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Comment by RyanZAG | Hacker News Reader

You're still competing with Samsung whether you're on Android or not. So now Nokia is competing with Samsung with both inferior hardware verticals and incompatible software. Obvious bit of common sense that a lot of experts seem to miss. It's like Linux competing with Windows on the desktop.

They have a nice camera on the latest phone though - pity it's not Android or it might even be worth trying out. I'm sure if it takes better pictures though, by next year some Android phone will be offering something similar. Open platform and all that.

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The only reason Windows Phone is not the dominant mobile OS is because of the social stigma around Windows.

For most people, Windows Phone is a MUCH better experience than Android.

The problem is that no one gives Windows Phone a chance. I don't know many people that used Windows Phone and switched back to Android/iPhone. Beside the app factor (which is much less of an issue than what people think), Windows Phone is an excellent mobile OS.

The reason why people don't use Windows Phone is because they don't want to.

It's easy to say in a place like HN that there is a "social stigma" around using Windows, but for the average consumer this is clearly not the case. For a lot of typical desktop users, Windows is the computer ("reboot your Windows", "start up Windows", etc). Microsoft simply couldn't find a way to leverage that in the mobile space.

Shut up Microsoft shill.

Most people do not even have a clue about which operating system their phone has. And they do not care. Just like they do not do with PC either.

If Windows Phone doesn't interest anyone. It is because they were unable to fit a niche. It is because their phone is a disaster. The operating system is irrelevant for most of phone users.

See, that's the problem. Someone says something nice about Windows and suddenly they're being told (in an incredibly fucking rude fashion) that they must be working for Microsoft because Microsoft is the devil.

You just proved his point that no one talks about Microsoft because of the social stigma attached to it. You just proved that if you say something nice about Microsoft, your peers will make you an outcast.

Looking at cheery's comments, it seems that he's that negative about pretty much everything.

Perception is reality.

1) In mainstream use, Microsoft and Windows are 'Big Business'. Nobody wants that anywhere near the photos of their kids.

2) For geeks, Microsoft is the devil because they've managed to annoy most long time geeks in some form or another.

Indeed, it really is the problem. But it's the problem Microsoft is going to have to fix - and believe me, their 'spam the forums' and 'give free things' approach is not going to cut it. They need to drop the Windows and Microsoft branding for consumer devices in the same way Lexus is not Toyota. They need to make sure that the business and consumer products look as different as possible also.

I realize Microsoft is doing the exact opposite of what I've said above - and that's the real problem. What you're complaining about is just the mis-branding and mis-management of Microsoft bleeding through into the general populace.

In the same way that Android is a really decent Linux rebranding.

But I would ask that the platform be in some way open. Windows has always been open in that it will run on a variety of commodity hardware and there are no restrictions on who can develop for the platform and in how they can distribute their software. MacOS (and iOS) has always been restricted to Apple hardware. So Apple has always been more closed and walled garden-y than Microsoft with the exception that they use a load of open-source software in their OS stack once you look under the hood.

Microsoft (seeing as how they won't go the open-source model cuz it aint in their blood) could try and make the Windows Phone OS installable on a whole bunch of phones, it could allow for easy side-loading of apps and have a very low $ (perhaps even zero?) entry into their app store. That way Microsoft might eventually replicate the dominance they have on the desktop. But even then a lot of geeks are going to be wary.

Android really seems unstoppable. Nokia should never have gone exclusively with Windows Phone OS - it seems really strange back then and it seems practically suicidal now.

Longtime Android developer here. Windows Phone is actually legitimately good.

Where I'm at, I'm the geek. I wouldn't ever recommend a Windows Phone to any one of my less tech savvy relations because I haven't liked Microsoft the company for years. It was with joy that I watched Android getting all shiny and polished and taking off in a big way and getting loads of developers. Microsoft long long ago used up the last remaining goodwill I had for them, that's just the way it is.

For example: My sister wanted a laptop, I recommended a Macbook even though I'd never used one; she bought one and loved it and now I do have one too. My Mum has a Samsung S3 Mini, I have a HTC One X, all the rest have iPhones. Microsoft would have to radically alter their DNA before I'd take a look at any of their software or hardware offerings.

Well if we're trading anecdotes, my sister-in-law (a serious geek type herself) wanted a MacBook and I convinced her to get a Windows PC instead. And of the several computing devices in my house, Apple products outnumber those running Windows 2:1.

The difference is, I bought my Apple devices for dirt cheap from my previous employer, whereas she'd be buying one retail. Spending 2x the money for the same hardware capability and an OS that's equivalent does not make economic sense to me.

This proves my point.

Have you ever used a Windows Phone device? Probably not. Windows Phone is the most consistent mobile OS out there, and the simplest to use. I would never recommend an Android device to my parents (or any non-geek). iPhone is okay, but I'm not a fan of the skeuomorphism. Windows Phone is simple, elegant, affordable and extremely usable. It's NOTHING like Windows on PC.

I recommend Macbook Airs and Windows Phones to most people. I only recommend iPhones to "cool kids" and "early users" (those who want access to the cool new apps and games).

I would have given MS a second chance - until I found out about their level of co-operation with the NSA.

No. the reason Windows Phone is not dominant is because it came too late to the party, and offers no real advantage over iOS or Android. Both Microsoft and Nokia made the fatal mistake of announcing the death of their old mobile operating systems way before they had shipping WP devices.

In the meantime, everyone I know working in enterprise transitioned to Android and iPhone (except some on BlackBerry) - this happened as soon as those platforms had working Exchange sync, encrypted storage and remote management. To get any significant market share Microsoft now has to pay their way to it with extreme subsidies and massive marketing, or wait for Apple and Google to stumble, something they have yet to do.

I think this was/is a smart move for Nokia.

They were right to predict Samsung would be the major Android player.

Instead of competing against a company that already had a major lead and essentially becoming one of the smaller fish in a larger Android pond, it's taking a bet on becoming a large fish in a smaller pond that has very real upside potential. I stress potential because we've all been a little disappointed with Microsoft's latest maneuvers, but there's still a chance for the company to turn it around.

At the end of the day I respect such a great risk being taken at a massive firm (you don't see a lot of that these days). Nokia still believe a third ecosystem can be a very real option for smartphone consumers and they want to be that third option. Takes guts. I'm all for a little more competition.

It has been 2 years since that decision was made. Where is the "very real" upside potential you are talking about. Windows Phone has been an underdog since 2010! Claim your argument based on facts and what is going on - rather than what you feel like.

I don't understand your point. Nokia competes with Samsung regardless of OS choice. Not using Android does not mean Nokia gets out of competing with Android or Samsung. There is no big pond and little pond here. They are all in the same ocean.

But how would they differentiate from Samsung? Replacing stock Android UI with a custom skin, a practice that everybody seems to hate? Installing specific apps, which too, are often derided? The one Nokia app that is significant is Drive, but they could not leverage that because Google does not allow their own location-based apps to be replaced on their "open" platform. (See Skyhook lawsuit.) Their investment in Navteq would be a complete write-off.

That leaves the hardware arena, where, by my reading between the lines, Nokia felt it would not be able to compete effectively enough given Samsung's "vertical integration", not to mention, their "resources" (read: marketing budget).

They can differentiate in the actual meat of the mobile handset business, as they once did.

1) Branding

2) Hardware reliability

3) Customer service

4) Ownership events

5) Carrier logistics and partnerships

EDIT: 6) Industry 'firsts', such as SMS and MMS that were pioneered by Nokia. These days it's Samsung, Google and Apple coming up with new features while others struggle to catch up.

The 'OS customization' is just the potatoes of the business. Most people are just as happy - or happier - without any customization or differentiation on the software level. Windows Phone isn't exclusive to Nokia either, so the sheer stupidity of Nokia's strategy should be plainly obvious.

But of course! All the other Android manufacturers must be absolutely blind not to try all these things as well! That must be the reason they are all struggling so much and Samsung is stomping all over their profits!

Or maybe... Could it be that Android has commoditized the handset business, just as Windows did the PC hardware business, so maybe all those things don't help as much any more?

In response to your edit: It's not really Samsung bringing new things to the table, it's Google and maybe to some extent Apple. The big innovations aren't in the hardware or even the software, it's in the services, such as Siri and Now. Sure every Android vendor and their grandmother have their own cloud services, but the ones everybody wants are Google's. Unfortunately, since it's not limited to a specific Android manufacturer, it wouldn't help Nokia either.

Sure, at a higher level they compete with Samsung in this large "OS pond". There are levels of granularity that you're discounting, though. There's a non-trivial portion of the market that is determined to buy a Windows phone (ie. they enjoy the entire Windows experience as someone buying completely into the Apple experience would). Nokia wants to be top of mind, top of market for these individuals. Until there's data showing that there is indeed a heavy rate of attrition from potential Windows buyers to actual Android/iOS purchasers, it's fair to say that Nokia made a good play, especially since their own OS wasn't going anywhere. Also, Windows 8 and the Surface Tablet only came out last year. Obviously we'll see in the earnings reports how Nokia is faring with these new devices/software, but I'll bet that Nokia is going to be in a better position than it would be if it still had Symbian or Android (would've probably been overshadowed by GS III / IV and HTC One).

> There's a non-trivial portion of the market that is determined to buy a Windows phone

Is there any evidence of that? From what I could Google, Windows Phone market share is still under 5% and only recently surpassed Blackberry: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24108913

I think that's a good demonstration that number of people determined to buy Windows Phone in the market is, in fact, entirely trivial.

The two ponds are one and the same. There isn't one "android phone" market and one "windows phone" market, there is a smartphone market that both draw customers from.

It's no "great risk." It's about as dumb as a strategy can get. And on top of it all, characterizing it as a choice is at best prevarication. No other OEM makes an exclusive choice of operating systems.

Nokia could have, and probably should have run Windows Phone, Android, and Meego on their smartphone hardware. And the likely result would have been that WP would not sell well compared to the other choices.

EDIT: The parent post here sounded just a little too pat. But I didn't check until after I had posted a response. Yup. It's this first post even for this user. Hello Nokia PR!

Also, it's not like Samsung and several other Android OEMs aren't keeping Windows Phone projects going on the side. If Windows Phone does start to get any traction, Nokia will soon see exactly sort of competition they were trying to avoid on the Android side.

Except the situation would be reversed : they would have more experience and samsung would have to catch up.

I think that's actually pretty smart on nokia's part.

..but play catch up to what? It's not like Nokia has outdone themselves by customizing Windows Phone.

They did have significant distinguishing features previously, specifically their Nokia-specific apps like Nokia Drive and Nokia Transit. Drive for one, I speculate, drove a lot of adoption for Nokia within the WP market. It has received several favorable mentions even on HN, and personally I find it better than either Google's or Bing's navigation apps.

However, that strategy seems to have changed, with Drive being licensed to all Windows Phone devices, regardless of manufacturer. So they do lose a major differentiating feature, but they gain something else: the ability to make money on any WP device sold. I guess they prefer to differentiate on hardware going forward.

Catch up with what? One of the differentiators of Windows Phone was originally supposed to be that Microsoft wasn't allowing reskinning at all, and while the "special relationship" with Nokia was rumored to allow them a little more freedom in this regard, they certainly haven't used it much.

So long as Samsung and HTC Windows Phones offer the same experience as Nokia, they've caught up already. In fact, they'd "caught up" before Nokia even shipped! So, who's playing catch-up here anyway?

I can think of a few things:

- custom apps ( even if it's not on the phones by default) - marketing. once you've got your phones so much associated with and OS, it takes some time to convince your existing users that they'll need to change

The Maemo platform had so much promise, and it was open source too!! The original Iphone and the N900 were on par. I'd know, I'm using the N900 now

> The original Iphone and the N900 were on par.

I wish. I own an N900: it's twice as big (and twice as heavy) as the original iPhone, with a very unsexy industrial design, and the OS is a hodgepodge of toolkits and hacks, deprecated the minute it came out. It was incredibly hackable and customizable, but nowhere as robust and coherent as an iPhone.

I loved the concept and would have loved to see it become a platform for commercial Python/PySide mobile apps, but it was nowhere near the iPhone when it came out. Its successor, the N9, was on par with the iPhone, but never got a chance, commercially, thanks to one Stephen Elop.

Your definition of sexy is not the same as mine.:) But we can both agree there was serious potential

Might not even be next year. Even if you don't count the new Galaxy Camera since it is a connected camera, not a phone, Sony is rumored to be pulling technology from their camera division for their next flagship phone, due this fall.

Open platform? BS! Google has milked the term to its benefit. There have been many discussions here that question the openness of android.

Which other major mobile OS has the equivalent of Cyanogenmod?

Not comparable to Cyanogenmod, but Microsoft at one point officially supported the WP jailbreak tool and its developers, Chevron. The logic was, of course, to get more apps developed for WP. Unfortunately, after a while, they found out nobody jailbroke their phones to develop apps, so both parties agreed to stop supporting it, and later updates revoked the jailbreaks.

Not comparable to Cyanogenmod is an understatement.

According to their own site, Chevron is just a third-party implementation of the Android's "Unknown Sources" (i.e. sideloading) checkbox: http://chevronwp7.tumblr.com/post/1679668269/windows-phone-7...

Good for Microsoft for supporting for a while (and boo for changing their minds), but either way this doesn't get Windows Phone any brownie points vs Android.

Not to mention Firefox OS and Ubuntu Touch (both made possible by re-using low-level parts of the Android stack).

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