Nokia's lack of recent continued success (and only lack of continued success - it's not succeeding as well anymore, in other words; it's not actually 'failing' in any sense) has nothing to do with a lack of innovation. And while that was an excusable position a few years ago, enough information has floated to the surface to know what Nokia's real troubles are: Internal bureaucracy that results in good ideas being killed off, combined with a mass-produce-phones-for-every-market-segment approach which, while not bad in itself, meshed horribly with the aforementioned bereaucratic woes.

As was summed up somewhere in some article before, too many people in Nokia's middle-of-decision-making-process can say no to taking risks with new ideas, and almost no one can truly force something new to go through.

It's not that Nokia hasn't innovated. It's that Nokia innovations have mostly languished internally, coming out either too late or too wrongly implemented.

- On this Microsoft buying thing -

Misguided notion. Not so much because it's American-centric. It is, but not in the American-business-is-the-only-thing-that-can-succeed sense.

But because it completely fails to take into account what, well, so many people/entities fail to take into account when thinking about business-related matters. IE, anything that doesn't have an associated $/€ value attached to it. There's quite a lot to be learned from psychology and sociology about how people would react if Nokia was bought by Microsoft, and quite a lot to be learned from history which combined with a decent understanding of cultural/social changes would indicate that frankly, Microsoft is not that well off long-term, and it certainly wouldn't be any more well-off than Nokia in the mobile business. (Unless they radically change of course.)

For instance, the article mentions that people buy Nokia because it's Nokia, not because it runs Symbian. True, but people also expect Nokian products to have a degree of familiarity and most importantly, quality. They trust Nokia because it's Nokia (as Nxx0 owners, it's important to remember that while we've gotten quite limited support/improvements, the mainstream Nokia phones are less poorly handled by Nokia); if Nokia suddenly became Microsoft-with-Nokia-name, they'd only trust it if Nokia kept making similar decisions it used to make. If Symbian got suddenly dropped, Nokia services were slowly end-of-lifed, and Win Phone 7 flooded Nokia phones, even if by themselves none of those changes would push users away, enough of them close enough together would.

Also, I would argue that from a sociological perspective, Microsoft is in a fading position. Business-wide, it's just fine. And it will remain a market presence for a long time to come. But I would argue in terms of relevance, deep down in the sociological-influence-and-importance level, Microsoft is not better off than Nokia. Not much worse, but not better. Both are giants who succeeded in pulling off their own era of dominance. But both are also heading in a direction the public itself is slowly starting to not care about. Both have also done their best to slam on the breaks and to adapt to the changing market - but both are behemoths, with all the difficulty-of-changing-momentum implied.

The difference is, Microsoft's inflexibility is a lot more inherent to the way it runs and the products/services it offers. Nokia's inflexibility is an internal problem they inflicted on themselves due to a slow descent into bureaucratic self-inhibition. Microsoft probably has the same bureaucratic problems, but that's the point - Microsoft's business approach has never been one to be undermined noticeably by the bureaucracy. Nokia's is. But by the same token, when the environment in which Microsoft's business strategy was successful recedes, Microsoft's relevance will be pulled out in the undertow. It'll be a slower process that the time scales most people view - something discussed in historical appraisals of large business in the 21st century or something, not in current business analyses - but it will also be more certain unless Microsoft changes drastically.

Nokia, I would argue, is in a similar predicament - but Nokia's bureaucracy has been the norm for far less time than Microsoft's. So Nokia is in somewhat of an all-or-nothing predicament. Either they fix the internal stifling of innovation (and successfully combine that with this MeeGo maneuver of theirs), or they won't. Microsoft - assuming it ever made the decision to buy Nokia, which I think it won't - can come in and keep Nokia in better circumstances than it would end up in the 'won't' scenario - but it will also nearly guarantee that Nokia wouldn't succeed in pulling off the 'will' scenario.

That said, I'm really hoping having a Microsoft-ian CEO doesn't have a similar effect. When the news first came out, I recognized that he's a human being with his own ideas and biases, not a Microsoft lackey - but there's always the possibility he thinks like Microsoftian leadership enough to go in the same directions it would.

- Edit -

Also on a personal note:

Super AMOLED Multitouch capacitive = ewwww. (Seriously, can there be more omg-that's-so-awesome-I-just-came BS in the name of a technology?)

AMOLEDs suck in sunlight, I'd rather either go the Pixel Qi route, or the transflective type of screen that the N900 has. I mean really, just look at that screen. Now ask yourself (set it to full brightness first, then run something colorful), do you really need more colorful brightness on your screen? How about actual visibility in sunlight? I remember a few weeks ago I was playing some games on an iPhone... yeah, it's 'vibrant' and colorful and ****, but... ewww. I can't even begin to view an average 'American' smartphone screen in sunlight - with the N900 I just have to pick at worst a slightly different angle. The only time I have trouble viewing anything in direct sunlight on it is my X-Terminal windows... Because I have the background set to black and the font as a light gray, relatively small letter size, thing. Not much to reflect light through.

Oh, and as I've argued countless times, the only advantage of the capacitive screen the multitouch, and there's already technology to bring multitouch to resistive screens. Given how 'light' of a resistance a high-end resistive screen gives before you can get touch recognition nowadays, there's little reason to defer to capacitive.