Is this true? AT&T and Nokia exclusive?

[rimlover]

Re: is this true?

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't fragmentation really an issue from a software point of view?

frag?men?ta?tion [ fr?gmən t?ysh'n ]
breaking up of something: the process of shattering or breaking up into fragments
loss of unity and cohesion: the loss of unity and cohesion and the splitting of something into isolated and often conflicting parts
shattering of explosive device: the scattering of the shattered parts of a grenade or other explosive device

not necessarily. it depends which context it's used it. the fragmentation i mean is in terms of resources (time, money, man power etc) that nokia is deploying to each carrier.

 

[rimlover]

Re: is this true?

The thing is, there is *no* fragmentation. All phones run the same OS. This is not the case with android. Using "fragmentation" for WP is like saying fragmentation for desktop Windows. OEMs bundle exclusive apps, high-end games don't run on netbooks, some PCs have USB 3.0 and some have 2.0 etc.

For WP OEMs too, all they can differentiate is using their exclusive apps/unique hardware to entice customers to choose their products. If all windows phones looked the same, performed the same and had the same set of default apps, why would you choose one brand over the other? Since there are multiple OEMs, they all need to do something different to attract people. HTC has the slim form-factor, Nokia have their camera and (not so) exclusive apps. The onus of deciding now lies on you....which one will you choose? Your answer will depend on what you are looking for in a phone. All of them provide the same OS and have, for the most part, the same experience. It all depends on the last mile. My choice may not be the same as your choice.

The ONLY "fragmentation" I can see is WP 7.x vs. WP 8.x.

i think i wrote this a million times by now. i mean fragmentation in time and money spent by nokia for carrier specific handsets.

 

[Gungzwei]

Re: is this true?

i'm sorry you read my comment and saw jealousy in it. that is far from the truth. what i was talking about is the point of view from a marketing/supply chain of view it doesn't make sense. this is more magnified by the fact that nokia is doing horrible in terms of sales.

Nokia has done very well for several decades by offering a device for every price point. I don't think they will suffer by having too many choices. Nokia still has more cellphones in the wild than any other manufacturer. And with smart phones expected to outsell feature phones for the first time, this year, I think it positions them well for a full recover.

Where do you get the idea of Nokia doing 'horrible' for sales? They have sold out of just about every device they have launched, recently. With the 720 and 520 coming out and the 928 hitting Verizon, you'll start to see some major turnaround numbers. There are currently MORE Lumia 822s sold than there are AT&T 920s.

Plus all of the awards and notice that Nokia/WP8 a starting to garner, Nokia will start meeting and exceeding sales targets this year.

 

[PicodeGalla]

Re: is this true?

doesn't ATT and nokia have an exclusivity? i mean i get the 928 is not going to be the same as the 920 but i mean that most bother ATT. like that's just a back stab. the word exclusive means that they're going to be sole partner for that time. if this phone comes out before june (when the ATT exclusivity runs out) then i honestly will be bothered for 2 reasons. 1) that's a low blow to ATT to change it up a bit and call it different so the word 'exclusive' doesn't matter. the second reason (which is the most important reason) is what the heck is nokia doing? if they keep to different versions of their top of the line then what's the refresh cycle going to look like? different on each carrier? that just sounds dumb from the point of lack of unity in the release structure. so in september what happens? ATT gets the updated version of the 920? why fragment the top of the line? just my thoughts. i really hope this won't come out until the refresh of the 920 comes out.

Who cares, we are the little people and we constantly get wallet raped by large corporation and after they are done with us, all we say is "more please" with out actually doing anything about it. They know humans are dumb and will buy anything that is new and shiny even if there old product is a week old. I don't know where this zombie attitude of "must have new things" came from but it is why they do what they do and if you don't agree with me that humans are dumb than lets get together and change this mofo!!

Sorry I am little mad, i just want to use my 920 on Tmobile but nooooooooooooooooooo AT$T wants exclusivity rights!! F them I am not going to pay double for the same crap service. This is me complaining about my "wallet raping"!! With out any lube...they tore the plastic on my Drivers license holder. It ain't rape if you like it...just sayin'!

 

[rimlover]

Re: is this true?

Nokia has done very well for several decades by offering a device for every price point. I don't think they will suffer by having too many choices. Nokia still has more cellphones in the wild than any other manufacturer. And with smart phones expected to outsell feature phones for the first time, this year, I think it positions them well for a full recover.

Where do you get the idea of Nokia doing 'horrible' for sales? They have sold out of just about every device they have launched, recently. With the 720 and 520 coming out and the 928 hitting Verizon, you'll start to see some major turnaround numbers. There are currently MORE Lumia 822s sold than there are AT&T 920s.

Plus all of the awards and notice that Nokia/WP8 a starting to garner, Nokia will start meeting and exceeding sales targets this year.

well in the last several decades? well in what matter? clearly you don't mean financially. if you do, then have you seen the stocks? nokia lost 30 some odd euros last year alone. as for their cell phones it doesn't matter. look at the profit margins. how much money do you think nokia can make on a phone they sell for 130? not a lot. as far as recovery, how do you think they go about that when they're spending so much R&D making so many phones that are carrier specific. not to mention they only sold 4 million phones when it was during launch time period. the only reason they 'sold out' is because the supply is low. if i offer 1 phone and 3 people want it of course i would have sold out, but that doesn't mean i sold a lot. i read the article where it stated there were more 822 sold then 920 but that's a given. low to mid range beats high end phone sales because they're cheaper. i hope you're right about sale targets but the bb 10 is doing pretty amazing. 1 company bought 1 million that's 25% of lumia 920 sells in less than a quarter. i wouldn't be surprised if blackberry surpasses nokia by a bigger shot then currently.

 

[Gungzwei]

Re: is this true?

Well this thread has deteriorated to the point that rimlover likes to take all of the threads he participates in.

Probably time to lock the thread.

 

[rimlover]

Re: is this true?

Well this thread has deteriorated to the point that rimlover likes to take all of the threads he participates in.

Probably time to lock the thread.

or i actually take tim to respond to people. if you took time and read the comments they was a trained going on. everyone was agreeing with each other and i was defending my point of view.

 

[carlcamera]

Re: is this true?

As a Lumia 920 owner that switched (both me and my wife) from T-Mobile USA to AT&T to get a pair of 920s, I wholeheartedly endorse Verizon getting something better. Grow the platform, expand the user base, give Verizon folks something they can brag about!

 

[omniusovermind]

Re: is this true?

Do all WP devices by Nokia, HTC, and Samsung all receive OTA updates not only at the same time on each carrier, but at the same time on each OEM? No, they do not. That's also a form of fragmentation and I would say the worst form of it, because it makes WP devices no better than Android devices in terms of having updates pushed out. There are currently only two devices on the planet that don't have this problem. iPhones and non-LTE Nexus phones.

 

[Nabkawe5]

Seeing how the 982 is 200$ on contract I think At&t is in the clear , Its not in anyway the same product , and At&t would deifinitly get the next big Nokia flagship later that year (Decemeber/holidays) which is where all the big money comes from anyways.

 

[Bloobed]

Re: is this true?

This is all good, but I will offer one correction and other added thoughts... The correction is that until Microsoft adds 1080p, which won't really be a surprise, there are only three resolutions. 480x800 (WP7x devices, 822, 8s, and low-end Lumias), 1280x768 (922), and 1280x720 (8x).

As for developing, a developer does not *have* to develop covering all three resolutions. If he only writes for one, the app will work. It may not look the same, but it will work. The easiest way, in my opinion (and the way I'm doing it), is instead of laying out the screen by pixels is to do it by ratio. My apps will look the same on all three screens, and all I had to do to cover them all equally was to check a couple of checkboxes. Otherwise, I believe you'll get the black bands at top and bottom of the screen. Now I'm referring to the xaml apps, or apps that are laid out using xaml, which most of your non-game apps are going to be, at least for now (there are a couple different ways to develop for the phone). I've only used this method of developing for the phone, so I can't speak for the others. I'm also not speaking for games, as I've never developed one. Basically, though, the phone will adapt if the developer didn't.

As for the fragmentation between WP7 and WP8, yes, there is fragmentation in that respect, because anytime you add capabilities to something, the old equipment won't run the apps that use those capabilites. WP8 will run *most* WP7 apps without any problems, but making apps for WP8 that will run on WP7 is more of a challenge.

Even if you used pixels to define the layout, it should work on all resolutions. WP uses logical pixels, basically unless you specify otherwise, you are working with a logical WVGA.

 

[Trappiste]

Re: is this true?

well in the last several decades? well in what matter? clearly you don't mean financially. if you do, then have you seen the stocks? nokia lost 30 some odd euros last year alone. as for their cell phones it doesn't matter. look at the profit margins. how much money do you think nokia can make on a phone they sell for 130? not a lot. as far as recovery, how do you think they go about that when they're spending so much R&D making so many phones that are carrier specific. not to mention they only sold 4 million phones when it was during launch time period. the only reason they 'sold out' is because the supply is low. if i offer 1 phone and 3 people want it of course i would have sold out, but that doesn't mean i sold a lot. i read the article where it stated there were more 822 sold then 920 but that's a given. low to mid range beats high end phone sales because they're cheaper. i hope you're right about sale targets but the bb 10 is doing pretty amazing. 1 company bought 1 million that's 25% of lumia 920 sells in less than a quarter. i wouldn't be surprised if blackberry surpasses nokia by a bigger shot then currently.

Regarding an earlier post, yes, USD 100 phones can be quite profitable when one has the know-how to do business in that segment. Look at where Nokia actually does make and have traditionally made profit for a clue.

Nokia did not sell 4m phones in Q4 but around 70-80 million (can't remember exactly.)

And the Lumia product line is not "fragmented," a word which you are applying incorrectly. There are still too few Lumia models. They need more.

That there are 928 and 920T and 521 attests simply to US and China market peculiarities. Everyone else gets the exact same (few) models. And who cared even if they did not? A person buying a Lumia in Germany will not even know of L928 (or of L929, L933, L945, ...) and cannot be bothered by it/them. Also, leave the R&D and distribution issues to those whose profession they are. Nokia have manufacturing capacity to handle dozens of different models in their own facotires alone should they prioritize that capacity to Lumias from cheaper phones.

And stop whining endlessly when there is not even an issue to raise.

 

[tissotti]

Re: is this true?

well in the last several decades? well in what matter? clearly you don't mean financially. if you do, then have you seen the stocks? nokia lost 30 some odd euros last year alone. as for their cell phones it doesn't matter. look at the profit margins. how much money do you think nokia can make on a phone they sell for 130? not a lot. as far as recovery, how do you think they go about that when they're spending so much R&D making so many phones that are carrier specific. not to mention they only sold 4 million phones when it was during launch time period. the only reason they 'sold out' is because the supply is low. if i offer 1 phone and 3 people want it of course i would have sold out, but that doesn't mean i sold a lot. i read the article where it stated there were more 822 sold then 920 but that's a given. low to mid range beats high end phone sales because they're cheaper. i hope you're right about sale targets but the bb 10 is doing pretty amazing. 1 company bought 1 million that's 25% of lumia 920 sells in less than a quarter. i wouldn't be surprised if blackberry surpasses nokia by a bigger shot then currently.

Nokia did sell 86 million phones in Q4 and yes, low end is actually were the profits are coming to Nokia. On Q4 when Nokia made 500 million euros profit it all came from NSN and low end, Lumias have yet to make money.

As for this fragmentation, in Europe and Asia that are by far Nokia's largest markets this fragmentation issue never existed. It's only in USA where there are different models thanks to the carrier model.
Reason is also clear, like it was for Samsung's early Galaxy phone that it had to modify for all carriers. The exact same thing goes for Nokia that needs to get its models sold in USA in general after ignoring the market on its hey days from 1999 to 2008.


And no, AT&T wont get updated version of Lumia 928. There will be next wave of flagships coming after Windows Phone gets its next major update with new SoCs supported and hopefully new screen resolutions supported. Just like it has always been. No idea will we see AT&T exclusive period then.

As for Nokia's strategy. Samsung is pretty much exactly what Nokia was in those 1999-2008 (though not yet achieved the kind of sales or market share Nokia did) by offering huge portfolio of phones globally. Nokia has had to ramp down its portfolio thanks to the OS problems it has been having for past 3 years. Now they are again ramping it up, like they should. Nokia is at the moment building 9th factory in Vietnam that will be ready 2H 2013 and should hopefully fix Nokia's manufacturing problems in high end.

 

[stephen_az]

Re: is this true?

oh please, just be happy finally nokia gets an flagship on verizon, usas largest.... it has already been 5 months from release of nokia lumia 920 on ATT, so in april it will be 6 months and the exclusive deal was for 6 months.. it would be an bad move if nokia released 6 months later an old device for them, so it needed to be updated, and another thing why there is so many variants because some carriers want their unique phone in usa, and nokia isnt in that position of samsung or apple to get all carriers along .. but will be hopefully in future.

The 928 is vaporware around which people here are developing a mythology. Until it is announced, it does not exist. Everything is simply speculation so there is no need for anyone to be disappointed. The real disappointment will come if something is released and it is just another pedestrian phone. If it is based upon the 920, it also will not be released until the AT&T exclusive expires. People around here can speculate to their heart's content but Nokia will not endanger its relationship with AT&T and Microsoft by dancing around an existing exclusivity agreement.

 

[hopmedic]

Re: is this true?

Do all WP devices by Nokia, HTC, and Samsung all receive OTA updates not only at the same time on each carrier, but at the same time on each OEM? No, they do not. That's also a form of fragmentation and I would say the worst form of it, because it makes WP devices no better than Android devices in terms of having updates pushed out. There are currently only two devices on the planet that don't have this problem. iPhones and non-LTE Nexus phones.

Wow, that's a HUGE stretch of the word.....

 

[Gungzwei]

Re: is this true?

or i actually take tim to respond to people. if you took time and read the comments they was a trained going on. everyone was agreeing with each other and i was defending my point of view.

No one really knows what your point of view is. You can hardly spell and punctuation is atrocious. It's all rambling.

" they was a trained going on." What does it even mean?

 

[rimlover]

Re: is this true?

No one really knows what your point of view is. You can hardly spell and punctuation is atrocious. It's all rambling.

" they was a trained going on." What does it even mean?

considering you took time to read it and reply, you had to have given a ****. as for my posts, i don't have much time to edit and re-read them because i do have a life. not to mention this isn't a properly written essay or anything.

 

[rimlover]

Re: is this true?

Regarding an earlier post, yes, USD 100 phones can be quite profitable when one has the know-how to do business in that segment. Look at where Nokia actually does make and have traditionally made profit for a clue.

Nokia did not sell 4m phones in Q4 but around 70-80 million (can't remember exactly.)

And the Lumia product line is not "fragmented," a word which you are applying incorrectly. There are still too few Lumia models. They need more.

That there are 928 and 920T and 521 attests simply to US and China market peculiarities. Everyone else gets the exact same (few) models. And who cared even if they did not? A person buying a Lumia in Germany will not even know of L928 (or of L929, L933, L945, ...) and cannot be bothered by it/them. Also, leave the R&D and distribution issues to those whose profession they are. Nokia have manufacturing capacity to handle dozens of different models in their own facotires alone should they prioritize that capacity to Lumias from cheaper phones.

And stop whining endlessly when there is not even an issue to raise.

selling cheap phones doesn't give you a large profit per-phone, but can give you large profits overall because of the increased number of sells. let's take an example of such a scenario (this is NOT representative of real profit margins and includes cost of marketing, shipping, packaging etc.). let's use 10% profit margin on a $100, and 25% on a $600 phone. we can say nokia would make $10/phone (off of a $100 phone) and $120/phone (off of a $600 phone). as you can see nokia would make more selling the $600 phone, but that's were the 'cheapness' factor comes in. distributions have a regular bell curve or maybe with a slightly skewed positive tail curve. this means that most products will fall in mid-range to low range. with all that factored in, nokia sold (according to your numbers)would sell let's say 70 mil low budget phones and 4 mil high budget phones. back to the profit/phone calculation. 70 000 000 * $10 = 700 000 000 for low budget and 4 000 000 * $120 = 550 000 000 for high budget. as you can see, nokia has to sell SO MUCH MORE low budget to get similar results on a high budget phone. even with all that, smartphone are going to surpass basic phones this year (expected), so even if nokia makes most money of lower end phones, then they're going to bleed out because that market is slowly dyeing.

4.4 million Nokia Lumia sales is not impressive at all article stating nokia sold 4 million during launch quarter. the rest were asha handsets.

now let's tackle the fragmentation issue one again. i agree that they're only 2 920 (the 920 for everywhere, and the 920T for china). that is, however, were the agreement ends. in USA a lone there is the 810, 820 822 which are all the same phone for different carrier. so that's 66% more fragmented than it has to be (for this specific model). this is were it ties in to R&D and supply chain. because of the 3 different bodies, nokia had to have spent some time in differentiating them. even if this time is minimal it's still time that the company doesn't need to waste. this should be more emphasized by the fact that the company is losing money.


to conclude all this, i'm not whining, just raising up concerns that bother me about nokia and microsoft which are companies i really want to succeed.

 

[Gaichuke]

Re: is this true?

Why don't you let Nokia worry about these things instead of trying to make sense of their decisions. You don't have any of the details they have, so whatever you might think is going on here might not have anything to do with the truth. I'm pretty sure Nokia is calculating every production decision they make if it's make sense or not.

If Verizon has requested a 920 variant and Nokia has agreed to build one for them, there are valid reasons for that decisions and that's it. Verizon might've agreed to buy 1M of those devices despite the actual sales making it immediately worth Nokia's time. Nokia might've agreed to build 928 because they calculate that it's a wise decision in the long run for US markets. Whatever those reasons are, they are there since 928 is coming. It's pointless for laymans to argue against that.

 

[omniusovermind]

Re: is this true?

Wow, that's a HUGE stretch of the word.....

Not even close. The biggest fragmentation beef with Android is the fact that updates to the most recent version of the OS, as well as patches to it come out at widely different times depending on what OEM you own and what carrier you're on. Just because you want to nitpick the dictionary definition of the word doesn't change what the android community are calling it.

Just because there's no OEM skins on Windows Phone didn't make them immune to Android's dilemma. Or haven't you noticed there was a good 3 month difference between which devices and carriers rolled out Portico?

That doesn't happen with iPhones, nor Google Nexus phones. While we're at it, because BlackBerry make both their own hardware and software, the time between updates was reduced to about 2 weeks due to minor carrier interference. So that leaves OEM branded androids and windows phones being the 2 devices subject to long delays.