Well, Plan A seems to be hitching their wagon to the horse that's seemingly in last place by a large margin. So comparatively, Plan B isn't that bad.
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.
... 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.