3. Development
    • Offscreen's cross-platform IDE now available free-of-charge
    • That Rabbit Game running on an ExoPC
    • Maliit, MeeGo virtual keyboard, moves to its own home to target multiple OSes
    • BOSS, MeeGo build workflow tool, development discussion
  4. Community
    • Provide feedback on MeeGo Conference
    • "MeeGo Pong" (re)naming competition!
    • Full video feeds for MeeGo Conference?
    • MeeGo Community Office meeting, Tuesday 14th June
    • Stskeeps drops out from talk.maemo.org due to noise & trolls
  5. Announcements
    • WolframAlpha front-end
    • ReSiStance RSS client updated
    • Stockona - Yahoo!/Google finance app
    • Mieru - a flexible manga & comic reader
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jo21 is offline jo21
2011-06-13 , 08:10
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#2
so no N9? :< must google more about this rich greene >.<
 
Jaffa's Avatar
Jaffa is offline Jaffa
2011-06-13 , 08:14
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#3
I think it's still more than likely we'll see Nokia's Harmattan devices. I certainly hope we do.
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danramos is offline danramos
2011-06-13 , 09:10
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#4
Originally Posted by Jaffa View Post
I think it's still more than likely we'll see Nokia's Harmattan devices. I certainly hope we do.
What makes you say that?
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Jaffa's Avatar
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2011-06-13 , 09:19
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#5
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
What makes you say that?
  • I think Elop's "trash-talking" of MeeGo is being expanded on by news media; rather than what he actually said. (Counterpoint: Rich Green leaving)
  • I think Nokia's stock price would take a real dive if they publicly said they weren't releasing a MeeGo device. (If they released a high-end WP7 phone sooner than expected and as part of the announcement, they could use a line of "we did this faster [see how good the time-to-market can be?] so do not feel the need to confuse consumers with a MeeGo device")
  • I think they'd have a retention issue if they canned the work of all the people who've been working towards the Harmattan device(s).
  • The sunk costs at this point must be very high.

Nothing massively compelling, though.
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danramos is offline danramos
2011-06-13 , 09:29
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#6
Originally Posted by Jaffa View Post
  • I think Elop's "trash-talking" of MeeGo is being expanded on by news media; rather than what he actually said. (Counterpoint: Rich Green leaving)
  • I think Nokia's stock price would take a real dive if they publicly said they weren't releasing a MeeGo device. (If they released a high-end WP7 phone sooner than expected and as part of the announcement, they could use a line of "we did this faster [see how good the time-to-market can be?] so do not feel the need to confuse consumers with a MeeGo device")
  • I think they'd have a retention issue if they canned the work of all the people who've been working towards the Harmattan device(s).
  • The sunk costs at this point must be very high.

Nothing massively compelling, though.
Indeed, the counterpoints are far more compelling than the optimistic arguments you posed for a Harmattan device being released.

To counterpoint the last two:
  • They appear to have had something of an attrition problem for some time now (at least a year). I have to consider whether this is all related. I doubt that cancelling a Harmattan device right now would make any different with regards to retention anymore.
  • They already knew that they were going to be suffering from sunk costs--so releasing a Harmattan device now would only incur MORE cost to produce a device the company has barely a half-hearted effort going into (at best) with very little return (since it's likely that customers will notice the half-hearted effort communicated in Elop's latest press releases and public statements).
I'm just not entirely convinced that it even has a chance anymore.
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2011-06-13 , 10:16
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#7
Perfectly sensible points. However, the whole thing would rely on being able to time the cancellation announcement with a WP7 release.

I'm not sure, even reusing the "consumer" device, that they're able to produce something that quickly.
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gazza_d is offline gazza_d
2011-06-13 , 11:52
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#8
I may have been wearing my rose tinted glasses when reading articles lately, but the businessweek article in particular did indicate to me that Meego was not completely dead in the eyes of Nokia, Yes it needs a lot of work still to be consumer ready, but that they would carry on with the apparent strategy of occasionally releasing incomplete/buggy devices to the hacker/enthusiast/developer community in the same way that they have done with all of the Maemo devices. IMO they are more likely, if the kit is ready to go to push the Meego device(s) to market in a low-profile way to test the waters....

Unless Microsoft/TI had drivers etc ready to dump WP on existing Nokia hardware (unlikely IMO), or have hardware which would be quickly Nokia-ised (even more unlikely IMO), then I don't think we will see a Nokia Windows phone on the shop shelves much this side of Christmas.

The other bit of faint optimism for Meego is that Elop has pushed the support date for Symbian back to 2016. This does lead me to think that the Windows phones are gonna be coming later not earlier, and if that at least is a stay of execution for Symbian, they may also be hope for more Meego devices coming along.

The only reason I can see for Elop going with WP is to effectively out-source the software development, which is waht Nokia have been rubbish at really. Both Symbian and Maemo/Meego have suffered from late and under development over the years.
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2011-06-13 , 11:57
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#9
Originally Posted by gazza_d View Post
The only reason I can see for Elop going with WP is to effectively out-source the software development, which is waht Nokia have been rubbish at really.
It's an interesting point I hadn't considered recently - and another aspect which can either bode well for MeeGo or not: Nokia's not in the OS business anymore. Elop's outsourced their primary platform to Microsoft and Symbian to Accenture.

MeeGo and S40 are the only OSes which Nokia still maintain themselves. This gives MeeGo more life (it's the safety line to maintain a competency which one day may need to be core again) or takes it away (not in the s/w business anymore, so let's not try to)
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SD69 is offline SD69
2011-06-15 , 12:52
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#10
Recent statements from Stephen Elop, including those we covered last week, pour even more cold water over MeeGo; a move which does not seem sensible when about to launch a MeeGo-compatible device. This has led some to conclude the Harmattan programme - even at this very late stage in its development, and about to launch - may be cancelled.
Thanks for the newsletter. I'd be interested in learning who is the "some" mentioned in this quote and an explanation of the reasoning behind it. It seems that they were half right - QGil resigned from the community office to focus on marketing the next device. I would guess that it is Nokia's support for the community that may be cancelled; not the Harmattan device.
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