Matt Drance is calling it a "coup", and with this latest news I'm thinking he might be right. Top two guys at Nokia are now long term high ranking MS vets, new HQ in California, they make the WP7 deal. And just like that, Nokia is Microsoft's phone manufacturer.
Now we'll see if MS can run this in a way that doesn't gut Nokia and leave both parties with nothing but bitterness and failure. They have to allow Nokia a sense of autonomy and a seat at the table, or they won't have any company to exploit.
Because he was involved with the decision. Are you really that obtuse?
No I'm not, but if Tomi left Nokia in 2001, how did he manage to be a president of a Nokia department merging Maemo and Mobin in 2009?
I might be wrong, but the dates don't seem to match.
Quote:
Originally Posted by backtomac
As to whether Atom belongs in a smartphone, I agree that it's not a good choice at the moment. But who knows when they're fabbed at the 32 or 28 nm process node? But now Intel needs a mobile OS platform to champion their mobile chips.
At Intels current development speed of high perfermance, low power chips, I can't see anything happening from them in quite a while.
Not really, a deal LIKE this was what all shareholders wanted, just not this deal. I don't agree with all of the reasoning behind it. I believe that Nokia could have managed some Android phones. At the same time, they could have reassured Symbian users that they wouldn't be left hanging at the edge of a cliff, by keeping Symbian in lower cost models for some years, at least.
Personally I feel they should have continued with what they had planned, but they should have actually started managing it properly. The Symbian development team had too many staff. The proposals for Symbian/Meego with QT would have more than competed with the others in this space.
Quote:
Originally Posted by backtomac
I don't agree that being an Android OEM is worse than being a WP7 OEM. At least with Android, they could have tweaked the way they needed to be independent.
Android would have been a worse plan, I have nothing against Android, but there is too many manufacturers taking it on now.
I've played with WP7 and I don't like it at all. It has lots of eye-candy, but it's confusing, un-intuitive, and disjointed. Half the standard 'apps' I tried didn't work right or were useless. If this is the best they can do, then Apple has no worries from WP7.
Goes to show that no matter how great something is, it's still not for everyone. Just look at the number of people choosing an Android phone over and iPhone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
By the time they can get a tablet released WinPhone 7 might even have copy and paste.
I'd say so. I'm pretty sure I read WP7 is getting c&p in a couple of weeks. I'd bet my house Microsoft\\Nokia won't have a tablet before the end of the month.
It's been pretty much agreed upon in the industry that tablets are tied to smartphones.
Bingo... and over the next couple of years tablets are tied to smart phones are tied to notebooks are tied to desktops are tied to TVs and all are tied to the cloud. Basically your digital life is accessible across all devices you own and consumers will expect and demand multiple form factors to access their information, which includes a tablet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Apple has that plan. HP has that plan. Google, to a lessor degree, has that plan, even RIM does. But Microsoft doesn't.
I don't agree with that bit. They have a plan. Putting together the rumours it's even possible to guess what that plan is. What they are is not without a plan but very very late.
Nokia is losing market share faster than IE! Its share of smartphones dropped from 47% to 38% just in the last year. And remember that Symbian had +80% share just a few years ago.
38% is still gigantic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Archos
Microsoft always took the majority of profits from Dell and HPs Windows PCs. It still does.
Of course Microsoft perfectly happy with this model. But the hardware manufacturers are not. What's the point in investing in a device only to get a 5% profit? This is why HP is distancing itself from MS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Archos
And right, when have you scheduled iPod to become a profitless commodity device? It's now ten years old. Apparently, your world view doesn't fit the facts.
The music-only iPod *is* heading towards commodity status.
Apple are remarkably good at fighting back at this trend. Partly by regular re-invention of the brand, and partly by excellent design. But we are seeing the music-only iPod play a smaller and smaller share of Apple's revenues. Remember that a good half of iPod profits are really iOS media / gaming devices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Archos
Non sensical rubbish. Nokia can't make high end phones that people want. Neither can MS, which couldn't launch a phone for kids tied to an expensive plan KIN, and couldn't launch an iPhone-class device WP7. That's not a matter of timing, it's a matter of not knowing what they're doing.
Nokia have always made quite good hardware. They have sold and continue to sell in gigantic numbers. The problem is they can not add value. They sell these devices for little more than the cost of components. The value add magic happens in the software. Nokia's dreadful user experience is valued by the market as worth less than "free" Android. And yet developing this dreadful value-slashing software is costing Nokia $4B a year!
I agree WP7 is still unproven.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Archos
No, it's simply designed to serve as an ad platform rather than a good product.
It is.
But my point still stands. Android is a fast track to commodity status. Because any manufacturer can add it to their product for free. Any Android handset maker can match the user experience of any other with minimal effort. The competition in this space means that creating an Android handset with a $50 profit margin is becoming impossible. Nokia going to Android would be like leaping from one leaky ship into another.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Archos
Yeah that worked out so well for Palm! They didn't have to develop Palm OS anymore and got all this new businesses... oh wait- they still had to spend money to support Palm OS, had to spend more to support WiMo, and their sales remained static.
I am not particularly optimistic that this will work out for Nokia either. It's a lifeline not a solution.
And yet developing this dreadful value-slashing software is costing Nokia $4B a year!
What is your problem with numbers. Nokias entire R&D costs are $4 billion, of which around $1 is for Symbian. Yeah is is excessive, but not as bad as you constantly try and misrepresent it as.
What is your problem with numbers. Nokias entire R&D costs are $4 billion, of which around $1 is for Symbian. Yeah is is excessive, but not as bad as you constantly try and misrepresent it as.
Okay. So the take out a giant magnifying glass, and tell us what that absurd amount of R&D cash is delivering?
a) A cellphone OS with the world's worst user experience. And which seems to actually lower the market value of Nokia smartphones.
b) Let's not forget a second "tablet" OS which has yet to materialise.
c) Let's not forget S40. Which is a Nokia's third cellphone OS which seem to have been entirely forgotten.
d) And then there's cash invested in the development of numerous virtually identical lines which are barely distinguishable.
e) And there's Nokia's other business interests, which don't seem to contribute a penny to their profits.
Burning gigantic bonfire's of R&D cash in an irrational and uncontrolled way is not a sustainable strategy.
By "irrational" - I mean, by investing in research which does lead to profitable products.
By "uncontrolled" - I mean spending in quantities that are grossly disproportionate relative to similar businesses.
The plan from Nokia is to slash this absurdly high R&D budget. Not just Symbian.
Given the degree to which it is clearly wasted, is not a bad idea.
Okay. So the take out a giant magnifying glass, and tell us what that absurd amount of R&D cash is delivering?
Long story short, you made a claim, you were proved wrong, you have a hard time accepting this.
Nokia is kind enough to split these figures by operating company, why you have an issue with this I don't know. May I ask how NSN researching better ways to handle microwwave transmissions is going to help S40 run faster or cheaper?
And yet developing this dreadful value-slashing software is costing Nokia $4B a year!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carniphage
Once again, you confuse what I wrote, with what you imagined I wrote.
At the top is what you wrote, you will see the words "software" in there, that would lead me to believe you were referring to software.
Can you please clarlify what you meant by software if you were not talking about software?
Now, once you have explained that, can you please explain how you managed to get a $4 billion R&D cost for software alone when Nokias financial statements prove this covers more than just software.
Now, once you have explained all that, can you try and explain what I "imagined" you wrote?
At the top is what you wrote, you will see the words "software" in there, that would lead me to believe you were referring to software.
Can you please clarlify what you meant by software if you were not talking about software?
Now, once you have explained that, can you please explain how you managed to get a $4 billion R&D cost for software alone when Nokias financial statements prove this covers more than just software.
Now, once you have explained all that, can you try and explain what I "imagined" you wrote?
As I said. Nokia's $4Bn gets them dreadful software.
And... which I forgot to mention ... a plethora of hardware lines which sell at little above cost.
Mea culpa!
However you dice it, this gigantic R&D spend, converts into to a non-existent return on investment.
If you have a different interpretation, please explain how this $4Bn R&D spend is rational or proportionate? Or put another way, if you were spending your own $4Bn. Would you not like to see something concrete for it?
As I said. Nokia's $4Bn gets them dreadful software.
And... which I forgot to mention ... a plethora of hardware lines which sell at little above cost.
Mea culpa!
However you dice it, this gigantic R&D spend, converts into to a non-existent return on investment.
If you have a different interpretation, please explain how this $4Bn R&D spend is rational or proportionate? Or put another way, if you were spending your own $4Bn. Would you not like to see something concrete for it?
C.
Again, another long story short, you made a claim, I proved you wrong, you are now upset.
Nokia's R&D may be high, but that doesn't excuse you from constanting incorrectly stating what it is, and what it is spent on. We know you hate Nokia, but the constant lies and incorrect information you post doesn't help your cause. Also remember, a large part of that $4 billion is spent in NSN, there isn't a direct relationship between NSN R&D and devices R&D
Bingo... and over the next couple of years tablets are tied to smart phones are tied to notebooks are tied to desktops are tied to TVs and all are tied to the cloud. Basically your digital life is accessible across all devices you own and consumers will expect and demand multiple form factors to access their information, which includes a tablet.
I don't agree with that bit. They have a plan. Putting together the rumours it's even possible to guess what that plan is. What they are is not without a plan but very very late.
When I say they don't have a plan, it's because all they have is a negative plan. Ballmer said that they would NOT put WP7 on a tablet. If you regard that as a plan, then good luck to them. Their plan to continue to push Windows as a tablet OS is not a plan to integrate smart phones and tablets, which we both agree is required.
That's not a plan. It's a continued refusal to recognize that what they're doing isn't working.
But then, MS does have a very big problem which perhaps they recognize. Unlike Apple, with a Unix based iOS, and Google and HP, with a Linux distro, and now RIM, with QNX, all very powerful OS's, MS has CE as the basis of WP7, which is a much simpler phone/embedded OS.
It's that WP7 likely can't compete as a full powered tablet OS, considering where tablets are headed. They never contemplated using this for anything other than a phone, so they're stuck. In addition, of course, is that they still insist on that silly "Windows Everywhere" policy.
Nokia is going to suffer from this deal in a number of ways, and this is one of them.
Not really, a deal LIKE this was what all shareholders wanted, just not this deal. I don't agree with all of the reasoning behind it. I believe that Nokia could have managed some Android phones. At the same time, they could have reassured Symbian users that they wouldn't be left hanging at the edge of a cliff, by keeping Symbian in lower cost models for some years, at least.
I don't see the advantage of splitting everything among different OS and continuing to support Symbian when its clearly over.
Nokia is at a crisis point where they need to kill whatever isn't working and go through a major restructuring. They should have been making this transition for the past couple of years so that it would be gradual, but its too late for gradual now. They need to take immediate action.
Quote:
I don't agree that being an Android OEM is worse than being a WP7 OEM. At least with Android, they could have tweaked the way they needed to be independent.
I would agree if it only means that Nokia is making the same Windows phones as any one else can make. At this point everyone is enamored with Android, no one is really taking WP 7 all that seriously.
From what was announced MS will be working with Nokia much closer than they will any other OEM.
Quote:
But, unless somehow the other WP7 OEM's get fed up with this deal, and leave, Nokia isn't much better off than any of the others. And sales WILL fall dramatically. They're also being killed at the low end by all of these local Chinese manufacturers. Their sales actually contracted last year because of this.
I think this deal will suck most of the value out of the company, unless investors do some serious thinking this weekend and change their minds.
MS should by this point understand that WP 7 is not going to compete with Android in the commodity market. It needs to be something very different from everything else.
Nokia provides them with an opportunity to have the best of both worlds. A great hardware partner that makes many different phone across many different price points and the largest distribution channel of any mobile OEM. Together they can build a stable and congruent platform.
I agree with you that if MS continues to market WP as a commodity OS it will fail.
There are several creative ways MS can extend exclusivity to Nokia. Its certainly not difficult to frustrate other OEM's enough that they stop producing Windows Phones.
As far as I can see few are excited about supporting it as it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I don't see how they could have come up with an exclusive deal. No doubt MS has multi-year deals with others. But, if those others see some exclusive features of their deal with Nokia, it might make them back out.
But Nokia now has no serious tablet plan. It's been pretty much agreed upon in the industry that tablets are tied to smartphones. Apple has that plan. HP has that plan. Google, to a lessor degree, has that plan, even RIM does. But Microsoft doesn't. And now that means that Nokia doesn't either.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Nokia is going to suffer from this deal in a number of ways, and this is one of them.
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.
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.
Comments
Matt Drance is calling it a "coup", and with this latest news I'm thinking he might be right. Top two guys at Nokia are now long term high ranking MS vets, new HQ in California, they make the WP7 deal. And just like that, Nokia is Microsoft's phone manufacturer.
Now we'll see if MS can run this in a way that doesn't gut Nokia and leave both parties with nothing but bitterness and failure. They have to allow Nokia a sense of autonomy and a seat at the table, or they won't have any company to exploit.
This is the time to short sell Nokia stock.
Wednesday would have been even better.
Because he was involved with the decision. Are you really that obtuse?
No I'm not, but if Tomi left Nokia in 2001, how did he manage to be a president of a Nokia department merging Maemo and Mobin in 2009?
I might be wrong, but the dates don't seem to match.
As to whether Atom belongs in a smartphone, I agree that it's not a good choice at the moment. But who knows when they're fabbed at the 32 or 28 nm process node? But now Intel needs a mobile OS platform to champion their mobile chips.
At Intels current development speed of high perfermance, low power chips, I can't see anything happening from them in quite a while.
Not really, a deal LIKE this was what all shareholders wanted, just not this deal. I don't agree with all of the reasoning behind it. I believe that Nokia could have managed some Android phones. At the same time, they could have reassured Symbian users that they wouldn't be left hanging at the edge of a cliff, by keeping Symbian in lower cost models for some years, at least.
Personally I feel they should have continued with what they had planned, but they should have actually started managing it properly. The Symbian development team had too many staff. The proposals for Symbian/Meego with QT would have more than competed with the others in this space.
I don't agree that being an Android OEM is worse than being a WP7 OEM. At least with Android, they could have tweaked the way they needed to be independent.
Android would have been a worse plan, I have nothing against Android, but there is too many manufacturers taking it on now.
I've played with WP7 and I don't like it at all. It has lots of eye-candy, but it's confusing, un-intuitive, and disjointed. Half the standard 'apps' I tried didn't work right or were useless. If this is the best they can do, then Apple has no worries from WP7.
Goes to show that no matter how great something is, it's still not for everyone. Just look at the number of people choosing an Android phone over and iPhone.
By the time they can get a tablet released WinPhone 7 might even have copy and paste.
I'd say so. I'm pretty sure I read WP7 is getting c&p in a couple of weeks. I'd bet my house Microsoft\\Nokia won't have a tablet before the end of the month.
It's been pretty much agreed upon in the industry that tablets are tied to smartphones.
Bingo... and over the next couple of years tablets are tied to smart phones are tied to notebooks are tied to desktops are tied to TVs and all are tied to the cloud. Basically your digital life is accessible across all devices you own and consumers will expect and demand multiple form factors to access their information, which includes a tablet.
Apple has that plan. HP has that plan. Google, to a lessor degree, has that plan, even RIM does. But Microsoft doesn't.
I don't agree with that bit. They have a plan. Putting together the rumours it's even possible to guess what that plan is. What they are is not without a plan but very very late.
Nokia is losing market share faster than IE! Its share of smartphones dropped from 47% to 38% just in the last year. And remember that Symbian had +80% share just a few years ago.
38% is still gigantic.
Microsoft always took the majority of profits from Dell and HPs Windows PCs. It still does.
Of course Microsoft perfectly happy with this model. But the hardware manufacturers are not. What's the point in investing in a device only to get a 5% profit? This is why HP is distancing itself from MS.
And right, when have you scheduled iPod to become a profitless commodity device? It's now ten years old. Apparently, your world view doesn't fit the facts.
The music-only iPod *is* heading towards commodity status.
Apple are remarkably good at fighting back at this trend. Partly by regular re-invention of the brand, and partly by excellent design. But we are seeing the music-only iPod play a smaller and smaller share of Apple's revenues. Remember that a good half of iPod profits are really iOS media / gaming devices.
Non sensical rubbish. Nokia can't make high end phones that people want. Neither can MS, which couldn't launch a phone for kids tied to an expensive plan KIN, and couldn't launch an iPhone-class device WP7. That's not a matter of timing, it's a matter of not knowing what they're doing.
Nokia have always made quite good hardware. They have sold and continue to sell in gigantic numbers. The problem is they can not add value. They sell these devices for little more than the cost of components. The value add magic happens in the software. Nokia's dreadful user experience is valued by the market as worth less than "free" Android. And yet developing this dreadful value-slashing software is costing Nokia $4B a year!
I agree WP7 is still unproven.
No, it's simply designed to serve as an ad platform rather than a good product.
It is.
But my point still stands. Android is a fast track to commodity status. Because any manufacturer can add it to their product for free. Any Android handset maker can match the user experience of any other with minimal effort. The competition in this space means that creating an Android handset with a $50 profit margin is becoming impossible. Nokia going to Android would be like leaping from one leaky ship into another.
Yeah that worked out so well for Palm! They didn't have to develop Palm OS anymore and got all this new businesses... oh wait- they still had to spend money to support Palm OS, had to spend more to support WiMo, and their sales remained static.
I am not particularly optimistic that this will work out for Nokia either. It's a lifeline not a solution.
But they really didn't have any options left.
C.
And yet developing this dreadful value-slashing software is costing Nokia $4B a year!
What is your problem with numbers. Nokias entire R&D costs are $4 billion, of which around $1 is for Symbian. Yeah is is excessive, but not as bad as you constantly try and misrepresent it as.
What is your problem with numbers. Nokias entire R&D costs are $4 billion, of which around $1 is for Symbian. Yeah is is excessive, but not as bad as you constantly try and misrepresent it as.
Okay. So the take out a giant magnifying glass, and tell us what that absurd amount of R&D cash is delivering?
a) A cellphone OS with the world's worst user experience. And which seems to actually lower the market value of Nokia smartphones.
b) Let's not forget a second "tablet" OS which has yet to materialise.
c) Let's not forget S40. Which is a Nokia's third cellphone OS which seem to have been entirely forgotten.
d) And then there's cash invested in the development of numerous virtually identical lines which are barely distinguishable.
e) And there's Nokia's other business interests, which don't seem to contribute a penny to their profits.
Burning gigantic bonfire's of R&D cash in an irrational and uncontrolled way is not a sustainable strategy.
By "irrational" - I mean, by investing in research which does lead to profitable products.
By "uncontrolled" - I mean spending in quantities that are grossly disproportionate relative to similar businesses.
The plan from Nokia is to slash this absurdly high R&D budget. Not just Symbian.
Given the degree to which it is clearly wasted, is not a bad idea.
C.
Here's some numbers that I have no problem with:
Okay. So the take out a giant magnifying glass, and tell us what that absurd amount of R&D cash is delivering?
Long story short, you made a claim, you were proved wrong, you have a hard time accepting this.
Nokia is kind enough to split these figures by operating company, why you have an issue with this I don't know. May I ask how NSN researching better ways to handle microwwave transmissions is going to help S40 run faster or cheaper?
Long story short, you made a claim, you were proved wrong, you have a hard time accepting this.
Once again, you confuse what I wrote, with what you imagined I wrote.
C.
And yet developing this dreadful value-slashing software is costing Nokia $4B a year!
Once again, you confuse what I wrote, with what you imagined I wrote.
At the top is what you wrote, you will see the words "software" in there, that would lead me to believe you were referring to software.
Can you please clarlify what you meant by software if you were not talking about software?
Now, once you have explained that, can you please explain how you managed to get a $4 billion R&D cost for software alone when Nokias financial statements prove this covers more than just software.
Now, once you have explained all that, can you try and explain what I "imagined" you wrote?
At the top is what you wrote, you will see the words "software" in there, that would lead me to believe you were referring to software.
Can you please clarlify what you meant by software if you were not talking about software?
Now, once you have explained that, can you please explain how you managed to get a $4 billion R&D cost for software alone when Nokias financial statements prove this covers more than just software.
Now, once you have explained all that, can you try and explain what I "imagined" you wrote?
As I said. Nokia's $4Bn gets them dreadful software.
And... which I forgot to mention ... a plethora of hardware lines which sell at little above cost.
Mea culpa!
However you dice it, this gigantic R&D spend, converts into to a non-existent return on investment.
If you have a different interpretation, please explain how this $4Bn R&D spend is rational or proportionate? Or put another way, if you were spending your own $4Bn. Would you not like to see something concrete for it?
C.
As I said. Nokia's $4Bn gets them dreadful software.
And... which I forgot to mention ... a plethora of hardware lines which sell at little above cost.
Mea culpa!
However you dice it, this gigantic R&D spend, converts into to a non-existent return on investment.
If you have a different interpretation, please explain how this $4Bn R&D spend is rational or proportionate? Or put another way, if you were spending your own $4Bn. Would you not like to see something concrete for it?
C.
Again, another long story short, you made a claim, I proved you wrong, you are now upset.
Nokia's R&D may be high, but that doesn't excuse you from constanting incorrectly stating what it is, and what it is spent on. We know you hate Nokia, but the constant lies and incorrect information you post doesn't help your cause. Also remember, a large part of that $4 billion is spent in NSN, there isn't a direct relationship between NSN R&D and devices R&D
Bingo... and over the next couple of years tablets are tied to smart phones are tied to notebooks are tied to desktops are tied to TVs and all are tied to the cloud. Basically your digital life is accessible across all devices you own and consumers will expect and demand multiple form factors to access their information, which includes a tablet.
I don't agree with that bit. They have a plan. Putting together the rumours it's even possible to guess what that plan is. What they are is not without a plan but very very late.
When I say they don't have a plan, it's because all they have is a negative plan. Ballmer said that they would NOT put WP7 on a tablet. If you regard that as a plan, then good luck to them. Their plan to continue to push Windows as a tablet OS is not a plan to integrate smart phones and tablets, which we both agree is required.
That's not a plan. It's a continued refusal to recognize that what they're doing isn't working.
But then, MS does have a very big problem which perhaps they recognize. Unlike Apple, with a Unix based iOS, and Google and HP, with a Linux distro, and now RIM, with QNX, all very powerful OS's, MS has CE as the basis of WP7, which is a much simpler phone/embedded OS.
It's that WP7 likely can't compete as a full powered tablet OS, considering where tablets are headed. They never contemplated using this for anything other than a phone, so they're stuck. In addition, of course, is that they still insist on that silly "Windows Everywhere" policy.
Nokia is going to suffer from this deal in a number of ways, and this is one of them.
Not really, a deal LIKE this was what all shareholders wanted, just not this deal. I don't agree with all of the reasoning behind it. I believe that Nokia could have managed some Android phones. At the same time, they could have reassured Symbian users that they wouldn't be left hanging at the edge of a cliff, by keeping Symbian in lower cost models for some years, at least.
I don't see the advantage of splitting everything among different OS and continuing to support Symbian when its clearly over.
Nokia is at a crisis point where they need to kill whatever isn't working and go through a major restructuring. They should have been making this transition for the past couple of years so that it would be gradual, but its too late for gradual now. They need to take immediate action.
I don't agree that being an Android OEM is worse than being a WP7 OEM. At least with Android, they could have tweaked the way they needed to be independent.
I would agree if it only means that Nokia is making the same Windows phones as any one else can make. At this point everyone is enamored with Android, no one is really taking WP 7 all that seriously.
From what was announced MS will be working with Nokia much closer than they will any other OEM.
But, unless somehow the other WP7 OEM's get fed up with this deal, and leave, Nokia isn't much better off than any of the others. And sales WILL fall dramatically. They're also being killed at the low end by all of these local Chinese manufacturers. Their sales actually contracted last year because of this.
I think this deal will suck most of the value out of the company, unless investors do some serious thinking this weekend and change their minds.
MS should by this point understand that WP 7 is not going to compete with Android in the commodity market. It needs to be something very different from everything else.
Nokia provides them with an opportunity to have the best of both worlds. A great hardware partner that makes many different phone across many different price points and the largest distribution channel of any mobile OEM. Together they can build a stable and congruent platform.
I agree with you that if MS continues to market WP as a commodity OS it will fail.
As far as I can see few are excited about supporting it as it is.
I don't see how they could have come up with an exclusive deal. No doubt MS has multi-year deals with others. But, if those others see some exclusive features of their deal with Nokia, it might make them back out.
But Nokia now has no serious tablet plan. It's been pretty much agreed upon in the industry that tablets are tied to smartphones. Apple has that plan. HP has that plan. Google, to a lessor degree, has that plan, even RIM does. But Microsoft doesn't. And now that means that Nokia doesn't either.
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.
Nokia is going to suffer from this deal in a number of ways, and this is one of them.
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.
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.