Originally Posted by BigBadGuber!

Beautifully said. I think that many arguments here are by bruised European egos that cant stomach the fact that Nokia decided to abandon Symbian for american OS, WP7. Forget about Europe vs. America. NOKIA did the right thing by joining with MS. I bought N8 and I tell you its sitting in my glove compartment. Besides camera its OS is just not good enough to cut it in the competitive market. I also played with WP7, much more fluid, much more responsive than Symbian 3.

This is a win-win for NOKIA. They can still pursue their weegos and meegos and partner with MS that KNOWS how to do software engineering.

And Elop did the timing brilliantly. You dont want to sink with no return. Symbian is destined for history. Sure, masses will still use it for another 5-6 years and you will get your support and so on. But just like any other OS, things change and WP7/8/9/10 will give everyone else run for their money. I would be excited to be at NOKIA know, with new beginning, new cash infusion and ability to work for innovators like MS

Originally Posted by Cue

Tinchan, while I agree that Nokia might succeed with WP7 I completely disagree that it's bruised European egos who may be upset about this move. They also have not helped developers one bit. In fact they have waisted their time by constantly changing their main OS meaning those who learnt to use QT in the hope of developing for the Nokia platforms are now almost useless in the mobile phone industry and would have to learn to use .NET instead.

Originally Posted by mishmich

That's the way of things in computing & programming. You learn one system, then you find that you have to learn a different one. I started out on Informix, then had to learn Sybase and then MS.SQl Server, and then had to learn Oracle. Once you learn the basics of how databases work, how SQL works, and how client-server applications work, you soon learn how to transfer your skills. Ditto with OS's. I had to learn SCO V, then NT3.5 & 4, then Novell Netware, then vanilla SVR4, then Ultrix, OSF & VMS, then HP.UX, then Sun Solaris, then XP, and eventually Linux (Debian & Ubuntu). I learned a few scripting & programming languages along the way - which depended on what the job I was doing required. They are just tools to allow you do a job for somebody, and if the tool you are using isn't doing the job, you learn how to use a new tool. That's life.

Mish.

Originally Posted by Cue

agreed Mish, it is life, that's understandable but it's certainly not helpful. Not helpful at all in any way to keep jumping from framework to framework. Especially to do so when one hasn't really had the time to mature. It means that the developer gets very little return on their invested time, instead they are left frustrated when they have no solid roadmap from those pushing that framework.

Originally Posted by Wiener

Hmm ... first of all the Deal will reduce Nokia's sales of Symbian phones and make more difficult future sales of MeeGo phones or devices. The claims of Elop are very vague, based only on some speculations and it seems very-best-case assumptions. Net benefit is billions, but unfortunately negative due to loss of market and customers in the coming year.

Other issue is, Nokia cannot reduce opex so quick. Ever tried to release employees in Europe? Have fun, Elop. This will cost next billions. Nokia will pay social plan and MS licenses much more than MS is able to pay in addition to the lost market.

Originally Posted by Cue

changing their main OS meaning those who learnt to use QT in the hope of developing for the Nokia platforms are now almost useless in the mobile phone industry and would have to learn to use .NET instead.

Originally Posted by ndi

Not necessarily. Nokia accepted WP in their midst, they should take responsibility and port QT to WP. They already did to Windows and Windows CE, how about one more?

OTOH, Nokia and responsability.