It's fairly simple.

"Our product has been released and will be available to buy in the UK on November 25th, France November 27th, Poland November 30th, India December 15th" and so on.

People are getting topics very confused here. The product delay is over. The thing has shipped. Does anybody know anything more now than they did before it shipped? Nope.

As for the other stuff: Nokia announced the product at the end of August. At that point it seems highly likely they were planning an early October release. Instead delays have pushed it to late November. So while you're saying "But other manufacturers just show it to you later in the development cycle" that's because they're able to properly estimate their development cycle, Nokia constantly gets its wrong so it ends up showing off hardware that has months left to run instead of weeks.

A fair fraction on would-be N900 users (particularly, I suspect, the ones posting here) have a background in and experience of the free software way of dong things and were attracted to Maemo because we were told that it was our kind of OS.

Mostly, I think that it is, but this sort of secrecy is not how we are used to things being done. You can be open about bugs and tests and fixes and delays without the sky falling in - we know that because that's how we do it, all the time.

I could be wrong but I am getting the impression that the N900 may be a bit different a situation than the prior tablets. As it is, well, a phone as well as a tablet. Whether we like it or not the public and press will put it against mobile phones, something that probably makes Nokia management nervous as with this model of development they are putting all the cards on the table for the competition to see before the device is even released. Makes it easier for them to work out strategies against the device.

Here's an example of what a shipping notice should look like

http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?id=115674&lang=1033

Or

http://mediacenter.motorola.com/cont...8&NewsAreaID=2
Pretty simple huh? People look at the date and go "Oh that's the day it's out" and then go on with whatever they were doing.

No, he can give delivery estimates - there are many factors outside of anyone's control. He is also the retailer - the final point on the supply chain.

Let's say his eror factor is 1% (that's probably being generous). Now scale that up from a single delivery to one place to millions going to thousands of destinations each with many supply processing and handling points in between. The estimates are all them completely different and billions of times more complex to make and feature many more other companies, processes and factors.

It is simply not fair to expect Nokia to be able to predict the quickest time a particular retailer in a particular country can get a device to you.

That's fine for you, but I would rater have the device as soon as possible.

Tell you what, I will personally give you a guaranteed delivery date. How does that sound?
If you have genuinely got a pre-order with a retailer and the facility in place to pay for it, I will give you a delivery date. If the retailer happens to deliver it earlier, you just have to promise not to open the package. Deal?

There's your fixed date. If you don't have it by my fixed date and have satisfied the conditions, I will pay you £500 (or the equivalent in your local currency)

Yes, given those circumstances, you will have received your N900 by 27th July 2011. I expect to see your excited unboxing video on that date. Enjoy!

I agree that that is the case for many people here, being used to a closed delivery cycle and wrongly believing that these closed cycles are actually open. It reminds me of all the FUD fuss that is made whenever there is a public argument between two prominent groups in the open-source world. Such a big thing is made of them by the closed supporting press that they are made out to be the end of the world and good reason for no-one to trust either group.
The reality is that the groups are arguing out the best technical solution for a problem and eventually form up behind whichever idea is proved best. Exactly the same thing happens in the proprietary world, except it is all done behind closed doors, no-one knows about it anda weaker solution can come of it as the participants in the discussion are far fewer.

I do not believe that at any time previously so many people were directly involved in the development of a mainstream phone. Instead of a hundred people behind NDAs, you have thousands of people participating and arguing what would be best. I would like to see Motorolla, Samsung, HTC or even Apple (!) come anywhere near the openness we have had with the development of the N900.

As f9or lack of feedback, places like bugzilla and the development mailing-lists are where you will find technical nitty-gritty rather than the high level almost consumer stuff you will get on here.


Of you would rather be treat like mushrooms, go to a closed system, there are plenty of them. This is very different from what anyone else is doing and if you are expecting the same as everyone else, you are in the wrong place.

Not really, as some of those people could have easily ha\d those phones days before those dates if the retailers were allowed to sell them.

Fixed release dates mean the customer loses out.

About a new device, not yet launched, when the media are jumping on every single piece of information they can get about it? Releasing some information like "oh, yes, we've delayed it, and it will eat your babies" could be a PR disaster *for this device* if it got into the mainstream media, and it would - because of the associated buzz.

Once the hype has died down, sure, stuff like that will become much more mainstream, but if I was in a position of having access to information like that, I'd be quite tight lipped.

While being open is one thing, commercial realities still exist, and can't be forgotten. If they want to be open, they need to stay afloat first, and to keep afloat, they need to sell.

And then go to the store and purchase the device.

If Nokia could have clearly stated "you can pick up the N900 from your local Nokia store on this date and from other online retailers at this date" I would have been perfectly fine, they could even have considered the shipment time to retailers which isn't hard to get now a days with tracking technology and GPS. Hell I could be wrong, someone in the shipping industry let me know.

Yes, Nokia is not the retailer and is separated from the retailer by several pints in the logistics chain. Without imposing artificial delays, they cannot state a date when all retailers will be ready to ship to customers.

Why are people moaning about delay when Nokia are actually doing more than any other manufacturer to minimise delay?

What is possible to state with reasonable accuracy between a single retailer and a single customer does not scale up between an initial supplier and millions of end customers.

How many times do I have to repeat myself?

You have absolutely no idea whether that's true.

You appear to be basing your ideas on what Nokia does rather than any real world knowledge of logistics. Companies plan these things out. They know when their deliveries will get there. The dates HTC and Motorola gave are reflective of what they planned - when they planned to manufacture, when they planned to ship, when they planned for stock to arrive etc. You have this idea that a fixed date is basically the latest date possible when it's simply the one that's planned out.

The think is Nokia's logistics work exactly the same way. They know when they're delivering they just haven't structured their business such that they communicate that information to consumers. That is the problem.