Nokia to dump Symbian for Windows?

Jaafa

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/02/nokia-windows-phone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wired/index+(Wired:+Index+3+(Top+Stories+2))&utm_content=Google+International

What a change that would be!

inode

They should go for Android! Symbian was good back in the day but times have changed.

KrisW

... I probably know more about Major League Baseball than the likes of Wired would know about Nokia.

Anyway, if you'd like to hear the scoop from a genuine insider, go here around lunchtime tomorrow:

http://cmd.nokia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=107224&p=irol-cmd10_overview

... and try not to be too disappointed.

matrim

I'd say there's a chance they'll drop meego and maybe use WP7 instead but I don't think they'll drop Symbian. Although they will probably relegate it to only low end cheap device as it's still the best OS on the market to get the best performance from low end hardware.

coylemj

I can't see how anyone who has seen an iPhone or an Android phone would stay with Symbian. Early last year I bought a Nokia E55 and it is certainly going to be the last Nokia I will ever own because it has to be the single biggest heap of c**p that I have ever had the misfortune to buy, still no Facebook or Twitter client, what more can I say?

As the new CEO of Nokia has said to his staff, they have been overtaken by technology that didn't exist a few years ago, the Android has already passed out Symbian as the best selling smartphone and it's only out just over two years. The developers have also voted with the feet, the Ovi store is a joke.

ongarite

Nokia dumps Symbian and Meego for WP7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe3ksR8zgXg

MS advertising service and search integrated into Nokia products, Ovi Maps being integrated into Bing Maps and Ovi Store going for MS Marketplace.

ongarite

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

Companies plan to combine assets and develop innovative mobile products on an unprecedented scale.

LONDON – Feb. 11, 2011 – Nokia and Microsoft today announced plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity. As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution. Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets.

Under the proposed partnership:

• Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

• Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone. Nokia would contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

• Nokia and Microsoft would closely collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

• Bing would power Nokia's search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing's next generation search capabilities. Microsoft adCenter would provide search advertising services on Nokia's line of devices and services.

• Nokia Maps would be a core part of Microsoft's mapping services. For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft's Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience

• Nokia's extensive operator billing agreements would make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.

• Microsoft development tools would be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem's global reach.

• Nokia's content and application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.

"Today, developers, operators and consumers want compelling mobile products, which include not only the device, but the software, services, applications and customer support that make a great experience," Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO, said at a joint news conference in London. "Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It's now a three-horse race."

"I am excited about this partnership with Nokia," said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. "Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale.The partnership announced today provides incredible scale, vast expertise in hardware and software innovation and a proven ability to execute."

Please visit www.nokia.com/press for press materials.

long_b

ongarite wrote: »

Nokia dumps Symbian and Meego for WP7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe3ksR8zgXg

MS advertising service and search integrated into Nokia products, Ovi Maps being integrated into Bing Maps and Ovi Store going for MS Marketplace.

Not sure they are ditching Meego, the text says adopting Win for smartphone OS - leaves the door open IMHO

jimmy_t

Symbian and Meego are all still going to be produced apparently,

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-meego-not-dead-still-shipping-this-year/

3 os's sounds a bit nuts, but sure it'll be a year before they've a windows phone ready so i supposed they have to churn out the other two os's in the meantime just to sell something,

personally i think its brilliant, it can only mean good things for the consumer, with xbox live and possibly xbmc integration on your smartphone, better ms exchange support, more dev support and im sure now both ms and nokia will be pumping r&d into the os it will come on in leaps and bounds.

at least they didnt dump meego too that looks promising.

anyway the future looks good for nokia, anyone else think differently?

ongarite

If you read the Meego one again it sounds like it going to just to be released to the market and left to die. It may get picked up by other companies as its going open-source, modding community.

ongarite

jimmy_t

ya it does sound like that alright, maybe they'll put it on tablets, it always looked like it was a proper tablet os anyway imo, they are still going to put out that one meego device this year though so that still kind of confuses things, i suppose that'll be the test of it and if they'll bother with it.

those are some pretty impressive graphics. the merger can only result in good surely!

Oafley Jones

jimmy_t wrote: »

ya it does sound like that alright, maybe they'll put it on tablets, it always looked like it was a proper tablet os anyway imo, they are still going to put out that one meego device this year though so that still kind of confuses things, i suppose that'll be the test of it and if they'll bother with it.

those are some pretty impressive graphics. the merger can only result in good surely!

Sorry, but this is one of those things that always bug me. It's not a merger.

Surprised that they're so robust on the future of Symbian, thought they downplay it's longterm potential. Meego is effectively dead on arrival for nokia, can't see why anyone would buy one if they do ship a device.

jimmy_t

i knew once i posted it i get pulled up on that word, its not in anyway a merger of the companies but its clear that they are going to be combining a mighty amount of their services and collaborating extensively together, better?

jimmy_t

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Surprised that they're so robust on the future of Symbian, thought they downplay it's longterm potential. Meego is effectively dead on arrival for nokia, can't see why anyone would buy one if they do ship a device.

Well theyve so much put into meego and windows phone isnt ready yet they kind of have to release it just to release something and because qt is already available to develop apps for windows phone, meego and symbian itll always have its "app ecosystem" ones qt was progressed to be able to develop apps for windows phone it was obvious what was gonna happen. it'll take too long for windows phone to be ready for them to say theyre dropping symbian and meego so just to sell stuff in the meantime they have to still support it. and windows phone might never be a viable os for low end phones, particularly non touch screen so symbian could be around in that market for quite a while to come.

matrim

I wonder if they'll keep up QT on Windows Phone. I know there is already alot of it available but MS might push to use their normal dev tools.

I'm disappointed that they're stopping meego before it's a runner. While maemo is missing some polish, it's a very flexible OS and is basically a mini linux PC in your pocket so you can do almost anything you can do on a PC. I was hoping Meego could build on that experience with a better overall phone while keeping the flexibility. I don't see WP as offering that flexibility

jimmy_t

matrim wrote: »

I wonder if they'll keep up QT on Windows Phone. I know there is already alot of it available but MS might push to use their normal dev tools.

looks like it http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-notifies-developers-that-qt-is-out-for-windows-phone-devel/#

this is not good for symbian and meego, i was also really looking forward to a meego phone but it looks like it'll defo be killed off after the first one if wp doesnt support qt and theyre only going to produce one or two devices as a stop gap, 2011 and 2012 are transition years?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-tells-investors-that-2011-and-2012-will-be-transition-yea/

they have wasted billions and billions on symbian and meego what a waste and two years is too long, it'll be two very wasted years, this could make or break the company and the fact that the stock has fallen since the announcement doesnt look good!

matrim

jimmy_t wrote: »

theyre only going to produce one or two devices as a stop gap, 2011 and 2012 are transition years?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/nokia-tells-investors-that-2011-and-2012-will-be-transition-yea/

That seems to be a large part of Nokias problem at the moment. They can't decide on anything and every year or 2 they give up on one transition to move to another.

First it was Maemo they gave up on what was supposed to be step 4 of 5.
Then Meego, they have given up before it's fully started, so why buy a device if the OS is already obsolete.
At the same time they were trying to transition Symbian from candybar S60 style to the new ^3/^4 for touch screen and now have pushed this further down the list.

All this time customers are buying new devices and getting stuff that isn't quite there, hoping that the next version will be fix the problems only to have the next version change to something different that also isn't quite there.

jester77

Partnership is the word people are looking for

From a business point of view, this partnership makes sense for both Nokia & MS. Both these companies spent too much time putting their effort into supporting old products that were not designed for current hardware - Nokia with Symbian, MS with winmo. They both got caught out are now very late to the game. Nokia need a software platform that has lots of investment potential and marketing power- MS can provide that. MS need a partner to deliver their product and Nokia are a global leader in that area. Nokia could have went with Android, but Google would not give Nokia the support that MS will. Nokia would have to compete with LG, Samsung and HTC and I don't see them winning there. I think it's a pity that they didn't buy Palm when it was on the market. Nokia have a lot more to lose here than MS, really hope it works out for them.

KrisW

Good business decision, but I'm not happy at all that Qt is not being brought forward onto WinPhone 7. That's a mistake, I feel.

spockety

Google were offering Nokia hundreds of millions of dollars worth of engineering, R+D, production, marketing, and support to choose Android as their smartphone platform.

As were Microsoft.

Microsoft won and have nothing to lose here. Nokia have everything to lose, and will. They have made a pretty stupid decision here I think, and will ultimately pay for it.

KrisW

With over $8 billion in cash, Nokia didn't need $100M.

Regardless, Google is absolutely the wrong choice, as it would create a near monopoly in services and software.

Remember: Nokia's customers are the phone network operators, not you. These operators are wary of being left with a choice between Apple or Google, and ONLY between these two. Android is data-hungry, increasing operators costs, reducing their profits, and that's without considering that in the long run Google will have to shaft someone to get their own investment back, and the only one available to be shafted is the operators, because the handset makers are being paid to take Android already.

Apple, on the other hand, allows no customisation, repels as many customers as it attracts, and doesn't provide them with a range of handsets at different price points they need.

What was the other option? WinPhone7 had no major manufacturer fully behind it, WebOS is great but dead, and Nokia could not get their new OS out in time.

This deal gives the operators a second-source supplier for high-margin phones, and it also puts a lot of weight behind Windows Phone 7 as a platform. The distribution channels and industry connections that Nokia has are second to none: this is why Google so desperately wanted them on-board with Android.

bd250110

I think this is the right decision for Nokia.

A lot was touted about how flexible and wonderful meego was, about it's potential, how the N8 was going to be the best thing since sliced bread with the update, which has yet to arrive. Nokia have proved that they can deliver great hardware, but poor software. They have repetidly shipped software that was not ready, runined their reputation. The N8 was the last chance to put that right, but it killed Symbian/Meego as a future platform.

WP is the last to the party, but it has been highly praised by reviews and users. The exoince would appear to be a stepmabove android, which is rapidly gaining traction in the low-end smartphone markets, especailly.

Im not sure that Microkia handsets will have large consumer appeal, I feel they might harness MS corporate/enterprise side first. Although XBox live will help on the consumer end. There is a chance to be the gaming handset, for example. If Nokia can harness some of their power-saving technology ey could have great stand-by too.

This was the best move Nokia could make. WP7 and killer Nokia hardware will make an intereting comparison with iPhone5 and Gingerebread Droids.

Oafley Jones

spockety wrote: »

Google were offering Nokia hundreds of millions of dollars worth of engineering, R+D, production, marketing, and support to choose Android as their smartphone platform.

As were Microsoft.

Microsoft won and have nothing to lose here. Nokia have everything to lose, and will. They have made a pretty stupid decision here I think, and will ultimately pay for it.

Not sure I'd agree with that. By choosing android nokia would have been placed in the centre of a technological arms race where they'd find it very difficult to compete with he likes of samsung on key aspects of the hardware. MS strict controls of hardware specs grants them room to differentiate themselves in terms of industrial design while not having to worry so much about sourcing the latest SOC or panels - which is an area nokia are traditionally weak. Ms seems to also have allowed them more flexibility in germs of revenue generated from integrated services.

MackDeToaster

Well all I can say is that this is an unmitigated disaster and WTF ! Well done Elop, you've come from Microsoft and now effectively finished off Nokia. Why would I now buy an E7, an N8 or any other Symbian device when they've just been rendered obsolete ? And why would I wait more months to buy a Nokia Windows phone when I could buy a WM7 device right now from any other vendor ?

How many years and hundreds of millions of manhours and euros in development have Nokia wasted in platform changes and churn - hopping from Symbian to Maemo, then Meego and Symbian and umpteen variants in between. I thought they finally had it sussed, Symbian on the low end and Meego high, and now they've thrown it all away yet again to start from scratch with WM7.

Cutting edge handsets needed to be out there yesterday, now it looks like there's going to be another big wait, and for what, a locked-down, dumbed-down WM platform where the UI can't be customized and there's no real room for Nokia to distinguish themselves from any other h/w maker ?

I really can't see how this benefits Nokia much at all, even Android would have been much better given that they'd have had the freedom to distinguish themselves, and with Meego they could have run their own custom Java machine within to run Android apps. So I think this is the worst of all possible decisions.

But, most of all, as a fan of opensource and freedom I'm absolutely sickened at what this is going to do to, especially to Meego. IMO this has been the most visionary and potentially powerful and important O/S of them all, a free and open platform that can run on anything. Microsoft have done it again - embrace, extend and extinguish. A free O/S with apps readily running interchangeably on everything from laptops to phones to car-entertainment systems when they've got nothing equivalent most have been scaring the hell out of them. They must be laughing their heads off in Redmond now because they've knocked down one of their biggest potential competitors before it ever really got going.

I can only hope that some of those pissed off developers whom Nokia have just stabbed in the back for what must be the last time break out and start up their own company. Nokia kickstarted Meego, so hopefully Intel or some of the others who came on board will come out and surprise me, but somehow I doubt it. This is a bad Friday for me.

AntiVirus

A brilliant decision by Nokia! Can't wait to see the new Nokia Windows Phone.

Venom

This is a great move for Microsoft as they get access to OVI maps and get to push Bing and Xbox Live. Ballmer is taking rubbish about what customers want with the likes of Bing (which uses Google for its searches) and Xbox live being must have apps on a smartphone.

For Nokia this is not good at all. Why wait the best part of a year to buy a Nokia WM7 phone when you can already buy one from HTC and Samsung? Its not like the last couple of years worth of Nokia phones have been equal nevermind better hardware wise than those of other phone manufacturers.

Iv been saying for years Nokia's problem has been to many phone OS's and now instead of taking the opportunity to jump on the most popular platform option open to them (Android) they jump into bed with Microsoft who's WM7 OS is in 4th place and which most people in the industry see as being not ready for prime time and still lacking much needed features.

Nokia should be making phones with both Android and WM7 as that way all there bases are covered.

Oafley Jones

MackDeToaster wrote: »

Why would I now buy an E7, an N8 or any other Symbian device when they've just been rendered obsolete ?

The perception is that they were obsolete before the MS announcement was made. That's the crux of the issue.

evolutionqy7

I think its a brilliant move. As Elop said WP7 Will help them differenciate from iOS and Android. Nokia got paid of for research and development to get started and MS will get the valuable data they need to bring better Bing services to Europe. Ovi maps will be merged to Bing maps ad well as ovi store will be merged into the Windows marketplace. I see this as a massive win win for everyone.
The biggest disappointment of WP7 now is the limited Bing and Zune services. With nokias data and support i feel these will come out faster than with MS on their own.

And lol Bing never copied any results. The data they got was from people using their toolbar therefore rending good results. Thruth is Bing is far more innovative and its share is on the rise. Google just got scared and ran out with false statements.

dohouch

Now we have it, the one thing liable to be more clunky than Symbian, Windows. MS are not leaders in inovative software, never were and and are just as fat and bloated as Nokia from years of market dominance.

kirving

http://mynokiablog.com/2011/02/11/winners-and-losers-of-the-nokia-microsoft-alliance/

So a lot has been made about this ‘alliance” (I hate that word) a lot of negative comments mainly from the Nokia enthusiasts side and also employees and developers that work on Symbian. Nokia and Microsoft make this sound like the best thing since sliced bread but the markets don’t seem to agree, because of the time I am writing this post Nokia’s shares have tanked 12%.

With that in mind I decided to compare the losers and winners of this supposed alliance to, so here it goes :

Winners:

Microsoft: Of course they are one of the biggest winners in this, they get Ovi Maps for FREE which Eldar has claimed on Twitter. It will most likely be rebranded as Microsoft or Bing maps and other WP7 OEM’s will be allowed to use it for FREE !!!!! WTF NOKIA They will probably troll though Nokia’s huge patent portfolio and grab what they can, they also get Nokia’s hardware expertise, which is second to none basically I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft bought Nokia for cheap in a few years.

Samsung : Samsung must be celebrating hard right now, it is obvious now that they will become the largest Handset maker in the world and dethrone Nokia, because the transition that is taking place from Symbian to WP7 will simply take too long for Nokia to respond. I don’t think Nokia will retake that crown either, there is no way. During the transition period no one will buy a Symbian device it would suicide. I personally wouldn’t recommend any Nokia devices until we see some WP7 phone’s, which I am not holding my breath for either.

Apple: Well what can I say Steve Jobs is obviously laughing right now, they have accomplished what they couldn’t do to Microsoft in the PC race which is to disrupt the market place and basically kill Symbian and Nokia couldn’t counter attack. Microsoft counter attacked Apple in the PC business buy just spending bucket loads of money. There is a real possibility that the Mobile OS game is between iOS and Android actually scratch that it already is, the rest will have small shares if they are lucky.

Google : Despite Gartners claims that Symbian is still the worlds most used OS, Android will take that next week maybe, I mean who is going to buy a Symbian device now ?!?!?! Would you recommend one to your friends or family, I know I wouldn’t so yeah Symbian’s market share will completly evaporate sadly. Developers also will have no interest and move on to iOS and Android.

Eldar Murtazin : For years this guy has been doing the best job possible for his employers Samsung and he has succeeded in a way, Samsung’s path to becoming the biggest handset maker is too easy to screw up now, just sell more Galaxy S variants and you are there.

Losers:

Intel: I sort of feel sorry for them remember their alliance with Nokia at last MWC ?……..yeah that went well. An analyst called MeeGo the biggest Tech Joke right know and I made fun of him, but do you know what it is a frackin joke and don’t want to see it anymore Nokia where never interested in it they toyed with it but their execution was amateurish. Oh yeah and where do Intel go from here they are sort of struggling in the tablet and Smartphone are only time will tell…..

Symbian, Qt, MeeGo: Man I feel sorry for every developer that has worked their bums off of getting apps to work for Symbian which was always harder than any other platform. I was very interested in developing for Nokia using Qt but that will not anymore. Whats more annoying is the thousands of Symbian and MeeGo engineers working at Nokia that will get the boot now, how many of those people had amazing ideas that where put forward but where rejected by effin corporate bureaucracy, thats what drove Nokia to Microsofts arms in the end. We can sort of blame ourselves a bit as well, I mean we where sooooo convinced that MeeGo was going to be amazing and the new UI on Symbian will be hit, but in the end we where thinking with our hearts rather than our heads, it was never going to work with Nokia at the helm any other company would have executed that strategy perfectly and on time. Nokia’s snail pace development is shocking put that together with Microsoft and you will have something that is truly the laughing stock of the market.

Nokia fans: How can we ever believe that Nokia where actually going to execute the whole Symbian/MeeGo ecosystem together with Qt, it was so good to be true and we believed them, but I wish we hadn’t the number of times Nokia have promised and not delivered is beyond believe. Remember the first Maemo 6 device with an iconic user interface coming out middle of 2010, yeah that never happened. The Nokia N8 took ages to come out and when it did the UI was average if you are being nice, What about the Nokia E7…….forget it they will be lucky if 7 people picked it up. Nokia never held any of their promises for the last 3 years and we forgave them and trusted them that MeeGo was amazing. When the leaked pics of the Nokia N9 came out it received unanimous praise from the tech media even Engadget started getting excited about MeeGo but they screwed it up like Nokia are famous for for the last few days. Nokia dropping todays bombshell is like you catching your girlfriend sleeping with your best friend after years of her telling you she loves you.

Nokia: Oh yeah I almost forgot the company that got itself into this situation in the first place. All I can say is they screwed it up for the last few years and they screwed us over as well.

All is not lost though, if Microsoft can develop WP7 fast enough then we could have some cracking devices in the future from Nokia.

One thing is for sure though Nokia will never become the wolds biggest cell phone maker again at best they will be as big as Motorola if they are lucky ……..ouch

Have to agree with all of the above article.


I really hope that iif this does play out as expected, the OS would be known as "Nokia Windows Phone 7", with QT, OVI Maps retained and cunstomized in such a way so that Zune doesn't have to be used.

There's a lot of disadvantages to this "alliance", but it has a slim chance of being absolutely amazing. As a loyal Nokia fan, I just hope it works.