Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

The point is not a channel for a million people but for a representative body, ie, the community council. The channel for millions of end users already exists (I won't go into its effectivity).

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

Would a channel for the council not be a channel for the millions by proxy?

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

I skipped the previous Maemo steps, but seeing the frustration that has been growing for many long-time maemo supporters and developers over the last 9 months is a pretty clear sign to me that Nokia is doing something very wrong. I've gotten a small feeling for what that might be when i have tried to do a few things to customize my N900 or develop an app and hit a wall due to undocumented or closed components.

It's really hard to have a successful platform when the most enthusiastic supporters are beaten down until they drop off.

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

Absolutely. But Nokia need only see a single point of communication (albeit backed by collective data).

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

The link in my post also suggested a noise filter. What I'm trying to say is an open channel makes silence awkward, even if instead of a million posts you get one post a million wait an answer for.

*grabs skepticism* I'm holding on to this. I'll be here, firmly planted if anyone needs me.

My opinion is very different.

I've looked into cheap Chinese devices and have found that they draw cheapness from:

* Poorer assembley, cutting costs
* Lower specs (not much, 256M flash is more than twice the cost of 128)
* Lack of hardware quality (a chip put together by a student that does wifi, but now WPA2 is 10% of the price)
* China doesn't have those pesky royalty anchors to drag around. They either write their own poor copy or just rip it off.
* They don't charge 200E for the nickel writing.

And the deal breaker for me:

* Lack of an international, well established, no-bull support structure. China Telecom will not repair and exchange your device in your town. Nokia will.

I've seen E71 knockoffs for 100E (is that the one with the keyboard?), in which the gave up wifi that's expensive for a second SIM, gave up symbian and full features for a menu that has spelling errors, imitating the real thing. But hey, 100E for a dual SIM and externally perfect copy.

I even got one as a joke gift, my GF is still using it because she doesn't care it has limited mail capability and no native apps. It calls, takes pictures, has BT and 3G, plays games.

It's lighter and has a better battery life. And don't forget dual SIM.

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

My opinion is the main problem is in the fact, that Maemo is not Nokia core business product. IIRC 98% of revenue is generated by Symbian devices.
The Maemo branch is giving little money and a lot of high demands.

I personally admire the persistence of Maemo team in Nokia, so they were able to push this product for so long with all the odds against them. In normal company this product line would be shut off a long time ago.

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

Dawn Foster's fake smile gives me all the information i need.
But I think Meego is a good concept and is going to work well (at least it has some potential), despite the shortcomings and pathetic management structures, which appear to be based on high pressure and fear, from high above. Hints of impotence and a rotten scent is in the air. Replace Nokia's CEO.

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

Now that Symbian is open source, that part of the business has to change. It needs to start looking more like Maemo-- or how Maemo should. It's inevitable.

I don't envy Nokia executives. The value bits of their brand are changing, and it's getting harder to show customers where/what they are. Couple that with resistance from the FOSS community to IP-protected bits and things get interesting.

I'm still curious as to how MeeGo branding differentiation will be handled across the various players. I'm not sure other consumers are quite understanding exactly what Android is, and that's the closest analogue.

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

If Nokia thinks spawning a branch and letting it hang to "see where it goes" is the way, the branch will die off. In the wind today's market is, you either put your weight behind and initiative and push, or you don't and it breaks off.

If Nokia doesn't back and push this with all their might, how is the Linux phone any different than a garage project on a larger scale? No adverts, no huge team, no no-cost-too-great directives.

Remember, Google, Apple and Microsoft are all pushing with all their might. I doubt Nokia even has the weight to push back, let alone use a single finger.

When there's a hurricane out, you don't put a 20-cm potted plant out and try to see how it fares. It won't end well.

Symbian is down to 44% (wiki). And falling. If 98% of my income comes from there. I'd be grabbing branches like a climber with bad footing.

Want to have some fun? Google up "smart phone market share". Yeah.

Who knows, maybe Nokia thinks of smartphone market as an experiment, a hiccup, a toy for the geek. Maybe they don't see this as the future of mobility. Maybe they think the market will always be 90% composed of dumb, keypad-and-red-green button phones like it was 10 years ago. In which case, I'd make like the rat and flee the ship.

Re: Maemo Missteps, your thoughts?
 

From my preliminary Akademy 2010 presentation [1]:

Quote:

...the future is mobile. In the first quarter of 2010, the global smartphone market grew by 56.7%. In a downturned global economy. And that was twice the growth of standard mobile phones in the same period. That’s not happening anymore for deskbound devices. Gartner says that by 2013, “mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide.”

http://maemo-daemons.org/Enhancing%2...%20Devices.pdf

(feedback welcome; ignore the cloud and last slide)