Originally Posted by GeraldKo

Actually, it's a car. They're part of the automobile consortium that's backing MeeGo, and they've been building the Nokia MeeGo car from the ground up. That's what's taking so long.

Originally Posted by redman

Excuse me for dropping in like this, but since Nokia is cuddling with Microsoft, I wonder how support for the N900 will turn out in the long run.

Of course they will support the phone for the next 3 years, but how about the development of new or current applications? Will Maemo continue if Nokia would drop out? Just my 2 cents on the matter.

And I hope someone could tell if there is a way to mirror the current "N900" repo's (for example by using rsync on a RHEL/Fedora/CentOS based system) ??

Originally Posted by redman

Of course they will support the phone for the next 3 years,

Originally Posted by nephridium

Before this surprise election last September who ever even heard of that guy Elop?

Originally Posted by zwer

I remember him from the times when he gift-wrapped Macromedia and offered it on a silver plate to Adobe... I'm not insinuating anything...

Originally Posted by rash.m2k

I mean the N900 can't compete with iOS and Android fart apps crap - it's an intelligent device for intelligent people, how many people using iOS and Android can say they know about openOffice 3.1, debian, ssh, samba? Not many, sure there are a few who do, but percentage-wise about 10% or less is my guess.

Originally Posted by etuoyo

Hmm. From your description it sounds more like a device for snobs.

Originally Posted by pasih

So, Jorma Ollila was in public yesterday explaining Nokia's situation. There really wasn't anything new he was saying, but here are some key points of his talk in tv and to the press.

1. He says that they had many options to choose from when thinking of the new OS, since during the last 6 months they've had many offers coming from different OS vendors, although he only mentioned Google and MS by name. He said that MS was the best choice. He also pointed out that it was Nokia who was calling the shots, and they chose MS.

2. They still have no idea how many people will lose their jobs in Finland, but that they'll find in coming weeks or months. I suppose that the amount of people getting kicked from MeeGo and Qt departments will probably really tell what's going to happen with MeeGo and Qt.

3. He says that during the last 9 months he has received zero pressure from any shareholders either in Finland or abroad on who to choose for the new CEO, but he said that he received some pressure to remove Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo on the spring of 2010. He didn't really comment on the rumours that he wanted to have Anssi Vanjoki as a CEO, but reading between the lines I'd say the rumours were not true.

4. He says that moving to MS software was a brave (and possibly one can translate it to risky as well) decision and that the shareholders have been very positive about it. It must be said that Nokia has made some drastic changes during its history, and Ollila clearly wanted to make this change to look as one, too.

5. He commented on Elop being a Trojan horse: "Nonsense".

6. He said that US has passed Finland and Europe on being on top of communication technology, and that Nokia couldn't offer the best overall experience when using a smartphone. Well, personally I can only say that Nokia itself fuqqed this one up, since they've used billions of euros on R'n'D but haven't really brought out innovation.

7. The interviewer did bring out the fact that Ollila has been the chairman of the board, and as such was partly responsible for Nokia's situation. Ollila practically said that iPhone changed the game with its user interface, and that overall the change in the smartphone industry has been exceptional and fast. He didn't really start blaming anyone, and said that there's no use of looking back, but that we should look into the future.

8. On Elop's burning platform analogue: he said that he's used that analogue himself earlier and that it's used to make the workers understand the need for change.

9. He said that Symbian will sell well during the time before Windows phones arrive. When he was asked why they had to tell about the Windows phone so much before the first one comes out he said that they had to tell it because cooperation between Nokia and MS will be so big that there was no choice (meaning probably that the word would come out pretty soon in any case).

10. And he said that one MeeGo-phone is going to be released. Unfortunately I don't think he really said anything more about MeeGo.


There possibly was more to his words, but this is what I remember. Ollila is pretty convincing, and I must personally admit that I'd wish he'd stayed as a CEO instead of Kallasvuod. But there's no denying that he's been chairman of the board during the last few years when Symbian was stagnating, and Nokia has been getting behind the competition.

But what can I say, Nokia is a corporation and Ollila is a shrewd businessman and Nokia is looking for a profit. In that sense I understand their MS-decision. On the other hand they could've achieved so much more during the last years, since I'm pretty sure their R'n'D has come up with great innovations in user interfaces and in the hardware. The shakeup was really needed but personally I wish they'd gone with MeeGo instead. It remains to be seen what happens with MeeGo.