That time when Microsoft bought and killed Nokia phone unit : technology

[-] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 135 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

To be honest, Windows Phone OS was a marvel in terms of user experience and design language. It was a fresh breath on interacting and utilizing the new always online world.

Calling it ‘Bad Software’ is not fair at all.

Too bad MS picked every possible bad decision to cripple it, starting with not putting it’s weight behind the OS at all.

I really, really miss the feeling of being in control of my whole digital existence with just a single glance.

[-] Zoldyck@lemmy.world 55 points 6 months ago

Exacty. The Lumia 925 was so fucking good, and streets ahead of competitors, especially for the price. The camera on that phone made pics that is still better than some phone cameras today, from models that cost double or more!

[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago

Stop trying to coin the phrase “streets ahead”.

[-] 018118055@sopuli.xyz 23 points 6 months ago

Uh, it's been coined for decades now.

[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 37 points 6 months ago

I actually know that. It’s a reference to Community, which either inadvertently or otherwise acted like it’s not a real saying.

[-] 018118055@sopuli.xyz 15 points 6 months ago

Ah! Well, apologies.

[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

All good! Community is a great show. Check it out.

[-] deezbutts@lemm.ee 9 points 6 months ago

If you're not streets ahead you're streets behind

[-] pycorax@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

That phone still has the best image stabilisation I've used. I could take pictures while walking and the pictures it took were never blur.

[-] selokichtli@lemmy.ml 43 points 6 months ago

I was always in the Android camp because it was more FOSS then, more AOSP. Being said that, another competitor was and is desperately needed. When Windows Phones were in the wild, I had hope. But take a look at Windows 11, if Windows Phone had been a success, by now it would be utter shit.

[-] mindlight@lemm.ee 35 points 6 months ago

I'd argue that Windows 11 is a result of what Google has been getting away with Android.

Google has shown Microsoft that the users happily pay money for giving up the control of their device. While Android was open 10 years ago, Google has worked hard to lock it down for 99% of the end users. The amount of personal data they get from each device is staggering.

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[-] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 37 points 6 months ago

It was a better UI and user experience then Android by the time it launched....but by the time it launched the smartphone market had already exploded and the app developer marketplace had already matured into a profitable sector. There was no incentive to attract enough developers to build out a similar ecosystem on the late to the party Windows Phone

[-] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 28 points 6 months ago

Yeah, I agree.

The main incentive twirled around UWP mentality, “Write one app that works on Windows, WP and Xbox automagically”.

I think it was a fucking-a-star idea that could gather fresh developers to a big potential userbase. And surprisingly, it worked for a time as well.

But MS again cold-feeted the platform themselves in a short span and scared everyone.

I actually witnessed many brilliant developers wrote their very first C# code with UWP, only to spin out to other platforms later as WinPhone’s apparent neglect. PocketCasts and Flipboard are two that went very successful on other platforms.

[-] mihies@kbin.social 7 points 6 months ago

Not to mention that MS completely changed their development tools and libraries more than once if I remember properly.

[-] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

I've been running Launcher 10 on Android for a long while now. Replicates the tile interface and app list/drawer. I think it has ads with an IAP to disable them and another IAP for Live Tiles support.

[-] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah, visually there are alternatives on Android, but there were a few features built into WP that Android doesn’t fundamentally support that made the whole difference.

Like having your SO’s all accounts merged under a single node, and seeing everything related to her, be it from WhatsApp, Mail, SMS, Photo Shares etc inside a single tile was awesome. Can Android do that in 2024?

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[-] Fake4000@lemmy.world 67 points 6 months ago

Honestly it was a bad call on Nokia to switch to windows. They would have been in a different place of they capitalised on their market share and switched to android.

[-] Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 42 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Nokia should have continued developing the Linux Qt system maemo/meego. I was working with it as subcontractor in Nokia, and it was awesome. The Qt/C++ was really fast to code, and you could basically port KDE apps into it with small effort.

If they would have continued with it, we could have had three major OS in phones.

I was leading architect in internal UI design tools, and the tools had features that android/apple toolsets not even now have. Mainly because you could run the Qt app with PC hardware without any emulation.

[-] wjrii@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

Sounds like it wasn't really your area, but good lord the N810/N900 were some of the most beautiful pieces of industrial design I've ever used. Maemo was delightful to use too, don't get me wrong, and I loved tethering it to my featurephone and getting a decent mobile experience, as well as doing my first practical in-car navigation with the GPS and the mapping software that was available, but those things were an overlooked gem of hardware, like something straight out of Star Trek.

[-] Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Nokia was lead by engineers, which was it's strength, but eventually also caused it's downfall. This is why these things were so good.

Engineers told that the fullscreen displays without keyboard is never as good as physical keyboard.

Engineers told that 1 day battery life is not enough, the system need to be designed so that it can last a week.

They were right.

BUT apple's marketing and slick design convinced the American market that you can give up on those features. Nokia could easily made the same design, but didn't because engineers thought that users need those features. When they turned ship and accepted it, apple had its foot between the door already.

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[-] lanigerous@feddit.uk 33 points 6 months ago

I always find it amazing when you hear these insights into the downfall of once huge companies. It's incredible how terrible some people's judgement can be and a lot of these successful people are riding on luck rather than intelligence it seems

[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 49 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

a lot of these successful people are riding on luck rather than intelligence it seems

All of them, you mean. The people who build quality products are always kicked to the curb by money men who could give a shit.

See: GE, Boeing, Cisco, etc.

[-] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Couldn't give a shit, surely

[-] lanigerous@feddit.uk 8 points 6 months ago

Yeah true, can't argue there

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[-] CarlosCheddar@lemmy.world 28 points 6 months ago

It ended up being a bad call but at the time Android only had 2 years in the market and trusting the leading OS company to manufacture a proper mobile product wasn’t a crazy idea. Microsoft just completely mismanaged the whole phone thing and took down Nokia with it.

If I remember correctly the approach was so anti-google that you couldn’t even watch youtube on Windows Phones.

[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 46 points 6 months ago

Google sabotaged Windows Phone to protect Android. They refused to serve even standard Google web apps to the WP browser, instead relegating users to years-old mobile versions that looked and worked terribly. You could literally edit the user string on the Windows browser and get the modern, perfectly functional version. Then there was the constant YouTube fuckery where Google wouldn’t make a YouTube app for them, then wouldn’t let them make their own app either. The entire point was to starve the system to kill it in the cradle and on some level, it probably worked.

Looking at the fact that Google is under intense anticompetitive scrutiny now and has been egregiously destroying evidence every chance they get shows that this isn’t out of character for them.

[-] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

Very much like how they deliberately fucked up Google search results on Firefox for Android.

[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

100%. They went from understanding the perils of success to exemplifying the worst of it. Don’t be (caught being) evil.

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[-] someguy3@lemmy.ca 9 points 6 months ago

Analysts are all about "product differentiation". Everyone was Android, so the way to differentiate themselves was to go with windows.

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[-] 100@fedia.io 7 points 6 months ago

yea it wasnt all done by microsoft, plenty of idiots high up at the company itself were doing dumb decisions from ngage to microsoft phone

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[-] Bigpete@kbin.social 34 points 6 months ago

My Lumia 928 is still to this day the best phone i've ever owned.

I absolutely loved everything about it from the OS to the Hardware. The only reason I moved on from it is because I had to for work.

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[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

It almost feels like if it wasn't for Microsoft Europe could have actually been a tech super power 🙄

[-] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This may have been the purpose all along.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 12 points 6 months ago

Of course it was, Symbian is pretty alive and well, Nokia is still one of the main names, then that guy comes, says it's all burning, closes projects left and right, tanks the company, leaves to work in Microsoft. Oh, and I think he worked in Microsoft before coming to Nokia.

At this point I've seen that your comment answered another one, and not about Elop, but I've already typed that... Yes, it absolutely could. Nokia has done so many cool things.

Imagine if Maemo phones were a thing. Even if Symbian were still a thing. All that Android vs Apple crap would be happening somewhere far away in the tech third world, like shootouts in westerns.

And since Maemo is Linux, MS would also eat shit.

[-] Yprum@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

Yeah he worked in Microsoft before that and when he ended in Nokia the path was quite clear what it would be. But I've had the chance to talk with many engineers that were working at Nokia back in the day and the problems didn't start because of Microsoft.

Basically Nokia had the whole management divided between symbian, maemo, and windows mobile, and as they couldn't agree on a future path all the efforts were divided. Symbian was quite a disaster at the end and it wouldn't have gone far most likely, those that wanted to continue with it didn't have a clear view of the changes coming in the mobile world.

Maemo was great, really advanced, based on Linux, and working really well, maybe too advanced even, specially for your common users back then. The whole system was constantly put down and delayed and the first devices sold wouldn't even work as a phone, only the 4th ended up with mobile connection, which didn't help at all to make it useful (wifi was not as big as it is now) and sold.

Finally there was Windows Mobile which was still starting basically then and had far less strength, but with the support of Microsoft behind it it was easier to push it out. I don't understand why it still has such support when it comes to the UI, I personally never liked it and it felt too simplistic and boring, but the more options the better I guess. Of course once Microsoft managed to plant his own guy inside Nokia they managed to favor the balance towards Win mobile and the other two were left behind more and more.

So Microsoft was a key part in what ended happening but they were not the ones that put Nokia in trouble. That was a lack of direction in the management level.

[-] vanderbilt@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

Japan too. The U.S. Congress threatened Japan with a trade war if they didn't shutter their TRON project to create a domestic Unix. Nowadays it's almost entirely Windows, and Japan has stagnated in terms of technology. They might have another chance at it with the world searching for an alternative to Taiwan for semiconductors and the potential legal status of AI training in Japan.

[-] realitista@lemm.ee 25 points 6 months ago

I had completely forgotten that it was Microsoft that killed Nokia.

[-] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago

I haven't. The n9 with meego was amazing. The n900 too but I'm still sour thinking how great meego would be now instead of android.

[-] kureta@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 months ago

N900 and Maemo were already awesome. There was absolutely no need to rewrite the entire operating system. Damn I am still angry.

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[-] umbraroze@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

It wasn't really Microsoft that killed Nokia's cell phone division, but gave it the final blow that made the house of cards fall.

Nokia was basically getting super arrogant. "Oh, trust us, we're the #1 phone manufacturer on the planet. We know what's best for the market". They got caught completely pants down when iPhone came out. Despite the fact that they had already made successful smartphones (Nokia Communicator line). Despite the fact that there was this one small Finnish company that had made a touchscreen based phone and Nokia just laughed them off when they offered to help.

Every move Nokia made after iPhone was basically playing catch-up with some really strange decisions.

I believe that Nokia could have salvaged themselves if, instead of going with Windows Phone, they had just announced they'll be Yet Another Android Manufacturer. But Nokia had to be special about it. They had invested in Ovi (app store) and Here (map service) and they just had to be special. (And even more ironic is that HMD Global is doing just fine as a maker of Nokia-branded Android phones these days.)

[-] Miimikko@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

To be fair I think Nokia was already one foot in the grave before the M$ deal. Largely thanks to Mr. Ollila.

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[-] MamboGator@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

The Lumia Windows phones were actually pretty nice. App support was lacking but I have never been an app user. I would have kept using mine if the BlackBerry KeyOne hadn't come out shortly after.

I think it's common for former BlackBerry stans to go for unconventional phones to replace them. iPhone and typical Android phones are boring to me. I'm currently using a Surface Duo 2 and looking into a foldable as my next phone.

[-] lanigerous@feddit.uk 11 points 6 months ago

I had a Lumia with Win Phone (I forget the exact model & sw version) and thought it was great - it was super fast, lightweight and the battery life was decent but there weren't many apps out there, at least not in comparison to Android

[-] Altomes@lemm.ee 15 points 6 months ago

I had such high hopes for Meego. I feel like even if Nokia moved to Android I'd have been thrilled, I like where they're headed in the dumb phone market

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[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago

In that photo, does everyone else see the birth control phone in the upper right hand side of the pile? I remember the razr phone and the Nokia brick and the sidekick and all the weird little cell phones we used to have but…I’ve never seen that birth control phone.

[-] Foreigner@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Not a Nokia and I can't find that exact model but it seems there were a couple of weird round phones floating around in the early to mid 2000's:

https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/c800

https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/xelibri-6

https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/panasonic-g70

There were some other weird as hell designs around that period, like the ones in this article:

https://medium.com/@samworldpeace/nokia-made-some-of-the-weirdest-phones-ever-a7e3412fa0c0

I recognise all but one of the phones in that link. The time just before smartphones was a weird moment in mobile phone history.

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[-] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

I waited through meamo, meego, and tizen hoping for it to take off. Went with Firefox OS and Ubuntu touch instead, which had very little to offer. Not too long ago I felt I had to give up and go with android, and dream of a world where nokia would have taken the meamo/meego/tizen path instead.

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[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 months ago

It was incredible watching it unfold, even more so from the offices of a smartphone competitor.

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