I wouldn't say it's a "sinking ship" per se, but a ship that's just sitting there while the others zoom by it. That being said though, I have a N82, and I really do think that thing is the best phone ever - If I were to choose one phone (between my Galaxy S and the N82) for use forever, I'd pick the N82 without question.

Agreed. I won't deny i'm a Nokia fan boy. Since I have started using cell phones over 10 years ago I have gone through countless phones only 2 of which were not Nokia. The 2 phones were Moto's back in day when Rogers used to be Cantel. My last phone the e71 I was super frustrated with it's dumb Ovi app crap and the slow ass internet. Finally I had enough and I have converted to a Blackberry user. If Nokia doesn't make some changes to their smart phones I will never go back.

"Nokia and Microsoft Announce Plans for a Broad Strategic Partnership to Build a New Global Mobile Ecosystem"

So the Press release is out (not the actual announcement but all the info for the press prior to the announcemnt)


and Nokia is picking up WP7 as their primary smartphone OS and MeeGO will still be developed and Symbian will still be used.

WP7 sounds like its going to be the "transition" OS although it will take a dominant role ;)


and the Head of MEEGO has been fired (guess he took too long to get MeeGO finished so he's fired)

There will still be a Meego device released this year but it sounds like MeeGO has become Maemo just 1 device and that's it (N900)



edit: i should make it a bit clearer, Symbian is going to be phased out slowly and MeeGo is pretty much dead they're just going to release the 1 device they've been working on (N9) and its going to become an Open Source OS that sits on the back burner.


Elop was Gates' Trojan Horse as this now famous image depicts (started as a joke but looks like its true)
http://mynokiablog.com/wp-content/up...op-600x480.jpg




A Plus is that they're merging techs so best of both worlds downside is .... since Symbian is getting phased out no ones going to be developing for it anymore (and just when they got so many people on board and were offering million dollar+ prizes for those who created the best apps) My N8 likely won't be seeing anything new and awesome outside of what's already almost complete.

The Meego device... might be fun the N900 does have a tonne of neat features etc developed for it by the community.... but shieeeeet

really disappointing -_-




edit2: this really sounds like a deal for Microsoft rather than Nokia....

Microsoft gets Nokia a company that sells Half a Billion Phones a Year to install Microsofts OS...
Microsoft gets Nokia Maps;
Microsoft gets the OVI Store
Microsoft gets Nokias Mobile Camera Technology / team....

Nokia gets Bing and a shitty OS that isn't even doing well on its own...

Hrm... I'm still a Nokia fanboy up until now, but that might change with Microsoft becoming so involved and Nokia phasing out its uniqueness in its own OS:\
At least my E71 should still last a while since it's build Nokia tough :o

The Developers that Nokia has attracted/begged to join recently are in an Uproar... after all the time they've spent and are spending Nokia turns around and says "haha suckers we're killing those OS's"

they're starting a shitstorm over on forum.nokia (where developers gather)

OMG.....


Elop confirms that Meego and Symbian are Dead.
MeeGo will be considered a learning, exploratory OS for future experimentation

Symbian is HUUGGEEE 200million users and so it will be a 1-2yr Transition Period to kill off Symbian and get users to move to WP7.

Nokia WILL BE paying royalties to Microsoft and Microsoft will be paying pebbles for features it takes.


FINLAND Employees will be Cut "Finland is our home, but... we need to cut costs around the world; There will be substantial cuts in employees" (FYI Nokia just built a HQ in Silicon Valley)

good lord. seriously? :failed:

I'm not a fan of nokia, but i don't have any ill will towards them.


pardon me for using a dinosaur of an analogy here, but m$ trumped apple the first time over by creating the backbone, and letting the hardware makers do their stuff, but the success grew because the platform was open.

Sure, they could have more control of their product now, but they are trying to play Apple's game. Why would you want to play their game? That's what they are good at!
Go do what you're good at? Building something that we want to use, and we want the backbone for.

I absolutely cannot stand pretentious software that thinks it's too smart for itself. Example? New windows live messenger.

Anyways, sorry for the tangent, I don't see this working out for Nokia, at all.
If nothing else, it only strengthens Android's position.


Yes, I'm an android fanboy, but if you see my earlier comment, i think more open competition is better.

well Android was the 2nd OS i liked :)

I guess that's where i'll be headed even thinking of ditching my N8 maybe ill wait for the moment an Android phone comes out with a camera on par

Wired article about Nokia going WM7:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/...indows-phones/

As others mentioned, I think Android would have been a better fit for them, allowing them to customize the User Experience moreso than WM7 would allow them to, I'd think.

Plus, WM7 is still in its infancy, who knows if it'll end up like WebOS...

I agree, android would likely have been a better OS for them as it's already growing rapidly in their core market place. This deal is totally to Microsoft's benefit but I don't know how it will help Nokia.

Good-bye Symbian, hello Windows Phone 7. Meego sticks around. Nokia's other services are being integrated/assimilated into Microsoft's offerings (e.g., Ovi Maps into Bing). Some serious reshuffling in Nokia's executive structure and roadmap. Looks like Nokia is going to be ditching a bunch of jobs as well (unfortunately).

The question is: now that Nokia won't be offering a unique OS, will more people adopt Nokia for WP7? Or will people leave Nokia's offerings because the only thing differentiating them from HTC and Samsung is hardware?

I hope Nokia can turn out some awesome, awesome hardware.

What I think Nokia is trying to get from this deal is the infrastructure provided by Microsoft when they make this deal (bing etc.). If they were to move to an android platform all they would receive is a mobile phone OS platform.

Whether or not this will be a smart move in the future is yet to be seen. Personally Android OS seems like a better fit than WP7. Yet again, the windows platform is still in its infancy and it could still provide it self down the road.

Nokia has always seemed as the "big boy" of the mobile world with a more professional or "business-esque" image. I think using Windows will allow it to maintain that image.

I personally think this is a good move. Windows will have a well known manufacture to run its new Mobile OS and Nokia will have a well developed OS to base it's phones on.
If Nokia used android, it would be "just another android phone."

+1 On going with WP7 vs. Android. It goes back on what I said before, but I think between the two, WP7 is the better choice for Nokia. Android phones come a dime a dozen these days--WP7 will, hopefully, allow Nokia to retain some uniqueness in the market. They mentioned themselves that Android would give too big a risk of "commoditization". Nokia can't compete with HTC and Samsung in the Android arena, while keeping R&D in Europe (costs are too high in comparison..?).

My question now is: what fills the middle ground? In places other than North America, S60 has kind of provided a stopgap middle ground for those that wanted smart phones, but where iOS, WP7, and Android devices are too expensive. I could see cheap Android devices filling the middle-ground void quickly... Yes, S60 is a dying platform, but it's a dying platform used by many--I think Nokia needs to consider where those users are going to go as S60 devices are phased out.

They had good opportunity with Meego, but they didnt see it. :(
I am glad I sold my N900 last month.

On the bright side, at least MS is allowing Nokia to customrize WP7 more which they didnt for HTC. Friend works in HTC told me how MS wont let them intergrate Sense UI for WP7 and they were not really happy with that.

I hate Microsoft's stance on closed software systems. I understand with Apple because they are the only manufacturer of their device, and thereby is able to make these devices closed to any modification.

But with MS, multiple companies develop phones for WP7 which can mean they can only really define themselves through hardware. While I understand they want to prevent the fragmentation and inconsistancy they experienced before, they should allow for slight variations (like sense UI from HTC, which is pretty awesome IMO).

http://mynokiablog.com/wp-content/up...phen_steve.jpg

Another Microsoft employee has been appointed Nokia USA's President

http://mynokiablog.com/wp-content/up...eber-Nokia.jpg
Chris Weber

Total, complete, takeover


As for Microsoft getting Ovi Maps, Nokia actually makes the Maps for Microsoft already through Navteq (which is owned by Nokia)



Nokia's stock dropped 14% today and it's expected that in the coming days Microsoft may buy a stake in Nokia just to "seal the deal" -_-

And 1000 Nokia employees walked off the job (they'll likely be fired soon anyways but still)

A closed stance means consistency. If you followed the death of J2ME, among many other things, was the issue of fragmentation. Over the years, it became too diverse, and therefore, harder to develop for.

WM 5/6, while being closed, still left lots of room for manufacturers to include their own drivers in the ROM itself, and being a Windows platform, it was also easy to develop for (talking mostly B2B here).

Android is a great platform, but definitely has the potential to suffer from the same kind of fragmentation that assisted J2ME's death. Although I'm sure Google has some plans for that.

Nokia was clearly, quickly, losing market share, and on the same path, it's debatable where they would be at the end of 2011, nevermind 2012.

As a developer for J2ME, BB, iPhone, Android, and WM 5/6, I'm not sure yet what to think of their move to WP7. I would definitely say that potential is there, but only time will tell us how they execute it.

A 2 year transition window with no known date for the release of their first WP7 device

Not to mention they're dumping the OS with the largest market-share by leaps and bounds for an OS with the tiniest Market share + they're firing their employees working on Symbian + Meego

Look @ their R&D forecast

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....e-32-of-38.jpg

that's a lot of symbian employees getting fired

It's no surprise their stock is plummeting That's why they're throwing mock-up Nokia WP7 devices and stating that they're allowed to customize WP7 completely but wont -_-


mock-up

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....21198h73vx.jpg

android (HTC/Samsung) stole the show when there was iphone, and Nokia back then, I hope whatever path they take, we can see some more nokia innovations . Built quality on those phones are just superb!

as for the condition of Meego

The Linux Foundation issued a statement (they officially supported Meego btw)

http://www.meegoexperts.com/2011/02/...ia-jim-zemlin/



Oh and Intel still backs Meego hoping to try and release that medfield device

My poor N8. So, the N8 was the most pre-ordered phone in Nokia history yet still unable to save its dying OS.

I have to say those concept Nokia WP7 phones are looking damn sexy.

I wonder what Nokia's going to do in order to differentiate its phones from other WP7 devices... what it's going to do to bring WP7 to a state where it can take back market share from Google and Apple.

i havent used a windows mobile OS before so i really cant say if its a wrong move for nokia but i think nokia would have been better off with Android instead..