[Interest] Semi-OT: What could / should Elop / Nokia have done differently?

[Jason H]

Well, from a management perspective, Elop's actions (castrating Nokia to just Symbian and WP) and then the announcement by MS n WP8, is I think a ploy to beat up Nokia's stock price (now well under $3, when all this drama started it was over $8) for a cheap MS acquisition via stock. Nokia should still be riding high on that $10b that MS gave them.

From an engineering perspective, Nokia should have ported Qt to Android as a first-class SDK for Android, then pushed Qt app development on Android, which would have eased transition by consumers and developers to Meego or the Linux flavor of the day. Additionally, they could partner with RIM and or Samsung to create a third software ecosystem (I'm not including WP, because WP had no ecosystem back then) After Android was in the bag (or while, when NOK still had employees) target iOS and do the same thing there. One SDK to rule them all, one SDK to bring them to Nokia. NOK could have stolen the app development thunder and become a leader, usurping Apple and Android. People don't care what their phone runs on, they care about what their phone runs (app wise). With Ovi store, Nokia could have also opened app stored for desktop apps, and immediately targeted the two largest markets - the combined desktop markets (OSX, Win, ... and yes Lin) and the mobile
 markets (iOS, Android). Nokia, even without an OS, could have won the mobile market because it's all about winning developers. And if you write an app, and then publish it, and reach the Linux desktop user that has a Android phone, well that's two potential sales right there. 


The revenues of the 6(!) platform app store would have really raked it in for Nokia, and they'd never have to ship a phone. 


Qt was the key to becoming relevant. But with the firings Elop has castrated Nokia and forced the company to suckle the teat of Microsoft, until MS takes them in for pennies on the dollar. I often think that if ex-Qt engineers got together and did the work that should have been done by Nokia, they could still be a serious disruption int he market place. With their own app store, I think it would be damn profitable, and easily so.







________________________________
 From: Atlant Schmidt <aschmidt at dekaresearch.com>
To: 'Bo Thorsen' <bo at fioniasoftware.dk>; "interest at qt-project.org" <interest at qt-project.org> 
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Interest] Semi-OT: What could / should Elop / Nokia have done differently?
 
Bo:

> But you're missing one important point: No CEO comes in and does
> what Elop did without a clear mandate from the board. He was hired
> specifically to introduce Windows Phone, not the other way around.

  I don't disagree with you at all. Nokia was already
  a very "Microsoft-friendly" company while I was still
  there (as evidenced by how well their phones worked
  with PCs and how badly they worked with Macs) and I
  wouldn't be surprised to find the Board acted as you
  have hypothesized.

                            Atlant

-----Original Message-----
From: interest-bounces+aschmidt=dekaresearch.com at qt-project.org [mailto:interest-bounces+aschmidt=dekaresearch.com at qt-project.org] On Behalf Of Bo Thorsen
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 8:52 AM
To: interest at qt-project.org
Subject: Re: [Interest] Semi-OT: What could / should Elop / Nokia have done differently?

Hi Atlant,

This was quite a lot better than most of the pretty useless mails in
this thread. (No, this isn't a subtle insult, I think you did pretty well.)

But you're missing one important point: No CEO comes in and does what
Elop did without a clear mandate from the board. He was hired
specifically to introduce Windows Phone, not the other way around. He
started around November and it was only about 9 working weeks later that
the Windows Phone edition was announced. It's *impossible* that this
decision was made after he was hired. Also, why on earth would they have
hired him, if it wasn't because of his ties with MS? This was a board
decision, not Elops.

However, the execution of doing it was done so badly that it's hard to
find comparisons. Tomi wrote that the burning platforms memo would be on
MBA courses as an example of what you should never do. And indeed it was
mentioned in one of my MBA courses this spring :)

Bo.



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