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I too was there during those days, in Espoo.

But to be honest we also had our share of alienating developers, it wasn't only MS fault.

First the Symbian development was a mess with the Metrowerk tools and that Symbian C++ dialect, then came PIPS, followed by Carbide (Eclipse based).

Followed by the whole mess of open sourcing Symbian and closing it again.

Or the Symbian model moving from Symbian C++ / PIPS to Qt, also in the middle this process.

Maemo was GTK, but then everyone should move to Qt. Better not lets also move the OS into Meego.

I remember asking why the Nokia 770 didn't had a GSM modem and the team saying to me that wasn't the market they wanted to target. When they did the usual roadshow of upcoming devices.

Nokia was already quite bad in terms of relationship with app developers before Elop came into the party, due to the internal politics.

Of course, the famous burning platform memo was just the last way to alienate developers that were slowly accepting the new Qt based model for Symbian, after all the previous pain points.

What if Nokia 770 also was a phone? History could have been so radically different. I will never understand...

If the 770 was also a phone, it would have been a ghastly tablet with a phone inside.

But in 2007, the n800 would have been a ghastly tablet/phone with 2.5x the pixels, expandable storage to 64GB, and several different media players that sucked, but are still better than iTunes today. I'm still using the Canola media player on an n810.

The story of Nokia MeeGo: http://muropaketti.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego

Nokia was doomed before Elop took over. Kallasvuo was CEO when Apple released the first iPhone, and Kallasvuo was the one who decided that Nokia's existing offerings were good enough to compete, just keep minorly refining things every generation. By the time Elop came in, the ship was already sinking (or, if you prefer, the platform was already burning). Elop's decisions did not turn that around, but realistically, could he have?

I agree that Nokia was too slow to compete, but they had massive advantages over both Apple and Google and with good guidance could've survived successfully.

Even years after the iPhone came out, Nokia outsold Apple, had a bigger R&D budget and a bigger foothold in practically every market except North America.

Smartphones outsold feature (dumb) phones only in 2013, five years after the iPhone came out. When did Nokia slip to 3rd place by number of sold devices? Q1 2015.

There was time, just no will.

I don't have any inside information but as an outsider the main thing that puts pressure on everyone is the margin that Apple commands on its products. People have repeatedly said that even when iPhone had 20% of the smartphones sold, they were taking in a much bigger slice of the pie when it came to profits. How do we tell potential shareholders "you can put your $1 on Apple or you can put your $1 on us but just so you know we have to ship n times as many phones as Apple does just to make the same amount of money that Apple does".

> Smartphones outsold feature (dumb) phones only in 2013, five years after the iPhone came out.

Yes but who had higher profits? That's the real factor. Outselling by itself is meaningless if your margins are poor.

> but they had massive advantages over both Apple and Google and with good guidance could've survived successfully.

I can't agree more. Few people remember the Nokia 770 was released almost 2 years ahead of the iPhone. With a bit of polish it could have grown into a fantastic product line. In fact, the N9 was pretty much a masterpiece.

I remember wanting to buy it. I didn't because back then it was to much money for me. I remember thinking that I defently want a future version of it.

For some reason that I don't understand, they continued to push Symbian, and those phones were not good. I remember thinking, either push further on the MeeGo stuff or drop it and move to Android. They did neither and suffered for it.

Symbian devices were actually very good phones. For making and receiving voice calls, they were better than Android has ever been.

Of course, as a platform for Web browsing, and particularly for app development, Symbian was not good.

But I still miss the phone functionality of my E71, or the Symbian devices I had before it.

> Of course, as a platform for Web browsing, and particularly for app development, Symbian was not good.

So in other words - they were great phones, but terrible smartphones? I fully agree.

Again, depends on what is "smart". For many day-to-day things, Symbian phones were superior to current smart phones as well. Some of this is more about security/commercial setup than technology, but 15 years ago, I was able to synchronize Outlook calendar to a Symbian phone, and it would remind me of my meetings, and it worked great.

Android or iPhone could do the same technically, but my employer can no longer use it. The company would give all data about meetings to Google or Apple. It's an absolute no-no.

Thus I sometimes forget my meetings, as the phone no longer reminds me.

Also, the alarm clock of Symbian was great, and i could depend on it. Even if you turned the phone off, it would wake you up. I'm nervous about trusting any Android device to wake me up in the morning if I have to catch a plane or a train (and I understand it's the same with iPhone).

And this was their undoing: thinking that people really cared that much about talking on the phone.

Talking is one of my least-used functions on my Android phone. I use it far, far more for texting, apps, internet, navigation, games, photos, and even visual voicemail than I do for talking. I might have a handful of calls a week on it. A phone that's great for talking and sucks for all the other things would be mostly useless to me.

>Few people remember the Nokia 770 was released almost 2 years ahead of the iPhone.

I owned one of these. It was an ugly, slow, expensive brick. I'd much rather use a Treo from that period. The iPhone was a wonderfully svelte device compared to either. I don't think you're appreciating how badly Apple beat up the Palm and Nokia competition back then. It was absolutely no contest and a disruption that was badly needed. Holding up the 770 as some under-appreciated jewel is fairly ridiculous. It was comically out of touch with consumers.

It was just an alpha device, and a Nokia side-project. It didn't even have a phone radio. The N800 was a pre-iPhone device and quite more polished. The N900 and N9 are, in my opinion, still better than many devices we see today in the market. And they are 6 years old...

I agree. In India Nokia was voted as "Most Trusted Brand" for years. Cell phone == Nokia in India. All they had to do was to put Android in some phones as an arbitrage move and they could have still been the leader in that space in India. Which has grown like 8x in last 5 years.

If Elop had bet on Android instead of Windows Phone, Nokia would probably be doing well.

Almost certainly not. Have you seen the profit numbers at Samsung, Motorola, and HTC? They're getting destroyed by Android competitors like Xiaomi, Huawei, etc and Apple.

What makes you think Nokia would have ended up like Samsung/Motorola/HTC rather than Xiaomi/Huawei/etc? Nokia at least had a chance to be one of the profitable ones.

There are no profitable android makers.

Apple has 94% of the profits in mobile: http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/15/11/16/apple-inc-n...

We will never know for sure by Nokia shareholders might have gotten an amazing deal out of going Windows Mobile and getting acquired by Microsoft. As for the employees, this would have happened either way with how badly the company was prepared for smartphones.

Recent Samsung financial results say that their profit growth is fueled in part by Galaxy S7. So, no, there are fairly profitable android makers.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11523616/samsung-earnings-...

Because every android manufacturer will end with virtually no profit since they are producing a commodity. When you basically can't differentiate with your software except for which shitty skin you layered on top of Android, what makes a samsung better than an lg or any other android device?

Hardware is the differentiator.

This is rather ignorant. Hardware is what makes Samsungs (for example) better: superAMOLED screens (which iPhones still don't have), better cameras, waterproof cases, removable batteries, etc. Can you drop your crappy iPhone in the pool? No, but a Galaxy S5 can handle that with no trouble, while having a better screen, removable battery, and upgradable SD card storage.

Yeah, but no. There's nothing stopping Huawei or anyone else from exactly copying that Samsung. And then what's the difference between the two? Nothing except price.

OTOH, nobody can copy an iphone because nobody but apple can put ios on a phone.

The problem with that idea is that if Huawei really could copy the Samsung, then why haven't they? I'd love to see more phones up to Samsung's specs, but I'm not seeing any. Heck, I'd love to see Samsung make a phone to those specs again (the S6 was crap and the S7 still doesn't have a user-replaceable battery though at least they finally put waterproofing back in).

The other difference is quality. I have no faith Huawei can make a phone at Samsung's quality level. Where are they going to get the screen from anyway? Or the camera? Those components aren't easy to copy; those things are state-of-the-art.

Finally, even Apple can't copy Samsung. They still have crappy screens, though the next iPhone is finally supposed to be getting a superAMOLED screen. WTF took them so long? Simple: Apple isn't a hardware manufacturer, they have to contract stuff out, whereas Samsung is a hardware maker, and makes state-of-the-art screens themselves.

Because every android manufacturer will end with virtually no profit since they are producing a commodity. When you basically can't differentiate with your software except for which shitty skin you layered on top of Android, what makes a samsung better than an lg or any other android device?

Updates. Updates, updates, updates.

I've come to trust Apple. Why? Because my iPad 2 still gets OS and security updates. Because my iPhone 5s still gets OS and security updates.

Apple has demonstrated that they support their tablets and phones at least 4 or 5 years. That's why I'll buy another Apple tablet. That's why I'll buy another Apple phone.

Why would I buy an Android phone or tablet that's unsupported and abandoned after less than two years in many cases? Where security updates (think Stagefright) take months and months to get patched, if they ever get patched at all on your device? Android devices simply aren't safe.

Even the Nexus devices can't compete with Apple on longevity of support.

Android manufacturers could convince me to try their products if they'd simply patch them in a reasonable time and update them for a reasonable amount of time. I would define reasonable as at least 4 full years after purchase. For that, I'd pay Apple like premiums.

Until that time comes, my only viable option is Apple.

Xiaomi and Huawei aren't Android competitors. They run Android on their phones!

Perhaps they meant that foreign (specifically Chinese) competition has done much better globally than those companies currently holding most of the US market.

I meant android producing competitors, as contrasted to apple. Which I think was pretty obvious in context.

I'm always amused by these Windows phone supporters that will argue until their red in the face that Nokia would have still suffered the same fate had they went Android. They have nothing to back their empty claims other than hate. The truth is that they would have fared way better had they selected Android instead of dollar cost averaging the windows phone fiasco all the way to the bottom. Nokia was destroyed by Microsoft. The only saving grace is the 8 Billion dollar severance package they got by unloading the carcass to Microsoft.

I guess, we'll see how that turns out for Blackberry.

I was also in Ruoholahti at the time and while those where dreadful times, it wasn't as bad (Atleast for me) as you picture it. Yeah, MeeGo (well, it was Harmattan, there was nothing MeeGo except binary compatibility and using the name to please Intel). Formatting Linux laptops was more of a joke imho. And guys who started Jolla where really not high execs in the program - really good tech guys but not execs :)

But yeah, I got myself a transfer inside Nokia after harmattan program was finished (still working on Linux stuff). Was away for few years and went back few months before Microsoft bought us, laid us off and our dept. spun off. During those times I didn't see any change on how things where handled from old Nokia days. So anyone who says that they didn't see this final layoff round coming is blind AF.

Remember when they kicked out Ari Jaaksi (for one, I thought he was a GREAT leader).

Then they brought in the son of the former Finnish president (Ahtisaari) and the guy stood in front of the entire program telling us how awesome he was and he was going to reshape the way people use mobile phones.

Good times.

Minecraft is very much not destroyed. Nokia .. well, the burning platform was while they were still an independent company. Like Blackberry they failed to adapt to smartphones, and failed to understand their own niche.

Nokia .. well, the burning platform was while they were still an independent company.

They were an independent company under control of a trusted general of Steve Ballmer. Nokia had a lot of goodwill in some regions, e.g. in Europe they were known for their excellent reliable and serviceable hardware. At the time the fear was that a switch to Android would reduce their margins, but I guess they'd still be around and pretty successful if they had switched to Android timely.

A general that had a bonus clause on the contract offered by the Nokia board if he managed to sell the company.

If you had such a bonus on your contract what would you do?

Minecraft is in a death spiral, but it's normal, since it's already an old and overplayed game for its target.

The flipside here is that Nokia was doomed anyway. Meego wasn't going to break the iOS/Android duopoly. Nokia was being destroyed by the success of the iPhone. It couldn't compete.

>Microsoft really loves to own and eventually destroy Nordic companies. (skype, minecraft, nokia)

Minecraft went from being neglected to even mismanaged to something that's alive again. Skype was originally Estonian, nor Nordic, and runs better than ever considering it doesn't rely on the charity of "supernodes" anymore. I can't remember the last time I had a dropped call or random quality drops.

I do agree MS shouldn't have picked up Nokia. It was a walking corpse and didn't help either entity in the end, but this is just business as usual. Playing up this "wild linux hackers vs The Man(TM)" is pretty out there. If you want a paycheck, the entity that pays you needs to make money. If MS didn't fire you, Nokia would have. MS is profitable. Nokia isn't.

Written by Swedish people who registered the company in Estonia. (for tax reasons)

I think Sweden counts as Nordic.

What would have happened to Nokia phones if MS hadn't taken over? They pretty much dug their own hole.

Yes, far from "destroying" Nokia, MS threw good money after bad to the tune of $billions trying to keep them afloat. Now they've given up on that fruitless endeavor.

They could've been in Samsung's place if they hadn't bet the farm on Windows Phone.

They were too proud to simply adopt Android. They were broken before they made deals with Microsoft.

Shame - personally I think people would have bought a Nokia Android phone. They were renowned for their hardware.

3 possibilities (and probably many more):

1) go all-in with their own Symbian/Qt/MeeGo strategy

2) go all-in with Google Android

3) go all-in with a Nokia fork of Google Android (a nonstarter today, but back in 2011, with Nokia's considerable heft and before Google started rolling so much of Android into non-open Google Play Services, things could have played out differently)

In terms of Nokia's performance as a phone company, it is more or less impossible for any of these options to have done any worse than Nokia did with Windows Phone.

HOWEVER, for Nokia as a company, Windows Phone "worked out" in the sense that they had a willing buyer for an asset that was long-term uncompetitive against Asian players in a commodity market. (then again that too has a counter-argument that the phone division would have been worth more than $7 billion had it not dedicated itself to the losing proposition of Windows Phone)

I was also in Ruoholahti as well as Nokia House when they closed down Ruoholahti.

Overnight Nokia turned into a cesspool of backstabbers who didn't add any real value, but managed to steal the credit from everyone else.

> but managed to steal the credit from everyone else.

Steal credit for what? What has come out of Microsoft's phone business since the Nokia purchase that anyone would want to take credit for?

I said NOKIA turned into a cesspool, not Microsoft.

As an example, Lumia 1020 had a lot of people working hard on it... but a very select few went out and took all the credit.

It's a real pity. I saw the writing on the wall and wrote this:

http://jacquesmattheij.com/microsoft-just-bought-nokia-for-0

And I very much wished I was wrong. They'll have to pry my impossible to destroy Nokia from my hands when I'm dead. Thanks!