Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership, New Leadership Team
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Firstly, tying one company struggling to keep afloat to another struggling to take off (in this domain at least) is hardly the obvious ideal strategy.
Secondly, they're about to go onto what, their fourth platform strategy without large-scale wider support? And they expect to retain developer support and internal morale?
Thirdly, coming so soon after the news that Dalvik's porting to their previous preferred platform looked to enable broad compatibility with one of the major software bases to their platform, what's the point in this - they're moving to largely unsupported platform that's less compatible with alternatives than where they were.
This feels like the move of a new top dog who doesn't fully understand the situation but wants to be seen to be doing something, and so has called his old friends. Bad, bad, bad idea.
Which is another similarity to Nokia, come to think of it.
Then came the cuts, which closed all software centers in Europe (mine included), when finally someone saw Android as the last ship.
Sometimes it's not about the technology, it's about the company. Meego was just a year away from being an awesome mobile OS. It, and it's predecessor Maemo, have been just a year away from saving Nokia since 2008.
I one fell swoop HP got exclusive rights to a legit smartphone platform where they wouldn't be beholden to any other company. No longer would HP be reliant on Microsoft in mobile.
Now, Nokia is going the opposite direction. Sure, Nokia has some important assets to leverage in this partnership. But make no mistake, this is a deal with the devil.
I wonder what this means for Qt?
However I don't find this deal too bad for Nokia, we don't know the exact terms behind it.
Now the smartphone OS market is getting more and more interesting =).
oh... wait...
1. Choose Android and be delegated to one of the hardware supplier amongst HTC, Samsung etc (not necessary the preferred one).
2. Stick with Symbian, Meego and be slower and further down road (Users don't care about the OS. Just whether it works. I would argue that developing OS internally is just playing catching up with minimal hope of overtaking the others significantly)
3. Try Microsoft and hopes the strengths compliment one another (not-too-bad windows phone 7).
I don't envy Nokia. It's a tough choice. Effectively, they are trying to move into a field just disrupted by Apple and competing on a sustaining basis. Doesn't bode well but what other alternatives do they have?
This partnership benefits Microsoft's executives in the mobile division, who will have their vindication in a major phone maker going with their platform instead of Android. Their bonuses will be outlandish this year. It hardly benefits Nokia, who is betting the company on an unknown platform nobody else is betting on.
A friend of mine usually said that when you see two lines in the bank, one being much shorter than the other, you can bet the short one is the wrong line for you.
Well.. Stranger things have happened.
To be clear (and fair to Elop), whether or not he was effective at his role wasn't very clear to me. What I can say is this:
* His time at Microsoft was quite short. While he may have a monetary incentive for this deal, I doubt he has any cultural ties to "go Microsoft"
* His impact on MS was (to me, anyway) minimal. He seemed to be in charge of keeping the ship going in a straight line, without the pressure of changing direction. There definitely wasn't anything like what is going on at Nokia to "test his mettle", so to speak.
Contrast this to something that Sinofsky did: http://www.cornell.edu/about/wired/
a bit OT but worth it nonetheless: my father always sas than whenever there is bureaucracy involved (i.e. the DMV, embassies, other government departments, etc.) one should choose the shortest line - it means that the clerk in place there is probably the most efficient and less inclined to play "power games" with you. Served me right on several occasions.
In Android, they'd build on a known platform with success or failure in their own hands. Don't like what Google is doing in the future? They'd have options without abandoning the platform. Hell, they could let Google develop the core, port Qt, use Bing maps and search, and Amazon Appstore.
I agree, though that this something that is only done by a desperate company with few choices.
Apple got back some legitimacy as a platform. I remember betting at the time that they'd be out of business before 2000 (this was before the return of Jobs). Microsoft gave them the ability to say, we're going to be around for a while, and our customers are going to be able to get work done.
What Microsoft gained (aside from a good return on investment) was something that they could point to when negotiating with the DOJ. A strong Apple was absolutely required for Microsoft to remain intact. So what Microsoft really got wasn't a partner, but a competitor.
Microsoft also got a patent cross-licensing deal with Apple, IE shipping as the default browser on Macs (a blow against Netscape), and a settlement on some messy lawsuits.
(I imagine a lot of lawyers got paid, too... what a mess!)
Yeah, it was a sort of cynical "partnership". I think your analysis is bang-on.
Well, aside from quietly forgetting about the stolen Quicktime source code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company
Microsoft, of course! What a silly question! Why else would they partner with someone?
HTC, once known as High Tech Computer,
is a Taiwanese company that began making
phone sets using Microsoft software in
2002. By 2005, it had grown to sales
of $2.2 billion, double that of the year
before, making it the fastest growing
tech company that year according to
BusinessWeek.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/02/18/microsoft-htc-has-m...
Furthermore, Microsoft engaged HTC in many matters of industrial design, and all these competencies allowed them to effectively move from being a PC company to a mobile phone company.
The situation for Nokia is somewhat different. MS is no longer the dominant platform in the mobile space.
However, MS still has the advantage of outlook/exchange being the dominant enterprise email solution. If MS can do a good job of integrating features like Sharepoint into WP7, then it has a strong position to defend.
1. They are desperate to get (back) into the mobile OS market. For a company that is built on OS dominance this is an existential crisis... much more than Google Search ever could be.
2. Everything they have tried so far has failed, badly. How many W7 phones have you seen in the wild?
3. Hooking up with partner like Nokia (remember: still the largest phone manufacturer, albeit mostly not smartphones) is probably the only credible move MSFT can make that may reverse this.
This implies that the deal probably is costing MSFT dearly. They needed Nokia, and Nokia knew it.
Remember: Microsoft still has more money than god. We've seen with Xbox that they're willing to use that cash to muscle into markets with entrenched players. If they want it bad enough they can be a force... imagine if they subsidize the hardware enough to make the phones almost free, buy several of the top indie iOS developers, and buy a pact with companies like EA to make new titles W7 exclusive at launch.
There's no reason to think they'll WIN.. after all, Apple and Google are hardly paupers. I'm just saying that it could get real interesting.
Or maybe it won't. MSFT might continue to make no headway in the market and Nokia will just end up going down the tubes.
Also, linux can use some decent developed UI toolkits. Nokia easily can cut a deal with Google for Android store revenue sharing. Especially if Microsoft is in the market, too for alliance candidates.
Choosing Android makes actually quite a lot of sense to me, from a Nokia POV.
Not that it couldn't be good, just that you cannot automatically think that it is from Windows 7's qualities.
No fanboy, you say...
I'm someone thats used a Mac quite extensively over the past year, and i have an iPhone too. Yet, i've just gone back to a Windows machine. Windows 7. Its a damn good OS, and you are right.
I hope they can find a way of bringing that goodness to their mobile platform. Lots of nice little surprises in Windows 7, so im hoping we'll see that in the Mobile OS when it matures a little more.
Everyone said the XBOX was going to be a disaster, and regardless of HOW MS did it, they STILL did it.
MS is perfectly capable of winning when it really, really wants too.
Will many developers seriously considering WP7, just for the ease of migration, and Nokia's logistics; executed properly this COULD be a win win.
[NB I rather like Visual Studio, but I don't think I'd do OS development using it]
[Edit - if there any current or ex Microsoft people who could answer this I'd love to know about the set of tools actually used to develop Windows]
This is the Microsoft. The company with an almost fanatical commitment to dogfooding.
Microsoft execs from the mobile division will have huge bonuses this year. They must be very excited.
> Windows 7 is probably the best piece of software I have ever used
I had to force myself not to laugh. What have you been using, pal?
> and yes I have a MacBook pro and an iPhone
Seriously, what's so good about Windows 7?
> so I'm not some fanboy
Nobody accused you of being one, yet.
> with two juggernaut companies putting their very survival on the line
Only Nokia is dying. Microsoft will go on for at least a couple decades before it hits the ground.
> no matter what happens the consumers will be the ultimate winners of such brutal competition
We will have the same number of competing platforms (Nokia won't be the only one selling WP7) at the cost of losing one stellar hardware supplier. No. That won't be good.
The thing is, with Android, when Samsung makes something good to it, everybody benefits, LG, Motorola, the Apache Harmony folks and it trickles all the way to Red Hat, IBM and even Oracle. Even Microsoft, because a lot of their stack is BSD-ish and Microsoft can incorporate it, no questions asked, into whatever products they want. If Nokia ever succeeds in making something that kind of makes WinMo7 suck less (I gather it's a somewhat decent platform) Microsoft stands to benefit the most.
Can't speak for OP, but it's the first windows version that 'just works' :) And that means a lot when you have to use windows.
Many people have to use a windows desktop. But the situation is different on the phone.
1) Maybe you should use more software (not that W7 is bad, but I wouldn't say it's the best evar)
2) Windows Phone 7 isn't Windows 7, not even close.
This is my main problem with this deal: both parties are hoping that by combining they will achieve something totally uncharacteristic of both of them individually. Neither MS or Nokia have been fast at anything for the last 10 years. Are they really going to suddenly be nimble together?
(I guess I'm just spelling out the "two drowning people tied together" analogy).
#feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle".
From Vic Gundotra. // Although there is prior art for the saying -- he was the one to apply it to Microkia/Nokisoft
It's one thing to say "yeah, we can put out a quality product that can hold its own and go toe to toe with any other product in the market", it's another thing entirely to say "absolutely positively we will turn this product into a world beater, we will utterly dominate this industry soon" ... starting from a niche position at the bottom of the crowd. The former is sane, and capable of being fulfilled. The latter is not sane and a recipe for self-sabotage and failure.
Yes, exactly. It's one thing to make an ambitious and bold play for a new market. But this is Nokia's main bread and butter at stake here. If WP7 doesn't gain huge market share then Nokia is going to have a disaster. It's quite breathtaking to see them play russian roulette with their future like this.
edit; I'm not trolling. I'm just saying think about what you're saying. Who got out their next-generation console first? Microsoft was one year early! Is the kinect innovative? Yes.
Is Microsoft really /that/ bad?
You could see that coming from a CEO that comes from MS, Nokia is desperate to not lose their phone position and MS desperate to losing the new desktop as all paradigms sift, losing OS control and people using Office(there was a time everybody used Wordperfect, people started using word as it was ready for windows before Wordperfect).
MS could design phones this way to compete with Apple, and Nokia could use the MS experience in OS.
I don't think is a good idea to partner with MS, companies that do tend to be screwed sooner or later, MS always winning.
Nokia reminds me more and more of SGI,I remember when MS windows NT was their salvation, I wish I'm wrong.
You do realize that MS stopped "always winning" almost a decade ago?
SGI sank because they couldn't or wouldn't follow the market, which didn't need to pay $30,000 for hardware-accelerated 3D anymore once anyone could just drop in a 3D card into their commodity PCs. Lots of people (Mark Kilgard, for example) left SGI directly for Nvidia and other companies.
Hindsight is 20/20, but the one thing they could have done to save themselves would have been to ship an awesome 3D card for commodity PCs around the time 3dfx was influential (1997). They could have done hardware geometry acceleration two or three years before Nvidia did it with the first GeForce.
Carmack wrote this about SGI's NT workstation in 1999: http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/johnc_plan_1999.html...
"I placed an order for a loaded system ($11k) from their web site two months ago. It still hasn't arrived (bad impression), but SGI did bring a loaner system by for us to work with.
The system tower is better than standard pc fare, but I still think Apple's new G3 has the best designed computer case.
...
For single pass, top quality rendering (32 bit framebuffer, 32 bit depth buffer, 32 bit trilinear textures, high res screen), the SGI has a higher fill rate than any other card we have ever tested on a pc, but not by too wide of a margin.
If your application can take advantage of multitexture, a TNT or rage128 will deliver slightly greater fill performance. It is likely that the next speed bump of both chips will be just plain faster than the SGI on all fill modes." (emphasis mine)
Too little, too late.
Edit: It's sad, really. Although I haven't booted it in years, I still have a purple Indigo2 in my closet, so I know exactly what it is that died.
In effect, they had everything OSX has today. But instead they focused on the high end niche market and got eaten from below.
Do I think this is a good move for nokia? History sides very much with NO! Which is a shame, nokia always made good hardware, but perhaps far too much of it with too little support.
In 1993, 32mb of RAM was damn expensive (I know because I had a 32mb 486/66 machine in 1993. The thing cost $10,000!) And there were delays in IRIX releases because the cheapest Indy configuration didn't have enough RAM.
In fact, RAM prices were also a major factor in Windows NT not going mainstream until about 2000. People just couldn't afford machines that would run modern operating systems well until around 1995, and it took a few more years to sort out the software issues (drivers, backward compatibility with existing software) surrounding the compromises people used until then.
Then they had a second chance at the market with the SGI O2. Can you imagine walking into a best buy and seeing that next to windows95? Built in webcam, video recording, etc. It ran fine on 32-64 megs ram which in '96 was the norm.
I should mention, that NeXT also had the technology to make things happen. And they made it happen, a few years later....
In 1996, the O2 started at about $6000, and listed for more: http://cgi.amazing.com/internet/faq-6.0.html
As for the Indy, see http://www.siliconbunny.com/mirrors/www.tc.umn.edu/dols0011/...
"At the beginning of its life, the Indy came standard with 16MB of RAM. IRIX 5.1, the first OS for the Indy, was the Windows NT 4.0 of Unices, magically able to, performance-wise, transform an R4000PC Indy with 16MB of RAM (the standard configuration) into a 386SX with a weird blue box.
SGI realized this and quickly upped the box to 32MB, at considerable cost. (As you may recall, 16MB of parity 70ns RAM was hardly cheap in 1993-1995.) Subsequent IRIX releases made huge improvements in memory usage."
But not enough improvements in time to beat back the PC, of course.
"The Indy packs a decent amount of power into a very small (16"x14"x3"), simple, and elegant package. The chassis is just three parts: The "tray," which is sheet metal; the power supply; and the skin, which is a one-piece plastic cover with a thin sheet of metal covering the bottom of it to meet FCC compliance. The steel tray occupies the entire depth of the Indy, but not the entire width; four inches or so of the left side belong to the power supply, which occupies the entire depth of the tray and is a separate box. The whole unit is, although well-built, very economical and, dare I say, cheap. Speaking as someone who has had an opened-up broken Indy sitting on his basement floor, this is not a machine that screams "I cost $10,000." It's obvious SGI made a darn nice profit off these buggers."
SGi hardware was priced high for two reasons 1) The market (government, industry) would bear the price and 2) small market size. Fix market size and the price can come down - leaving your indigo/indigo2/crimsons' for the govt/oil/entreatment industry.
With proper application of brain juice, switching to IDE drives, etc you could have shaved and optimized enough to get an indy or O2 usable for the mass market. Add back the memory intensive things as time goes on. Then add in some small business file/email/etc server (challenge s) and you're ready to take on the business market.
But Nokia is in a very different position to SGi and is doing this deal for different reasons. Nokia urgently needs a decent OS - Symbian is the main reason Nokia has such a weak market position in smartphones. You can debate the merits of WP7 but its better than Symbian.
The next issue is apps and ecosystem. This might not work out, but a Nokia-supported WP7 market place has some chance of reaching critical mass and fighting it out with RIM and HP for third position after itunes and android.
It was in a seemingly-near-finished state a year ago. I thought it was really promising - I even ran the netbook release full-time on my netbook for a while. It was recognisably a linux distro, with a beautifully shiny UI and some convenient social features. Nokia had already shipped several linux devices such as the N900, yet suddenly they become unable to get something out of the door. Does anyone know what really held them up?
http://www.fakesteve.net/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-o...
If Nokia doesn't get a chapter in future updates to "X years of high tech marketing disasters", I'll be disappointed. Jumping onto a sinking platform from a burning one isn't a big improvement.
With Android, they would have had a lot more freedom and, most likely, some more leverage in terms of innovating and differentiating themselves.
And at this point, apps are a pretty big differentiator between iOS/Android and everything else. WP7 is going to struggle in that department.
Keep in mind that you have the two biggest players in the world in operating systems (MS) and mobile phones (Nokia) collaborating. They have money, and as always MS will just throw money at the problem for years to make the products more appealing.
I don't know if they will succeed and have my doubts (huge, inflexible companies). But if those two big players won't succeed, then i can't imagine who will. Certainly not RIM, Palm/HP or Samsung.
Most of what makes Nokia 'big' in terms of phones are all the commodity ones they sell. They could have worked on slimmer versions of Android to taper their line down into that market, but that won't be possible with WP7.
Nokia certainly won't up and die tomorrow, but I think it's not really a winning strategy, long term.
edit: It is also said that MS offered Nokia several hundred millions of dollars multiple times to make this switch.
Here is what it has going for it:
1. Ease of development - Writing WP7 apps with Visual Studio is very easy; probably easier than any other platform.
2. Games! - The most downloaded apps have always been games. WP7 is a solid platform to write games and MS will _eventually_ bring in their considerable clout in XBox/PC.
3. "Enterprise" Apps - are still unexplored territory. WP7 is the first platform where the countless in-house Windows teams can put out something in languages they already know.
And finally the Nokia deal is a breakthrough for MS. Outside the US, Nokia has an exceptional market presence. Around where I live (Bangalore), there are 3 Nokia exclusive shops and all of them are going to showcase their new WP7 phones soon. With a good enough product, you can make up for everything else with marketing.
As for Nokia, they now will a product I might consider buying at some point.
What remains to be seen, for me, is whether there is a viable market or not. People like to complain about Apple's AppStore, but it is a good market. I don't worry about whether I'll get paid, I get good info about sales in a timely manner, and the terms are acceptable. And I appreciate the review process (despite having an app rejected once, they were right, I fixed it, no problem.)
So, my real concern is how the stores are going to shake out, and if there is a single store for "Phone 7" (what a name! ugh) whether it is as well run as the AppStore.
I have not written any games for either platform though, so I can't compare that experience.
It's a little sad for me, personally. I can't say with confidence that this isn't a good move for Nokia among the general populace but I've, finally, given up on them.
Goodbye. We'll always have the 2110 and the summer of 1994!
Why not fork Android?
Guess this won't help in selling those Symbian E7 phones to companies.
I have a feeling that Vanjoki knew what was coming and gave his peeing statement in order to have his opinion on the record.
They've made two major platform shifts in just a few years. From Maemo to MeeGo and now from MeeGo to Windows Phone. Not something that inspires confidence in the company or attracts talented developers...
I was hoping to see an Android phone made by Nokia.
August 6, 1997: Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple, guaranteeing that they would make Mac Office until 2002. Litigation between the companies was settled, and Apple agreed to make IE the preferred browser on Macs for awhile. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html
You might still have some kind of a point because Apple didn't adopt a Microsoft operating system their 1997 deal. But you still need to rephrase your statement if you want to be accurate.
Partnerships don't save bad companies. SGI and Palm were running into the ground on their own accord.
I think dagw's point mostly stands, with Apple being somewhat of an anomaly.
Thinking out loud: Steve Jobs has always been a "man with a plan", and so his deal with MS was one step along the road to recovery, whereas a lot of the other MS deals have been companies that, lacking a coherent plan, started thrashing around grabbing at anything to stay afloat.
Also, Apple really didn't get a 'partner' in Microsoft. Microsoft didn't need them from a technology point of view. They needed them to survive for legal reasons.
Essentially, Apple got an agreement that Microsoft would support the Mac for Office. That was the major coup because that meant that the Mac would be able to keep being seen as a legitimate business computer.
I think that the money was pretty minor in the deal (but I can't remember Apple's cash flow at that point in time).
Intel: Sure, they had clashes over the decades (especially over Intel's forays into software, which Microsoft pushed damn hard to kill, and over NT ports to other ISAs), but these are exceptions.
Citrix: (From the fourth reference listed by https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Citrix_System...)
"Citrix's relationship with Microsoft was key to the company's growth. Microsoft's Windows was exceedingly popular, and Citrix allowed network users to run Windows, even if they used Macintosh computers, which had a completely different operating system. The two companies were deeply intertwined. Iacobucci had known Bill Gates for years, Microsoft was a major investor in Citrix, and much of Citrix's growth was due to the demand for access to Windows. But Microsoft shocked Citrix in 1997 when it announced that it was considering building its own version of Windows networking technology, supplanting Citrix with a home-grown Microsoft product. Citrix's stock plummeted on this news, as it did not seem possible for Citrix to survive without Microsoft. Yet in some ways, Microsoft's new plan didn't make sense. At that point, no one besides Citrix made anything like what Citrix made, so there was no chance of Microsoft licensing the technology from another company. And it would take Microsoft some time to develop a comparable program, probably years. Iacobucci flew to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, with a crew of advisors and negotiators and prepared for a long stay. The Citrix team camped out in a suite of apartments and hammered out an agreement with Microsoft over a period of months. Finally Citrix announced that it had signed a new licensing agreement with Microsoft, promising Citrix $75 million immediately, and another $100 million spread over several years. Microsoft would endorse Citrix's Windows networking systems for five more years."
Just because a partner is strong doesn't mean they're not a partner.
Does this mean that Bing Maps is getting axed?
Anyway, there was a waiting period for iPhone 4 and HTC Desire HD (obviously they're popular), and I needed phone right now and I saw a Samsung Omnia 7.. and thought what the hell, just give me the phone - I only use it for talking (a lot) and occasional sms and email...
I am really surprised how WP7 is good - it lacks polish, little details, thought lots of them, but it's pretty much all there.. if they focus on those details and pimp up a marketplace a bit and let more countries in, I'm very optimistic about it.
If Nokia and MS get WP7 on every entry level Nokia, they might be able to disrupt the high end players and bring quality to the low end that Chinese competition will haage trouble matching.
The existing PC manufacturers are all pwned by Intel, so there is room for someone new. (And probably for a startup trying to become the Dell of WARM, for that matter). Note also that both the WARM announcement and this one are big screw-yous to Intel.
So partnering with Microsoft for smartphones doesn't look like a bad idea to me. They certainly know how to build hardware, even at large scale, and Microsoft will supply the software.
"To support the planned new partnership with Microsoft, Smart Devices will be responsible for creating a winning Windows Phone portfolio."
Ahh... did that Elop guy forget which team he was batting for? Does Balmer still sign his pay-cheques?
If I was a Nokia person and got told that now whether Windows Phone was successful or not was my fault, I'd show them where they could put their phones....
Are they victims of Stockholm Syndrome or what?
My guess is that dropping the project comes as a result of signing this deal with Microsoft. Nokia seems to have opted for Windows Phone instead of MeeGo.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/09/nokia-meego-idUSLD...
I was kind of holding out for that to replace my 3GS I guess. I don't really like Symbian, and I was hoping for a solid, well engineered phone with a real keyboard for a change.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-meego-not-dead-stil...
I am not sure what to read from that.
The really interesting question is if they'll do something interesting enough to differentiate themselves from their field. Given how dull the current lineup of Windows 7 phones is, they might have some real opportunities.
Besides its other problems, I'm sure people wouldn't hate Symbian so much if it was just snappy. Symbian phones just seem to have that quarter-second time constant on everything they do. I'm sure there are architectural reasons, but Nokia haven't helped by putting undercooked processors in all their 'smart' phones.
both sides are ready to contribute greatly to increase the tablet market share,
hint - creating and editing Excel files and Word files by mobile phones in the future
I know, "apple doesn't license their OS dummy!". But think about this:
1. Android is selling more phones right now.
2. Apple is unable to manufacture enough phones, and has admitted in conference calls that they have lost sales for this reason.
3. Nokia going to MSFT (with an ex-MFST exec as their CEO) is an obvious move... Apple was surely aware of this alternative, and killing Phone 7 in the crib is in Apple's interest. So, "keep your enemy closer", in a sense.
4. The terms would be sufficient for Apple. (EG: Apple wants platform dominance, and profit on its hardware, not exclusivity.)
5. Nokia probably could have gotten an exclusive for 4-5 years, so that the only suppliers of iPhones would be Apple and Nokia for that period. This benefits both- less distraction for Apple, and Nokia doesn't have to worry about being commoditized like they do with MSFT, which would never grant such an exclusivity period.
Why wouldn't Apple agree to this? Here's the objections, and why I think they don't apply:
1. Apple wants control over their OS. Well, this they would get. Apple would dictate to nokia the specs of the hardware, nokia would build it. They would have to cooperate on addtional features (like a second screen that noikia might want to ad, or whatever.) Apple would still be in the drivers seat for the OS like Microsoft is here.
2. Apple wants all the money. This isn't really true. Steve Jobs offered to license Mac OS X to the One Laptop Per Child project for free. Apple would do financial terms with Nokia, probably competitive to MSFT. Apple wants the platform dominance and the consequent %30 of appstore sales more than they want to make $300 on every phone sold. (We'll see this from apple soon with a "feature iphone")
3. Apple doesn't want Nokia taking away sales of iPhones. There might be some risk of this, but nokia can't compete with iphones now hardware wise, and apple's more interested in platform dominance than squeezing every penny out of the phone market. Most nokia phones right now are sold to people who chose them over the iphone for various reasons, probably having to do with not having any taste, or more seriously, nokias distribution and manufacturing capacity.
So long as the iPhone isn't threatened, and it wouldn't be by nokia, and the OS is respected, Apple would be happy to have another major manufacturer increasing iPhone market share.
In Apple's DNA are two drives:
1. To never again be in a situation where someone can cut off their air supply like Microsoft did.
2. To always produce a high quality product.
3. There is no three.
Apple doesn't care about being the most profitable, or having absolute control Everything apple does is really related to 1 & 2. People often like to attribute other drives to Apple because it serves their interests to do so, but if you listen to what Apple's executives say and look at how the act, these are the two drives.
Apple licensing iOS to nokia under terms similar to the MSFT deal supports both of these drives and doesn't undermine either. (if Nokia started cutting off apple's air supply, Apple would simply not renew the agreement.)
I believe the reason this deal happened with Microsoft is that Elop is an ex-MSFTie. In my experience, people who spend large parts of their career at MSFT start seeing things completely in terms of MSFT's dominance, and I suspect this still happens even though MSFT is no longer dominant.
The Nokia board screwed the pooch, as they say.
> 1. Android is selling more phones right now.
> 2. Apple is unable to manufacture enough phones, and has admitted in conference calls that they have lost sales for this reason.
On the other hand, Apple made 51% of all profits in mobile devices last quarter. With 4% marketshare. They've got tons of cash on-hand. If they want to start making a play for cheaper devices or somehow throw money at increasing production volume, they can do that rather than become a software OEM.
The reason Apple can a high quality integrated experience is cause they control the whole thing. If they license to Nokia, then they don't control the whole thing - there's another, fairly powerful party there who will throw whatever weight they have around to get things that favor them.
You also entirely ignore the problems. It's harder to develop for multiple hardware configurations. Apple and it's 3rd party developers have 2-3 iPhones that they develop for at one time (plus a few iTouches and the iPad). Limited hardware sets, fairly similar capabilities. That's a good thing for producing consistent, high quality user experiences and keeping support costs in-line.
Maybe it would've been great for Nokia to license iOS, but there's nothing in it for Apple, whatever you say, and a bunch of unacceptable downsides.