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Comment by wsf | Hacker News Reader

What choice does Nokia has?

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?

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I basically agree. Look at the deal from MSFT's perspective:

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.

Don't forget MS still controls an army of developers, and is mobilising a lot of resources to help transfer skills from winforms/asp.net to win 7 mobile development. There will be plenty of apps development for w7 as long as the platform can reach some type of critical mass.

With MS, they'll be "one hardware supplier amongst many", but with less leverage and freedom to make the platform theirs than with Android.

Do we know enough about the terms of the partnership to know that? MS is certainly capable of screwing over their existing hardware partners (see also: PlaysForSure) My hunch is that Nokia wouldn't have gone for the deal if they're just going to be another mere supplier.

Sure, they might get some perks, but I just don't see MS having it in them to really give them a long leash.

My impression is that nobody but an ex-Microsoft employee would even consider such idea.

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.

Not just an ex-MS employee -- the former head of Office (and the rest of the business division) who might still hold a truckload of MS stock.

I don't think he would be allowed to have Microsoft stock while running a company that competes with Microsoft on some fronts.

Well.. Stranger things have happened.

Elop's time at MS was quite short. IMO, he couldn't fill Sinofsky's shoes.

Implying that he did a bad job at MS doesn't sound plausible since he was offered a CEO position in another megacorp.

I should have split my comment - I didn't really mean to imply that the reason his time was quite short was because I don't think he performed at the same level of Sinofsky.

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/

don't they already have major manufacturers producing wp7 phones? I am quite sure I have seen a commercial showing a samsung phone with WP7 installed (and android as a second option)

"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."

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.

I have missed several trains because of this, the ticket box with the shortest line was usually the one when some clueless grandma sieged the cashier with endless stream of questions about the ticket and travel directions and who knows what, with only few last remaining people, who have invested so much of their time that they couldn't justify leaving for another, longer, queue line.

Yeah, I've encountered those as well. "Hi, I'd like to go to Madrid, from Copenhagen, utilizing only local trains, and going through Vienna - can you tell me the connections?"

Don't we do that in grocery lines all the time?

Right, and even if they get a sweet deal from Microsoft, they are still betting on an unknown with much of their success dependent on Microsoft.

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.

Has anyone ever come out of a Microsoft partnership stronger?

I agree, though that this something that is only done by a desperate company with few choices.

IIRC Microsoft invested in Apple at their low point, and also agreed to continue to support their Office suite on Apple computers. I would call that a partnership.

Yeah, others mentioned this lower in the thread. I'm not so sure that this would be a good example of a partnership, because Microsoft didn't really get much from Apple.

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.

There was a bit more to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

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!)

> 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.

Yeah, it was a sort of cynical "partnership". I think your analysis is bang-on.

because Microsoft didn't really get much from Apple

Well, aside from quietly forgetting about the stolen Quicktime source code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

Intel.

> Has anyone ever come out of a Microsoft partnership stronger?

Microsoft, of course! What a silly question! Why else would they partner with someone?

Intel?

HTC.

  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.

See:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/02/18/microsoft-htc-has-m...

However, If HTC hadn't jump the Android bandwagon it would be as good as dead now. So I am not sure if this example counts.

HTC grew by jumping on bandwagons. Windows Mobile 6 was the product with an established market.

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.

APPLE!

Android is for a large deal open source. That would enable Nokia to continue their Meego strategy, along with Qt. They don't need to develop the API and core sets, but can focus on the apps (higher level). That means either laying off a whole bunch of devvers, or moving them to app development.

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.

HTC is differentiating quite nicely within the Android ecosystem on the UX layer.

Their exchange client is awesome (at least, I think it's owned by HTC). I could do without the extra widgety stuff.

I think an important point is also that Nokia isn't abandoning MeeGo and their own OSes. Those I imagine will play a significant role in the future (again).

Well you are wrong.. They abandoned them. MeeGo is cut down to be experimental side project, probably to not piss Intel and other partners off.

Hold on. Nokia does a ridiculous amount of research into cell phone technology. I agree it's a side project now, but do you think they seriously are "abandoning" it? Where have you heard that? I don't think Nokia would completely throw away that much good work...

They are not and will not be pushing it as their primary platform. It will remain as a research project as it has been. In my book that means abandoning; there won't be any "ecosystem" for it.

Or... Maemo was working, just punt phones out the door running that (with capacitive touchscreens).

ahem Sony Ericsson had one of the worse positions among all OEMs and they managed to do it..

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