Say what you will of Elop, but with him it marks the first time Nokia is making a decisive action and throwing down to compete. Everything done under OPK was stalling tactics.

Elop definately threw MeeGo under the bus, but remember that OPK was the one who stalled on Maemo and MeeGo for far too long. He gave it no sense of purpose, heck Maemo existed before Android I'm not sure if it did before iOS. Tablets, touch screens, the fastest processors of their time were all what Nokia had at the time pre iPhone. OPK did not have the balls to go forward with ground breaking concepts the competition were willing to bank their futures on.

I don't know if WP7 will work out but it does have the best chance for saving Nokia more so than MeeGo could. MeeGo would be a new player, and will arrive with very little fanfare believe me on this. A Nokia WP7 phone will get more publicity at places like Engadget rather than a MeeGo device. The OS provides Nokia the ability to roll out different chassis configurations with minimal effort and at a quicker pace. The competition on the WP7 platform don't have a full line of phones yet, nor do they have the focus on their WP7 devices. Also the markets in Europe, Asia, and Africa/ Middle East love the Nokia brand irrespective of the OS, only reason why people would endure the Symbian OS and it's updates to make it more touch friendly. Having a WP7 will be seen as a plus once they try it, something I recommend people bad mouthing WP7 do if they haven't tried it.

My opinion on WP7 after trying it is quite different from the day Elop made the announcement and I was fuming with anger. It is no Maemo and comparing them would be a disservice. I love Maemo, because it showcases where exactly Smartphone OS's will be in the next decade, full Mobile Desktop OS's something that we are witnessing now as the Desktop OS's become more mobile and the Mobile OS's become more like a Desktop OS. Maemo was the right balance of power and efficiency, I could even picture it right now a Fremantle powered 10inch Slate. WP7 is much like the current player's wherein the environment is very controlled but the trade off is that you get access to services that encompass what Elop mentioned as an ecosystem. Maps, gaming, email/ calendar, messaging etc... are some of the examples of what you get access to. I bought a WP7 device to test around, developing is much more straightforward and Microsoft has done a way better job of communicating how to develop for the WP7 devices. Also the OS is smooth as hell, the UI is simple but gets important info to the user as quick as possible with minimal swiping. The virtual keyboard in my opinion is much better than the iPhones, the browser is actually decent, the Email client built in is really awesome, and the Calendar is actually very effective because of it's simplicity although I wish I could sync it to my Google calendar. The positive signs coming from Microsoft is their ability to make updates, not simple updates but MASSIVE updates like the upcoming Mango eventhough it has things the OS should of had from the beginning it is still impressive how MS has made over 500 improvements. WP7 is not perfect by all means, their are glaring weaknesses not addressed yet, and don't know if it will be addressed. These weaknesses in mind, I still would recommend the WP7 OS to friends and family because it packs a overall good OS.

MeeGo should not be canned although and WP7 should not be the argument for canning it. Nokia has to definitely still make MeeGo phones but I think it needs a purpose that guides it. Future disruptions is one thing, but that seems like it can be done in the lab and would never be seen as an end user product. Create a phone targeted to a market segment like Enterprise or something, and hopefully in the future leverage it's penetration in that segment to gain a broader appeal.

Elop had an oh sh*t moment because he came in and did a review. The result of the review did not jive with a strategy he had, so they recalculated the strategy to stem losses and regain momentum. People who are angry at him right now have let emotions get in the way. MeeGo wasn't going to save the free fall that OPK left Nokia in, and Symbian was the biggest anchor Nokia had hauling them down. Nokia was throwing money at Symbian and not seeing a return on it. Less people were buying Symbian phones, and Nokia's work force was laboring away at it taking away valuable man hours from other projects and costing the company in employing workers on the Symbian side.

The unusual part is he publicly announced Symbians end game, an unusual move. I think it was meant to deliver a message to shareholders, employees, and new partners (Microsoft). The tradeoff is that it created an uncertainty for Nokia and accelerated the demise of Symbian from consumer mindshare. Although it did deliver clarity to everyone else except the consumer. Employees know their eggs are in WP7's basket, shareholders know they have to hold on for dear life in the bumpy days ahead, and Microsoft knows the level of Nokias commitment to WP7. I think was a hard decision to publicly state that, but this is also insurance that shaky board of executives don't waver on whats to come. By driving a stake through Symbian's heart, and gimping the MeeGo efforts furthermore it hardens the resolve when you make it a do or die moment. The best part is that Elop knows how to communicate, and doesn't shy away from his decisions, I can't believe people would rather he remain tactful and not air some of Nokia's dirty laundry ... it has to be done to expunge years of employee frustration and political obstinence within Nokia. I want to hear that he scolded Nokia workers for not having the guts to try the competitors phones, nor having issue with Nokia not taking the risk to release unique ideas which remain in their vault. I like that he is ensuring product schedules remain intact, and communicating with the anyone who is willing to listen. I don't work for Nokia so I don't know the inner workings or the effectiveness of his leadership ... from my point of view looking in I think he is doing a much better job than OPK and time will tell if Nokia's WP7 gamble was right.

Many of the "advanced function phones" are running some variant of Symbian, or a Linux variant. All are highly customized for the handsets by the carrier, which are built to order for the carrier (and believe me, if you think jailbreaking sucks, fight one of those!)

Web browsers compliant with modern standards generally aren't. They definitely fill a niche in the market, but due to their lack of integration into the proprietary web networks (think AOL) their adoption isn't quite keeping pace. Though the end result will probably be the death of the proprietary networks.

The smartphone market is tiny. Also consider that the iPhone is on the smallest of the 3 major networks.

Adoption of smartphones is slow in Japan due greatly to the lack of OS integration with the various data and commerce services in Japan. It's only a matter of time though. If anything, the inflexibility of Apple and Microsoft's solutions will eventually hold them back, at least in Japan.

I think one thing that needs to be kept in mind is that everyone and their dog is going towards HTML5 these days, so maybe the ecosystems will indeed converge somehow:

http://forums.silverlight.net/forums...02/562113.aspx

Is a interesting read from the other side of the pond.

For the Qt PoV, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKums...layer_embedded is a interesting video..

Fair enough.

Of the 130 million maybe 115 million have a phone. Of that, a percentage uses dumb phones, some advanced and some use smartphones. If all 115 M buy new phones a year then smartphones is less than 10%. If less than 100% buy new phones a year then that percentage increases. How much? I don't know. I would not be surprised if Android / iOS continue to grow in marketshare at the expense of advanced funtion phones.

What you also have to understand is that when we're talking about global leadership I don't hear NTT Docomo or Softbank in any discussions regarding global smartphone / cellphone trends. They are huge in their market but I would not consider them global leaders in that sense. Look at the HD TV market. HDTV's were available outside the US long before but once the US got on it, then HD TV's really took off and has affected not just TV's but cameras, video streaming on the web and etc.

There is no question Japan is ahead in terms of adoption but setting and influencing global trends, Google / Apple I think are much more of a leader globally than Japan.

You also have to consider US infrastructure costs which is much greater than most other countries. It's easier for smaller countries like Japan / Korea to implement faster DSL / fiber / wireless / HDTV technologies but in the US which is so large geographically it is considerably more difficult. When the US adopts something though they have the opportunity to really influence global markets in ways that other countries do not. Leadership is more than who was first.

For example, where's the LG Chocolate? Anyone know what OS they use? What about their app store?

wow, some of that really bothered me too.
Still not all of what he said is completely out of thin air.
That Elop must have been hired to kill Symbian or that the way and time WP7 was anounced wasn't at all beneficial for Nokia.

I'm afraid I can't do that, but the definition of a smartphone is not universal. Everybody has one of his own.
My requirement of a smartphone would be: web browser not worse than first iphone, 3G or better, wifi, touchscreen, installable applications.
But people who talk about "smartphones" usually don't give their definitions. Hence a lot of nonsense is around.

How's this for a conspiracy theory:

1. MS encourages Nokia to hire Elop.
2. Elop says Nokia is a "dead man walking" company. Elop announces WM7 adoption. Elop kills existing Nokia development, thus there's no way to backtrack. Stock drops.
3. Nokia announces poor sales. Stock drops.
4. Finnish investments are probably heavily in Nokia stock.
5. Nokia releases WM7 phones to poor sales. Stock drops.
6. MS announces plans to purchase Nokia to help their partner out. Finnish government will approve to aid Finnish investors.
7. MS now has phone fab and world wide distribution for WM8 phones. Think of WM8 as Xbox 360, 2nd gen after the first gen fails.

-----

There's no sound rationale for Nokia to put all its eggs in one basket. Why couldn't have they dropped Symbian over time and added WM7 *and* Android phones to their portfolio? HTC must be much smaller than Nokia and they seem to be fine developing phones for two OS's... and with plenty of varied models to boot! The only thing I can think of that would make Nokia/Elop do something stupid like this is if MS promised "special privileges" if they didn't develop for Android.

There was apparently a fair bit of money promised (though that's just my interpretation from reading and listening to the interviews, etc.)

You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Ovi sounds like eggs. Ovi has been broken recently. Just not sure that this omelet is turning out very well.

While I'm a Maemo / MeeGo supporter and not a big fan of WP7 I can understand the logic of his decision. This was really the lesser of two evils.

The problem for Nokia was that there was no way their current strategy would have been successful in any way / shape / form.

Symbian - Let's say they hit all of their S^3 and S^4 schedules. The problem here is that they'd only catch up to iOS 3 and Android 2.x by what next year? The bigger issue is that Symbian is phone ONLY!!! The industry has shifted and a tablet / mobile device ecosystem (post-PC era). At best Symbian is a solid phone OS which would have been fine 2 years ago but isn't going to cut it in the future. Why dump resources into something that has a big future. I don't see Symbian moving to tablets in any scneario.

MeeGo - Obviously this has both phone / tablet capabilities, but when? Best schedules show end of this year and early next year for the first devices also. By this time next year Apple / Google will be well into their mixed phone / tablet strategy where Nokia would only just starting with version 1.x which is iffy however you want to look at it. And according to OP this is if they hold to schedule which may not be the case.

Whether they choose Android or Windows they will still have a difficult time competing with the Samsung / Asus / HTC / Motorola so neither would be a sure win.

Right now Apple and Google comfortably share smartphone mindshare. I think there is room for a third player but is there room for a fourth? If MeeGo is going to succeed it needs to beat Windows and I don't think in any of the most aggressive and optimistic scenarios did they see MeeGo getting marketshare from Windows in the next couple of years.

For Maemo / MeeGo to have been the primary OS of choice for Nokia, and to be number 3 they would have had to make that decision 2+ years ago when they had the money and margins to double down on a future platform. OPK didn't have the vision or the dictatorial power of a Steve Jobs to make difficult decisions like that so Elop has to pick up the pieces. The guy has a tough job and I don't envy the decisions he has to make.