I agree that over the next two years tablets are about to be a huge business. They are about to create a huge transition in the PC market. Nokia will miss out on this transition.
I think MS will suffer much more than Nokia will. MS is about to completely miss the tablet explosion.
I think it would definitely expand Nokia's opportunities if they had a cogent tablet strategy. It definitely would be to their benefit if they participated in tablets.
I think tablets are going to more directly affect PC sales not phone sales. This year smartphones may outsell PC's. Nokia will continue to do very well if they can continue to be the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world.
I think they should more concentrate getting their phone business back on track before they deal with tablets.
MS's problems in this area are long running, and are well known. We're concerned with Nokia here, which is why I'm referring to their problems. I hope you didn't think that I was thinking that tablets would negatively affect smartphone sales, because I think they will have little impact there negatively, and will much more likely reinforce smartphone sales for a company that has both, in a cogently designed environment where apps and other services are transportable between the two in an easy to implement and understand way.
In this, Nokia has a big problem now. They have said they will release one MeeGo device. Then nada. If, as seemed to be the situation before, MeeGo was to be the OS for both high end smart phones and tablets, that would have been a good plan, assuming that meeGo performed as planned, and hoped.
But now, what do they have? Nothing, really. If they were to decide to continue MeeGo development for tablets, something it seems will not happen, then their tablets would not be translatable to their smartphones. Bad strategy. Then what? Use Windows for a tablet? It could happen!
I also think people put too many negatives of this deal on Nokia and none on MS. As though MS has nothing to loose.
I agree that in the near term Nokia has much more to loose than MS does.
If MS cannot develop a competitive mobile platform they are in serious serious trouble in the long term. Desktop Windows is not going to hold the importance it does today forever.
That is the importance of what Apple, HP, and RIM are building today.
That's a separate issue though. There are so many articles about this issue floating around that it's pretty much talked out. The business publications are full of this. There's really not much we can say that would contribute.
This pretty much sums it up:
Windows 7 is a terrible tablet OS. It's also terribly unpopular as a tablet OS.
WP7 is a weak OS, which is a continuation of CE, which powered Win Mobile, and isn't suitable for a powerful tablet, though it's (so far) fine for smartphones..
MS hints that Windows 8 will be even better than Win 7 for tablets, which right now (that is, until Win 8 arrives, the way Vista was excellent until Win 7 arrived) is just dandy in their eyes for tablets.
That pretty much sums it up. What else is there to say about it?
Tablets are not necessarily tied to smartphones. Some are derived from smartphones but they don't need to be tied. Their success appears to be tied to ecosystems.
To state that MS doesn't have tablet plans is simplistic given they have both WP7 and a ARM port for Win7. MS has an ecosystem to support the XBox. Even the oft derided Zune ecosystem is of great value given that its video platform it has 17% share...ahead of sony.
So Nokia has gained access to the XBox Live games ecosystem and the Zune video ecosystem.
In any case, Nokia can continue to drive toward MeeGo and a Moorestown based MID/Tablet. Intel has to deliver a power efficient chip for thin iPad sized tablets before they can hope to deliver SoCs for smartphones to compete against ARM.
Nah, I don't agree. Smartphones ARE tied to tablets. It's one development community, one ecosystem, one OS, one UI, except for Honeycomb, though inside it's the same.
MS has no coherent plan, because they never intended their so called "tablets" to be tied to anything other than their desktop OS, which it was. They're screwed here because people won't accept Windows on a tablet. The tiny convertible market hardly counts anymore.
Big deal about the xBox tie-in. If that was such a big pull, they WP7 would have had at least a modest success, and sold a quarter of a million handsets in the first week, a modest amount of sales for nine phones from four makers. But instead, it did more poorly than the Pre. It's done so poorly, we still don't have the numbers after four months!
Back to tablets. Ballmer stated that they were not using WP7 for tablets. Will he change his mind? Possibly, but not likely. WP7 would make a poor tablet OS. An ARM port for Win 7 is far more likely to be powering low power servers than tablets. There is no evidence that it would be any more power efficient than Windows now, as that's a problem with the OS in general. It solves nothing on the poor UI front either. windows is still Windows, no matter which chip it's running on. And there's no guarantee that it will run well on ARM, just that it will run.
The problem has been that Atom vs ARM for the 7-10" form factor hasn't been very favorable.
Personally, I'd prefer a WP7 based tablet over a Win7 based tablet but ultimately it really depends on a good touch port for MS Office and a good touch UI environment over the actual kernel. Whether that core is NT based or not doesn't seem to matter all that much.
And every one of these tablets will flop. So, what's the point?
I think you still are confusing the handset division of Nokia with their other divisions. You can think what you like about the handset division, but don't forget that divisions like NSN are nothing like anything Apple does, you can't use the consolidated R&D figures to compare the two companies, it is no different than comparing the R&D figures of McDonalds with Apple.
I'm not confusing anything. You're the one who is confused here. Do you have any idea as to how many phones Nokia makes? Any at all?
212. That's right 212. They have to split the R&D of their phone division up between 212 handsets.
Now, some of the older models, about 30 or so, have been discontinued recently, but you can be sure more are waiting in the wings to replace them.
Do you have any idea what this means? I was a manufacturer of professional recording speakers and electronics, and I can tell you that keeping just a couple of dozen products tha tare well defined as to type and use is difficult. But doing that with 212 phones, while trying to keep differences between them, and marketing them in different segments around the world is a nightmare! They must have spend a good hundred million every year in just trying to keep feature sets apart in meeting after meeting, and design comparisons and such.
No wonder so many of their phones suck! You can't explain this away by pretending that a comparison between McDonalds and Apple makes as much sense. It's understandable that Nokia was bloated, and couldn't make quick decisions. Who decided on all these phones? What a mess!
And Apple makes things Nokia doesn't. Outside of NSN (and are their R&D figures even included in Nokia's? My impression is that it's a separate company, with each parent company holding a 50% stake), what are the other products that Nokia makes that makes the comparison misleading? I know of a few internet tablets and appliances, a few GPS units, accessories, I think they released a netbook-ish thing at one point.
If anything, Apple has a broader portfolio, while being more focused on fewer models.
Not even close. Apple doesn't make a small fraction of the number of products Nokia makes even in just its phone division. Not even close.
in response to all the criticism, today Elop added that MS will be paying Nokia "billions" as part of the deal.
of course it's really a cheap quasi-acquisition by MS, since Nokia will have no real business independence left. i guess you can say, as many have, it turns Nokia into the smartphone Dell - an OEM almost totally limited to selling products with MS software (once Symbian is phased out and MeeGo inevitably becomes MeeGone).
except of course there is still a huge market for Windows PC's to keep Dell alive, while there is almost no market so far for WP7 smartphones. Will Nokia's customers stick with it and wait until Nokia comes out with models that have a new Nokia-ized top level UI? which will take most of this year? i think a great many will not.
and what about the other OEM's? will any continue to make WP7 products when they have to continue to pay MS for the OS, while MS is at the same time subsidizing Nokia, their competitor? i don't think so. i doubt we will see many new WP7 phones from them after the current/upcoming models. Many OEM's will drop it entirely.
which leaves Android to pick up all those pieces of the commodity OEM market i suppose.
Yeah, sure. I'd love to see that really happen. But Nokia Will be paying MS billions. They've already said that.
Not even close. Apple doesn't make a small fraction of the number of products Nokia makes even in just its phone division. Not even close.
Apple makes iPods, phones, tablets, all-in-one computers, tower computers, small form factor computers, laptops, ultraportable laptops, WiFi connectivity devices, storage devices, a set-top box, mice and keyboards, monitors, a lot of accessories and a vast array of software.
Nokia makes a million phones, a few tablet-ish things, a few GPS modules, some software and a bunch of accessories. I'm not including NSN because they're a different company.
Nokia, of course, makes a great number of different phone models, which is what I meant (I thought fairly obviously) by Apple having a "broader portfolio while focused on fewer models."
Apple makes iPods, phones, tablets, all-in-one computers, tower computers, small form factor computers, laptops, ultraportable laptops, WiFi connectivity devices, storage devices, a set-top box, mice and keyboards, monitors, a lot of accessories and a vast array of software.
Nokia makes a million phones, a few tablet-ish things, a few GPS modules, some software and a bunch of accessories. I'm not including NSN because they're a different company.
Nokia, of course, makes a great number of different phone models, which is what I meant (I thought fairly obviously) by Apple having a "broader portfolio while focused on fewer models."
Nokia also makes networking equipment. That's a big portfolio in itself. It must be included.
And Apple makes things Nokia doesn't. Outside of NSN (and are their R&D figures even included in Nokia's? My impression is that it's a separate company, with each parent company holding a 50% stake), what are the other products that Nokia makes that makes the comparison misleading? I know of a few internet tablets and appliances, a few GPS units, accessories, I think they released a netbook-ish thing at one point.
If anything, Apple has a broader portfolio, while being more focused on fewer models.
Yes it is a joint company but the figures report back into Nokia, go to the Nokia investor site and you will see this for yourself, you will also see the split of R&D by division.
And as for differences, NSN is the major difference. Also Nokia has a strong interest in low cost devices, and the infrastructure around them, something Apple has no interest in.
I'm not confusing anything. You're the one who is confused here. Do you have any idea as to how many phones Nokia makes? Any at all?
I'm not confused at all, you will find that was Carniphage
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
212. That's right 212. They have to split the R&D of their phone division up between 212 handsets.
The magic bit being "phone division", not NSN, not Navteq, but "phone division". You referred to Nokia making products, but you didn't restrict the original comment to "phone division".
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
No wonder so many of their phones suck! You can't explain this away by pretending that a comparison between McDonalds and Apple makes as much sense. It's understandable that Nokia was bloated, and couldn't make quick decisions. Who decided on all these phones? What a mess!
Your elitism is showing a little bit too much. Yes they have an excessive amount of devices, but try and remember where a lot of these are being marketed to, they need to be low cost, so they will have three versions for different frequencies etc, remember the majority of the of the world cannot afford a Symbian/WMP/Android/iOS device. They were producing a phone they can sell for next to nothing, and still managing to make a profit off it.
And your rant goes on just talking about phones, Nokia makes more than phone, why do you have an issue with that point?
As I understood it, you were trying to explain that Nokia's profligate R&D spending is excused by these various activities?
C.
No, I was proving that the figure you produced was wrong. And if you recall you were wrong, NSN was used as an example to prove you were wrong, which it did.
No, I was proving that the figure you produced was wrong. And if you recall you were wrong, NSN was used as an example to prove you were wrong, which it did.
Long story short, you were wrong.
I don't understand what you are saying.
Melgross: Nokia make too many lines. It's wasteful of R&D cash.
You: Not true, they also have NSN to look after.
Me: How much money does NSN make?
You: None. Why does that matter?
My point is that Nokia's R&D investment is (was) gigantic, uncontrolled and disproportionate.
This view that is not uniquely mine. But seems to be shared by the Nokia CEO.
It is simply, you claimed Nokia was spending some $4 billion on software R&D alone. I said, and provided proof, no, you are wrong, that figure also includes NSN.
It is simple, the figure you provided was wrong. Even the chart you provided proved you were wrong.
Comments
I agree that over the next two years tablets are about to be a huge business. They are about to create a huge transition in the PC market. Nokia will miss out on this transition.
I think MS will suffer much more than Nokia will. MS is about to completely miss the tablet explosion.
I think it would definitely expand Nokia's opportunities if they had a cogent tablet strategy. It definitely would be to their benefit if they participated in tablets.
I think tablets are going to more directly affect PC sales not phone sales. This year smartphones may outsell PC's. Nokia will continue to do very well if they can continue to be the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world.
I think they should more concentrate getting their phone business back on track before they deal with tablets.
MS's problems in this area are long running, and are well known. We're concerned with Nokia here, which is why I'm referring to their problems. I hope you didn't think that I was thinking that tablets would negatively affect smartphone sales, because I think they will have little impact there negatively, and will much more likely reinforce smartphone sales for a company that has both, in a cogently designed environment where apps and other services are transportable between the two in an easy to implement and understand way.
In this, Nokia has a big problem now. They have said they will release one MeeGo device. Then nada. If, as seemed to be the situation before, MeeGo was to be the OS for both high end smart phones and tablets, that would have been a good plan, assuming that meeGo performed as planned, and hoped.
But now, what do they have? Nothing, really. If they were to decide to continue MeeGo development for tablets, something it seems will not happen, then their tablets would not be translatable to their smartphones. Bad strategy. Then what? Use Windows for a tablet? It could happen!
I also think people put too many negatives of this deal on Nokia and none on MS. As though MS has nothing to loose.
I agree that in the near term Nokia has much more to loose than MS does.
If MS cannot develop a competitive mobile platform they are in serious serious trouble in the long term. Desktop Windows is not going to hold the importance it does today forever.
That is the importance of what Apple, HP, and RIM are building today.
That's a separate issue though. There are so many articles about this issue floating around that it's pretty much talked out. The business publications are full of this. There's really not much we can say that would contribute.
This pretty much sums it up:
Windows 7 is a terrible tablet OS. It's also terribly unpopular as a tablet OS.
WP7 is a weak OS, which is a continuation of CE, which powered Win Mobile, and isn't suitable for a powerful tablet, though it's (so far) fine for smartphones..
MS hints that Windows 8 will be even better than Win 7 for tablets, which right now (that is, until Win 8 arrives, the way Vista was excellent until Win 7 arrived) is just dandy in their eyes for tablets.
That pretty much sums it up. What else is there to say about it?
Tablets are not necessarily tied to smartphones. Some are derived from smartphones but they don't need to be tied. Their success appears to be tied to ecosystems.
To state that MS doesn't have tablet plans is simplistic given they have both WP7 and a ARM port for Win7. MS has an ecosystem to support the XBox. Even the oft derided Zune ecosystem is of great value given that its video platform it has 17% share...ahead of sony.
http://www.isuppli.com/Media-Researc...s-Inroads.aspx
So Nokia has gained access to the XBox Live games ecosystem and the Zune video ecosystem.
In any case, Nokia can continue to drive toward MeeGo and a Moorestown based MID/Tablet. Intel has to deliver a power efficient chip for thin iPad sized tablets before they can hope to deliver SoCs for smartphones to compete against ARM.
Nah, I don't agree. Smartphones ARE tied to tablets. It's one development community, one ecosystem, one OS, one UI, except for Honeycomb, though inside it's the same.
MS has no coherent plan, because they never intended their so called "tablets" to be tied to anything other than their desktop OS, which it was. They're screwed here because people won't accept Windows on a tablet. The tiny convertible market hardly counts anymore.
Big deal about the xBox tie-in. If that was such a big pull, they WP7 would have had at least a modest success, and sold a quarter of a million handsets in the first week, a modest amount of sales for nine phones from four makers. But instead, it did more poorly than the Pre. It's done so poorly, we still don't have the numbers after four months!
Back to tablets. Ballmer stated that they were not using WP7 for tablets. Will he change his mind? Possibly, but not likely. WP7 would make a poor tablet OS. An ARM port for Win 7 is far more likely to be powering low power servers than tablets. There is no evidence that it would be any more power efficient than Windows now, as that's a problem with the OS in general. It solves nothing on the poor UI front either. windows is still Windows, no matter which chip it's running on. And there's no guarantee that it will run well on ARM, just that it will run.
I am guessing that Nokia believe that WP7 gives them a chance at profitability once again.
Theoretically a WP7 device will have a much greater profit margin than a Symbian device.
Symbian devices have been stuck at commodity prices for a while.
It'll be interesting to see what happens.
C.
Oh, I know what they BELIEVE. But belief doesn't make truth.
Given that Acer is #2 worldwide and announced a win7 tablet last year that's hardly a true statement.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/23/a...ed-inbuilt-3g/
Dell has also unveiled a 10" win7 tablet.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20031025-1.html
Asus has a win7 tablet
http://goodereader.com/blog/tablet-s...for-pre-order/
The problem has been that Atom vs ARM for the 7-10" form factor hasn't been very favorable.
Personally, I'd prefer a WP7 based tablet over a Win7 based tablet but ultimately it really depends on a good touch port for MS Office and a good touch UI environment over the actual kernel. Whether that core is NT based or not doesn't seem to matter all that much.
And every one of these tablets will flop. So, what's the point?
I think you still are confusing the handset division of Nokia with their other divisions. You can think what you like about the handset division, but don't forget that divisions like NSN are nothing like anything Apple does, you can't use the consolidated R&D figures to compare the two companies, it is no different than comparing the R&D figures of McDonalds with Apple.
I'm not confusing anything. You're the one who is confused here. Do you have any idea as to how many phones Nokia makes? Any at all?
212. That's right 212. They have to split the R&D of their phone division up between 212 handsets.
Now, some of the older models, about 30 or so, have been discontinued recently, but you can be sure more are waiting in the wings to replace them.
Do you have any idea what this means? I was a manufacturer of professional recording speakers and electronics, and I can tell you that keeping just a couple of dozen products tha tare well defined as to type and use is difficult. But doing that with 212 phones, while trying to keep differences between them, and marketing them in different segments around the world is a nightmare! They must have spend a good hundred million every year in just trying to keep feature sets apart in meeting after meeting, and design comparisons and such.
No wonder so many of their phones suck! You can't explain this away by pretending that a comparison between McDonalds and Apple makes as much sense. It's understandable that Nokia was bloated, and couldn't make quick decisions. Who decided on all these phones? What a mess!
And Apple makes things Nokia doesn't. Outside of NSN (and are their R&D figures even included in Nokia's? My impression is that it's a separate company, with each parent company holding a 50% stake), what are the other products that Nokia makes that makes the comparison misleading? I know of a few internet tablets and appliances, a few GPS units, accessories, I think they released a netbook-ish thing at one point.
If anything, Apple has a broader portfolio, while being more focused on fewer models.
Not even close. Apple doesn't make a small fraction of the number of products Nokia makes even in just its phone division. Not even close.
in response to all the criticism, today Elop added that MS will be paying Nokia "billions" as part of the deal.
of course it's really a cheap quasi-acquisition by MS, since Nokia will have no real business independence left. i guess you can say, as many have, it turns Nokia into the smartphone Dell - an OEM almost totally limited to selling products with MS software (once Symbian is phased out and MeeGo inevitably becomes MeeGone).
except of course there is still a huge market for Windows PC's to keep Dell alive, while there is almost no market so far for WP7 smartphones. Will Nokia's customers stick with it and wait until Nokia comes out with models that have a new Nokia-ized top level UI? which will take most of this year? i think a great many will not.
and what about the other OEM's? will any continue to make WP7 products when they have to continue to pay MS for the OS, while MS is at the same time subsidizing Nokia, their competitor? i don't think so. i doubt we will see many new WP7 phones from them after the current/upcoming models. Many OEM's will drop it entirely.
which leaves Android to pick up all those pieces of the commodity OEM market i suppose.
Yeah, sure. I'd love to see that really happen. But Nokia Will be paying MS billions. They've already said that.
Not even close. Apple doesn't make a small fraction of the number of products Nokia makes even in just its phone division. Not even close.
Apple makes iPods, phones, tablets, all-in-one computers, tower computers, small form factor computers, laptops, ultraportable laptops, WiFi connectivity devices, storage devices, a set-top box, mice and keyboards, monitors, a lot of accessories and a vast array of software.
Nokia makes a million phones, a few tablet-ish things, a few GPS modules, some software and a bunch of accessories. I'm not including NSN because they're a different company.
Nokia, of course, makes a great number of different phone models, which is what I meant (I thought fairly obviously) by Apple having a "broader portfolio while focused on fewer models."
Apple makes iPods, phones, tablets, all-in-one computers, tower computers, small form factor computers, laptops, ultraportable laptops, WiFi connectivity devices, storage devices, a set-top box, mice and keyboards, monitors, a lot of accessories and a vast array of software.
Nokia makes a million phones, a few tablet-ish things, a few GPS modules, some software and a bunch of accessories. I'm not including NSN because they're a different company.
Nokia, of course, makes a great number of different phone models, which is what I meant (I thought fairly obviously) by Apple having a "broader portfolio while focused on fewer models."
Nokia also makes networking equipment. That's a big portfolio in itself. It must be included.
Oh, I know what they BELIEVE. But belief doesn't make truth.
I don't buy it either.
Perhaps the huge wad of cash from MS helped persuade them?
C.
Nokia also makes networking equipment. That's a big portfolio in itself. It must be included.
That's Nokia Siemens Networks which is a jointly owned but separate entity.
And Apple makes things Nokia doesn't. Outside of NSN (and are their R&D figures even included in Nokia's? My impression is that it's a separate company, with each parent company holding a 50% stake), what are the other products that Nokia makes that makes the comparison misleading? I know of a few internet tablets and appliances, a few GPS units, accessories, I think they released a netbook-ish thing at one point.
If anything, Apple has a broader portfolio, while being more focused on fewer models.
Yes it is a joint company but the figures report back into Nokia, go to the Nokia investor site and you will see this for yourself, you will also see the split of R&D by division.
And as for differences, NSN is the major difference. Also Nokia has a strong interest in low cost devices, and the infrastructure around them, something Apple has no interest in.
What profit does NSN deliver?
None, what is your point? It was provided as proof of your mistake, and it worked a treat.
None, what is your point? It was provided as proof of your mistake, and it worked a treat.
As I understood it, you were trying to explain that Nokia's profligate R&D spending is excused by these various activities?
C.
I'm not confusing anything. You're the one who is confused here. Do you have any idea as to how many phones Nokia makes? Any at all?
I'm not confused at all, you will find that was Carniphage
212. That's right 212. They have to split the R&D of their phone division up between 212 handsets.
The magic bit being "phone division", not NSN, not Navteq, but "phone division". You referred to Nokia making products, but you didn't restrict the original comment to "phone division".
No wonder so many of their phones suck! You can't explain this away by pretending that a comparison between McDonalds and Apple makes as much sense. It's understandable that Nokia was bloated, and couldn't make quick decisions. Who decided on all these phones? What a mess!
Your elitism is showing a little bit too much. Yes they have an excessive amount of devices, but try and remember where a lot of these are being marketed to, they need to be low cost, so they will have three versions for different frequencies etc, remember the majority of the of the world cannot afford a Symbian/WMP/Android/iOS device. They were producing a phone they can sell for next to nothing, and still managing to make a profit off it.
And your rant goes on just talking about phones, Nokia makes more than phone, why do you have an issue with that point?
That's Nokia Siemens Networks which is a jointly owned but separate entity.
But managed by and the financials are reported back into Nokia.
As I understood it, you were trying to explain that Nokia's profligate R&D spending is excused by these various activities?
C.
No, I was proving that the figure you produced was wrong. And if you recall you were wrong, NSN was used as an example to prove you were wrong, which it did.
Long story short, you were wrong.
No, I was proving that the figure you produced was wrong. And if you recall you were wrong, NSN was used as an example to prove you were wrong, which it did.
Long story short, you were wrong.
I don't understand what you are saying.
Melgross: Nokia make too many lines. It's wasteful of R&D cash.
You: Not true, they also have NSN to look after.
Me: How much money does NSN make?
You: None. Why does that matter?
My point is that Nokia's R&D investment is (was) gigantic, uncontrolled and disproportionate.
This view that is not uniquely mine. But seems to be shared by the Nokia CEO.
Here's the best breakdown figures I could find.
C.
I don't understand what you are saying.
It is simply, you claimed Nokia was spending some $4 billion on software R&D alone. I said, and provided proof, no, you are wrong, that figure also includes NSN.
It is simple, the figure you provided was wrong. Even the chart you provided proved you were wrong.