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Comment by glogla | Hacker News Reader

Does this mean Nokia is falling apart?

I guess that mean that Microsoft's strategy (implemented with that Trojan horse guy) of "don't let them do Android even if it means destroying them" is working in a way.

Then again, Nokia were the guys who popularized the paradigm of "make phones that destroy themselves if they detect non-original accessories" and they are Microsoft front now (and thus on the other side of War on general purpose computers than me), so I'm not really sad to see them leave, should that be what's actually going on.

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Absolutely not. As I mentioned in a separate comment, they still have over 100,000 employees. And they're building new factories in Asia. And their Lumia phones are best sellers in several countries. I don't think they're going anywhere yet.

Edit: Nokia alone had 53k, and counting Nokia Siemens they had over 100k. Now it's -10k from Nokia.

I think this was bound to happen after the decision to hedge most of their bets on Microsoft's operating system. This need not necessarily be seen as Nokia falling apart. All the engineers working on the software side had to be let go at some point of time.

Don't think the strategy to also-use Android as a latecomer and go against Samsung et al. without subsidies would have worked well.... The 'trojan horse guy' seems to me more like a friendly enabler for the only/most successful looking strategy left.

The fact that he's ex-Microsoft ends up looking fishy. I mean the guy leaves Microsoft to head Nokia and his first (?) major decision is to make Nokia a Microsoft shop. On the other hand, if you're constantly using hammers, then every problem can start to look like a nail (i.e. he felt that WP was the best solution because he spent a lot of time drinking the MS kool-aid, so to speak).

It is fully possible Elop was hired after the decision to go to the dar... cough ... to go Microsoft.

The previous CEO compared using android as 'peeing in your pants to stay warm', i wonder what using WP would have felt for him.

And pretty sure Elop's memo is evidence enough he was the one changing Nokia (Symbian -> Meego) strategy.

That Elop was the one to announce the Microsoft strategy doesn't really prove he invented the idea since going there.

Why else hire Elop specifically? The guys hiring him could have found a lot of CEOs with more telecom background.

Nokia could have kept developing Symbian and used Android instead of Windows Phone.

Nokia is about to compound their mistakes by trying to sell Windows 8 tablets.

Why would Android as a latecomer have worse prospects than "OS nobody wants as a latecomer"?

They have been capable of creating good hardware, which is all Android users really want. Of course it is an ego thing, but I think in the beginning Symbian also did not belong to Nokia and they didn't mind using it for their phones (I might be wrong about the history here).

Other companies like Samsung even manage to publish Android phones and phones with other OS.

(a bit late with replying, sorry..)

The field is already well occupied by Samsung/HTC/Motorola. I suppose Android users care more about 'high-specs' than well done devices with more modest specs. Google would not have given specific help/subsidies to Nokia, but Microsoft does.

As I own a Lumia, maybe I'm too subjective: but I like the device/OS and expect WP to become more popular with time.

Yes, they must sell off assets and fire more employees to stay in business a while longer at the rate they are losing money.

There is indeed "a burning platform" and that is Windows Phone OS for Nokia.

Will Microsoft buy what remains to save face?

It's also possible that microsoft sees itself as next Apple, that is combining HW and SW vendor (and they always had HW division with xboxes) and wants to lower Nokia's price so it can buy it.

> microsoft sees itself as next Apple

Thanks, There is coffee all over my keyboard now. Can the SEC do something when the CEO and board become obviously delusional?

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