Introducing The Microsoft Puppet
parislemon.com
parislemon.com
now nokia is dependent on microsoft to let them differentiate. and while android is open source there is less scope for google to "play favorites" then with win mobile, i.e. there is "no freedom fork" anything, microsoft is perfectly within their rights to go play favorites with Samsung/HTC/Motorola (just as they are now apparently doing with nokia).
but i have heard what you are saying a few times now so i would like to know why/how microsofts tightly controlled platform will deliver nokia greater power to differentiate themselves?
edit: found this http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1992208&cid=3... which does _partially_ cloud my puritanical open source views of the world.
We have no idea exactly what the Nokia/Microsoft deal entails, but as a worst possibility they will get updates at the same time as other makers. I don't think Microsoft is going to delay updates for HTC/Samsung et al in favour of Nokia, but there will be something in the deal for Nokia.
> as far as i can see nokia could differentiate themselves a hell of alot more and with far more confidence with android then with ms win mobile.
GP had a whole bunch of reasons why going with MS is probably a better strategic decision for Nokia. You have given none to counter those.
Regarding playing favorites: so what. That's business. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Could have made the same argument regarding favoritism about Symbian a few years ago before Nokia bought them out completely.
no
It reminds me of this story about K-9 developers wanting to re-integrate some of their enhancements back into ASOP and Google's response was basically 'nahhh' or Google giving Motorola sweetheart access to Honeycomb while leaving other tablet makers moaning & groaning on the CES floor. Those types of things probably contributed to Nokia's choice. Nokia wants to be actively involved in OS development. Their own efforts failed. Nokia being a somewhat old fashion sort of company was probably not comfortable with the uncertainty behind Google's rather blackbox-ish control of Android. In an ironic way Microsoft was actually offering more flexibility and openness of development plus all the perks of free marketing dollars, joint promotions, and generally being treated like a first class citizen with a contract to define the exact terms of the relationship.
if thats true
> In an ironic way Microsoft was actually offering more flexibility and openness of development
then yes that would be the case.
personally i doubt that microsoft gave up any significant control of win mobile and there has been little evidence to suggest it has. that said microsoft would not want nokia going on about how they get to do what they want with ms win mobile as that would only discourage investment in the platform by Samsung/HTC/LG who ms still need as it will be a good 18~24 months before nokia is shipping significant volumes.
Maybe further than their competitors if they could have leveraged their Meego and general engineering expertise... but naturally we'll never know now.
Excuse me for asking, but how is this different to being just another WP7 device maker?
That said, Windows is still an option. In China, Nokia's best market, even Apple computers run Windows, so a Windows phone might have an advantage over an iPhone. Hacker-news readers (myself included) won't love it as much as a Linux / OSX phone, but it's still reasonable business sense.
I don't like WinCE, but it might have come a long way. Maybe it's as good as Android now.
Why would Microsoft favor Nokia over its own interests of selling WP7 to every phone maker out there? The only reason Nokia faces little competition is because nobody wants WP7. If Nokia takes the risk and proves WP7 is viable, other phone makers will use it. If it fails, it's doomed. From Microsoft's point-of-view this is perfect - all the downside is Nokia's and all the upside is theirs.
> offering basically the same exact product except
I can tell you Android phones from Sony Ericsson, HTC, Motorola and Samsung are quite different from one another. Some are more alike, having more in common with Android base implementation, and some others are totally different. My Nook, although running Android and having 3G doesn't look like an Android phone at all.
> Google isn't going to piss off Samsung/HTC/Motorola by playing favorites with Nokia either
Your assumption that Microsoft would not piss of Nokia, now that Nokia bet its future on their cooperation, is very risky. Microsoft will do whatever it needs to increase market penetration of WP7, with no regard whether that pleases Nokia.
Because you don't license software from Microsoft without getting an exclusive license (or at the very least a preferable one).
Microsoft versus IBM is the canonical example of why you don't. Nokia couldn't possible have been stupid enough to forget that.
Other phone makers already make WP7 phones. Nokia doesn't have an exclusive deal and Microsoft would never, ever, even think about allowing Nokia to be the only WP7 phone licensee (or even a very preferred one). Microsoft likes leverage.
I think this dynamic has already been at play with the 1000 employee walkout. It seems the C-level at Nokia's view of what would be best for Nokia is clouded by interaction with former Microsoft colleagues.
Ignoring corporate culture is a mistake. Purposely alienating employees is usually another one. One of these two happened here.
When I imply working for Microsoft damages people (often beyond repair), I tend to get heavily downvoted. I have friends there and those who aren't cynical took the corporate issued Kool Aid and really believe the partly line on Linux, Android, iPhone etc.
The WP7 team burial of the iPhone is a typical symptom of this disconnection with reality. Those folks really believed they built an iPhone killer.
People say Jobs has a "reality distortion field." Instead, I think he actually sees a lot of things more clearly than the average person. We just think his view of the world is weird because we can't take off our own weird goggles.
Those folks really believed they built an iPhone killer.
In the hands of the right company, WP7 and webOS both could have been iPhone killers. It's like putting a fancy new attack in the hands of a mediocre fencer. The fancy new attack might indeed be awesome, but it won't matter if a better opponent wins anyways by exploiting your flaws in stance or basic technique.
Microsoft, on the other hand, exists in an entirely different reality. WP7 is nowhere near cool, much less than what the iPhone actually is and an entirely different thing than what Jobs thinks it is.
It's pretty. And that's all.
They could profit from two already strong ecosystems at once (GNU/Linux and Android), while not being Yet Another Android Vendor.
Now they are just a hardware vendor for WP7 platform (which is not a "ecosystem" yet).
I haven't been able to find out just why MeeGo development didn't deliver, but it's apparent that whatever was going on internally, Nokia just wasn't willing to bet the company on it.
Likely Nokia pays no more for WP7 than HTC pays for Android.
Microsoft is going to market the hell out of the relationship and resulting phones.
The employees weren't handled correctly. If I were Apple and Google, I'd now be poaching some Nokia employees.
Alliance with Microsoft seems to be the only sensible choice for Nokia at the moment. True story.
Many people disagree with you. Imagine that.
I suspect you're not old enough to remember the fate of some other Microsoft "partners" of this sort.
Partnerships don't work out, but there doesn't seem to be many examples in that list of Microsoft leaving those partners out to dry, it's just a case of the product wasn't good enough (from both Microsoft and the phone manufacturers).
They brought an OS from MS and that destroyed their biggest bet ever, reducing them from the hardware maker to just another supplier.
OS/2 was a horrible hit to IBM, and Microsoft is a huge part of why OS/2 went so horribly awry (IBM also made many strategic mistakes of their own, so it's not just that Microsoft behaved in a duplicitous way).
Furthermore, to characterize Microsoft as the dominate player in that partnership is simply rewriting history.
In both cases, the other party made many strategic mistakes, but Microsoft did many things to contribute to their downfall.
Others have mentioned Compaq (whose history is not one of unmarred success) and Dell, but those are companies that exist because of Microsoft, and have pretty much never gone against Microsoft's wishes. It took years before Dell started offering Linux boxes, and even now, the Dell Linux line is more expensive and lower quality than the equivalent Windows systems. For instance, when I was shopping for a laptop, the only Linux laptop from Dell had a non-LED and lower resolution display than the much cheaper Windows equivalent. Same model number, but the Linux version was crappy and $200 more. I bought the Windows version and put Linux on it with no driver issues, so it wasn't that they had to make compromises to make it all work...they just like toeing the line for Microsoft. (It's turned out to be a crappy laptop, anyway, so I won't be buying another Dell.)
Microsoft needed Nokia at least as much as Nokia needed Microsoft here.
Welcome to HN. I take it you're new here?
Your wisdom ends where Nokia's share price begins. Seriously, the whole market read this as a stupid move where far better, saner, alternatives were available.
What a trail of bodies.
The *NIX community should've banded together to make a POSIX-like standard for graphical applications and they would've maintained their position as a viable platform. X isn't enough, it's too low-level. Something at least on par with OpenStep is required.
Perhaps this case will indeed lead to failure, but to show that, you have to point to some specific problem (and there seem to be many) with Microsoft and/or Nokia other than the fact that they are closely tied now.
Whereas Microsoft have no idea how to phones (Kin, anyone?); the jury is still out on the phone software but it doesn't look good (iOS and Android are mopping the floor with WP7). And if Ballmer is installed as CEO of Nokia, I'm going to short it.
Though the events make it seems like so. I think that's just a conspiracy theory.
I have to admit that I can't say for certain which it will be in the end. But I can understand how all those who fear being hurt by it would have a tendency to believe the later choice.
The open source tools, open standards are all just tools they use to get to the goal and earn some goodwill that they can use to make money.