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Shake up at MS - Elop is out
- Thread starter maflynn
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While maybe not exactly his fault, but I think failure of the windows phone to gain any actual traction is what doomed him. That and the move towards Microsoft being more service orientated, then wanting to sell phones.
I am still curious, how Nokia's executive board and shareholders could accept the Trojan horse Elop as their CEO without raising any suspicions. It seems, he did everything for pushing the takeover price down, by ruining Nokia even further from inside.
Let's get off this rumor that Elop ruined Nokia. No, Nokia ruined Nokia. They were going to die regardless. If they would have stayed the course, they'd have died. And going to Android wouldn't have saved them either.
Yes, indeed, Nokia was straggling at that time with or without Elop.
Nevertheless, I still believe, that especially in such situation it was a mistake letting Elop preparing "perfect" takeover from the inside.
I disagree. Elop was the man with an actual plan. If Windows Phone had taken off, he would have been praised as saving the company. And Windows Phone should have taken off, in my opinion.
Windows phone should have taken off, sure, but I tend to believe, Microsoft had no plans watching it taking-off without having device manufacturing in house, and letting Nokia grow strong with it on its own.
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Agreed, Nokia was in deep doo-doo (sorry for the profanity
) when Elop arrive, yet they had a myriad of options. I don't want to arm chair quarterback them, but going all in on the MS platform was a fatal mistake. Trusting your company's very existence on a a platform that was struggling to get sort of traction is baffling.
Agreed, Nokia was in deep doo-doo (sorry for the profanity
It is baffling, but at the same time I understand it. Imagine it this way: Microsoft is a company that has had few giant failures in terms of making it into a market. Windows has huge share. You then think that Microsoft is going to hurl money at the problem to get marketshare (or play unfair, who could have guessed?). Betting all in on Windows Phone seemed like a good bet, and would have been in the 1990's.
I can see an ex-MSer going on all in, but the board of directors should have been more resistant on such a risky endeavor. Yet with that said, its water over the bridge. They did what they did and now the windows phone is a failure.
btw, I like the windows phone, I have one, and I just loaded up the latest beta. I don't use it as my sole full time phone but I have one. I'm not just hating on MS/Nokia but rather I would rather have seen them succeed. MS' new direction appears to be leaving the handset business behind.
Why was Nokia going to die??? They were making FANTASTIC phones which were gaining ground in the market..they were never going to be #1..but they had a great product.. They should have stayed the course..but this was about rich men getting richer..plain and simple
Historically, Microsoft has made decisions to shuffle executives 3 months before they announce a change in their product portfolio. It gives the outgoing execs time to move on to something else while protecting the new guy ("hey, I just got here").
If that continues to hold true, I'm curious as to what change is coming. I suspect that it will be Windows Phone and/or the Modern UI.
If that continues to hold true, I'm curious as to what change is coming. I suspect that it will be Windows Phone and/or the Modern UI.
Nokia was in a damn if you, damn if you don't situation. Catch 22. Whatever option they chose, it wouldn't matter.
I don't think Android would've saved Nokia but their nosedive wouldn't have been as quick. They wouldn't have been able stop the rising Samsung from toppling them. Nokia stuck to Symbian for too long and ignored the premium segment of the US market far too long like Sony does. By the time they released a new OS (which is now Sailfish), it was way too late. They pulled a BlackBerry on us. Had they chose Android in 2009-2011, perhaps they would be in a situation where they would be where the other pioneer is currently in - Motorola. A company passed around from Google to Lenovo making budget-friendly phones but hardly a Top 10 contender for the global market.
I still would like to see Nokia rise from the ashes. They are one of the few brands I really like along with LG and Xiaomi.
I hope it's windows phone. The whole Nokia merger always baffled me, a surface phone would be MUCH more powerful from a marketing standpoint. Of course a little of that is 20/20 hindsight since the surface wasn't really mildly successful until the surface pro 2. But if MS was gearing up so hard to release it's own hardware tablet I still wonder why they just didn't carry that over into a phone.
MS is on the right track though. Continuum is going to be insane, literally the next evolution IMO. Having android/iOS support and also combining windows platforms into are also powerful reasons why MS is up and coming. I don't think they will take that big of a chunk out of Apple at all, Apple users seem content with simple software. But Android might suffer IMO. But yeah, a surface phone with digitizer/stylus that can run as a full desktop when docked and can run android/iOS apps, we'll see how much traction that gains. I know I'll be first in line for that.
While this seems a bit hokey I'll give Nadella some wiggle room on this one as he seems to be righting the ship
Microsoft is cutting 7800 jobs from their phone division. Looks like they are on track to sunset Windows Phone (both hardware and OS).
Agreed, Nokia was in deep doo-doo (sorry for the profanity
Agreed. I never understood Nokia going with Microsoft instead of Android.
Microsoft is being smart. Focus on their desktop OS #1, and Windows 10 looks to be the next gen Windows 7 in a good way.
For whatever reason, a few years ago Microsoft dropped the ball big time in Mobile. The Metro themed Windows Phone 7 , just never caught on. The Live Tiles, and lack of apps, really hurt them, and Microsoft didn't react nearly quick enough to update and revise the OS. Now three years later, Windows Phone still looks and acts pretty much the same as the Nokia Lumia 920 that was supposed to save them back in 2012. They can only blame themselves for that.
Actually, I thought Windows Phone 6.5, the one HTC made, was an amazing phone for it's day, like 5 years ago. Microsoft should have kept the OS in that style, and just progressed it from there, instead of radically changing it to the Metro thing.
Oh well, too late now, Windows Phone ship has sailed. It's an Android and iOS world today.
For whatever reason, a few years ago Microsoft dropped the ball big time in Mobile. The Metro themed Windows Phone 7 , just never caught on. The Live Tiles, and lack of apps, really hurt them, and Microsoft didn't react nearly quick enough to update and revise the OS. Now three years later, Windows Phone still looks and acts pretty much the same as the Nokia Lumia 920 that was supposed to save them back in 2012. They can only blame themselves for that.
Actually, I thought Windows Phone 6.5, the one HTC made, was an amazing phone for it's day, like 5 years ago. Microsoft should have kept the OS in that style, and just progressed it from there, instead of radically changing it to the Metro thing.
Oh well, too late now, Windows Phone ship has sailed. It's an Android and iOS world today.
The Nokia we all knew and loved, is pretty much dead and gone now.
Foxconn actually makes their phones now. And those new Foxconn phones will be running Android, with a Nokia nameplate on the phone. But really not Nokia anymore.
How many of those are from Nokia, and what are the odds of Nokia hiring those laid off employees and starting up their handset division again?
That's sad. They could've churned out a really good android handset.
Imagine that fan render of the Nokia nexus.
I think the writing is on the wall for windows phones - so sad. Yet in places around the world such as England and Ireland Windows phones have a much larger presence. I saw this tweet by Paul Thurrott.
Given Nadellas approach to MS as a software/services company this shouldn't come as a complete surprise and I was expecting them to write off a the billions they paid for Nokia. Still its sad to see it occur and really leaves the consumers with less choices.
Given Nadellas approach to MS as a software/services company this shouldn't come as a complete surprise and I was expecting them to write off a the billions they paid for Nokia. Still its sad to see it occur and really leaves the consumers with less choices.