Nokia to use Window mobile 7

[Christopher Browne]

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 12:05 PM, Fabio FZero <fabio.fzero-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 23:11, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>    Elop said while he did explore the Android option, differentiation
>>    would have been difficult.
>>
>> How can you differentiate with WinPho7?  Has Microsoft given them some
>> kind of exclusive?
>
> This is the bit that I find hard to believe too. I personally have
> used three alternative Android ROMs and they can change quite
> radically the way the phone works. The Win7 Phone interface, on the
> other hand, follows a very well defined set of guidelines. While this
> is good for consistency, it will certainly hurts customization.
>
> If MS lets Nokia customize the Win7 UI too much, this it's going to be
> a disaster. Why? Just look at that UI disaster that is Symbian.
>
> I hope they're wise enough to strike a balance on this.

That doesn't make much sense.

The one mobile platform out there right now that really *is*
customizable is, as you say, Android.

The "launcher/home" application is perhaps the root of this, and
rather reminiscent of the X notion of window managers, where this
"component that manages how you access windows" may be replaced with
any of a variety of pretty radically different options.

I agree with many of the premises behind the notion of Nokia changing
platforms...

- They are getting their lunch "eaten" by, on various sides:
 - Android - selling more phones than Nokia, "at last"
 - Apple - which has been eating the "high profit" portion of the market
 - Cheap Chinese phone makers  (see:
http://www.asymco.com/2010/12/27/the-85-smartphone/)

Symbian is mighty creaky, and probably isn't able to be remedied into
something suitable for a future.

Sadly, I don't think they put nearly enough effort into the would-be
alternatives; Maemo was an interesting experiment, and I don't have a
big problem with them concluding that wasn't quite ready to "bet the
company" on.  They weren't moving nearly quickly enough on Meego for
that to become a realistic future platform any time soon.

At this point, the whole "burning platform" metaphor fits pretty well.
 Neither Maemo nor Meego were the thing they were truly invested in.
I expect that the majority of the engineering staff are fans of
staying with Symbian, and that's just going to leave them in a
scorched place.

I saw an interesting article that presents an opposing view, that
Windows Mobile is a wise move:
http://scobleizer.com/2011/02/11/dear-nokia-fans-youre-nuts/

It's interesting, but not necessarily presenting a useful outcome for Nokia.

Sure, it's "all about the apps" (at least for Apple & Android, with
tens of thousands of 3rd party apps in their respective 'stores').
But Microsoft isn't actually offering an "app store" with tens of
thousands of 3rd party apps - while I'm sure it's on MSFT radar, it's
not there yet, and if Nokia has to wait until 2013 to get a "Microsoft
Apps Store," they'll be dead meat.

And back to the "cheap chipsets" side of things, nothing about this
deal helps increase Nokia phone prices, nor does it provide them a
cheap chipset to heavily reuse to make better phones for less, to ward
off the "cheap Chinese phones."

They don't get a better customizable phone OS; HTC has already been
demonstrating on Android that they get that *there.*

My suspicion is that going Android would have been a wiser move, and
keeping an oar in the Meego waters would provide backup.  That still
doesn't protect against the "$85 smartphone" problem, of course.

This is a splendid deal for Microsoft, to finally have a large captive
market for Windows Mobile.  There mayn't be much of Nokia left, at the
end.

I step back to the initial "wonder about backroom influence" part.
Sure, Elop's ex-Microsoft, the notion that he came with a "buy from my
old buddies" proposal is hardly surprising.  But he had to convince
Nokia executives to go along with the proposal.  And it's not evident
that any of them were Microsofties.
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