Today's iPhone/Droid/N97 is tomorrow's Moto Razr. Today's top-of-the-line unit is tomorrow's 'Free w/contract' feature phone. Things change very quickly.

That said, in the overall scheme of things, I still believe it's very early in the game. There is time. I've argued before and would again that Nokia is actually ahead of the competition - for the long haul. Nokia has problems, but with MeeGo and Qt they are positioning themselves well for the future - thinking long-term, not next quarter.

They just need to fix everything Ovi, write code like crazy, bring out some ridiculous hardware and advertise like Viagra. Reading this thread, I'm not sure the top suits in management understand this. Certainly the shareholders don't seem to get it.

I think that they have shown, over the past four years I would guess, that they are somewhat incapable of executing long term objectives. They commit to Maemo(Fremantle?) then Harmattan(?) and now Meego (Fremantle/Harmattan/Intel). They obviously don't have a clear roadmap to the future and I think it is bad when regular people such as myself are able to spot it. They spread themselves too thin with all these phones. Maybe they should take a play from Apple and release one high end phone a year. A phone that has a stable OS, bleeding edge features, and kick-*** customer support. I think that would do more to shore up the image that people have of Nokia. Sure they can release a thousand mid-range phones but for the $600 price and up they need one device every 12-18 months IMO. They will be known as a value brand, that generic gray and white cereal box on the shelf if they continue in this fashion. They make great entry phones but their high end devices cannot and should not follow the path of these mid range devices. For them to think so long term they shouldn't change their game plan like every day.

"They just need to fix everything Ovi, write code like crazy, bring out some ridiculous hardware and advertise like Viagra. Reading this thread, I'm not sure the top suits in management understand this. Certainly the shareholders don't seem to get it."

The shareholders get it. They see numerous devices getting more attention and they want something done about. They wonder why the N900 has not revolutionized the mobile phone space. They wonder why they have somebody in placce that is dragging their feet to get things done. They bought the company that made QT in 2008? It is 2010 and they are just getting it ready to go? They just released the development kit? I remember reading a thread where they complained about a lack of developer resources? How do you have that when you need to compete with the likes of Apple and the surging Android OS? If they make it hard for the developers then it is going to be hell for end-users. I think Im ranting so I will stop.

That is exactly what is happening now. Nokia is secure in the mid-range because they can easily migrate their previous high-end there, with almost zero costs in R&D.

However they need something to in the high end, to replace their previous offerings, and that is MeeGo (and maybe Symbian^3 and 4 handsets).

I am guessing there is going to be a converging point, either near the end of this year or the beginning of the next, when the following things should be ready, and roughly around the same time:

- A polished Symbian^3 handset, with previews of the S^4.
- The MeeGo device.
- Revamped services (Ovi, SDK's etc).

They still have time IMO, but not much.

Sorry, I haven't gone yet through the 150 posts. Can someone explain what Nokia has to do with the LG GW990?

Fremantle and Harmattan are simply codenames for versions of Maemo. The codename for Maemo 5 was "Fremantle", and the "Harmattan" codename was announced long ago for Maemo 6. If it helps to understand the situation, your complaint here would be similar to declaring Microsoft unable to plan for the future due to the fact they released Windows 2000 Professional (codename "Memphis") and then Windows XP (codename "Whistler").

MeeGo is a cooperative project, in which Nokia and Intel are major players, to create and maintain a common foundation (Linux + additional standardized layers) upon which companies may build their own user interfaces and applications for retail products. Though it will not use the MeeGo-standard package format, Harmattan will be MeeGo as it uses the MeeGo software stack and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

The best way for a company to avoid being stuck with dead wood is by way of voluntary, NOT involuntary reduction (other than firing for things like incompetence). Layoffs that fail to take all critical factors into account wind up getting rid of the bad with the good.

That's stupid.

In my first professional job, after 7 years I got caught in the last of several rounds of layoffs. A new supervisor who felt threatened by my team leadership promoted me just before the layoff decisions. Turns out being at the bottom of any given job class was enough to qualify an employee for being cut. I had just turned in an innovative process improvement estimated to save the company $250,000 per year.

In a later job I got a major promotion after several years hard work. I was running our local PDM operations in Dallas. During a regular meeting my boss informed me that he was puzzled by our new director's remark that he felt I was paid too much for a "clerk" (I was an administrator and had 2 clerks reporting to me). I informed my boss that what it meant was I would be in the next round of layoffs. My boss laughed and said no way: he needed me badly and had secured my salary for at least 2 more years. Three days later I was laid off, and my boss was stunned. They had never even asked him. Want to know what I found out about the criteria? The CFO organized the layoffs; the top 1 or 2 wage earners in every department were to be cut regardless of history, role, whatever. I had just submitted a new invention for patent consideration (part of my prior role) and had saved the company tens of thousands of dollars in innovative process improvements.

About Nokia I will only say I was told the criteria was being American and having moved from factory operations to timezone (and then global). Supposedly our services were only needed temporarily, and most of the global roles were meant to actually be local eventually. Well, that made sense for most of the roles-- but some of us really did have actual global roles. I performed mine from the Dallas office, my house, Starbucks, the side of any random road, Helsinki, Mexico and Paris. My boss still calls me periodically to express how hard it is for him without my innovative help.

The prior examples are of course anecdotal but I have asked a LOT of people for their experiences, and it turns out I'm not alone. Companies aren't getting rid of employees who make them "fat and vulnerable to takeover"-- they KEEP those people because they're invisible. Somehow those of us who actually give a crap wind up getting the axe. The ones who WANT to keep our employers lean and agile.

To bring this back to topic, I hope OPK isn't pushed out so casually. I disagreed with him on some strategies (like his opposition to lean platforming) but I respected him as a leader. I'd work under him again any day.

The LG GW990 in the title actually has nothing to do with anything in the thread whatsoever. It seems to be there to confuse people who haven't read the 150 posts

Thats not what I meant. I have no doubt that you contributed meaningfully there and elsewhere.

I meant they dont care whether they get rid of good workers. That is irrelevent. The idea is to squeeze their employees in terms of salary and perceived stability.

If you look at the backstory of the movie, Wall Street, you see that they are trying to show that a company who treats its employees generously leaves itself vunerable. I was trying to make a similar point. When I say fat I am not at all referring to the quality of the workforce. Clearly getting rid of experienced employees is nuts if thats all you care about.

I am not trying to support such behavior. The system is nuts is what I mean.

... you know, this is something i dont quite understand with modern economy:

market share goes up, profit goes up.... but for some reason (probably more related to crystal balls than to facts) stocks go down in price. It's the market that decicedes about the value of the shares, right? not the management? why don't investors fire themselves instead of the management that made everything that matters about the company better than worse?

probably the whole concept of shares and stock corporations is a leftover from early days of industrialisation and should be made a criminal offence. it doesn't seem right to anybody that money (without vision, reason and sanity) rules.

That's because the crystal ball showed even bigger profits than the ones reported. I.e the price was future loaded.