maemo.org - Talk - Another proof Elop is a trojan horse

Quote:

Originally Posted by M_99 (Post 1047535)

I think (hope) it should have been sarcastic, but the tragedy is that most of people (especially at the mysterious "backwater place") are believing this is the truth.
No one today seems to remember the real story.

In June 2007, when the first iPod with phone features was released at the "backwater place", rest of the globe including myself was using one of the best selling smartphones of all times, the Nokia N95.
It was the first Nokia device with GPS, bringing online (including A-GPS) AND offline navigation in more than 100 countries worldwide. It had quadband for worldwide use. It had USB (including Drag&Drop), Infrared and Bluetooth to easily exchange files with your PC, and also to use it as a modem for your Laptop, long time before "Tethering" was something to worry about in contracts. It had a microSD-Slot with SDHC working. It had Wlan with UPnP-Support. It had an Audio-Video-Chinch-Connector to easily use any sort of headphone you prefer and also to connect to your TV for Audio/Video output. It had a 5MP Camera wich made photos way better than these of the N900. It had a second Camera on the front with native support for Videocalling over GSM.

At this time in year 2007, Nokia had created different services to enhance the User-Experience, today known as "Ecosystems":
Things like the Nokia Music Store (formerly known as Loudeye - a White-Label-Service for MTV, MSN, MyCokeMusic, ... today known as Ovi-Music) brought more than 1,6 million Songs (more than 11 million songs in 2010 wich means it's larger than iTunes) to Nokia devices all over the world. At this time the N95 was capable of downloading little Programs to your device (today known as "Apps") to improve the capabilities of the phone, e.g. Skype (with Fring) for VOIP-Calls, Games etc. At this time the Nokia-PC-Suite was the Center of all your device-related tools - downloading and syncing maps, syncing and editing contacts, syncing files, downloading and installing programs, backup and restore.... With one of the following software-updates you even did't need the PC anymore but could download Apps and Music directly to your device....

Nokia has it all. Ovi-Music with more than 11 million songs, Ovi-Maps with free offline navigation worldwide, Ovi-Mail to centralise all of your different Mailaccounts, Ovi-Suite to Sync everything with your PC, Ovi-Store with more than 40k Apps today - everything I'd call an "Ecosystem".

But Nokia failed. They not only failed, it was more like an epic fail.
Why ?
In my opinion (and I don't dare this is the only truth) because thy became fat, arrogant and made stupid decisions.

Fat, beause of the success.
To much ideas, no concept. New services, renamed services, no stategy wich service available for wich phone in wich country. Services not improved, like Ovi-Suite wich lacked for support for too many phones for too much time (look at the N900) and became more and more resource-hungry. Or like Ovi-Store, wich is a torture to use since day one.

Arrogant because of the success.
It's not a good idea to sell 20-30 different devices at one time, each one like the other, except of design and a few features - people get confused. It's not a good idea to reload the same (in the meantime old) hardware of the formerly megaseller (N95) with crappy build-quality and to try to make people believe this would be the next revolution (N96, N97, N97 mini). It's not a good idea to ignore the feedback of your customers ("Touchscreen ? - There's no need for this", "Multitask ? - You don't need this with Symbian", "Hardware-Specs ? - Hardware is irrelevant, because Symbian is so smooth"). It's not a good idea to fuc* your customers if they need support. Nokia has been premium in terms of build-quality for years. But with quality going down was also support going down ("This phone has become wet", "You were smashing your device on the floor", "Did you use this device ?"....). No service, no new Nokia for me.
It's not a good idea to provide new flagship devices (like "the mobile computer" the N900 in my coutry) and fuc* your customers with the lack of support ("Software-Update ? One, maybe two", "Navigation ? Just buy one of our many Dumbphones", "Full Hardware-Support for Frontcam, FM-Transmitter, IR... ? Go to Hell or just ask at TMO")

Stupid decisions because they (finaly) recognized the sinking ship.
Why the hell does Nokia believe that the "backwater place" would be the universal solution ? Nokia was the leader in Europe, Africa, Asia, but has been ignored in America. It's because Network-Providers in America think different. In no way european customers would accept the behavior of american providers. But without the providers you're lost. No one is willing to pay 500-700 $/€ for a handset every 24 months. So what ? Why not forget the whole story an concentrate on the markets you've conquered with success ? Nokia doesn't need this "backwater place" and in no way Nokia will ever be successfull in this market.
But Nokia is acting like a bit** who wants to impress you - "Let's try a new software from this "backwater place", let's try a new leader from this "backwater place", let's forget everything we have learned (or not learned) in the markets we were the leader, this backwater-place-thing will bring the success."
In trying to be successfull in America, Nokia is loosing the rest of the world. And Elop is one big part of this fail, because he represents what most Europeans (and most other people in the rest of the world) don't like within the american mentality: he's a big-mouth, he doesn't know when it's time to just shut the fuc* up.
What an idiot he must be, to tell the whole world, that his moneycow (Symbian) is dead.
What an idiot he must be, to tell the whole world, that there will be only one premium OS, WP7 within Nokia. Not only that Nokia never needed another "third-party" OS like iOS, WM or Android to be successful, customers still don't know when there will finally be a new Nokia flagship-device (2012 ?) after the obligatory Nokia-delays of several months.
What an idiot he must be, to tell the whole world, that the world's (in near future ex-) biggest phone-manufacturer with the most spread OS in the world and thousands of employees is absolutely incompetent to bring the long time experiment (step 1, 2, 3, 4 out of five) to a stunning final, resulting in an ultimate user-experience - no, he declares Maemo/Meego as also dead for Nokia.

I'm sorry to say, but Nokia in my opinion deserves what it gets at the moment, because they didn't listen to their customers (where the money comes from), didn't learn from their mistakes, were unable to copy good concepts from others, and finally hired a big-mouth which (maybe) will have a long-time-plan, but is unable to keep the moneycow in good mood before switching to an all new platform which will have to proof itself first.

CU - M_99

Well said, the N95 really was epic, still way to fiddly for most people, only geeks could really take advantage of it. Symbian should have been fixed years ago, or they should have had a clear strategy to replace symbian with Maemo. To keep two advanced smartphone OSes was way too much. In a way I feel sorry for Elop, he has to clean up the mess and build a new future for Nokia. If he succeed he surely will be epic, and I think he will.

But I disagree with the backwater country. The US is largely irrelevant, and WP will be a much greater success in Europe. It will also become popular in the US, but it will take some time by the looks of it. Europeans are much more fashion oriented than americans, and the iPhone is old news and Android is increasingly only a toy for kids. WP will be new and fresh, just as the N9.

I am optimistic, I have to be, because no one else is making cool phones worth having. So come on Elop, keep up the work, you can do it :D