Nokia Plan B
nokiaplanb.com
nokiaplanb.com
As these projects tend to go, things didn't go well. due to various issues in the Nokia closed source software layer there were a number of bugs we (Orange & Kodiak) couldn't fix. We decided to fly to Tampere (one of Nokia's R&D locations) to fix the problem.
Tampere is a lovely place to eat Reindeer. However, not once did I meet an engineer who could get shit done. Not once - Nokia never paired us with a serious developer who could even attempt to fix issues in their code. They surrounded us with product manager wankers and threw in a 22 year old engineer who wasn't able to make much progress debugging the problem. The Kodiak engineer was all ready to attack the problem with a dev board and a JTAG but no one would let us in the lab. What a clusterfck. Apparently a good bit of the S60 development wasn't even done in Tampere (or Finland). I think it might have been done in Japan. I think these sort of issues are what the author of the article alluded to regarding distributed development teams.
Perhaps I only saw a small slice of the Nokia culture. But it was really* bad.
I'm glad the guys behind nokiaplanb.com are passionate about fixing Nokia. Much as I think the M$ alliance is a waste of time, I admire Elop's bold actions. I can't see continued development of MeeGo as useful. What I have seen to date has been unimpressive and late. Additionally -why not just use Android as the base OS and innovate on top of it?
Ended up giving a lecture to 8 (+2 PMs) Nokia engineers, many of whom asked the most intelligent and domain relevant questions I heard so far. (3 even asked me to stay after the lecture and go over detail).
Things got done
That is one bold statement. I don't know if I'd bet the company's success on a claim like that.
Maintain ownership and control of the software layer of the Nokia products. Software is where innovation, differentiation and shareholder value can most easily be created.
This IMHO is undeniable.
Maybe MeeGo would be great but that's certainly unclear at this point. They had years to come out with compelling software and they did not deliver. Essentially these guys are asking for more time.
At this point the steamroller that is Android is up to speed. I don't see how MeeGo is going to make inroads anymore unless it is drastically better. Even though WP7 is actually shipping, it has a similar problem. IMHO, it has to be quite a bit better than Android in order to gain much market share.
Nokia 6310, featuring similar software, also dominated the market for business phones for a long time. Even when phones with color screens started to sell, people would still buy Nokia 6310 because it was reliable and easy to use.
Of course it is nothing compared to today's smartphones, but you're overestimating the talent and resources required to build good software, especially when they've got all the resources and talent they need.
Their problem is not that they can't write software. Their problem is the lack of focus, and this latest partnership only makes matters worse.
From what I can tell they are cancelling all their different software efforts and focusing on making great hardware to go with Microsofts operating system. What makes you think this is making their lack of focus worse? Sounds to me like it's a step in the right direction? If they were adding WP7 to their current offerings I'd agree but I thought they weren't doing that?
A software on 3310/6310 was much simpler than what we have today. It was hard to write because of the hardware requirements, but it was simple in design.
it was simple in design
I think this is just the same old Nokia thinking - underestimating the difficulty of creating top notch software.
Are you saying that the software is the place it's the easiest to create a competitive advantage? (I understand that shareholder value equals to competitive advantage)
This statement is logically wrong - if it's easy for everybody to create a competitive advantage, then it's easy for nobody.
Or did you mean "It's software where Nokia can gain a competitive advantage against the competition". If so, then you should explain what is so special about Nokia.. Because from what we've seen so far this company proved anything but that it can do software well.
Or didn't mean a competitive advantage, but just innovation and differentiation? (I think that most people that repeat this statement do think it). Well - it is indeed easy to innovate and differentiate in software (change the UI, add some bells and whistles). But does it lead to the competitive advantage and shareholder value? There are plenty of examples to show that it doesn't (Symbian, BeOS to name a few).
So: no. Just because Apple uses software to gain shareholder value doesn't mean that it's just as good an idea for other hardware producers.
Phones need strong app ecosystems and familiar apps that everyone expects, but developers can only realistically support so many discrete platforms.
Nokia is great at making hardware, they should be confident that is what will stop them being a commodity OEM should they support a first-class citizen operating system (which is iOS or Android - so assuming no deal to support iOS means for me they have to do Android)
Phones need strong app ecosystems and familiar
apps that everyone expects
MeeGo is based on the Linux ecosystem. Porting games from Android / iOS to MeeGo should be trivial. Building cross-platform apps that run on all of them in C++ is also doable, since you can share the business-logic.
Android would be a bad choice for them. They are big enough to want to differentiate themselves from the competition. Forking Android would be terrible for everybody; Symbian all over again.
So MeeGo or a new version of Symbian is their best option: they can reuse existing code-bases and they also have enough control.
Either way, the partnership with Microsoft is a disaster.
Building cross-platform apps that run on all of them in C++ is also doable, since you can share the business-logic.
Otherwise your best options are Webview components + HTML + Javascript + some native hooks to provide the missing functionality. Works quite well, take a look at PhoneGap + JQuery mobile / jQTouch.
But I could do without all of them, all I need is an Email client + a browser + a Skype client.
If you build a usable/reliable OS with a usable browser and email client, people will buy your phone and devs will come.
WP7 is not even on the radar yet for developers. Porting apps to WP7 for me is waisted effort instead of improving the code-bases for Android / iOS (which also have shared logic that I cannot port easily to WP7 because WP7 doesn't allow native code).
As for the native code argument, well I don't entirely buy that. Developing for WP7 is easy and accessible enough - as evidenced by the flood of apps the platform has already.
There is a world of difference between getting an <strikeout>executable program application</strikeout> app to run and designing one from the ground up that is platform specific and provides an optimal UX.
And when speaking about "games", they have their own UI, so providing an optimal UX is not about using OS-specific widgets.
Getting into margins now is job of WP7 platform. Symbian is not fit into smartphone field (use S^3 if you don't believe) and these guys realise it. True that Meego will need lot of work, but there should be enough time to polish it before market they should be targing opens.
>Apple for one is known to be looking way ahead of "current market".
So was Nokia. So was Microsoft. It is easy get stuck into profitable segment and not to expand in fear of losses.
This whole "Plan B" is big on nice-sounding words that don't stand up to a serious critical analysis. Here's the first point, for instance -
> Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience.
1. High growth strategy (lower price, more market share, more sales) tends to be antagonistic with high profit margins (high price, lower market share, less sales).
2. "innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience" - They're going up against Apple, who are already doing an overwhelmingly superior job and producing an unrivaled user experience... and Apple has a 5-10 year head start. How do they plan to make that gap up while charging high prices (for high margins), and getting large market share?
...the whole site seems more based on arousing emotion than critical thinking/planning.
Their naivety is betrayed when the talk about developing technology in house and then talk about Qt. If Nokia could build their own GUI toolkit they'd have no use for Qt.
The whole MeeGo operating system is using bits and pieces from the Linux ecosystem.
There's nothing wrong with that. The difference between them using MeeGo and them using Android or WinMo 7, is that with MeeGo they have complete control, as it's their platform.
WinPhone 7 is light years ahead of anything I've seen from Nokia
Also, speaking as a developer, porting games from iOS / Android to WinMo 7 is not really possible without a 100% complete rewrite.
And what happens when they completely break backwards compatibility again for WinMo 8, like they did with 7?
Now you've got 3 problems.
Backwards compat w/ WinMo 8? You rewrite your apps and get to sell them again :)
Nokia has also switched from Symbian to MeeGo so what's to stop them from breaking compat?
The point of directing a public company is to do so with the best interests of the shareholders, I could be wrong but I have a feeling the majority of the shareholders of Nokia would be happier with Elops plan than the plan of these guys.
a) These 9 are young, and likely Finns — who are generally proud people and who are guarded against outsiders (like Elop)
b) They are software developers. Most of their Plan B focuses heavily on Meego and keeping development and R&D in-house. With Meego 'out' (or close to it) and WP7 in, software development resources at Nokia are likely to be slashed, and so of course they'd want to contest the decision.
The biggest problem I have with their plan though, is this:
> Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience.
Return? Nokia & Symbian might sell a ton of phones in the global market, but they certainly haven't had high margins nor growth over the last few years. They can't 'return' to the way things were, because that strategy is no longer viable in today's market. To carry on as if Apple & Google aren't kicking your ass is a sure-fire way to lose everything.
... the same company that has been trying for more than a decade to produce a marginally adequate phone experience and has been consistently failing, with great comedic value, in each and every attempt to challenge whoever is the market leader at a given point. Nokia, who was the leader of this market on more than one occasion, is hitching their wagon to a goldfish who seemingly can't learn from past experience.
Sadly, this Plan B has zero chances of flying. The board is on Elop's side because they are betting Nokia is doomed and the billions Microsoft will inject will give them both time and some added value when they gut the company to sell its parts a couple years from now.
Nokia is gone. We'd better get used to it.
Have you used WinMo7? It's really nice (and this from an Android fan).
I'm not sure it will save Nokia, but read a few reviews of WinMo7 ans go and have a play before you dismiss it entirely.
(Edit: WinMo7's biggest problem is it's name. "Windows" is a huge liability because everyone associates it with desktop windows even though it shares no common code at all)
(2) 1997 - Windows CE 2.0
(3) 2000 - Windows CE 3.0 / Pocket PC 2000
(4) 2002 - Windows CE 4.0 / Pocket PC 2002
(5) 2003 - Windows Mobile 2003
(5.5) 2003 - Windows Mobile 2003 SE
(6) 2005 - Windows Mobile 5
(7) 2007 - Windows Mobile 6
(7.1) 2008 - Windows Mobile 6.1
(7.5) 2009 - Windows Mobile 6.5
(8) 2010 - Microsoft Kin
(9) 2010 - Windows Phone 7
That's about 15 years and nine attempts
[Edit: reading further I've found Windows Mobile 2003 (and, I assume, 2003 SE) was based on CE 4.2, so numbers 5 and 5.5 should become 4.x and following numbers reduced by one]
It doesn't matter anyway - adages are just rules of thumb. The point is that Microsoft isn't as bad at creating good products... eventually.
Think about these: XBox, Bing (esp travel search), C#, F#, etc
Try WinMo7 - it's quite impressive and different to the iPhone or Android.
And yes: I agree that Microsoft managed to spend a lot of time & money on mobile operating systems that turned out to be dead ends.
If I were MS I'd double down on the association and launch a massive campaign based on their Office Win 7 phone apps, ensuring they enable a few token features that the Blackberry apps don't. Even if the extra "integration" is really superficial, enterprise IT purchasers aren't known for making the best decisions.
Specially those who are already Microsoft clients...
However, the thinking coming from MS now is 'iOS (& android) are great, lets build one of those with a windows flavor'.
The resulting phone is actually rather good, and brings some genuinely new ideas that make an iPhone look a bit clunky and hard to use for some tasks.
I think the Nokia/Microsoft matchup is about the best both can do in a difficult situation. There are still a lot of Nokia brand loyalty out there, and having an as-good smartphone with MS software on it is going to convince a lot of people. I know I'd be serious about looking at it when it comes time to trade in my iPhone.
If that were true, you would see 90% of Mac users running Windows. Since that's not the case, and many Mac users bought their Macs in order not to run Windows, I'd say their OS has some weight in this.
I think you could equally argue that the hardware is given away to ensure that the software works in a consistent way - they are a full service company, they do both hardware and software, they offer [consumer] products that are ready to use.
Plan A was to internally develop their own hardware, running their own OS, offering customers items from their own ecosystem.... and they've kinda being fucking that up for the past 3-4 years. Hence Windows Phone Plan B.
So really these nine shareholders are offering Plan C, and their Plan C seems to be essentially going back to Plan A with a promise that this time it'll be different.
If I was an impartial Nokia shareholder I know how I'd be voting.
If I were a Nokia shareholder, I'd be voting for these guys for certain. Windows has consistently been unimpressive, and MeeGo feels a lot like a platform that has a lot of cool potential but is unpolished and has gotten too little love from its progenitor.
sorry, this just sounds like hot air. anyone can say things like "management overhead" and "cut through red tape", but without a solid plan what exactly does this mean?
The site outlined what has been wrong with their recent development practices and says what they intend to do to fix it.
No. To stop rampant outsourcing of R&D is a significant change.
Its staggering to think of how many resources nokia have, and how little and slowly they've innovated. Nokia has been falling behind for a long time. One thing I always found disheartening was their desire to compete against themselves, and ignore others, as illustrated by them releasing an older version of symbian for their business phones, while using the new symbian for their media phones, but it seemed there was no place to get 'the best' nokia. It was always a choice, but one that didn't seem to have an easily identifiable consumer flagship. Just N's and E's and everything in between.
While Android is doing well there are a LOT more Android phones and competitors. I suspect they went to Google and said, "we need to be the premiere OEM" and Google said, "screw you."
Then they looked at tech roadmap and maybe thought by end of year WP7 looks as good, if not better, than Android. They won't have a phone ready by then anyways, so the fact that WP7 is behind Android now isn't as big of a deal.
And if MS said, you're our premiere partner and we'll even give you a payout on phones sold... then it's a no-brainer.
Based on what MS showed today at MWC, this race tightens up, not spreads out.
The guy above is right. If Android is the next Windows 95, which brings all manufacturers under it (I believe it is), then no matter whether Nokia likes it or not, choosing another OS would kill it, once it fails.
By the time Nokia helps WP7 capture 10% of the smartphone market, let's say by end of 2012, Android will reach 50-60%. There's no way WP7 can fight that back once Android reaches there.
First, there is a question of development and time to market. By the time Nokia launches MeeGo and handsets, Android, iOS, and others (WP7, RIM, Palm) will be further entrenched in the market (e.g., market share, brand, hardware partners). Second, there is the fundamental issue that succeeding with MeeGo hinges not only on the OS but also on a thriving application market. Because of the application markets, there are strong network effects with mobile platforms. These network effects make it very difficult for a new platform to break into the space.
To complement investments in MeeGo and WP7 for the smartphone market and Symbian for the feature phone market, Nokia should immediately invest in an Android strategy as a fail-safe. I understand this conflicts with Nokia's historical strategy of controlling both software and hardware, but it's quite possible that Android will eventually emerge as the winner-take-all platform in smartphones, aside from Apple/iOS and several niche platforms. If this were to happen, Nokia's singular bet on MeeGo (or WP7) may destabilize the entire company.
In short, I propose that Nokia pursue a four-pronged strategy, pushing forward with MeeGo, WP7, Symbian, and Android -- Symbian for feature phones, which still account for roughly 80% of the worldwide mobile phone market, and MeeGo, WP7, and Android for the smartphone market. As uncertainty is reduced over time regarding 1) the potential of each of the smartphone platforms and 2) the pace at which geographic markets are shifting away from feature phones to smartphones, Nokia can appropriately adjust its investments. By making investments in each area, and adjusting the relative amounts over time, Nokia can better ensure its survival and prosperity despite the quickly evolving mobile phone market.
But as an avid spectator of the evolving mobile platform "war", this sort of coup d'état would be amazing to witness from the sidelines, no matter the outcome. Therefore, and for no greater reason, I really hope this goes through.
It's true that they managed to kill it through sheer incompetence, including alienating a lot of first adopters by discontinuing product support for the internet tablets. But there's obviously brilliant people at Nokia, just like there were brilliant people at Apple before Steve Jobs.
Now, if Apple had ditched MacOS when Steve returned instead of using NextStep, and instead went with Windows, and shipped a WP7 phone instead of a phone with OSX, where would they be today? They _might_ have had the iTunes ecosystem, if Microsoft would have allowed it. Their "differentiating features" would be at the mercy of Microsoft and their strategic plans.
I guess people are right that you need an app ecosystem to compete in the smartphone market today. But the iPhone sold like hotcakes for more than a year before it had apps. If Nokia made a phone that users really wanted, I think the app ecosystem would have followed. Instead, they're using their huge market presence to give Microsofts platform the same boost.
If these guys want to make Meego the dominant smartphone platform, they're going to have to do it with something besides Nokia.
Unless they can convince a judge Elop acted on bad faith against the best interests of the company and favoring his previous corporate master. That could make the Microsoft executives who helped broker the deal accessories to this.
I am not sure the first part is that hard to sell to a judge.
No affiliation, but I think it's funny.
(For those who don't get it, Nokia was originally a rubber goods manufacturer)
The phone company was spun off in 1979, and the telecommunications one in 1977, and the mother company later bought both. They sold off the non-phone, non-telco bits around the 90's, including nokia tyres (worth appx. 3.5 billion euros now).
According to Wikipedia, anyway.
While I admire the passion that fueled this letter, their goal to "offer overwhelmingly superior experiences" seems foolishly optimistic. How will Nokia differentiate from the plethora of Android derivatives, iOS, WP7, Web OS, and Blackberry?
I kind of like this battle that's warming up here.
Have some former Nokia lead engineers and managers, start working on that plan.
Have some other managers and engineers work on the Android plan.
Have some others compete with Nokia to make better WP7 phones.
Gets rid of 100 layers of management, etc.
You can unify most of the codebase in .NET probably; use MonoTouch and MonoDroid for iOS and Android, Mono for Meego, and MS's included CLR on WP7. That only leaves webOS.
This type of fundamental failure to understand the consumer space is exactly what's driving Nokia into the ground.
Consumers don't give a fig what userland your device is compatible with. Consumers want a super-simple way of finding interesting apps, putting them on their phone, and having them look good and run problem free.
So yes, you really do need special apps.
Also, as I stated, a normal Linux userland means normal Linux applications and things work -- you can use Mono or Wine if you want to run a Windows or .NET application.
And is the backend any more portable from regular C++ > MeeGo compared to iPhone, or Java > Android?
The real work for non-game apps is converting all of your UI and device interactions to the new OS. Linux compatibility might let you avoid rewriting your code that opens files, bit it's not going to let you make a UI element pulse for a few seconds then drop off the screen.
So that's the plan to save Nokia? Wow.
Surely the success of the iPad vs Windows Tablets has taught us that the touch interface is totally different to the WIMP interface?
If that's not enough, then huge difference in hardware between a 24" i7 and a 3.2" ARM means perhaps the programs should behave just a little bit different?
> So yes, you really do need special apps.
http://www.myriadgroup.com/Media-Centre/News/Myriad-Announce...
With this Nokia can use Android ecosystem while not being yet-another-Android-vendor.
From the bottom of the AGM questions page:
Who has the right to participate in the AGM 2011 and what is the last day to buy shares if I want the right to attend and vote in the AGM? Each shareholder, who is registered on April 19, 2011 in the Register of Shareholders of the Company, has the right to participate in the Annual General Meeting. A shareholder, whose shares are registered on his/her Finnish book-entry account, is registered in the Register of Shareholders of the Company. A shareholder, who wishes to participate in the Annual General Meeting, may register for the Meeting by giving a prior notice of participation no later than on April 27, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. (Finnish time) by which time the registration needs to arrive in the Company. - http://www.nokia.com/agm/2011/in-english/questions-and-answe...
Although their plan is not in the list of proposals. How does it work? 1 vote per share or 1 per shareholder? Can I buy 1 share (which stock name on which exchange?) and support them? If not, and only big shareholders count, why the twitter popularity campaign?
What specific goal(s) do they have (how many people, doing what?)
Once they can be seen as having the same big name apps as the other two, I think MeeGo has much more of a chance of being competitive, rather than being a 'third world country' of a platform.
[1] http://www.allaboutmeego.com/news/item/12571_Alien_Dalvik_ho...
I have switched from iPhone to WP7 after 3+ years and I am really happy with it. I do miss some of the apps and games but love other features that make up for it.
Hate Microsoft all you want but they have made great software (and also bad).
Great = win7, wp7, zune, visual studio, expression suite, office suite, sql server.
Bad = well you all know the list: IE8,7,6,5,etc..., hotmail, windows me and a ton of others that I am too lazy to list.
If history is any indication, Microsoft will eventually dominate the mobile marketplace or at least be a very close second.
Also Nokia is HUGE everywhere (except north america). What they have to do is to spend more on ecosystem to get things done as fast as possible and also spend on marketing in north-america ...
MEEGO is a universal OS, it is used in cars, TVs, Games, tablets etc. so it's better to make it part of Plan A where users can be switched flawlessly from symbian with a solid ecosystem in place.
So to hear these 9 disgruntled folks say they're going to stick with a bad plan and make it happen sounds like lunacy to me.
I've yet to see an explanation for any way in which they can differentiate on WP7, that they couldn't do better and more easily on Android.
Say what you will about Open Source development, but when it comes to differentiation, there's simply no way to beat it...look at the variety of Linux distributions, for an example of differentiation gone wild.
That's only really a differentiator because no one wants Windows phones, so there aren't as many in the hands of users. I'm not sure that's the kind of difference Nokia needs right now. That's just lack of familiarity...not really a positive differentiation.
If WP7 is a success, then by the time Nokia ships (late 2011 at the earliest), they will be entrants in a crowded field --- and so far, Microsoft is requiring most WP7 phones to be near-lookalikes, to get consistency of user experience across the platform.
(Of course, part of the deal here may be that Nokia gets to differentiate their products in a way that nobody else does --- but if it is, then the other vendors may be ticked in a way that causes long-term problems for the platform as a whole. Contrast to Android, where vendors have complete freedom to reskin it right now.)
From what I can tell the negotiations with Google and Nokia went really poorly.
So ship stock Android, thus outsourcing OS development to Google. I agree with what SwellJoe says, haven't heard any credible explanation of how WP7 allows differentiation that Android wouldn't.
That's complete BS.
Android phones offer very different experiences, from fairly standard Android, to the completely alien Sony-Ericsson:
http://www.expansys.com/zoompic.aspx?i=207496 http://www.expansys.com/zoompic.aspx?i=207852 http://www.expansys.com/zoompic.aspx?i=203457 http://www.expansys.com/zoompic.aspx?i=204827 http://www.expansys.com/zoompic.aspx?i=185317
"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." ~ Henry Ford
Glad you're not going to any shareholder meetings of companies I own shares in...
I was watching some meego videos on youtube, it does not look that impressive and launching the phone usually takes a full minute. Whats up with that. Its an early build i guess, but as software ages, it generally gets more bloated meaning even slower.
If boot time is tolerable (i.e. it takes not more than a minute) this is one of the last things developers should care about. Users reboot the phone very infrequently, like, once in a while, when they completely forget to charge it and the power goes off.
However, when phone is booted, it should run as smoothly as possible. This is the one thing I dislike in Maemo 5 - I managed to make my N900 run quite slow (sure, I've tried lots of the unstable apps from devel-extra so it's mostly my fault).
I'm considering putting together some fun and easy mobile games for some mobile device in 2H 2011. I can select iPhone, Android, or, I guess, WP7.
I'm looking for a platform that has these features:
* Nearly free to register and start developing * Provides app store & DRM mechanism * Doesn't eat too many profits. * Ideally, lets me program very fast, think Ruby on Rails or similar framework.
Okay, so that doesn't exist as far as I know. If Nokia can reboot to provide the above - then they can probably provide a fourth option.
Nothing I've read so far indicates that they are going to roll that route.
It's too late for such a strategy now - by the time they delivered on their promises, the competition would completely eat their lunch.
On the other hand, I never expected Objective C to be as successful...
2. The simplest solution to SW is to be OS-agnostic. Offer the same phone model with different preinstalled OS choices. In the same way as you offer it with different colors or panels.
Hell, let users change OS or use OS vrtualization, like one OS for Work (WP7) and an other for Home (Android) with two different numbers.
The good thing about Linux is it is owned by no one, yet it is above everyone else. This is good for _you_, all of the posters here, who own a mobile phone/device/PDA/tablet/etc.
Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical has jumped on the Ubuntu on Wayland wagon too - and guess what MeeGo is based on? Yep - Wayland. It will breathe new life into Linux by giving a low-level, efficient display server that will supplant X windows, and establish a new legacy for the next 10-20 years of Linux being the premier mobile/desktop/server OS.
THAT is where you want to be going - into a future where no one owns the operating system, and it has become a commodity, and it has a solid GUI, much like OS X (or Windows, let's be honest, which has a top notch GUI), and a gazillion C++ or Java or whichever applications on it.
If Nokia Plan B happens, which I have no doubt it will, Nokia can succeed where Microsoft continues to fail - to recapture the hearts of developers by giving them C++, Java, Objective-C - any language, available on the mobile phone/tablets.
MeeGo is going to provide the default GUI shell for most if not all of Nokia's phones, but they can create a platform that is welcoming to ALL developers of all facets with knowledge of all languages, by leaving room for this on the MeeGo tablet.
There's no technical difficulty in being able to run either DalvikVM or native C++ or Objective C or heck, even Python or JAva apps on a MeeGo/Linux platform - it can all be designed in such a way where it supports both.
My point is, by providing the freedom for devs to do what they do best, on an OSS platform, Linux, and giving them a top-notch GUI API (Qt) w/bindings for various languages (dynamic ones for rapid dev), they can rise into a very dominant position in the next 5-10 years, and be a worthy competitor, and perhaps even carry the torch of iOS and Android, if the other two come to a sudden death because of lawsuits or health problems of its founders.
I am _super_ excited and thrilled that Nokia wants to make MeeGo its top platform, and in my view, you ought to be too.
Riiiight...
Delusional.
Transition to an R&D setup where 90% of all Nokia R&D takes place in only two geographical locations. One of them will be in Finland and the other will be defined later.
actively visit top universities worldwide to screen and and invite top students for interviews in Nokia R&D locations.
That's a lot of long-distance flights to Finland.
also check out jquery mobile, sencha touch, cappuccino...
I've heard that:
> The browser for Windows Phone 7.0 is based on IE 7.0, which does not support HTML 5 (in desktop terms HTML 5 support is part of IE9, which is currently under development).
(http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/windowsphone7seri...)