Well, watching Microsoft freeze further Win 7 phone sales (cause they're still treating this market like the old desktop OS market) until WP 8 phone comes out at the end of the year, I realized that Microsoft provided crucial corporate training to the CEO of Nokia (ex Microsoft software exec).
Now it makes sense why Nokia's CEO (former MS software exec) could stand up and very publicly say that they were abandoning their current smartphone OS (which had an active developer ecosystem not huge but it was there which came with future OS updates for the phones on that OS), abandon the internal new generation OS they had almost done, for a new OS (WP7) from MS with Nokia phone based on it wouldn't be available for more than a year hurting Nokia's smartphone sales in the meantime (which weren't great but got much worse after that) - and thinking that was a perfectly good thing to do as CEO.
And it turns out Nokia's CEO bet the company on a dead end OS. Welcome Nokia to depending on another company for your OS development, one that may not have your best interests in mind.
As to the questions of why can't MS just offer the WP 8 update to existing WP phones, its because the existing WP 7.x phones are single core relatively low powered devices and wouldn't perform acceptably on the NT kernal based WP 8 if MS ported it to them.
<vc><strong>Nokia's current flagship phone, the Lumia 900, won't be upgradeable to Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 platform, leading some to expect Nokia's troubles will grow even more.</strong>
Why is anyone surprised? This is the way Android works, so the market apparently doesn't care. Heck, my daughter just got a new phone with Froyo (2.2) which was first released 2 years ago. The highest available upgrade is Gingerbread (2.3) which was released a year and a half ago. None of the OS versions released since then will work on the phone. My ex's new phone is the same.
If Android gets away with it with hardly any squawking, why should Microsoft do any differently?
I don't know if RIM phones are easy to upgrade, so I can't say if Apple is the ONLY one offering phone upgrades, but they're certainly relatively unusual in that.
Nokia had to know what was coming because they had to be in the process of developing for WP8 when they came out with the Lumia series. So essentially, Nokia was forced my MSFT to develop a new line of phones that would be obsolete in less than a year and they knew it. That is the reason why Nokia gave such poor guidance going forward. They knew this was coming. The more I read about this, the more that I am leaning towards thinking that maybe this was all intentional with Elop at the head of Nokia and the plan was to get Nokia cheap enough for MSFT to buy Nokia.
I haven't seen many Lumia commercials lately and maybe this change is the reason why. I saw a lot of these commercials when they were first introduced and then they just disappeared(or maybe I just stopped watching a lot of tv ;-).
One other thing I was thinking. Maybe this is the reason why, especially when they had the data error problem with the phones when they first came out, that they essentially gave the phones away, realizing that there would be less angst when they announced this change. The problem will be how much different people invested in Apps and what MSFT/Nokia do about it. If they upgrade people for free, then it is not a problem. If they don't and people have a lot invested, that might get some people to switch operating systems.
Nokia had to know what was coming because they had to be in the process of developing for WP8 when they came out with the Lumia series. So essentially, Nokia was forced my MSFT to develop a new line of phones that would be obsolete in less than a year and they knew it. That is the reason why Nokia gave such poor guidance going forward. They knew this was coming. The more I read about this, the more that I am leaning towards thinking that maybe this was all intentional with Elop at the head of Nokia and the plan was to get Nokia cheap enough for MSFT to buy Nokia.
<...>
Less machiavelic explanations :
1) Microsoft right hand ignores Microsoft left hand
2) every time the expression "strategic partnership" is employed in business, a strong red warning should appear in the CEO dashboard
When you buy an Apple device, you know that you will be set for at least some years ahead, receiving new OS updates in a timely fashion and keeping your devices up to date.
Given the differences in market share, this does not seem to be something that is a big deal to many buyers.
Given the differences in market share, this does not seem to be something that is a big deal to many buyers.
But it is indicative of how you treat the end user. Nokia forgot this many years ago and MS only realised some months after launching Vista.
People (especially in these times) will not tolerate being treated like idiots, and how you treat the end user will be the next battle ground. Apple have a proven record of treating the user extremely well (in comparison to the rest of the industry) with replacement phones/computers by just walking into an Apple, extending warranties outside their respective periods, providing timely updates, and keeping old devices going for a decent length of time.
Nokia have long since started paying the price of their attitude when the iPhone was released, and they put up the ludicrous N95 against it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the release of the iPhone should have set alarm bells ringing at Nokia, RIM and MS (at the very least). Instead of looking at the original product and saying "erm, it's rather good", they continued to churn out crap and relied on the marketing department to cover the crapness of the product. In real life, early iPhone adopters were showing off their phones and the general public was saying "that's rather nice" and buying.
If you have a bad phone today, the user will be spending the next 2 years of the contract cussing your company out.
Apologies for any spelling mistakes, got a cat sitting across my hands as I type this. Sigh.
Nokia's Elop was a Trojan Horse, sent by MS to destroy Nokia as an independent company and allow MS to buy Nokia's smartphone and patents in a fire sale. I don't know if the Nokia board was in on this, but they are either incompetent or criminal negligent for failing to protect Nokia.
You're glad you"re an apple user. "Apple wouldn't release a piece of hardware and then release a new operating system within a year that the hardware won't support."
ok but :
The iPad 1 is just 2 years old and there's no update for it.
so? for phones, 2 years is your contract cycle anyway. but the Lumia will be obsolete after just 9 months. its buyers will have to wait at least another year after that before they can get a WP8 model without paying a penalty. and new apps written for WP8 won't run on it at all.
all V.1 models like the iPad 1 (and the first iPhone and the first Android phone and tablet) will be outmoded unusually soon. major changes in subsequent models and software are inevitable. that is a special case. early adopters should expect that. and yet many (not all) of today's third-party iPad apps will work on the iPad 1.
i suppose one could say the Lumia 7.x was a WP V.1 product, totally disregarding prior WM 6.x models from less than 2 years ago as ancient history (they were a rip-off too). but that is not how it was represented or marketed.
treating your trusting customers like suckers is bad business, and their is no good excuse. just lame alibis.
Problem: Microsoft needs to make their own hardware like Apple does. Apple’s model works. But how to jump suddenly into the phone hardware business? Apple makes it look easy, but it’s not. Hmmm....
Step 1: sell Nokia a bill of goods with Windows Phone 7, incomplete as it is, as the future for greater things. Let them put their success on the line with their customers.
Step 2: spring the trap! No Windows 8 for you! Watch Nokia’s stock tank.
Step 3: now you’ve made Nokia super cheap... great time to buy them! You are now in the phone hardware business. And you can “fix” the problems that Nokia users complain about rather than taking all the blame directly. Sell those people a bunch of Windows 8 phones ("Simon says" they WILL upgrade to Windows 9/whatever). You have sidestepped the very Windows 7 deficiencies you created AND created a nice fire sale for yourself to buy a major company!
Step 4: Hmmmm... Ford satisfaction ratings are tanking due to problems with our Windows software... go ahead, buy them too. And don’t forget we need milk
Exactly. Was just going to post this.
Also, if Microsoft buys Nokia I would imagine that they would "Somehow" make Win8 work on this phone thus reaping goodwill. People would still blame MS otherwise.
Maybe Apple should swoop in and buy Nokia, in the fire sale instead thus taking all of Nokia's patents and locking MS out of that outlet for a phone. All the other phone partners abandoned MS and are using Android. MS would be sunk in the phone game and no hardware partner. Hmmm.
EDIT: Just noticed post above about the current Lumina being a single core vs. multi-core phone. Curious as to the sales figures of the current Lumina anyway. Maybe they are so low that customer ill will wouldn't matter.
I also have to think that if this was MS intention to kill the stock price of Nokia and swoop in and buy it in a fire-sale that there would be legal repercussions. Shareholders would be pissed and would sue. I would also believe that there has to be some language in the contract between MS and Nokia.
The iPad 1 is just 2 years old and there's no update for it.
To be fair the iPad 1 has already seen 2 major updates in it's lifetime as it shipped with iPhoneOS 3 and received updates to iOS 4 and then iOS 5. That is more updates than most brand new in the shops today Android phones will ever see, and MS have just confirmed it is definitely more updates than any Win7 phones will ever see..
You're glad you"re an apple user. "Apple wouldn't release a piece of hardware and then release a new operating system within a year that the hardware won't support."
ok but :
The iPad 1 is just 2 years old and there's no update for it.
If you're going to criticize, you might want to start with the facts.
The original iPad could be upgraded to iOS 4, then 5, then ultimately to 5.1.1.
So 2 years and at least 2 major version upgrades for the iPad. The Lumia didn't even make it a year before a newer version was announced - and NO upgrades were available.
I am always curious as to why people feel the need to express their moral and political beliefs on a technology website. You know there are many websites, where people care to hear them. Just saying.
He was using a common allegory from Faust, Poindexter. Your comment is bizarre.
This is the problem with the Microsoft/Android relationship with the hardware makers. Folks like Nokia only make hardware. So from Nokia's perspective, there is no real incentive for them to make their phones upgradeable as it does not offer any real ability to generate revenue from that. They are in the business to sell the physical phone. Last thing Nokia, or any other maker wants is users keeping their "old" 6-month phone around.
It's a bitch isn't it? In the PC world they simply made sure everything was so screwed up after a year of use and that the repairing of said screwed up Pc for the average Joe cost more than a new PC. It's worked for decades, keeping sales of hardware and MS software appearing to keep on growing. This MO seems to be unravelling for them these days as the cost of competing with Apple's hardware / software combination isn't possible.
Comments
Well, watching Microsoft freeze further Win 7 phone sales (cause they're still treating this market like the old desktop OS market) until WP 8 phone comes out at the end of the year, I realized that Microsoft provided crucial corporate training to the CEO of Nokia (ex Microsoft software exec).
Now it makes sense why Nokia's CEO (former MS software exec) could stand up and very publicly say that they were abandoning their current smartphone OS (which had an active developer ecosystem not huge but it was there which came with future OS updates for the phones on that OS), abandon the internal new generation OS they had almost done, for a new OS (WP7) from MS with Nokia phone based on it wouldn't be available for more than a year hurting Nokia's smartphone sales in the meantime (which weren't great but got much worse after that) - and thinking that was a perfectly good thing to do as CEO.
And it turns out Nokia's CEO bet the company on a dead end OS. Welcome Nokia to depending on another company for your OS development, one that may not have your best interests in mind.
As to the questions of why can't MS just offer the WP 8 update to existing WP phones, its because the existing WP 7.x phones are single core relatively low powered devices and wouldn't perform acceptably on the NT kernal based WP 8 if MS ported it to them.
Why is anyone surprised? This is the way Android works, so the market apparently doesn't care. Heck, my daughter just got a new phone with Froyo (2.2) which was first released 2 years ago. The highest available upgrade is Gingerbread (2.3) which was released a year and a half ago. None of the OS versions released since then will work on the phone. My ex's new phone is the same.
If Android gets away with it with hardly any squawking, why should Microsoft do any differently?
I don't know if RIM phones are easy to upgrade, so I can't say if Apple is the ONLY one offering phone upgrades, but they're certainly relatively unusual in that.
Lumia 900 owner: y u no leg me upgrade to Win phone 8?!?!?!
Elop: Oh your Lumia 900 will kinda look like Windows Phone 8 and that's really about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Microsoft's announcement this week is the latest in a string of bad news for Nokia.
But this isn't news. It was known at the time Nokia signed up with M$. It was baked into the deal. Nokia knew about this "news" a year ago.
Nokia had to know what was coming because they had to be in the process of developing for WP8 when they came out with the Lumia series. So essentially, Nokia was forced my MSFT to develop a new line of phones that would be obsolete in less than a year and they knew it. That is the reason why Nokia gave such poor guidance going forward. They knew this was coming. The more I read about this, the more that I am leaning towards thinking that maybe this was all intentional with Elop at the head of Nokia and the plan was to get Nokia cheap enough for MSFT to buy Nokia.
I haven't seen many Lumia commercials lately and maybe this change is the reason why. I saw a lot of these commercials when they were first introduced and then they just disappeared(or maybe I just stopped watching a lot of tv ;-).
One other thing I was thinking. Maybe this is the reason why, especially when they had the data error problem with the phones when they first came out, that they essentially gave the phones away, realizing that there would be less angst when they announced this change. The problem will be how much different people invested in Apps and what MSFT/Nokia do about it. If they upgrade people for free, then it is not a problem. If they don't and people have a lot invested, that might get some people to switch operating systems.
Are you kidding me? Elop's executive parachute is made by Microsoft.
Qyyyyuote:
Originally Posted by nealg
Nokia had to know what was coming because they had to be in the process of developing for WP8 when they came out with the Lumia series. So essentially, Nokia was forced my MSFT to develop a new line of phones that would be obsolete in less than a year and they knew it. That is the reason why Nokia gave such poor guidance going forward. They knew this was coming. The more I read about this, the more that I am leaning towards thinking that maybe this was all intentional with Elop at the head of Nokia and the plan was to get Nokia cheap enough for MSFT to buy Nokia.
<...>
Less machiavelic explanations :
1) Microsoft right hand ignores Microsoft left hand
2) every time the expression "strategic partnership" is employed in business, a strong red warning should appear in the CEO dashboard
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][
When you buy an Apple device, you know that you will be set for at least some years ahead, receiving new OS updates in a timely fashion and keeping your devices up to date.
Given the differences in market share, this does not seem to be something that is a big deal to many buyers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerrySwitched26
Given the differences in market share, this does not seem to be something that is a big deal to many buyers.
But it is indicative of how you treat the end user. Nokia forgot this many years ago and MS only realised some months after launching Vista.
People (especially in these times) will not tolerate being treated like idiots, and how you treat the end user will be the next battle ground. Apple have a proven record of treating the user extremely well (in comparison to the rest of the industry) with replacement phones/computers by just walking into an Apple, extending warranties outside their respective periods, providing timely updates, and keeping old devices going for a decent length of time.
Nokia have long since started paying the price of their attitude when the iPhone was released, and they put up the ludicrous N95 against it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the release of the iPhone should have set alarm bells ringing at Nokia, RIM and MS (at the very least). Instead of looking at the original product and saying "erm, it's rather good", they continued to churn out crap and relied on the marketing department to cover the crapness of the product. In real life, early iPhone adopters were showing off their phones and the general public was saying "that's rather nice" and buying.
If you have a bad phone today, the user will be spending the next 2 years of the contract cussing your company out.
Apologies for any spelling mistakes, got a cat sitting across my hands as I type this. Sigh.
cleverly done MS. You don't have many toes left to shoot off....
Nokia's Elop was a Trojan Horse, sent by MS to destroy Nokia as an independent company and allow MS to buy Nokia's smartphone and patents in a fire sale. I don't know if the Nokia board was in on this, but they are either incompetent or criminal negligent for failing to protect Nokia.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rolivier
You're glad you"re an apple user. "Apple wouldn't release a piece of hardware and then release a new operating system within a year that the hardware won't support."
ok but :
The iPad 1 is just 2 years old and there's no update for it.
so? for phones, 2 years is your contract cycle anyway. but the Lumia will be obsolete after just 9 months. its buyers will have to wait at least another year after that before they can get a WP8 model without paying a penalty. and new apps written for WP8 won't run on it at all.
all V.1 models like the iPad 1 (and the first iPhone and the first Android phone and tablet) will be outmoded unusually soon. major changes in subsequent models and software are inevitable. that is a special case. early adopters should expect that. and yet many (not all) of today's third-party iPad apps will work on the iPad 1.
i suppose one could say the Lumia 7.x was a WP V.1 product, totally disregarding prior WM 6.x models from less than 2 years ago as ancient history (they were a rip-off too). but that is not how it was represented or marketed.
treating your trusting customers like suckers is bad business, and their is no good excuse. just lame alibis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nagromme
Microsoft has gotten pretty brilliant of late.
Problem: Microsoft needs to make their own hardware like Apple does. Apple’s model works. But how to jump suddenly into the phone hardware business? Apple makes it look easy, but it’s not. Hmmm....
Step 1: sell Nokia a bill of goods with Windows Phone 7, incomplete as it is, as the future for greater things. Let them put their success on the line with their customers.
Step 2: spring the trap! No Windows 8 for you! Watch Nokia’s stock tank.
Step 3: now you’ve made Nokia super cheap... great time to buy them! You are now in the phone hardware business. And you can “fix” the problems that Nokia users complain about rather than taking all the blame directly. Sell those people a bunch of Windows 8 phones ("Simon says" they WILL upgrade to Windows 9/whatever). You have sidestepped the very Windows 7 deficiencies you created AND created a nice fire sale for yourself to buy a major company!
Step 4: Hmmmm... Ford satisfaction ratings are tanking due to problems with our Windows software... go ahead, buy them too. And don’t forget we need milk
Exactly. Was just going to post this.
Also, if Microsoft buys Nokia I would imagine that they would "Somehow" make Win8 work on this phone thus reaping goodwill. People would still blame MS otherwise.
Maybe Apple should swoop in and buy Nokia, in the fire sale instead thus taking all of Nokia's patents and locking MS out of that outlet for a phone. All the other phone partners abandoned MS and are using Android. MS would be sunk in the phone game and no hardware partner. Hmmm.
EDIT: Just noticed post above about the current Lumina being a single core vs. multi-core phone. Curious as to the sales figures of the current Lumina anyway. Maybe they are so low that customer ill will wouldn't matter.
I also have to think that if this was MS intention to kill the stock price of Nokia and swoop in and buy it in a fire-sale that there would be legal repercussions. Shareholders would be pissed and would sue. I would also believe that there has to be some language in the contract between MS and Nokia.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rolivier
The iPad 1 is just 2 years old and there's no update for it.
To be fair the iPad 1 has already seen 2 major updates in it's lifetime as it shipped with iPhoneOS 3 and received updates to iOS 4 and then iOS 5. That is more updates than most brand new in the shops today Android phones will ever see, and MS have just confirmed it is definitely more updates than any Win7 phones will ever see..
If you're going to criticize, you might want to start with the facts.
The original iPad was released over 2 years ago (2 years and 2 months). It came out originally with iOS 3.2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_iOS_version_history
The original iPad could be upgraded to iOS 4, then 5, then ultimately to 5.1.1.
So 2 years and at least 2 major version upgrades for the iPad. The Lumia didn't even make it a year before a newer version was announced - and NO upgrades were available.
It's not even close.
Deleted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kent909
I am always curious as to why people feel the need to express their moral and political beliefs on a technology website. You know there are many websites, where people care to hear them. Just saying.
He was using a common allegory from Faust, Poindexter. Your comment is bizarre.
It's a bitch isn't it? In the PC world they simply made sure everything was so screwed up after a year of use and that the repairing of said screwed up Pc for the average Joe cost more than a new PC. It's worked for decades, keeping sales of hardware and MS software appearing to keep on growing. This MO seems to be unravelling for them these days as the cost of competing with Apple's hardware / software combination isn't possible.
True, and who the devil cares? After Anglo Saxon nouns and verbs, what's left but religion when you hit your thumb with a hammer?