Huh? Their name recognition is beyond most others will be in probably 10 more years. The problem is that you cannot live off name recognition alone.

And the move to asian outsourcing will make them just like everybody else out there. They no longer have a marketable advantage.

Agree, yet disagree. Direct sales can bolster your bottom line if it's done right. Ask Apple.

Their flagship stores - all two of them in the US - are gone. I was not traveling 1100 miles to the closest one to buy a Nokia phone in the US. No way in Hell. Having to buy via Amazon or online only means I'll never hold an unlocked Nokia in my hands in the US before purchasing it or going to a bigger city to test it out.

Can't say the same for Apple (again, I know... same example). And besides, store sales might not have been strong for Nokia, but it's a way to keep all of the profit for your company.

The Nokia sales distributions and how they keep going exclusive with AT&T in the US is a bad thing to do, imho.

Having your own flagship stores is a bit of a double-edged sword...

Take Apple, outside of the US, it hands over franchises of its store and charges based on that...

For Nokia to set up their own stores you must consider their bureaucracy; they'll set up a Retail division, hire a retail chief, retail middle-managers and then open a store...The costs would be much higher than Apple...In Apple, Tim Cook and Steve Jobs would take a direct interest in how the stores are doing but for Nokia its just another one of many divisions...

Not forgetting the comparative price advantage Apple has of selling at high prices...In short, Apple's costs vs selling prices for their stores are probably the lowest in the whole industry...For Nokia to achieve even 80% of apple's ratio would be quite impossible...

apple rules. apple and android exposed Nokias incompetence

---whereas WP phail exposes Lubeman's incompetence.

In other news, i particular found this piece of comment related to subcontracts interesting.

That piece of comment perfectly summarises all what was wrong with Nokia and proves that a CEO though one with a lofty title is simply a glorified salesman with the power to decide what he's going to promote hence the manufacturers (in this case development team) produce only what he decides to promote...

I've always, always been a symbian owner (and fangirl) - from the 6600 and 6630 onwards, every phone i've had was a symbian phone.

But i've let them go after two years of the N8. Love that phone, will miss it (and the camera button!) but alas, i cant take Belle any longer.

Can anybody explain why the american market was decided to be all-powerful?

Elop may have made the right decisions in these circumstances, but fundamentally, it was all because someone (elop) decided america was the battlegrounds for market domination.

Did nobody stop to think that they were dominating because the ONLY 2 Os's (android, ios) were made there?

If anything, it makes substantially more sense for a new-comer to target a rich, growing, under-valued market.

Oh wait, like China?

Oh wait, what Jolla is doing?

"One device a year just isn't enough"

Could barely read those words.

its simple as a premier soccer league. do you want to be in a premier league or second division? android and ios rule the world because of severe competition on the us market. if you cant compete in the most competitive market, you will lose the global battle. do you understand now?

Nonsense. Symbian ruled the world for years without any presence (or with hardly any) in the USA.

Interesting. I'm still using the N8's little brother (C7) because whatever I tried (N900, N9, Lumia 800, some HTC Android...) doesn't come close. (N900 almost did, though.) And yes, it does run Belle. What's wrong with your N8?