ericsson | # 171 | 2011-02-01, 18:08 | Report

You have no idea what you are talking about. Already today there is a subset population in China, comparable in size to the US population, that has more money to spend than the average american. The same is happening in India, although India tends to be more segregated.

ZTE became the words fourth largest phone manufacturer after Nokia, Samsung and LG. ZTE produces some nice handsets.

The US market is becoming increasingly irrelevant for anyone but US homegrown companies. The main reason being the total lack of a free and open market. RIM and Motorola is practically exclusively on the north american market because they cannot compete in the open market without subsidies and lobbying. Only Apple know how to do this and they also got one killer of a product, but it is very high end.

http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_becomes_...-news-2270.php

http://www.gsmarena.com/zte-phones-62.php

mikecomputing | # 172 | 2011-02-01, 18:15 | Report

What I heard of is that N900/N800 was developed by small team of "geeks" inside Nokia and the Symbian guys "laughted" at them. So fact is that they lacked engineers working on Maemo. That probadly the reason the phonestack sucks on N900 for example :-(

I guess many old Symbian developers(osr as some hear wanna say it "dinosaurs" dont wanna see changes: "symbian is my baby" syndrome. Same probadly goes for us users who prefer Linux/Windows whatever

But now Nokia must change and hopefully some of the symbian people has changed mind or get kicked, and isn't that stupid and realise that Meeego is a MUST on highend devices!

That doesnt mean Symbian get killed, Symbian 3 is still good in mid/lowend and probadly more powersave than Meego atm..

But the rest of the symbian(v1,S40 whatever crap) versions will probadly die soon...

Atleast what I hope Elop will say 11 february...

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Last edited by mikecomputing; 2011-02-01 at 18:18.

bugelrex | # 173 | 2011-02-01, 18:39 | Report

I get the impression Finland has some pretty tight union rules that probably makes firings/reassignments very difficult. I would not be surprised if the union contracts forbid % of engineers assigned to non-Symbian development..

E.g some unions in the USA forbid workers to lift/move certain parts, they have to wait for a certain union member to do it otherwise they are accused of stealing someones job.

Could it be that crazy?.. the only rational explanation!

PradaBrada | # 174 | 2011-02-01, 18:41 | Report

Dave999 | # 175 | 2011-02-01, 18:49 | Report

I doubt that, when it comes to reassignment. Of course a big company like Nokia have "dinosaurs" like all other companies in that size. But there is nothing to stop a developer to switch from one code base to another within the same country(read location). There might be issues regarding of how to get rid of people.

I'm not sure what policy nokia use, but Google for example. Move people to most successful "projects", and if they lose its shiny brand, move them to a more successful project.

wmarone | # 176 | 2011-02-01, 18:50 | Report

Quick on the attack, I see.

Yes, so MARGIN. They know that the high end handsets have a better return per sale, so they're pushing to actually get a high end device out on the market. If what you say is true, then it is all the more important.

So did you have a point, or did you just want to yell at me?

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Last edited by wmarone; 2011-02-01 at 18:53.

Sopwith | # 177 | 2011-02-01, 19:33 | Report

Exactly what I am saying too. But while I see some effort towards improving the software, there is no hardware. Nothing, nada, jack, zip, zilch. N9 gets scrapped; N9-01 is nowhere to be seen. Nokia RX71 -- anyone even remember that rumor? You are namedropping the N8 camera -- what kind of stupid abomination is a camera like that on a phone? Feature phones, not full-bodied solutions, is the only thing coming from Nokia lately.

Sure, the software needs improvement too, but revolution? Android? WP7? Really? If that is what people here on TMO believe, I rest my case.

buchanmilne | # 178 | 2011-02-01, 19:42 | Report

But, on the Symbian side of the hardware front? In those 3 years, over 20 devices would have been released (6720,E75,E55,N86 8MP, 5730XM,E52,E72,E63,5530XM,6790,6760,5800NE,5230,X3 ,N97 Mini,5235,6700,X6,C5,C3,E5,C6,X2,5233 ...). And that's only counting S60 (no S40 or S^3)

If revolutionizing the OS makes it easier to support more devices better/longer, definitely. But, I think device proliferation is a big problem. I doubt Nokia really needs to release >8 models a year.

Remember, part of building Meego is building an infrastructure for "push-a-button" releases, continual build+test cycles etc., which, if they didn't have it in place for Symbian, would make a huge difference in supportability of devices on the delivery end, and Qt should make a huge difference on the development end.

AFAIK, this is something they won't get for free with Android (or, Android OEMs wouldn't have the problems they have in delivering upgrades on the relatively few models they have shipped so far).

Sopwith | # 179 | 2011-02-01, 19:50 | Report

Key words: Symbian side. Feature phones. Much of the industrialized world couldn't care less.

I don't need to remember anything about the made-up roadmaps for MeeGo. Instead, I'll come back in a year and see where these rationalizations have taken you.

ericsson | # 180 | 2011-02-01, 20:11 | Report

Teaspoon method I see. China and India are open markets, they are huge markets and they are markets for all kinds of handsets, from the cheapest to the most exclusive. They are the largest markets in the world, combined they are 1/3 of the entire population on this globe. The US market is also large, but it is no real market. From a commercial handset point of view it is like trying to sell VW to the USSR during the cold war: impossibe unless you bribe some of the "big guys" and have one foot inside the polit bureau.

But if you don't get it, tell me one reason Nokia, or anyone else, should persue the US market instead of Cina and India or Asia in general. Competing head to head with a heavily subsidised iPhone and Androids in iPhone/Android homeland consisting exclusively of iAndroid zealots, is not what I would call tempting when it is not even a market in the right sense of the word. I mean, look at any US blog.

It is not without reason the US citizens only have a tiny subset of phones available to choose from compared with what is available elsewhere in the world, anywhere else.