Originally Posted by volt

It is true that Nokia is well known for having a big and creative R&D platform, biggest amongst smartphone companies. Some of this has now been cut, though, immediately after they lit the platform on fire. It's understandable since they've lately had trouble getting any sales boost from having such a large R&D cost, and it's double understandable since much of their R&D was Symbian-centric, but it's looking more and more short sighted to depend on Microsoft for innovation.

Originally Posted by zwer

The problem with any actively failing company, especially the one operating in the hi-tech industry, is that the bean counters soon start cutting it based on Excel charts and variable statistics data, with no real vision for the future. It is understandable, tho, as when fiscal problems start to appear an accountant would look upon the data and see that a very big slice of the pie goes to the R&D departments, without getting anything back immediately - and rightfully figure that it has to go until the company stabilizes. When you have current problems, you don't really look that much in the future. But the problem is that once you kill your innovation, you are sentenced to be a follower and to be in the mercy of others. And the others will keep you around for as long as you are useful to them, and not a second more than that.

Originally Posted by gerbick

Indeed. But watch Android, BB10 and iOS all pull the best parts of Harmattan into their OS's going forward. Harmattan was before its time. Yet, it failed to garner support from within and without.

Originally Posted by zwer

That's not a fact, and it hasn't been for quite a long time. Elop liquidated all his shares in Microsoft, don't know how he stands regarding Nokia stock, tho. I am of personal opinion that CEOs, CFOs and BoD members should only be paid in stock options of any given public company - they can live from the dividend if they keep or increase the value of a company they run, and would be directly punished if the value drops. I don't believe in management responsibility if their own arse is not on the line.

Elop and his management team have done so much wrong things that you don't need to pull fictional data or conspiracy theories in order to plainly show their incompetence.

Originally Posted by Cue

My point is that the conflict of interest was in fact the oppisite, he couldn't sell his MS shares before announing the deal and had to wait. This confilct of interest prevented him from doing so at the time because of insider trading regulations.

It would be interesting to know if he still has any Nokia or MS shares now though. Also, I agree that this was a one sided deal.

Originally Posted by gruik

With wp8 times will be hard for nokia. Now it have wp7 exclusivity: he can do what it want. For Wp8 all competitors(sam hp htc lenovo etc) will coming to this markzt. Those are healthier than nokia and will be very strong. Dark times are not finished for nokia. (Sorry for my english).

Originally Posted by zwer

I think that in the 2008 and 2009 Nokia came out as a company with the biggest R&D spending, number of people working in R&D and such - world wide! - taking the Toyota's long-held crown. They had (and still have to some extent) quite formidable R&D centers near every major university grounds and that alone, over the years, granted them their immense IP portfolio. It's quite safe to say that without Nokia the mobile space would be very, very different today, and their efforts and innovations should be looked upon with uttermost respect. But that's all water under the bridge now...

The problem with any actively failing company, especially the one operating in the hi-tech industry, is that the bean counters soon start cutting it based on Excel charts and variable statistics data, with no real vision for the future. It is understandable, tho, as when fiscal problems start to appear an accountant would look upon the data and see that a very big slice of the pie goes to the R&D departments, without getting anything back immediately - and rightfully figure that it has to go until the company stabilizes. When you have current problems, you don't really look that much in the future. But the problem is that once you kill your innovation, you are sentenced to be a follower and to be in the mercy of others. And the others will keep you around for as long as you are useful to them, and not a second more than that.

Nokia, even if they pull out of the dire straits they're in now, will have nothing to offer to top their competition in the future if they let off their biggest talent and kill their future innovations. And they are actively doing just that. All while their competition is grabbing their talent and using them 'against' their former employer. This hurts Nokia far more than immediate loss of sales or the brand value decline - it directly threatens their future. These days everybody and their dog (read it: cheap, low-margin Chinese manufacturers) can create a smartphone like, let's say, the Lumia 900. It really doesn't bring ANYTHING new to the table, far from it. But not everybody can pull the PureView tech - that requires years of R&D with concrete funding and risky outcome, and Nokia used to excel at that which is what was keeping them on the #1 spot. If Nokia continues down this road, even if they survive, in a couple of years they really won't have anything to differentiate from ZTE or Huawei, and they'll eat them for breakfast with low prices. Hell, I'd grab a ZTE-made N9xx-like device rather than Lumia from Nokia even at the same price range, and with ZTE's pricing there would be no contest. I may not be a great fan of Steve Jobs, but he 'saved' Apple and brought it back from the brink of extinction precisely by forcing the bean counters to stay away from the R&D departments - everything else could, and eventually did go, but R&D stayed and created the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad... In the hi-tech world you can survive without having your own manufacture, you can survive without having your own retail sales channel, you can survive without having expensive promotions... but you cannot survive without R&D. No tech company survived without that.

In a sense, apart from the major and quite dumb radical strategy shift, Elop has been acting more as a CFO than a CEO - most of his 'work' went onto trimming Nokia as much as he can. And if the m0ronic `burning platforms` memo, and all the hell breaking lose after that, didn't kill Nokia - this forced diet and severe reduction in R&D will. Not immediately - in fact the reports can appear pretty rosy initially after cutting something you've been spending on a lot of money without immediate return - but it will pretty much seal their fate and the chances of having formidable weapons to fight in the future technology wars.

Originally Posted by specc

Nokia is there, at the rock buttom.

Originally Posted by SamGan

Surely you are aware that Harmattan was officially killed by Elop instead of given a chance to flourish? This is like bashing a new born on the head and then saying, "Look, I told you this fellow isn't going to be much."

Need I go in to all the past innovations from Nokia? I'm talking about MAJOR stuff. The first SMS was sent from a Nokia phone, the first camera in a mobile was a nokia one, bluetooth for mobile was nokia, the first smartphone was a nokia phone - the list goes on and on. They have a MASSIVE patent portfolio. I think people fail to realise that Nokia has had such a huge part to play in the innovation sector.

Originally Posted by gerbick

I think you overlooked how I stated that Harmattan didn't garner support from within - which denotes Elop - and without... no updates for Skype yet and other major 3rd party support plain dried up.



There's no need. That massive patent portfolio is not exactly saving Nokia at this very moment - it's postponing what some folks is inevitable. In fact, pretty much nothing is saving them... past innovations are great and all; today they're failing.

So let's see... first SMS message. Great... let's see if Nokia is around in 10 years.