http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/01/15...-rim-or-nokia/

In 2010, Stephen Elop, formerly a Microsoft exec, takes the helm and promptly states two brutal truths: This isn’t about platforms, we are in an ecosystem war; technically, we’ve been kidding ourselves. Nokia’s new CEO sees that the company’s system software efforts – new and improved versions of Symbian or Maemo/Moblin/Meego – won’t save the company.

Firstly, Gassée knows a lot about losing an "ecosystem war" - he designed and owned BeOS.

Secondly, he seems to disregard the ease with which Meego could have run Android apps a la Alien Dalvik.

Anyway, Gassée is my favourite IT commentator by a long way so I thought I'd post it up here.

He makes some great points.

1) RIM stuffed up for not advancing their field (better software, better hardware, more choices, different form of business like appliances)
2) RIM played catch up when the competition was speeding up, so it was too little too late.
3) RIM has no reserve cash (they're broke), they need investors....but who will buy?
-Not Nokia, not MS, not HP, not Samsung they're tied down.
-Certainly not LG, Dell, ASUS, Acer, Fujitsu etc (they don't have the resources)
-Probably not Google (they've got Motorola, buying RIM could be bad mistake)
-That only leaves Apple (and they have no need for BB as it seems), so it looks like BB will sell really cheap and/or crash and burn.

... ...
1) Nokia did exactly what RIM did, despite being the market kings.
2) Nokia recuperated by getting into a relationship with Microsoft before RIM did.
3) In late 20111, if Nokia still adopted its MeeGo 1.2 roadmap, it certainly would've been "too little too late" with WP they at least have a glimmer of hope. And I much rather Nokia teaming up with MS rather than create an Android monopoly.
4) Nokia's fate lies on WP7.5 and WP8 and Windows8...basically Microsoft.
5) If WP fails, then Microsoft will lose heavily unlike Nokia which will be ruined.

5) In hindsight, Nokia could've advance by facelifting Maemo and slapping it on high-end devices in 2010, call it MeeGo v1.5
Also they needed to purchase Palm, and combine it into a worthy ecosystem, for early 2011 as MeeGo v2.0
By this time, the Intel project would've finished and they would've sustain 9% (my estimates) of the market, rolling out MeeGo v3 against ICS
And if they had accelarated at that rate, in 2013 the market would be a tri-opoly with Android at (45%) top, iOS second (24%) and Nokia with (16%) third.

i dont think so that WP will be a success. i wonder what was the board of directors were doing when transition to WP was announced. MeeGo seems far better than WP. what will happen to Nokia if WP fails to achieve expectations ?

Nokia will sell more Windows Phones than it would have sold Meego 1.2 phones. And I presume M$ are paying them to do it.

Then again, if they went Droid, they'd be selling a ton of Android phones at the moment.

I don't know much about WP 7 but I presume it's faster than Android. With M$ unlimited cash, it's definitely got a future.

But in the long term, M$ will be taking their cut. Compare this with a Meego 1.3 that runs Android apps faster than Android does (using Alien Dalvik).

New versions of Android are adopted slowly so there's little problem with lagging behind. Also, Google are supposedly harmonising with Linux kernel again so that would make it easier.

With Nokia's advanced hardware and design, the phones are going to sell anyway. Users and journos notice that Meego apps are twice as fast as Android ones.

Frankly, it looks like they made the worst choice. The smart one would have been to sell both Android phones and Meego phones until they could run Droid on Meego.

In short, Android was never a threat to them. Rather it would have helped create an application base for Meego.

In Europe Lumia has to be sold with free xBox or super-cheap bundling deals by telcos which are subsidized by Nokia. Sales fall flat without incentives or subsidies.

Elop deceived the Nokia Board by saying MeeGo will not be in time to save Nokia. But the N9 was released 2 months before Lumia.

N9 is the first Nokia phone in a long time to excite so much consumer interest. What would happen if Nokia had fully backed MeeGo instead of trying to bury it alive? Nokia may be in a far better position than now with their fate firmly tied to WP7, an OS which has been rejected by consumers with a 1.5% global market share

Well, of course they will. That's what Steve (Monkeyboy) Balmer wants. That's why Stephen (Balmer's Handpuppet) Elop restricted the availability of the N9, effectively restricting it's sales potential, thus effectively killing off Meego.
So far we have 3(?) WP7 devices from Nokia which, incidentally seem to be available in every country (not like the N9).

If..... IF, on the other hand Nokia would have been allowed/permitted to produce the same number of Meego varients and marketed them the way they have marketed the WP7 devices, things would definitely have been vastly different for WP7's so far marginal success.

That's why I have now got my eye on the Samsung/Tizen project.

Well, I will disagree with many comments here, even I am very happy owner of N9 ... well, we will see that later, was a current strategy the best for Nokia ... anyway, Mr. Elop was chosen by Board of Nokia Directors ... and I really feel that it was time to make change in Nokia ... and to build up their business by multiple selected OS ...

I believe that Meego Harmattan is still there, when Mr. Elop is already gone ...

I believe that Mr. Elop is playing that game for himself ... so undirectly for MS too ...

I personally do not think WP7 in its current form will ever be a success. Ecosystems count only to people that have vested interests and usage of that platform. And face it, Windows share has been in steady fall for the last 5 years. So that means less people today are using Windows than they were during the Windows Mobile 6.x days.

Nokia picked the slowest horse out of the bunch out of the gate. They dismissed MeeGo as an incomplete operating system, but Elop was overlooking that WP7 in its current form is an incompete, restart of an operating system as well.

What will happen when WP7 fails to achieve expectations? Microsoft will throw more money at it.

I suspect killing off Meego was part of M$'s requirements for the deal otherwise Nokia's decision looks especially stupid.

Using Android to bring people across to Meego looks like a no-brainer to me. I didn't even know Android ran interpreted code at the time so this isn't just hindsight.

I'm very very new to the scene but it seems to me that Tizen could offer $25k to the Mer/Nemo team to port Qt. Even if resultant code meant we had to jump hoops to get it working, I'm sure the community would migrate en masse.

They seem to be more focussed on getting Bada apps working though.