Posted on 02/14/2011 11:21:27 AM PST by Swordmaker
BARCELONA, Spain – Nokia Corp. will get billions of dollars from Microsoft Corp. to ditch its current smart-phone software in favor of Windows Phone 7, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said Sunday, in a defense of the deal.
Nokia, the world's largest maker of phones, and Microsoft announced their alliance Friday. Both investors and employees reacted with dismay: Nokia's stock dived 14 percent and Finnish employees used flex time to go home early.
On Sunday, a day ahead of the start of the Mobile World Congress cell phone trade show in Barcelona, Elop told press, analysts and industry players that apart from the benefits of the alliance that were laid out Friday, Microsoft is paying Nokia billions of dollars to switch to Windows Phone 7.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
How, exactly, does that put money in the bottom line of Microsoft's mobile division? And HOW is that going to go over with Microsoft's other Windows Phone 7 clients who are PAYING Microsoft to use the OS????
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If you can’t win marketshare;
I guess you can buy it.
Many of the protestors work on the Symbian software so their jobs will be in jeopardy as Nokia begins to implement Windows Phone 7 on its handsets. Their future is not at all clear after today’s news–broad strokes have been painted but much of the logistics have yet to be revealed. Nokia will not work exclusively with the Windows Phone 7 operating system (and they will be customizing it) so jobs will be preserved but Symbian will no longer play the prominent role it once did at the company so job loss is inevitable.
And?
This is a good thing. Bringing those socialists into modern era.
Nokia platform is crap. Symbian is crap and Meego is true vaporware.
At least this way they have a chance to continue to exist in some form.
The most hilarious part of this is that the employees think they matter some how in a decision like this. ROFL, I’d be humiliated if I grew up in a culture that makes them feel this way.
LOL- A BIG ONE
They come off like spoiled children: “THEN I’M GOING HOME.”
Laughable. They should be so lucky to have a job at a company like Nokia in a business client such as Scandinavia.
EXACTLY!
I think you missed the point that the employees were trying to make.
Who determines what OS a device uses, Mangement or engineers? Who determines which models go into production, management or engineers? Who is better situtated to tell where the industry is going, managment or engineers? Who pays the price when the wrong decision is made?
Engineers follow the tech industry VERY closely - because this is what we are, who we are, and a part of our being. A business manager simply looks at numbers - and until the numbers change - they stay the course. This is why companies that exceed have engineers in Sr. Management (Intel, Apple, present-day HP) and companies that hire business “guru’s” fall aside (HP’s Carly Fiona, Nokia, Dell Computer, ect).
Bottom line, the reason that Dilbert is so popular is because a great many of the cartoons depict real life. Engineers are geeks and management are typically idiots.
The Engineers at Nokia were not given the option to program in Android - that decision was made for them by managment. Management also dictates what classes the engineers are to be sent to. Instead of training in Android, they were typically sent to classes on ‘Saving the Environment’, ‘Global Warming’, ‘Celebrating Diversity’, ‘Sensitivity of the Gay/Lesbian Lifestyle’, ‘Conflict Avoidance’, and ‘Multi-Culturalism’.
The cost of training an engineer in Android for a week, is about the same as sending him to one of these classes. Whereas the engineer would return from a class on Adroid having actually learned something; the same engineer returns from these managment dictated classes with a mind that has been closed down for a week - and a weeks’ wages have been utterly wasted.
Microsoft has found itself unable to leverage it's way into the phone market. When I was getting my daughter an iPhone for Christmas, the sales guy tried to steer me to one of the new Windows phones. He said, "And it's got a ZUNE built in!" I looked at him for a couple of seconds, and he said, "Come on man. We're supposed to push the Windows phones."
Nokia, OTOH, has market share but is losing it faster than they believed possible. My guess is that they're going to go the standard Windows route of "good enough and cheap enough." Unfortunately for them, Android may have that market wrapped up. MS desperately needs to make inroads into areas besides the desktop and Office, and let's face it, they want in this market cause Apple is in the market.
Stephen used to work at Microsoft. He knows exactly who he still works for. This is a sweet deal for Stephen's salary. It's a sweet deal for Microsoft. It may not be a sweet deal for Nokia.
Bingo! I love competition, and that's what this is.
Hostile takeover if Nokia isn't careful.
Since MS is sitting on a huge cash pile of mad money it can afford to be...... mad
New shrimpy iPhone coming >>> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1356749/iPhone-nano-Apples-smaller-cheaper-model-summer.html
Not sure that I agree with you. There is 'good' and there is also 'good enough'. Now, I do believe that iOS is vastly superior to any other phone OS on the market. I own an iPhone and it literally blows away the competition in so many areas - but to call Android 'garbage' is going a bit far.
Just like back in the 80's when there was an 'Apple tax', where a comparably priced Mac cost several hundred more than a Windows box - people simply said "Yeah, the Mac is awesome, but for $x00 this Windows box is good enough."
I never knew what the true experience of 'hatred' was, until I made the error of saddling myself with Palm's WebOS. Compare WebOS and Android thusly. Android is a cool, spring morning; WebOS is a incurrable social disease in full bloom.
As for your comment about marketing ... it's no secret that marketing simply takes credit for the work that an engineer is allowed to do, when he is allowed to do things right. A well designed product, markets itself.
I remember reading a forbes article or somewhat a few months back that told of ten top companies that may not make it past 2011.
Nokia was one of them.
Take a look at John Sculley at Apple. The sugar water salesman was was pure management, which worked well at Pepsi. Their most important things were efficiently managing the company and its marketing. Engineering wasn't a big part of it. But at a tech company, engineering is the heart of the business. Sculley didn't really care about the engineering side. It was a disaster.
Admittedly, you can't just let engineers do whatever they want. They tend to be pretty out of touch with regular consumers and markets. The Dilbert cartoons are true on that one too.
If we take a look at the most successful companies today - the true emerging companies - they have one thing in common - they were created by engineers.
Ford built cars, he KNEW what he was making.
IBM built office machines, engineers
Apple - started by engineers, business took over and almsot killed it, engineers revivied it.
Pixar, Facebook, Microsoft, ect, ect, ect.
For reasons that I do not grasp, at some time in their growth, Sr. Managment thinks the recipe that got them tot he top needs to be changed, and ‘Business experts’ take over - they kill the companies. Motorola, AMD, Nokia, MSFT, Dell, Ford, GM, etc. It’s been demonstrated time and time again. Engineers look forward - Business looks at the present and tries to imagine the future.
Engineers do NOT cut jobs to maximize profits. Engineers see the inherent value in employees - time, training, inter-personal relationships are all valuable assets. Without good employees, all you have is a building. Business managers see employees as an expense.
How many companies have Business Mangers created? (very few) And how many have they destroyed? (thousands, and increasing that number every day).
That pretty much defined the old "HP Way." Then they got Fiorina, who considered talented engineers as disposable and irrelevant. She was definitely the lesser of two evils in that election.
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