Opinion: Nokia + Microsoft: Can 2 Losers Equal 1 Winner?

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Guide community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.
With all that being said, my hypotheses for Microsoft/Nokia success and Microsoft/Nokia failure:

Success: Windows Phone finally takes off due to the saturation of Windows 8 PCs and tablets. The x86 tablets allowing users to run x86 apps is a real success (imagine people playing WoW or whatever the next MMO craze is on a tablet (assuming the system requirements aren't too intensive)). Windows Phone finally gets the big apps like Angry Birds in Space, the Zynga "-With Friends" and "-Ville" titles, official apps as opposed to alternatives. Hell, they may finally swallow up what's left of the Blackberry holdouts. Will it catch up with iOS? Hell no. Will it catch up with Android? Possibly.

Failure: Steve Ballmer gets even more pressure to step down. Windows 8 becomes the next "Vista," and people hold onto Windows 7 until Windows 9 comes out to "Mojave" Windows 8 all over again. Nokia rebrands the Lumia/Nx chasses (again) for Android. Microsoft cuts their losses, gets out of the smartphone market (aside from licensing ActiveSync, Skype, etc. and collecting royalties from Android. The scenario of Microsoft having to split into multiple companies may not occur right away...perhaps not even in the next 2-3 years, but probably by year 5.
 
[citation][nom]Bloob[/nom]iPhone had/has no new features, yet it's the best selling smartphone on the US (and many other) market. Sure, Nokia hasn't brought anything revolutionary to the WP platform yet, as they can't, not before Apollo. Worry not, PureView and RichRecording(don't forget this one) will come to the WP platform.P.S. there is no curved screen on the L900[/citation]

Yes it had an 8MPixel camera when any other WP-model had 5Mpixel camera's. Nokia temporarily had some leeway with this. Ofcourse the competation eventually also delivers higher MPixel-cams in their (upcomming) WP-models.

Essentially Microsoft dictates how a WP-phone works, looks and to what HW-specs it must adhere. The difference is just that Microsoft doesn't make the handsets themselves but let 'partners' do this. Too much difference between the models would the defeat the purpose of this tight control.

Again I see double standards being applied here. You comment negatively about Android's fragmentation
 
Microsoft needs to learn to market their stuff. Its good to have a huge OS market share but if you are not advertising you can disappear.

I was hoping that they would do their Microsoft store idea like Apple does. Its one way to get your product out to the mass and show it off a bit.

Considering the products are just as good and capable as Apple products.
 
There are really 3 problems with WP7.

1. Lack of advertising. it has been 6 months since i have seen a windows phone commercial. I have never seen a Lumia commercial.

2. Lack of Apps. They need to give away the SDK to developers and give them incentive to build windows apps. Nothing is more of an incentive than money. Apple and droid markets take 30% of sales price right of the top. If Microsoft just took 10% of the top. That would put 20% more money in the devs pockets and give them an incentive for making WP7 apps and Microsoft still makes money on it.

3. They need a real content delivery system. ITunes is the worst application ever programed. It absolutely sucks on the PC and is not much better on the mac. I would rather go back to using windows 3.11 than ever use ITunes again. However it does 2 things (not very wel i might add). It uploads content to the phone and it stores content, so if you move devices, you don’t lose all your stuff. While Zune works great for uploading to the phone, it sucks at storing content purchased content.

I have a Samsung Flash, and i love it. it is my best phone yet. I have had a Moto Droid, (it crashed and hung up all the time). and an I phone 2. i hate the Iphone. mainly because of Itunes. I am definatly going to look at a Nokia when my contract is up. the best bumb phone i ever had was a nokia. if the hardware is as good as my old nokia with a WP7 OS i dont see how you could lose, except for the reasons i list above.
 
Mr Elop has ensured that Nokia + microsoft can't be a winning combination, both 2011Q4 and 2012Q1the N9 outsold all Lumia models together, during the year with Mr Elop as CEO, Nokia has fallen down from the marker leading company to something larger than RIM.

Draw backs with the Lumia is that they don't have all the features as Symbian, the Lumia phones can't have any exciting hardware as a 42MP camera (takes microsoft over a year to write the driver for that camera according to microsoft), the Lumia is far more expensive to manufacture than the Symbian or MeeGo cellphones as you need to pay microsoft US$20 for each unit (both Symbian and MeeGo was under Nokias control). The first models of Lumia was not made by Nokia, only branded, so those cost even more to manufacture and they were of poor quality. The Lumia phones can't be upgraded to WP8 according to microsoft, so they will have a short life before they are EOL. Resellers don't like to sell Lumia, as there been too much issues with the phones and the margin is too low, they make a better sell by selling an Android based phone. Nokia has alienated two of the worlds largest operators by trying to force WP based phones which can't be customized as well as Symbian or MeeGo and on which those two operators already had spent loads of money on. Don't forget that most operators dislike the fact that microsoft is the owner of Skype and Skype is offering cheaper call prices than the operators and those the operators are speding money on blocking the usage of Skype and other VOIP options. Don't forget that there even was a bribing try by microsoft by throwing in a Xbox if you bought an Lumia phone, that didn't go well as the N9 managed to beat the Lumia with 3 sold units for each sold Lumia unit and don't forget that Lumia has been advertised a lot, the N9 has hardly had more than a few excellent reviews and mouth to mouth advertisement.

The whole deal with microsoft has cost Nokia a market share loss from 32% to 7%, for microsoft it has been a status quo where the WP share has been staying on 2.4% (this number includes cellphones from not just Nokia, but Samsung, LG and others who has WP models for sale).

Of course there are people who like their WP phones, as there are those who love their iOS phones, but for Nokia the package of Mr Elop and microsoft has been the worst ever package they could have, it's now a lot worse for Nokia than it was after the crises with the Nokia TVs.
 
Parts of Wolfgang's diatribe are jaw-droppingly stupid... like blaming the first quarter results on the Lumia 900 which did not even go on sale till the second quarter. I don't have a dog in this fight but I did expect slightly savvier commentary from Tom's.
 
[citation][nom]xbeater[/nom]-1 * -1 = 1Mathematically speaking yes, however I'm doubtful.[/citation]
(-1) + (-1) = -2

Or in other words, if you wanna be smarty: two stones drown faster than one.
 
With the Microsoft echo system and the Nokia phone hardware expertise i think their coporation can really bring out something that will blur the boundaries of computer/phone integration. I have sold my stock of the overvalued competitor Apple, double ill regret that in the years to come!
 
After the US release the month, the quickly ran out of stock. There is definitely hope, as those sales were not in Q1, so we may see a turn around in Q2.
 
I've been a Tom's reader since learning how to overclock a Celeron 300 years back. I'm left with a disgusting feeling after reading this piece. I understand this is an opinion piece, but there is very little substance backing up the writer's blanket statements. I use an iPad, used an android phone for 6 months, and researched Windows Phone and the Lumia 900 extensively before purchasing. The Nokia's automatic integration and organization of all my contacts and corresponding message/email threads, built-in Nokia Drive GPS app that doesn't consume data, Bing vision translation for multiple languages that doesn't require a network connection, Office and Microsoft Exchange integration, and unmatched phone reception and call quality on a phone a fraction of the price of the competition's high end offerings have made this device the standard to beat in today's market. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but I'd call this article a fluff piece for lack of substantive examples. There would be no reason for apple and android fans to even comment on this story if Microkia was not an emerging threat in the smartphone market.
 
I really don't get the reason for that much flaming. WP7.5 is a good OS while it doesn't demand powerful hardware. Sure it's a long road for Microsoft to catch up in all aspects but forcing them to release all possible features without proper testing will lead us to the same problems we face with Android right now - lots of bugs, excessive CPU usage and poor battery life.
 
[citation][nom]K2N hater[/nom]I really don't get the reason for that much flaming. WP7.5 is a good OS while it doesn't demand powerful hardware. Sure it's a long road for Microsoft to catch up in all aspects but forcing them to release all possible features without proper testing will lead us to the same problems we face with Android right now - lots of bugs, excessive CPU usage and poor battery life.[/citation]
I believe the reason for the "Opinion" part of the article, is that the author has a history of having an Apple slant for every article.
 
Do people want a great phone or apps?

As pointer out, everyone who own an Xbox should own this phone. why is this not better marketed at bussiness or anyone who would use MS Office? 2 x great features.

I dont care for Itunes or having access to 500 000+ apps, 50 000+ is fine.

Quick simple and clean
 
I've got a windows phone. It's great, it's very quick(which is what I noticed first). I would like to see VPN features added though, however do keep in mind that this is only the 2nd release for the OS. It's much better than iOS and Android were on their 2nd release. Microsoft have actually learned from other peoples mistakes

WP7 just needs some better marketing. Slap it on TV, slap it on billboards, do cheap deals, get people hooked on it. Then you'll win
 
[citation][nom]Vorador2[/nom]Well, imho there are several problems.First: the transition to WP 7. Not only they dropped compatibility with 6.5 and earlier software (annoying previous customers), it took way too long to launch and it lacked some critical features like copy and paste and multitasking. These features were added later, but the damage was done.[/citation]
What mission-critical 6.5 software lost them tons of customers, which doesn't have an equivalent on WP7? Yeah, that's what I thought. They lost 100 users that used custom software originally designed for WinCE! Oh noes!

Cut and paste? Yeah that killed them. Murdered the iPhone too, they launched without it and they never quite recovered! That doesn't even include MMS - the iPhone launched without a basic feature that brick-shaped dumbphones had forever, and now look at their market position. iPhone only has .000001% of the market, or something, right - and you can't even update the OS to add features. Nope, totally impossible. Android doesn't do it, iOS doesn't, no sir, the only way to add features is to grow a beard and compile Linux and make your own custom phone OS on top of it.
 
Lol I switched from a dual core Android phone to the single core Lumia 800, and it's smoother, and the overall user experience is much better. I'd call the people who made that phone winners, not losers...
 
[citation][nom]lyd[/nom]I've been a Tom's reader since learning how to overclock a Celeron 300 years back.[/citation]I do hope you're referring to the 300A, good sir. Set the bus to 100Mhz and you had a cheap speed demon.
 
It's ironic how Smartphones are mainly used by dumb people.

Looks like this Microsoft Windows Phone might be the deal breaker in that, considering iPhones and Androids have a lot of apps for dumb people to waste time, on.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.