Microsoft ditching the Nokia name on smartphones | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft ditching the Nokia name on smartphones

bbc.com

40 pointsnmjenkins51 comments

>The announcement comes despite Microsoft agreeing to a 10-year deal to use the Nokia name on mobile products.

That clause either didn't have much bite, or was only a verbal side agreement/PR stunt and wasn't actually written into the acquisition agreement(s).

EDIT: This article[1] clarifies via the relevant quote:

>"Microsoft has also agreed to a 10-year license arrangement with Nokia to use the Nokia brand on current and subsequently developed Mobile Phones based on the Series 30 and Series 40 operating systems," Nokia said in a recent US filing.

Basically, Microsoft has the option to use the Nokia brand name and is presumably paying Nokia as part of the 10-yr brand license deal. Without knowing the specifics of the license agreement, Microsoft may have tied any transfer payments based on gross revenue from Microsoft Nokia-branded mobile products; simply dropping the brand name might be a convenient way to side-step any payments to Nokia if they had the foresight to add escape clauses to the agreement.

[1] http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/nokia-cannot-use-mobile...

Yeah, looks like an option and maybe it's even payed for

Meaning that MS can, but is not obligated to name it Nokia

They only have the name exclusively until December 2015. After that point, Nokia can release mobile phones again under its own brand.

http://followingjolla.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-small-print-t...

This whole deal, from the moment Elop went to Nokia, was a disaster in slow motion. That the current Lumias are so good, yet sell at unsustainable levels, shows just how fundamentally flawed Microsoft's strategy has been, and continues to be.

They've been solidly outplayed at their old embrace, extend, extinguish game, and unless they can get back into that mode mobile will just be dead to them.

And I say this as someone that would welcome a strong third player, because the App Store/Play Store duopoly is stagnating fast.

Stagnating how? Less fancy whiz-bang shiny maybe-novelty features to entertain the tech blogs and mainstream media?

Since the iPhone arrived in 2007, phones in general have made incredible advances in mobile performance, networking/cell, form factor and screen technology. This continues today, with things like crazy-high ppi screens and 8-core processors in Android phones, to things like Touch ID and the Ax SOCs in Apple's phones.

The opposite. All there is now is shiny shiny - there has been no change in substance for a long time, in mobile terms.

Yes, the chips etc. are ridiculous, but no one has a clue what to use them for, so they're just creating fluff.

That's a pretty narrow view of things IMHO. Smartphones are much more usable than they were 2-3 years ago and lightyears beyond what they were 7-8 years ago. Phone web browsers are just as fast as real computers, and fast LTE connections keep things moving quickly. I remember the early days of the first iPhone era smartphones and would never want to go back to them. The web browsers sucked and overall the phones were too slow to do anything beyond check a simple web page. Now a big smartphone or phablet could easily replace a laptop for most people's needs.

> Phone web browsers are just as fast as real computers, and fast LTE connections keep things moving quickly. I remember the early days of the first iPhone era smartphones and would never want to go back to them. The web browsers sucked and overall the phones were too slow to do anything beyond check a simple web page.

This is a result of chip improvement. If you don't do a single thing to improve mobile phones other than use the current generation of chips, you get that. I have seen no other improvements or innovation, and the chips were directly referred to in the comment to which you were replying.

> This whole deal, from the moment Elop went to Nokia, was a disaster in slow motion

No, the problem started before. Nokia had their platform, it was called Maemo, but their developers were too busy rewriting everything multiple times "just because" and the Symbian team treated it as a toy.

Elop was just the Titanic hitting the iceberg, but the course was set.

If you want history, Nokia was dead from the bodge of the series 60 rollout, which basically made Symbian a bit player in a market it really should have utterly dominated.

The irony is that Symbian + Series60 did utterly dominate in many important markets [1]. This gave Nokia a false hubris and made them blind to the deep flaws of their UI framework and their software design process in general.

[1] In 2007, Symbian had 80%+ marketshare in smartphones in all markets other than USA, China and Japan.

The mistake there was to assume smartphone is a separate category of cellphone, when really it's not. (This is the same trick used to suggest Windows Mobile was ever remotely successful, by pretending it was a category of one). By that measure Symbian only succeeded in Japan where it was free of Series 60 and had whole different UIs stuck on it.

What Nokia achieved with S60 was a UI no one wanted, and unnecessary fragementation and antagonism with the other Symbian licensees (and with Symbian itself). UIQ predictably never went anywhere (too complicated), but had Symbian produced a UI closer to S40 in spirit then we'd be looking at a very different situation today. To this day iOS is closer to S40 than S60 for end users, and this is no coincidence.

It's a real shame because Psion, the company who designed the original version of Symbian OS (EPOC32), had a knack for sensible, simple UIs on their pocket organizers -- or whatever those '90s PDA-like things were called.

If that original Psion spirit had been carried to a smartphone design ten years ago, it could have been a great foundation for Symbian. Instead Symbian got a menagerie of confused UIs developed by the phone vendors whose primary aim was to tick more boxes in feature sheets every year.

Nokia was already in the disaster zone before Elop got there. While I agree that the current strategy hasn't been a winning one, I don't actually see that they had a ton of other options. Become another me-too Android manufacturer?

Nokia had better quality HW, logistics and sales infrastructure than any of the Android manufacturers back then, by far. Nokia's strong points were precisely what was needed to win with a commodity OS.

But going WP7 certainly didn't help. It slowed Nokia's sales to a crawl.

Nokia could've been the Samsung of Android, today, especially when you consider its advantage in smartphone and camera engineering. All it had to do is adopt Android early "enough" (even a year after Samsung did would've been okay).

Here's some data for the skeptics:

https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1543014

>But going WP7 certainly didn't help. It slowed Nokia's sales to a crawl.

I think it's more accurate to say that it was the fault of that stupid (unless it was intentionally meant to lower the value of Nokia mobile, of course) Elop speech, where he obsoleted Symbian and Maemo, at a time when Nokia hadn't released a Windows phone, and didn't even have a plan to serve the low-end smartphone market that Symbian had locked up.

Those numbers have some noise within. If you read this literally they did the right thing. Why would you be releasing on a competing OS if yours have a bigger market share? By the time when they decided to ditch symbian it was already late and they needed to differentiate themselves.

I see Lumias almost every day in German trains or when going around southern countries.

I was actually surprised at how many more I saw when visiting Europe this summer than I see in the US.

this is actually understandable, Nokia is a well respected brand in Europe. Price/Performance was/is very good ( most of the phones were actually build in EU, which made them somewhat cheaper ).

Almost every one in Eurupe owned at some time a Nokia phone, and will tell good things about it.

I think the problem with the lacklustre sales and drop in stature of the Nokia brand is not the Nokia name, it is the fact that the Windows phone operating system pales in comparison to Android and iOS. I do not mean "pales" as in Android or iOS is superior, I mean when it comes to the very thing most of us use our phones for (besides texting, email and making calls): applications and games, they are nonexistent on Windows Phone OS.

If Microsoft were to release a Lumia phone running Android, I would definitely buy one, no question or doubt about it. The latest Lumia phones are incredible pieces of hardware; nice design, nice internal hardware, responsive touchscreen, good battery life and one of the best cameras in a phone currently on the market.

It is so painfully obvious and as usual, Microsoft just do not get it. They have some of the best phones on the market, but they go relatively unnoticed because they're running an operating system most people are not interested in using or dislike. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, but if I had a choice of a Lumia phone like the Lumia 930 running Android, I would have bought that instead. I have longed for a Lumia phone running Android for a while now.

Microsoft should just ditch Windows Phone OS or at the very least, sell two variants, give the customers a choice, do not make them have one over the other. One running Android and the other Windows. I can already tell you which version would be more popular.

I feel as though the reason the flagship Lumia phones are not running Android is because Microsoft feels like it would be admitting defeat. They have invested a lot of money in the operating system, purchase of Nokia and continued development of new phone models, it has become more of a pride thing now and the fact they have committed to Windows Phone OS so much they could not easily back out from it even if they wanted too.

Free the hardware. Give consumers choice. If you prefer Windows Phone OS, then buy a Lumia running Windows Phone OS or if you are like many consumers out there wanting to stay up-to-date and having access to the latest games and applications, buy a Lumia running Android.

You know that this is taste, right? I got so fed up with Android's horrible UX and lack of consistency that I ditched it for windows phone, and I'm not looking back.

It's a really excellent smartphone OS. Fast, usable with one hand, clean, no clutter, instant overview. The only disadvantage is a smaller app ecosystem - this matters to many people but not to all by far.

I used Windows Phone for several years and loved it. The app ecosystem is smaller, but the built-in features are so nice that you don't need a whole lot of apps (does the iPhone or Android have a QR reader built in yet, or built-in social networking apps?) With the amount of work and money that Microsoft puts into making sure any dev can make a Windows Phone version of their app as easily as possible, the only reason devs don't support it (especially if they have a Windows 8 app, looking at you Google) is pure apathy.

> the only reason devs don't support it ... is pure apathy.

Plus $99 per year for the privilege of loading your proto-app onto your own phone.

Versus just picking-up an Android phone and starting to hack, I can understand the lack of interest.

There's also the problem of the intersection of mobile-oriented developers and developers familar with the MS development stack; I'd say that the majority of the latter are back-end corporate coders, not front-end app developers.

It's been $19/yr for over a year now vs. the $25 one time cost to get into the Play Store. Also free for students and MSDN members.

I believe the fee is there to prevent a malware propagation problem like we have on Android.

>It's been $19/yr for over a year now vs. the $25 one time cost to get into the Play Store. Also free for students and MSDN members.

In fact, Microsoft recently removed the annual fee altogether. The developer subscription is now a one-time charge of $19 [0], which lets you publish apps to both the Windows and Windows Phone stores.

[0]: http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/09/17/new-dev-cen...

I won't touch any OS made by a company that thinks installing a program that I wrote, on a computer that I bought, is a chargeable service. I suspect many hackers feel the same. It's the principle.

> I believe the fee is there to prevent a malware propagation problem like we have on Android.

Anecdotally, I have had zero problems with malware on Android and I have used Android since 2010, and I have never known anyone to have a problem. Yet you're making it out to be some kind of huge deal, also $19 a year is still more than $0 a year to build your own app for your own hardware. Not being able to side-install apps on other platforms is the sole reason for me using Android, because otherwise I would use iOS which otherwise has the best phones and eco-system period.

Anecdotally, I haven't seen an issue around me with malware on Windows either from 2010 (except one person complaining about the Ask toolbar bundled with Java/Flash).

I guess you haven't been looking at the news about Android Malware.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

I am extremely skeptical that $19/year is significant compared to the value of the resources used to build an app (any app). I realize people can be in situations where getting $19 together at one time can be hard and still be able to develop apps, but that seems like a very corner case.

Does the $19 (not $99) fee to get an app running on a phone really hurt that much? Maybe for hackers who likely won't be publishing to the store or looking to make a profit, but for people making money off other stores, it's negligible. You'll make that back in publicity alone, since you'll make news just by being on the store. The developer fee for iOS doesn't put a damper on the number of people who develop there.

I'm not sure what you mean by lack of familiarity with the MS development stack. Javascript is pretty ubiquitous. C++ isn't uncommon either. And as I mentioned, Microsoft puts a lot of effort into helping devs get their apps running on Windows Phone.

It would help your argument a lot if you didn't spread misinformation.

>hackers who likely won't be publishing to the store or looking to make a profit

These people matter to the ecosystem. A lot. Today's tinkerer, tomorrow's app developer.

>The developer fee for iOS doesn't put a damper on the number of people who develop there.

Oh really? Not a lot of Free Software on iOS (or 'free' with a little 'f' for that matter).

I am not saying one is better over the other, I am saying, the general public do not want a phone running Windows Phone OS nor want to learn it. The tech crowd that frequent this site are a whole different subset of people, we are not the general public, we make informed decisions mostly on our technology purchases based on more reasons other than, "it has the apps I need". Most people buy phones running operating systems that have the same apps and games that their friends do.

The issue with Microsoft's strategy is that Windows Phone OS has a market share of around 3%, compared to that of Android which is sitting somewhere close to 80%. Does it not make sense to release a Microsoft Lumia phone running Android and Windows Phone OS? Let us be honest here, Microsoft Windows phones do not come anywhere near the amount of applications and games that Android and iOS have and when you are selling to the uninformed buyer which is comprised of teenagers with a fear of missing out and people that fall somewhere in the middle, being on the same level as your competitors is essential.

That makes as much sense as Google making Chromebooks run Windows to sell more of them. There is not much money to be made in the Android OEM market unless you're Samsung(and even their profit is falling precipitously). I think the world has enough Android OEMs and that Microsoft has enough cash to burn.

Your point is moot. The whole point of Microsoft running Android is because of the ecosystem and ability to appease to the greater market who already use and are familiar with Android, love its selection of applications and games. It is all about the market share and awareness.

A Chromebook running Windows would be pointless because the point of a Chromebook is to not compete with Microsoft or even the laptop market, Chromebooks are going for a subset of the market that a lot of manufacturers and companies like Microsoft are not interested in targeting: the low income earner, the student, the user who only surfs the internet and watches Youtube videos.

You are comparing a laptop running a desktop operating system with a phone running a mobile operating system. Two completely different things and markets.

How does Windows Phone pale in comparison with Android? I use both daily. In my experience there's pretty good feature parity. Windows Phone wins for me because it works as before without a Microsoft account, the tiles are just... easier, and its easier to find things, and (hardware) apart from the camera, the battery lasts for longer than a day.

Not only do I agree with the other replies, it should also be noted that Verizon has gone out of their way to badmouth, undersell and not update the Nokia line. It is well known that the Verizon sales people push Android and even the iPhone over the Lumia in the USA . The love for the Nokia/MS phone is still really strong despite all these roadblocks.

" They have some of the best phones on the market, but they go relatively unnoticed because they're running an operating system most people are not interested in using or dislike"

Actually this is incorrect. Many love the Windows 8.1 phone and would not use another mobile os. They have a really loyal group of fans which is really unusual for a Microsoft product.

Microsoft entered the mobile game too late. The OS is great. It's just hard playing catch-up when you are not the cool kid.

> It is so painfully obvious and as usual, Microsoft just do not get it

Oh, they get it. They just don't want to admit a multi-billion dollar mistake, and maybe they are still hoping that project will succeed. Plus there's like one person in the company capable of making such a huge decision.

I'd argue the project has already succeeded. Of course this requires understanding success - how much profit does 3% of the US market, and just under 10% internationally amount to? Is more sales than Blackberry success? How about a comparison with Sailfish? It's all relative.

Microsoft's problems are more subtle. Writing universal apps makes little sense, as neat as the tech is, because you can only ever target many PCs and tablets, and a tiny share of phones -- or you could write an HTML/CSS/JS app, target all PCs and all phones. Their stack is solid, and their tooling arguably best in class. Selling it is not so easy.

If you're arguing that Blackberry and Jolla are major players, then Microsoft are killing it. Since the sales of Blackberry and Jolla are rounding errors, though, I'd say that they aren't a good benchmark.

Nokia really missed the boat on adopting Android back in 2010 when Samsung did. Nokia was still bigger than Samsung then in smartphone sales. After that, Android really took off (like from 4 to 30 percent market share in one year), and Nokia started to rapidly decline.

The choice of going WP7 later on, only compounded on the initial decision of not going Android, as WP was behind in features, recognition, and of course, apps. Three years later, WP still has 2 percent market share globally. It's going nowhere fast, to say the least, even with Microsoft's billions that it has invested in it so far.

Isn't that the Nokia X line of phones?

http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phones/nokia-x/

Nokia X phones do not possess the same great specs and hardware as the Lumia line of phones. I was referring to the lack of Lumia phone running Android. If the Lumia 930 ran Android, I would buy it in a heartbeat. I know a lot of people would.

Previous discussion (41 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8298449

No more Nokia/Microsoft dumbphones? :(

Way to run Nokia into the ground Microsoft.

Way to run Nokia into the ground, Nokia. Along with every other handset maker pre-iPhone who did not immediately release an iPhone competitor (Microsoft, Blackberry, Palm, etc). They all failed, just some of them lasted longer than others did.

Nokia got lazy. They saw the iPhone and didn't change course until it was too late. If anything, Microsoft kept them above ground.

Microsoft put Nokia into the ground with a single speech that obsoleted all of the phones that they had in the wild (and were still trying to get people to buy) for a phone that they hadn't developed yet.

The N900 and N9 were better than the iPhone, although that's not saying much.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com