pichlo | # 251 | 2015-12-17, 16:10 | Report

Every time I see or hear "yes, however...", my attention drops. My experience teaches me that what is about to follow is a stream of excuses. I was not disappointed this time either.

I think the difference between successful people and losers is that when the former fail, they look back and ask, "Where did I make a mistake? How can I learn from that?", whilst the latter look back, shrug and say, "It was the circumstances".

imaginaryenemy | # 252 | 2015-12-17, 16:28 | Report

That is unfair. Reasons and excuses are not the same thing.

Jolla is in the crapper and their decisions helped them get there. HOWEVER, saying that a new mobile os could have been successful on any kind of substantial scale if it had been done differently, is pretty far fetched.

This community was the only community that cared about Jolla, and that just wasn't enough.

pichlo | # 253 | 2015-12-17, 17:02 | Report

No one is blaming them for failing to beat Apple. Not that I know anyway. All the objections I have read so far are about them failing in areas that were under their control. Public relations. Customer relations. Technical support. Ecosystem support. Bug fixing. Communication.

I have just come back from yet another company meeting. One slide showed an equasion:


Why multiplication and not addition? Because if any component is zero, the whole thing is zero. This seems obvious but perhaps not to everyone.

ZogG | # 254 | 2015-12-17, 20:30 | Report

Are we talking about HW only?
Cyanogenmod. And don't tell me they had Android. Mer and Meego where there for a while too
Pebble
NextThing
Oculus Rift
A lot of 3D printers companies(their own SW and HW is more complicated)
puzzlephone is boosting

And please do not tell me, that Jolla did more. Yes they made mobile OS, but they had Mer and meego already, those people worked on maemo before (they used it in PR, so why can't I point that out). They provided updates, but basically long changelogs did not include a lot of new features. There are a lot of bugs that still are there from the begining. And if they decided to throw all the money in that and tried to conquer whole world(in their case it was EU + some more countries), but not proceed slower but in great acceleration — their fault. I see it as someone who know to run sprints and trying to use same method to run marathon. The problem that he will loose all his strength at very first kilometers.
They had enough time and money and if they decided to use not wisely and ask for more and more, then all your "they have no backing and they are small" is an excuse. Because if you know that, they should know it better and do not try to jump over own hands. They had connections, they had first investments, they had community behind, but they blew it all away. Their management lost mind in fame at the beginning and ran away from boat

JulmaHerra | # 255 | 2015-12-17, 20:35 | Report

If analyzing and trying to understand rationale behind certain decisions and circumstances that lead to those decisions is just "excuses", then so be it. But then I guess there is nothing to discuss either. It's not enough to just point out mistakes with more or less incomplete information about backgrounds etc. To learn you need to analyze and find the exact points and reasons why certain things failed AND trying to figure out how alternative decisions could have altered the outcome, both in good and bad ways. Point is, doing things the opposite way than in failed attempt may also end up in failure as every decision will have it's consequences, which may or may not be foreseen and/or desirable. But to me it looks like some here are more or less preaching how to do it all The Right Way(tm) without any consideration to circumstances, trade offs etc. as if the way their preferred way was something like the absolute and final truth about the matter, applicable to every single situation, project and company. Pardon me for lacking faith in it. Call it excuse it you wish.

imaginaryenemy | # 256 | 2015-12-17, 20:36 | Report

I totally agree. My point is, even if they perfected "product = hardware x software x support", they still wouldn't be able to make it. Longer and more productive, perhaps, but what is happening now was inevitable.

JulmaHerra | # 257 | 2015-12-17, 20:42 | Report

No. We are talking about the whole package, including SW, HW, infrastructure, SDK's, marketing, support, funding etc etc.

None of them are of the same magnitude. We can of course just ignore it.

But let's just agree they failed on loads of things. There's no point continuing this further as we already know that's just about the only thing we can agree on this and either one of us haven't been able to bring any added value to previous discussions/arguments.

jellyroll | # 258 | 2015-12-17, 21:33 | Report

Good link,thanks!

ZogG | # 259 | 2015-12-18, 06:11 | Report

I agree that we are in the loop
But just to point out that pebble has own os, hw, sdk, apps and market and as well integrated in several OSs. And they built it from scratch with no mer, meego or maemo behind

billranton | # 260 | 2015-12-18, 11:22 | Report

A smartwatch OS is a tiny amount of effort compared to a mobile linux distro. I love Pebble and they've the only company to get watches right, but I don't think they'd agree to that comparison themselves.