Nokia ditches Symbian, embraces Microsoft Windows Phone for new handsets

Nokia ditches Symbian, embraces Microsoft Windows Phone for new handsets
AppleInsider | Nokia ditches Symbian, embraces Microsoft Windows Phone for new handsets

Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, announced on Friday its plans to ditch its Symbian mobile operating system and partner with Microsoft to make smartphones running Windows Phone.

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Look like I may have been right to put my thread up about the rumour then

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/an...-switch-windows-phone-7-analysts-say-yes.html

- Simon

+1 virtual rep to you.

And yes throw up the rumours too. It's all Apple chit chat we can drink, absorb and breathe and in short make our days that more informed.

the8thark said:

+1 virtual rep to you.

And yes throw up the rumours too. It's all Apple chit chat we can drink, absorb and breathe and in short make our days that more informed.

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Haha thanks! Rumours are the only things that get me through the day ;P

- Simon

Do any of you smell that ? I smell something .... Smells like... I dunno, like, Oh wait yeah, there it is. It's the death of Nokia.

D.

Doug b said:

Do any of you smell that ? I smell something .... Smells like... I dunno, like, Oh wait yeah, there it is. It's the death of Nokia.

D.

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I think the company Nokia will still go strong, they may eventually get bought out but I don' think anything like that will happen for a long time to come though.

- Simon

I read that one of the Google execs (someone from Google) posted a comment on Twitter about this situation. It was something to the effect of "two turkeys do not make an eagle".

I don't know if I'd call this a death blow, but I think it's going to help them about as much as staying with symbian would have...

Android would have been the better fit to move forward. All indications are that windows phone 7 is a flop. I'd agree with this, myself.

Focusing on making decent hardware, which nokia can do, and using a tried and true OS, as opposed to one that fell flat would have possibly heralded in a new era for nokia.

If you remember, nokia was very dominant in the late 90s and early 2000s by having affordable, but usable phones with decent features and customization, and allowed for the masses to move into mobile territory much more quickly than others were.

This could have happened again, but I just don't see myself ever moving to that eyesore windows OS.

From a design standpoint, I think Windows Phone 7 is pretty nice. And most technical reviews give it pretty good scores.

The problem is that they suck at marketing and have to overcome the perception they created with their prior craptastic releases.

I'd never want to see any platform fail. I love seeing all the smartphone competitors duke it out -- not that I'm looking for a clear winner per se. More than likely, it's going to benefit iOS users as Apple sees what might need some tweaks and tinkering.

Earlier today, I sent an email to my friend congratulating him on the partnership between WP7 and Nokia, because he works for Microsoft on the WP7 dev team. He said he's very much looking forward to what comes about from this.

doug b said:

do any of you smell that ? i smell something .... Smells like... I dunno, like, oh wait yeah, there it is. It's the death of nokia.

D.

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qft....

schweb said:

From a design standpoint, I think Windows Phone 7 is pretty nice. And most technical reviews give it pretty good scores.

The problem is that they suck at marketing and have to overcome the perception they created with their prior craptastic releases.

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I tend to disagree with this. There are some good ideas behind it, but ultimately it suffers from poor execution.

I love the idea of the live widgets and what-not, even android has similar stuff, and especially the integration with other hardware like the xbox or a media server, but a phone user wants a good interface first, and foremost, and this comes off as very sloppy and clunky.

Let's face it, a sundae is just a bowl of ice cream if you take away the cherry and nuts.

SweetCosmicPope said:

I love the idea of the live widgets and what-not, even android has similar stuff, and especially the integration with other hardware like the xbox or a media server, but a phone user wants a good interface first, and foremost, and this comes off as very sloppy and clunky.

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I don't happen to think it's sloppy or clunky. That better describes Android, or iOS Notifications, to me than WP7.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think iOS or Android are perfect by any means. And I do like the features of WP7. Layout is weird, though.

Honestly, though, certain flavors of Android are too. I wanted a droid x badly, until I played with one. Motoblur ruined it for me. I went with the equally powerful (but better screen) Fascinate because I like the Touchwiz 3.0 UI much better.

Doug b said:

Do any of you smell that ? I smell something .... Smells like... I dunno, like, Oh wait yeah, there it is. It's the death of Nokia.

D.

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Hardly! Maybe from the relatively small smartphone market, but Nokia will continue to dominate the low end market with its ridiculously cheap and well made feature phones. It will continue to be the number one mobile phone manufacturer for the foreseeable future.

Kash said:

Hardly! Maybe from the relatively small smartphone market, but Nokia will continue to dominate the low end market with its ridiculously cheap and well made feature phones. It will continue to be the number one mobile phone manufacturer for the foreseeable future.

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But how long will the "small" smartphone market continue to be small. It's already almost 30% and it's grown exponentially the last 3 years with no sign of stopping.

Feature phones and plain old cell phones are going the way of the 8 track

8 track and vinyl and VHS and betamax and laserdisc and HD-DVD and most analogue wireless signals etc etc.

schweb said:

But how long will the "small" smartphone market continue to be small. It's already almost 30% and it's grown exponentially the last 3 years with no sign of stopping.

Feature phones and plain old cell phones are going the way of the 8 track

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Smartphones themselves are relatively cheap in this country due to the subsidized model. However, plans for smartphones are still priced out of the range of most Americans, and way out of reach for those living in third world countries. So "dumbphone" sales will continue to dwarf smartphone sales for quite some time.

According to Gartner, total mobile phone sales in 2009 was 1.2 billion phones, of which smartphones accounted for 14%. That was an increase from the 11% it was in 2008, so smartphone sales are indeed increasing worldwide. Now of that 14%, Symbian still dominated with 52% of just smartphones. Nokia owns over 35% of the entire mobile phone market, well ahead of the second manufacturer, Samsung, which has a little over 15% market share, followed by LG and Motorola, with 8% each.

What I'm saying is that Nokia holds quite the lead on every other manufacturer out there, it's a little early to be ringing the death bells.

But are all Nokia's sales figures bringing in the revenue?
High volume sales can = low revenue if sell cheap junk. And can equal low profits if the profit margin on each device is low.

This isn't a partnership with Microsoft. This is Nokia being taken over by Microsoft.
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