Oh, one more thing.

iPhone has a model a year. The whole team works on it. If you wonder why their device is finished and polished, wonder no more.

Nokia also used to be synonymous with cheep, low-end candy bar phones with cute interchangeable faceplates, depending on how far back you go. They did what a lot of companies do, they evolved and moved quickly when they were a young company, found a sweet spot, and drove it home. Now that they're larger, it's harder to steer the boat, and smaller upstarts are slowly eating their lunch.

I give you all but the last one. One of the key attractors for me was that their Linux based OS was not like "them". (By "them" I assume you mean Android.) If you've played with Android at all, you'd know it's not at all like Linux. It's more akin to programing for J2ME on the older Nokia lines. Lots of APIs and "openness", but you're still stuck in your sandbox, relying on the mothership's API to talk to the outside world.

I do agree with you though, that they need to stop thrashing about and get their ducks in a row. Pick an OS, innovate again on new platforms (Atom is a decent idea), and focus on taking back market share by out-doing your competitors (which includes marketing...) I think they're starting to get it though, and could see MeeGo taking them in the right direction. I just hope they step it up soon.

Agreed. Times have changed, though, and the huge mass of the phone market hovers around the middle. Back then, you had 1, 2 for low, 3 for decent, 5-6 for middle, 7 for pro, 8 for slick and 9 for business.

And while the 1 broke the market, it was still a king among phones. Cheap, rugged, full of features and had stuff years ahead of its time. Flashlight, self-editing ringtones, simple interface, vibration, built-in AOL chat (!), "Other features include a 50-message capacity (inbox and drafts, with 25 messages in the sent items folder), alarm, stopwatch, calculator, 6 profiles, contacts storage (capacity 50, with the ability to assign different tones and icons to different contacts), and games (Snake II and Space Impact+)".

Items in bold are missing from N900 out of the box. And I wasn't a bastard, either, to list 400 hrs standby and wap, that were ahead of its time, but one can't expect a platform like N900 to last that long.

Agreed. But Maemo isn't too much like Linux either. More so, but not alike. I wouldn't want Android on my phone, frankly.

What I meant was we have the same ground level of technology. Modified Linux kernel. Back in the golden days, when Nokia launched 7650, the first ever true smart phone, competition was still rubbing sticks together.

Man that 7650 was sweet. Smart, reliable, slide-up camera, good uptime, barely-touch joystick, customizable menu, the works. Polished, too. Don't remember waiting for the third OS release to see who sent me a message. Don't remember ever flashing it either. Don't remember it crashing, either.

Wonder if it still boots.

I think that NOKIA was too long looking around and wated to participate in every single part of electronical devices.

Navigation systems, booklet (which is not bad but too expensive) but lost the track of the point that made them big. Innovation
Geeze who remembers the quadric phone which was so ugly but oh well was something new, never seen before.
Or N-gage phones when you took a call you looked like Mickey Mouse
But as said before there was technical innovation as well.

And still NOKIA is trying to get everybody happy with the phone they want. Look at the many models compared to other Manufacturers. Why? Make some phones but make them great and you in again.

I really look also forward to Symbian 3 it looks like it will be better then what has been seen before.

Lets keep the track

BR

Wolfpac

Come again??

I'll give you the UI is different than most desktop/window managers; but once you go into shell it is Linux. It may be busybox for most of it but the commands are there, and if it's missing one a simple recompile will fix it.

The UI on Android is different... and then you go to a terminal and... Oh yeah - that's totally different too.

One of the biggest reasons I like Maemo is that once I'm in a terminal it's nearly identical to my Ubuntu Desktop. Want SSH with keys? Oh, all I gotta do is SCP over my ~/.ssh directory.. exactly like I already do!

Want SSH keys with Android? Hold on... I need to go figure out this app.....

While I guess it's kinda sad that a guy as obviously dedicated to company as OPK is (having spent about half his life working for Nokia) may soon be buttered toast, I certainly don't feel sorry for him. He won't have any problem scraping together the change for his next burger and fries.

The Good...or my take on what Nokia's doing right regarding the smartphone business...

1. I think Nokia's on the right path with MeeGo + Symbian + Qt. and just needs time for the plan to work.
2. The Symbian microkernel OS is fine for mid to low end hardware, i.e. smartphones for the masses. Great OS for limited hardware.
3. The more complete, capable but demanding Maemo/MeeGo OS is great for high to midrange hardware, i.e. iPhone competitors. The best mobile OS of all for top hardware.
4. Qt ties it all together (and with other OSs).
5. Open-sourcing everything helps bring other companies on board. A fine plan.

The Bad...or my take on what's wrong...

1. The services end of things is an incomplete, undefined, unusable mess. Ovi services, Ovi store - Ovi everything..WTF is it? I still can't hardly tell, much less actually use any of it. The Total Fail that is Ovi is the single biggest problem in trying to compete with Apple or Google and their gaggle of apps and services. Not hardware, not Symbian/Maemo/MeeGo - Ovi. Unbelievable.
2. The plan is taking too long to get deployed on devices. Now, I don't think it's too late, I think it's actually still very early in this game. But the perception by the media - and therefore stockholders - is not much is going on while their stock is dropping. And everything these days is instant gratification, what have you done for me lately? Nokia/Intel really needs to kick MeeGo development into high gear.
3. The N8 and Symbian^3 are late to the party. It's a weak enough effort that a single post from a Russian blogger has Nokia on the defensive and stockholders calling for the CEO's head on a platter. Unlike the N900, there's no killer hardware or nifty new OS, not much new or exciting there to grab attention away from competitors. And with Ovi a non-factor, it's seriously handicapped from the start.
4. Marketing, or rather, the total lack of it. In the US especially, advertising is everything. It's how the Emperor Jobs gets all the iSheeple to feed from the iTrough. For the N8 to make an impact, Nokia must offer it through carrier stores and make it, well, cheap. Take a loss on every one sold if necessary to build buzz and awareness. Advertise!! Otherwise buyers will grab Android stuff so they can use Google Maps and load up on apps.

So Nokia just needs to fix Ovi, code like crazy, bring out some ridiculous hardware and advertise like Viagra. No big deal, friggin' piece of cake. Anyway, that's my take, from an American point of view and who has no particular fondness for Nokia or any other manufacturer. They're just a business.

Sorry for the long post. Congrats to anyone crazy enough to give a flying fig about what I think to make it to the end of this.

I would say, congrats to Eldar on single handledly damaging Nokia so badly.

Since this is about OPK, it's also worth pointing out that Nokia's marketshare in USA was allready way below that 20% by the time he got the CEO position.

Ok so the question becomes - Was it below 7%?

Apple is global leader in intellectual mobile phones, Nokia is global leader in mechanical mobile phones.
Products by Nokia are no more hot is they lack inttelectually added value.

Next global leader in mobile worlds is HTE.
My friends run mobile outlets and still buy second hand Nokia but payinguch less than in previous year.

World goes LTE, SIP phone, Europe goes roaming free,
world goes flat rate, charging pocket money for prepaid flat rate plan.

I develop 3G IVVR apps, systems as 3G video calls are charged in Europe as voice only calls.

GSM standard is closed.
It makes no sense to charge for GSM digital voice calls as at the same time 3G data transfer is charged at pocket money.
Moving GSM calls to data channels, to LTE can let us forget about any fees for mobile calls.

Asterisk and SIP softphones are a good example how to manage global corporations and pocket money for corporate phone calls.

The same for virtual call center, pbx, ivr, ivvr,
telemarketing.

We don't need more mno vmo mobile phone models as markets are full of low intellectual products.

Hot is ipad and a series of mobile tablets.

Hot is solar charging, mobile charging, fast charging, airnergy.
Hot is not netbook.
Hot is not 3G laptop by Nokia.

Nokia lacks hot intellectual products like iPod touch, iPhone, ipad ...