The embedded long-term support initiative [LWN.net]

The embedded long-term support initiative

Posted Oct 31, 2011 22:13 UTC (Mon) by dsimic (guest, #72007)
In reply to: The embedded long-term support initiative by cmccabe
Parent article: The embedded long-term support initiative

> Nokia's current CEO, Stephen Elop, worked for Microsoft as the head of the
> Office business division before joining Nokia. Whether or not you believe
> his business decisions were in Nokia's best interests, he definitely knows
> the difference between Windows and something else.

Well, I can believe that, and I already knew he previosly worked for Microsoft.

Taking everything else aside, I really can't believe how such a great CEO could've
been asleep for years, without realizing that Symbian -- Nokia's flagship and business
core -- was already dead in water for years.

So they've been floating already dead on their previous glory and reputation, and
suddenly the big CEO realized that leads nowhere, so he boldly killed everything
they've already developed in-house and went to his old home -- Microsoft.

Well, however -- I'll never again buy a Nokia, and many people I know will
do the same. When compared to Android, Windows Mobile looks like a joke.

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The embedded long-term support initiative

Posted Oct 31, 2011 23:25 UTC (Mon) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

Elop became CEO in late 2010. He wasn't around during the years when Nokia was trying to pretend that Symbian was still viable.

Back then, Symbian had more than half of the marketplace, and analysts were still producing graphs showing Android and iOS slowly gaining market share over a period of years. What the analysts didn't understand is that Symbian was a horrible platform to program for and to extend, very little loved by anyone other than Nokia itself. Nokia is still a hardware company at heart and that is what they ought to have focused on. However, it would have taken a brave CEO to do that back when all the MBAs were gushing about the cloud and the oh-so-urgent need to be "more than a hardware company."

Now Nokia's platform ambitions have come to nothing, and it looks like their hardware business is circling the drain too. The best case scenario is that they become another generic OEM for Microsoft. The worst case scenario is that they go back to making rubber boots.