Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

It was more or less obvious of the internal fights at Nokia, just look at the N series vs the E series, the different apps and updates, clearly the groups behind were fighting each other.

It was also amazingly stupid how Nokia killed Series90, what was then the most advanced Symbian UI. Had they developed it further, they would have had a mature touch screen OS before Apple! I always had the feeling that they didn't really want to compete with UIQ and that's why they killed it.

I also think they effectively killed Symbian when they bought it. Even SE, the other major Symbian player, walked out in fear that the OS was becoming a Nokia only affair.

It's also interesting how many UIs were designed for MeeGo before going with the SwipeUI and that I think that was always Nokia's problem, too many ideas and too many (clueless) people having a say.

Also, let's thank Neonode for coming up with a swipe driven UI in 2002. It truly is one of the most innovative ideas ever, even if it hasn't been successful yet.

It is really a shame that Nokia became so slow over the years, we could have enjoyed amazing products, like we did in the 90's. It is also a real shame that Europe is now a third player in the mobile space where it once was first.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

^ this post is so true

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Based on the translation, it appears mostly accurate. Some of the translation is too sloppy to understand completely.
This article opened old wounds. It is painful to recall how much potential there was at Nokia only to have poor management throw it away.

A good point touched on in the article is how subcontractors from different regions were all heavily involved. This is true.
All the Nokia internals were always focused on Symbian. The first time I saw Diablo platform, I was not too impressed. When I saw Fremantle and got to work on it I was very excited. I thought this signaled the new direction that could make Nokia huge again. Especially in NAM region (weakest sales). I gave 150 percent and volunteered to work more than my schedule to be a part of Fremantle (Rover). The end results I can say felt like my own child. A child that was brought up very well only to be kicked out of the house at a young age and left to fend for himself. My morale and good feeling about Nokia began to sink.
But back to subcontractors. I worked a lot with them and it was always people from India primarily as well as Asia Pacific. Only when problems were very high up did Finland internals get involved. This meant that a lot of bugs never got past some of the contractors or did not get enough push to make it to Finland managers. Harmattan would be different.

Harmattan had a large budget but for small team. Actual budget though was smaller compared to other projects at time. There was big push in US to work on X7 for a US carrier. This took a lot of people (managers and SW teams that could work on Meego) away from Harmattan and meant more contractors must do bulk of work for N950. N950 was being designed with ATT in mind at one point, but ATT has very demanding specs for their software. Contractors especially with the language barrier in India and Asia did not comprehend that. It was being worked on without regards to carriers from their end. That mean ATT would not approve it as is.
N950 was very poor after that. Too many changes and compromises. Not enough people to work on it. The simple UI went from good to bad and was regressing at one point. When layoffs continued to occur, Meego team had a very low morale. Incentive to do great work and continue was not there. And the subcontractors in India/Asia were not aware of internal struggles. Bugzilla reports looked like comments from a bathroom wall.
People held back too much information that could have helped the project sometimes. Credit for work was also stolen or not given often during these times. Just like Symbian groups.
Basically Meego was outsourced and polished internally by the few who cared (Jolla team). When N9 came out, it was due to N950 being in very bad shape. No way it could be released like that. N9 had more internals working on it but bulk of work had already been done. I never got to see Senna but I know it was planned. There was rumors of a smaller ebook reader at one point but that may have been tied to Senna rumors. I was already laid off so do not know about that. The power struggle was always a problem.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

That was the problem right there. We, the consumers, lost faith in Nokia delivering something good in time or even keeping it alive for that matter.

They waited too long to make radical changes to Symbian while on the other hand they had Maemo on their hand which they didn't promote or develop and even when MeeGo came to be, it was nothing like Maemo. Talk about inconsistency.

And then came the burning platform memo.......

Personally, N9 is my last Nokia, no matter how great (or not) Lumias will be, I refuse to waste any more money on a company with no loyalty to its customers.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Andrew Orwlowski has written great history of Symbian and what went wrong with it.

Three parts:

Symbian, The Secret History: Dark Star
Symbian's Secret History: The battle for the company's soul
Symbian’s Secret History: Davies on what went right (and wrong)

and a great follow up, if you aren't bored to read even more about the Symbian crash. There's a really great ending to this article, with a well known Canadian boogey man making a suprise appearance at the end (and not doing what you would expect).

Nokia's Great Lost Platform

Sometimes, history is circular...indeed

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

I just read this article, and I am not surprised. It pretty much proves what I have been saying all along: Elop was not the problem, NOKIA was the problem. Reading thru all the itinerations and disorganized thinking and leaderless planning, corroborates that NOKIA was running amok. Elop had to cut the fat. Whether the choice of Windows was right or wrong decision, remains to be seen. But without a decision, NOKIA would have had NO chance.

The interesting part is that the Swipe was invented by ex-Apple and ex-Adobe coders in New York. As well as the fact that Harmattan was in planning since 2008, and they couldnt get it right? I have to say that I think the incompetence to deliver, was not due to incompetent software engineers as I suspected, but undisciplined and rudderless teams within NOKIA.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

No doubt Nokia is a mess, but, surely the burning platform memo did not help the transition, it pissed off the loyal Symbian fans for one, not to mention killing MeeGo after releasing N9 without even having a finished WP phone to offer instead. I don't think they couldn't get Harmattan right, as shown by the UI designs, I think they wanted to prove that they could bring something new and fresh so badly.

Again.....Swipe was first used on Neonode's N1. The 80/20 studio came up with the N9 UI concept borrowing ideas from webOS that borrowed ideas from Neonode.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Man, after reading this article, it is so clear that the real problem was piss-poor management and organizational structure. I have seen numerous articles in the past noting the low performance ratings of Nokia executives and board members, but this article really shows you the picture of how much chaos that failure of leadership caused

This is a case study on why top organizations need top talent in leadership. But the question is HOW? How does a company as important as Nokia was to Finland, with so much talent there, end up with poor leadership? A good leader can manage egos and get unproductive internal conflict handled.

Does anyone have any insights or links on the leadership quality problem?

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

NOKIA is a great case for business schools to study. The pre-Elop era was filled with huge incompetence.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Swipe UI is great not just swipe gesture IMHO. Just like the article said 'it brought back some of the basic principles of the original Harmattan UI, which were ignored in the Simple Dali UI.'

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

The pre-Elop era had Nokia @ the #1 spot globally for decades.

until he arrived at the company

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

I don't think you can pinpoint the issue to just a management and structural issues. This is way more advanced than that. Much more issues are in affect here. Even luck is a factor. You need to do a serious analyze with tons of talk with people inside and outside of nokia to be able to create a statement like that with any certenty.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Actually, I think what most people find great about the N9 is the gestures and how they create a gestured based and not a button based interface. No doubt the rest of the UI is simple and elegant, but, it's nothing groundbreaking.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

If I Recall Correctly, there has internal struggles between even symbian teams also. Each Symbian device supported by a specific team. In addition to nokia own proprietary api, most symbian device have poorly api compatibility. e.g. query wrong screen resolution etc.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Struggles?????
They were ready to start shooting each other :D:D:D:D

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

I think the informative integrated event home screen, dedicated multitasking home screen are the greatest part of N9 ui. Just my two cent;)

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

And I agree, not to mention the integration of services (Skype from the dialer and FB chat from the messaging app, even though Maemo had that too), but, ask most people about the N9 and they'll tell you about swiping. It's just that impressive.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Just like the picture entitled microsoft:rolleyes:

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

You didnt seem to understand the article. NOKIA was going to be number 100. pre-Elop guys new it and jumped ship. Elop is the fall guy if thinks fail, he is a hero if they succeed. Blame pre-Elop Nokia, not Elop. Its like saying that Obama caused economic collapse in America.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Once again:

untill fall 2011 , Nokia was at #1

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

He did. Bush is the best ever. Just like Windows Phone. It's the best ever.

Anyway, interesting article that confirms a lot of the rumors that wafted through these forums in one form or another (confirmed or unconfirmed).

The inner-struggles explains a lot of the implicit anger from some Nokians that seemed to be fighting to swim upstream a river of crap. Oh well, the collapse was inevitable, the market wanted something new, I hope that Nokia finds it of else they'll be a memory rather soon.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

He didn't bring Nokia to the mess it is internally, but, he hasn't helped either.
Let's face it, the only Lumia to make an impression is the 920 and only because of the PureView.
Even their sales state clearly that Lumia hasn't sold much.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Lol, you guys always comes to elop vs pre elop stuff. Always end up in same discussion :D

Atleast one Good post from a inside nokia insider before the mess.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

This is absolutely correct. Look at the numbers in Tommi Ahonen's new blog article here:

http://communities-dominate.blogs.co...-elop-now.html

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

This is correct. Symbian is divided into branches.
If problem was found in one branch release it was that persons responsibility to notify other related branches. This caused finger pointing when trying to issue fix sometimes because if the person noticing a problem was seen as "below" the other engineers, they did not carry the same influence in their reports. The problem was maybe only they see it because they did something wrong. They were seen being below other engineer teams in skill level. It was not uncommon for verbal insults to be thrown due to egos.
Meanwhile problem turns into valid bug and gets released...

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

All I hope is for the Jolla leadership to learn from these mistakes. They will hopefully have a focus and strong leadership to get projects accomplished. But coming from a dysfunctional background can be a problem. It's like a drunk hoping to reach enough sobriety to accomplish his daily task. Is Jussi Hurmola the right leader? Don't know. I guess we will find out. I am skeptical.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Number 1 selling Taleban phones...not a statistic to be proud

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

search
http://mobilitydigest.com/wp-content...inphonokia.png

shipments
http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/upl...3.54.38-PM.png

*Check the dates in 2nd image. Check @ end of 2010 , early 2011. When Ellop talked about the "burning platform" @ wp strategy.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Shipments != sales

Nokia was turning to sh1t with or without Flop. He's just a pantomime villain.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Taleban phones. Who wants them now? Greeks?

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

*lumiaman: ouch... you hurt my feelings there ... booohoooo


*marxian: I know the difference man. but still this chart show the rapid change of dynamics

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Being #1 for 14-15 years isn't helping them now. Not one bit.

All of this talk about OPK or Elop being the blame doesn't change anything about today. Nokia is less than 2 Euros a share, their sales and share are basically crap. And it's getting worse with each and every day.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Lets not feed the lumia(troll)man any more and happily ignore his BS.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

I blame Arjan.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

fight between darkside (symbian manager) and the force (OSSO/maemo/meego manager+team) causes Star Wars will never have 7th Episode

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

That's untrue. Being first for 14-15 years is a huge advantage today.

Nokia has sales channels, brand recognition and so forth. But above all they have done it before and that gives the company easier to attract money from shareholders. Whitout all the success in the past, very few would investing today. But at the moment, there is no problems to get new shareholder willing to buy shares. I bet they would even push in more dollars if Nokia asked for it.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

As far as I know, leadership problems were some kind of "public secret" for a long time. It was known that Nokia had bloated middle management who only cared about their own a**, which made the company work incredibly inefficient. My contacts in Nokia said the same thing - project would start and when things were progressing at full speed someone could simply pull the plug and scrap everything to get some "savings" to make papers look good. And then all that would start again from the beginning... When rumors of OPK's ousting begun spreading, my recipe for Nokia would have been to kick out most of the bloated management and flatten the organization as much as possible. If it was done early enough, it might have saved Meego, but Elop came onboard too late for that. However, it's still questionable if Windows Phone move was the correct one.

Organization got bloated during times Nokia dominated the business. It's possible that leaders didn't realize this until it was too late or they considered chopping the organization to be bad pr. Afterall, Nokia's rise begun during extremely hard times when there was huge unemployment rates and lives of many people were permanently ruined. It would have been hard to lay off loads of people, especially when company was making reasonable profit. I guess that's the reason Elop came along in the first place instead of Vanjoki.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

They disassembled their own .com websites to stop sales from happening where they'd benefit the most. With the release of their WP7 devices, a lot of carriers have turned their backs to them, and to purchase a device now, you have to go to Amazon or other sites for their higher series.

People are buying stock now speculating they will either: A) turn things around or B) get rid of Elop and their rather ineffective board. Nothing besides their portfolio of patents is keeping them worth much now.

Wanna bet? Their trade volume has also declined in the last 2 years right alongside their stock price.

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Ok, so you don't think they still befitting at all at the moment from years and years as the top devices manufacturer and brand around the world?

Re: Interesting article about Nokia's MeeGo work
 

Honestly, direct sales via site are not a mass market sales (if even marginal) channel for company like Nokia. And Nokia getting Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 to AT&T is way more powerful than selling N95 from their own flagship store or from own site back in the day.

It's about connections and having local presence. Why example Nokia has got it's Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 to be sold via China Mobile with 650 million subs. Something HTC has not managed to do.
Or why Jolla with 50 people workforce was able to do a deal with world largest mobile phone distributor. Something that no other that sized company in as fierce market could even dream about.



Nokia is knee deep in **** at the moment, but nobody can't say that their past doesn't offer advantage to them.