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Comment by inglor_cz | Hacker News Reader

I was a Symbian developer at that time. The fate of N900 is a grim reminder that engineering brilliance will still lose out to managerial incompetence.

Seriously, the device was just so attractive both for users and programmers. If Nokia were able to stay the course, they could pull off a bestseller.

Their nosedive into the ground under Stephen Elop is a stuff of dark legends.

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Not really. Even before Elop, there were multiple layer of management and the culture of CMA (Cover My Arse) was so strong, as I heard from other Nokia ex-employees. Not to mention people from Symbian Inc wasn't good people according to the book about rise and fall of Symbian.

I can confirm it was to some extent like that.

The first maemo tablets did not have radio to avoid competion with Symbian, and devices like S90, for example.

I know they had leadership problems before, but they weren't doomed. Their sales and relationship with carriers were excellent.

Their fate was by no means foreordained and someone different from Stephen Elop (say, Tim Cook?) would have different results.

It's interesting how devices have gone. Nokia, when they were focused, were making devices smaller, cheaper and with improved battery life. Now we get these giant devices that need re-charging daily and cost >£1000

It's a good point. I think it highlights the fact that these are not really the same kinds of device, so can't be evaluated on the same criteria. If we were still just buying phones nobody would spend that much on something that consumes so much power. The mistake Nokia and the others made was they thought the iPhone was just a phone.

I still remember a Nokia sales rep telling me when iPhone just hitting the shelves that the lack of stylus for input will doom it.

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