I worked there; I'm aware of the stats. The point was about conversion of "dumbphone" users to smartphone users. We struggled there. And again, in some regions like the US Nokia could not sell smartphones.

Harmattan's successor.

Second question... how do you properly pronounce that?

With a Finnish accent.

Have to admit... this made tea shoot out of my nose. LOL

Reminds of the Forgotten Realms (D&D, anyone?) god of suffering.

...sounds a bit ironic, I guess.

"Ilmater (pronounced ill-MAY-ter [2]), also known also as the Crying God, the Broken God, the Lord on the Rack and The One Who Endures ..."

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Ilmater

Someone please email this to the entire Nokia Board?

Could speed things up, someone needs a boot.


There was some ranting in there, yet..

Tomi for CEO

I don't know why some people get hung up on the 1Ghz thing. It's wrong.

Look at how big and differentiated Nokia's product line is, and how wide a product range you get when you take all the S40 and Symbian devices and put them next to each other. That's a range from really weak to really strong devices.

Then know that Symbian will be replaced. Not 1:1, the top end Symbian phones will get Windows Phone. Symbian stuff will be ported to S40, making S40 more equipped - but not necessarily heavier to run per se.

You'll then end up with a new product spread - where you have cheap donk S40's in one end, more expensive S40s near the top, and Windows Phones at the top end. In many ways, S40 is "the" Nokia OS, and they're not going to stop making cheap S40 phones. There's no 1Ghz low end, that's just dumb. Only expensive phones have 1Ghz CPUs. Only a very select handful of expensive high end first half 2011 phones have something better, like that plus multi core. S40 is a wide family, will keep being a wide family, and it's Nokias strategy to let 1 billion new people get affordable phones with internet, where they could not afford it before.

That's not 1Ghz phones.

No, it's going to be the wide bulk product platform, beneath the Windows Phone high end. The term smartphone is outdated anyway, since it's just a question of definition and even Apple phones can be considered one. S40 will get features from the dying giant S^ and it will reach higher on the pyramid than today, but WP is the "smartphone" platform.

Let`s come up with some facts:

- Elop is a former Microsoft employee. It is very well known what kind of brainwashing people get at Microsoft, so it is very obvious that Elop will not change his mind about the Nokia-WP7 strategy.
- It is also a very well known fact that Microsoft really hates Linux and would take any effort to destroy any open-source movement where ever possible. Thats also why Symbian is no longer Open Source.
- MeeGo, especially if it would have been released on the Intel/Atom platform, could become a big threat to the Windows Desktop. MeeGo (wich IS in fact Linux) would have reached a wide distribution throughout all user types (not only geeks), which would have caused companies to port their commercial software to Linux, which would then also run on the Linux Desktop (if the Nokia MeeGo device was Atom as it was originally planned). This would eventually lead to gaining numbers of Linux/MeeGo desktops - directly attacking the Microsoft Windows desktop. Microsoft will not let this happen!
- Why pay the full price for a company, if you could get it for the half? Since Elop became CEO at Nokia, the Nokia shares lost more then 50% - all within a few month.
- Elop is still working against Nokia. Shares gained some value again a day after the N9 was presented to the world. Elop leaked the WP7-prototype video the other day and stated in a Finish newspaper that the N9 will definitely be the one and only MeeGo phone by Nokia, even though if it would become a success. In conclusion, Nokia shares started falling again.
- Nokia has already canceled contracts with many Linux support centers, e.g. the one in Nuernberg, Germany. This indicates that the N9 will never become available in Germany.
- Nokia has sourced out Software/Symbian developers to Accenture and sold the Qt-rights. Furthermore, the Nokia MeeGo development unit will be shut down in June 2012. It is very likely that Nokia was forced by contracts with the MeeGo alliance to produce at least a single working end user device.
Nokia has also sourced out the production of the first WP7-phones to an external company.
- Elops contract is limited until 12/2012,
- I`m not sure if that is of any importance: Jorma Ollila will leave Nokia mid 2012.

These are the facts. In my opinion, a buyin by Microsoft is therefore becoming very likely and will rather happen even this year than next year:
- Nokia already got rid of uneccessary staff such like software developers and sold the Qt-rights (which could have become subjected to an anti-trust investigation).
- the Nokia shares are on a level at which Microsoft could easily afford a buying in.
- In case of an anti-trust investigation, WP7-devices won`t be delayed since they are produced by an external company.
- Microsoft has announced tablets under their own brand. They desperately need a premium hardware producer such as Nokia to build these.
- I think it could be very well possible that Elop will seperate and outsource the S40-series to an external low-budget producer soon. In that case, Microsoft will get all they really need: a premium hardware producer, maps and communication data and loads of patents to fight Apple and the others.

Even if it was fact that Nokia launched internal investigations against Elop - that wouldn`t change anything. Balmer would rather buy Nokia today as letting them changing back to MeeGo/Linux tomorrow.
In my opinion, Elops main goal was to bring and keep the stocks down to a level where Microsoft is able to bring huge pressure
onto Nokia - and he performed very well in doing this.

These are my thoughts and I have absolutely no idea how Nokia could be saved. If the Nokia shares would suddenly gain power and start rising, Microsoft would probably buy in instantly. Nokia is at a point now where they HAVE to obey Microsoft or die.