Dear Nokia fans: you’re nuts | Hacker News Reader

Dear Nokia fans: you’re nuts

scobleizer.com

26 pointsbdfh4211 comments

To paraphrase Churchill, Nokia’s deal with Microsoft was the worst strategy they could have come up with, except for all the available alternatives. It’s a partnership born out of mutual desperation. Nokia needs an OS that doesn’t suck to develop on (unlike Symbian) and that they can actually ship (unlike Meego). Microsoft needs a revenue stream other than their Windows/Office duopoly. Thus, they need each other.

Why isn’t Nokia going with Android? Because Google doesn’t need anything that Nokia can offer; Google will be happy to count their ad-clicks while Samsung, Motorola, HTC, et al. drive down one another’s profit margins.

(Disclaimer: I work for Nokia and despise Microsoft as much as any self-respecting Linux geek, so I think my biases cancel one another out.)

In some ways you are right but as a Nokia employee you should know Nokia's put a decent amount of effort into embracing an "open" philosophy. In fact, the make up and goals of MeeGo are not all that different from Android (Open source OS run by a consortium of companies working to be the defacto standard on all kinds of devices). This marketing push towards openness goes all the way back to the decision to open source Symbian.

So for them to now do a 180 and embrace a proprietary operating system from Microsoft flies in the face of everything they'd been selling to their developers

It takes some impressive cognitive dissonance to say this...

So, should Nokia have gone Android? No way. That takes them through a real commoditization (IE, non differentiated) minefield. One that Nokia execs aren’t smart enough to get through.

and this...

Nothing matters in this world more than apps. Write that on your forehead. Write that on the mirror on your bathroom wall. Write that on your car windshield. Whatever it will take so you remember it.

in the same post (a post praising Nokia for picking the platform with virtually no apps).

The rest of his points would be decent if Microsoft were in any way committing to Nokia. But they're not so all those platform advantages are spread across other hardware competitors.

Yes it will be 8 hardware competitors instead of the 40 they'd have to fight on Android. But Android would at least give them the apps and if Nokia really does have top notch hardware people they could find a way to perform in the Android market.

While your logic is right, I think you have missed the point of the post. While apps are certainly important, differentiation is probably going to be a bigger factor because you only need a relatively small number of killer apps to kick start an ecosystem. Just think of how the iPhone AppStore got started. To this day I'm still using Bump and Urbanspoon. I think Nokia is betting on that they can monetize from an ecosystem that they can control with a higher profit margin, then just be a small fish in a big pond with not a whole lot of control and thus ways to make money.

Remember what Elop said in the memo, the enemies are not fighting with devices and apps, they are fighting with the entire ecosystem. Nokia doesn't have its own now, and they need to create one. If they jump onto the Andriod ship, what exactly can' they monetize from the ecosystem that Google can't even milk?

This is a really big gamble on Nokia's part, if it works it's going to pay off big time. Palm tried that and failed but hey at least they got an exit to HP. At worst Nokia is just going to repeat that and got folded in MS. What makes you think going Android will end better for Nokia? I wouldn't underestimate 2 desperate turkeys with beaks.

Dear HN Submitters: No more scobleizer blog posts!

What's wrong with the guy? Title is provoking but the content is just fine, at least for me.

Best post he has written for a long time - catches the Nokia/MS deal absolutely right.

It's interesting to see that Scoble puts ESR's post in the same sack as the rest of the "nuts", yet doesn't do much to refute it. It's almost as if he read only the title.

The ESR post has no basis in reality. The announcement will "split nokia in half"? How does he think it's structured right now? Nokia is split sixteen different ways inside already, it's a total mess of competing agendas and technologies.

Eric's point is that Nokia's move does not do anything to address this and might even make it worse.

Scoble misses an important point about Nokia logistics. Nokia doesn't do all its manufacturing in China (my Nokia was made in Finland). This removes a lot of the uncertainty around evolving political, economic and trade relationships.

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