Bloody hell guys. Is this a Windows forum or a Nokia forum? Putting a Nokia sticker on a Chinese phone does not make it a Lumia running Android - which would be an attractive proposition for some. If you want to buy some real Nokia equipment they will happily sell you some bits of kit used in mobile network infrastructure as they don't have a devices decision any more.
If Nokia creates Android smartphones, which one would you choose?
- Thread starter Vincentius Dalton
- Start date
I saw this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2lzJ-qH2A0
This guy has a point. How Nokia can still crush the competition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2lzJ-qH2A0
This guy has a point. How Nokia can still crush the competition.
His argument appears to be " If Nokia come up with a killer idea that millions of people want then they can be successful". Well durr.
Angry_Mushroom
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"Switching over to a popular OS will save Nokia." Not really. The access to a huge app marketplace is hardly a ticket to success. Look at the state of HTC, the android pioneer, has fallen on hard times to say in the last. The success to Android appears along the lines of making a strong device with lots of excellent features all skinned in a pretty and mostly stock interface. Is Nokia really willing to commit to the R&D needed to create a killer device every year consistently? They don't exactly have the deep pockets needed to survive another flub as Samsung or Apple.
And building a phone to dominate a small aspect of the market isn't the ticket to success. It's creating a flagship, and building on its success. The ipad was built on the success of the iphone, and the Note series was built on the success of Galaxy. Cool phone gimmicks have been proven to not be end all be all features as seen with the Lumia 1020, HTC One M7/8, and whatever else you can imagine (Xperia Play and Ngage?). Niche devices are cool, but they aren't the profit drivers.
The history lesson provided by that video is faulty as hell. It basically implies that Nokia needs to create a paradigm shift on the very way we view mobile devices and how we treat them. And his suggestions leave much to be desired. There is no category that Nokia can create without taking an unacceptable risk. They need to play a safe, slow, and profitable game. This game appears to be at best, the conventional route... or avoiding it altogether. Symbian failed, Windows Phone failed, why would Android be any better for them? Nokia has a history of changing what it does, and maybe the chapter on mobile phones has closed.
And building a phone to dominate a small aspect of the market isn't the ticket to success. It's creating a flagship, and building on its success. The ipad was built on the success of the iphone, and the Note series was built on the success of Galaxy. Cool phone gimmicks have been proven to not be end all be all features as seen with the Lumia 1020, HTC One M7/8, and whatever else you can imagine (Xperia Play and Ngage?). Niche devices are cool, but they aren't the profit drivers.
The history lesson provided by that video is faulty as hell. It basically implies that Nokia needs to create a paradigm shift on the very way we view mobile devices and how we treat them. And his suggestions leave much to be desired. There is no category that Nokia can create without taking an unacceptable risk. They need to play a safe, slow, and profitable game. This game appears to be at best, the conventional route... or avoiding it altogether. Symbian failed, Windows Phone failed, why would Android be any better for them? Nokia has a history of changing what it does, and maybe the chapter on mobile phones has closed.
DJCBS
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Samsung and LG contradict this. They're as far to stock Android as it gets. Only die hard Android fans care about stock Android. Most users don't care. As long as they like the interface and like the way they can change it, they don't care if it's stock Android or an OEM skin.
Don't forget that Nokia isn't manufacturing the devices anymore. Manufacturing and distribution is the biggest economical risk. Without those costs, even if a device isn't a hit, Nokia would still gain from the R&D and technology developed that they can then put up for licensing.
They need indeed to be thoughtful about the devices they create. The time of releasing cheap devices and devices for the sake of devices should never return (and should go away on all other OEMs, really). But avoiding the mobile market would be a huge mistake. Nokia has the biggest collection of mobile technology patents. Those patents need to be in constant development to generate new patents and new profitability. The best way to put out that tech, is through Nokia devices.
The mobile phones chapter isn't closed. But it's going to be rewritten. Nokia is currently working on a lot of AI tech and we should see future Nokia devices bringing in deeper AI interaction and functionality.
As for your question about why Android: for the same reason PC makers opt for Windows. It has the widest marketshare. It's where most users are and it's easier to bring an Android user from one Android device to another Android device (because of the familiarity factor) than to take it from Android to a completely different platform.
troylytle
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Laura Knotek
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vsmh96
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It would probably go against their own legacy, the previous CEO said they will never make use Android or something like that. The made the Nokia X and XL anyway and now the N1
DJCBS
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You (and people here and on AC Forums) are NOT most users.
Do you mean, previous CEO, Microsoft Employee Stephen Elop?
It was him who turned down Android in favour of Windows Phone. That was a "mistake" he did on purpose to deliberately sink Nokia's D&S division enough for Microsoft to buy it cheap. In the end the plan kind of backfired, though.
And that's why as soon as Eflop was out the door, Nokia turned to real Android on the N1.
vsmh96
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You (and people here and on AC Forums) are NOT most users.
Do you mean, previous CEO, Microsoft Employee Stephen Elop?
It was him who turned down Android in favour of Windows Phone. That was a "mistake" he did on purpose to deliberately sink Nokia's D&S division enough for Microsoft to buy it cheap. In the end the plan kind of backfired, though.
And that's why as soon as Eflop was out the door, Nokia turned to real Android on the N1.
Hmm, not really sure which CEO but he was known as the Trojan Horse, the debate however can be endless. I do know that there was quite a bit of politics and infighting between Symbian and Meego, still the company came a long way from one man, a legacy that lasted more than 100 years, 150 to be exact. Im not much of an Android fan but id say that any phone which doesnt utilize touch wiz or something worse, is better.
DJCBS
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It was Eflop that discarded Android. Olli-Pekka, the guy that preceded him was a disaster. He was the one that scorned the iPhone (well, him and this other guy named Ballmer) and the one that didn't push to offer a quick answer to the iPhone. He allowed the divergence between MeeGo and Symbian. But Android was launched in 2008. He failed to jump straight away to it. In 2008 you could still "forgive it" because Nokia was dominant. But the writings were on the wall. As Samsung and Co. left Symbian, so should have Nokia.
Enter Eflop in 2010: that was the time Nokia should have ran to adopt Android. The OS was 2 years old, very similar to their Symbian but growing by the day. For the consumers the change would go practically unnoticed because the UI weren't even that different. And Nokia was already a bit late. But still in a strong position. But no, Eflop had to turn Nokia towards his former-future employers. And then we all saw what happened. Nokia's D&S division was destroyed, Windows Phone flopped and now we are were we are.
I don't believe there's anything in "Nokia's legacy" that would prevent them from adopting Android. And the problem with the image people have of Android is exactly because of Samsung's TouchWiz. Android is far more than that. And as far as Nokia goes, the N1 has a pretty vanilla (or "stock") version of Android in it. Nokia's addition was the Z Launcher which you can disable. Now...going forward, it's very likely that Nokia's Android skin will evolve beyond just a Launcher and stock Android. But the N1 came out 7 months after the closing of the deal with Microsoft. No one should be expecting miracles.
Which is probably because Samsung holds the lion's share of Android devices. It's the most popular OEM, and it's what people are familiar with. In fact, the name Samsung has become synonymous with Android. I still say this: if Android is so bad, how can it have a market share of over 80%, and continue to maintain it and even grow? The image mustn't be hurting much. Users are evidently satisfied and returning.
I agree with you that Nokia could have done well had they chose Android way back. I wouldn't be surprised they would be today's Samsung.
Nogitsune Micah
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Unless Nokia is going to have Lumia esque designs that they originally had, I can't find any reason to be curious. The only people who would buy Nokia android phones are diehard superfans who won't acknowledge that Nokia has been irrelevant in most countries that aren't India. See above.
Nogitsune Micah
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Easy. When you get an android phone as cheap as $20....its not hard to understand why it is so popular.
If there was a $100 or less off contract iPhone, apples marketshare would be growing fast as well. Same reason why windows phone is being held afloat by the low end windows phones.
Of course from what I saw in those latest stats, in many markets, android market share has dropped slightly.
Yeah, true. But there are WPs at the price point as well, and yet, in spite of the purported good performance, its market share is not high, or even rising. Also, There are plently of Android flagships. In fact, Samsung's S line will sometimes by itself outsell the iPhone for a quarter after release. And that's just one of many flagships from many different OEMs. It's not like all Androids are low end.
Yes, it certainly would. That's what we thought was going to happen with the iPhone 5c. As it turned out, it was not much cheaper than the 5s. But Apple has one thing that most others do not: high profitability from hardware. Both Microsoft and Google would be more than happy with Apple's market share if they also had their profit. There is currently nothing to gain for Apple to try to gain market share with low cost devices.
Sure, you can pick and choose market share statistics from the areas you want. WP is said to have over 10% market share in some countries, higher than the iPhone in fact. But, the worldwide market share doesn't lie. Android is remaining flat, if not rising, and WP is also remaining flat, or even dropping some quarters. In fact, WP sales have been relatively flat the last 2 years going by absolute numbers, which means it has dropped percentage wise due to growth of the smartphone market.
Laura Knotek
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I'm not so sure if that would've been the case in the US. Nokia was never a popular brand in the US, except for some old feature phones. Verizon and Sprint never even sold Nokia devices at all prior to the Windows Phones. AT&T dumped Nokia following the E71, which never sold well. T-Mobile was the last carrier still selling Nokia Symbian smartphones.
Well yes that's possible. I don't know either if it would have happened, but I'm saying it COULD have happened. Nokia certainly was popular in the candy bar phone days.
Hardware was not the reason Nokia couldn't make a go of Windows Phones. They had some killer hardware. It was likely more due to using a fledgling (at the time) OS in a market where they were up against two very strong competitors.
Laura Knotek
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I could see that being possible.
What I'm saying is that the Nokia brand wasn't ever desirable just for its name in the US. The feature phones were probably good sellers, since they were cheap. I remember a friend of mine had some nondescript Nokia feature phone. He then got a Razr as his next feature phone. The Razr was a really popular feature phone, and it was pricey at the time, but it had a style that appealed to a lot of people.
Nokia smartphones were always distant last-place in the US compared to Palm and BlackBerry in the days before iPhone/Android.
I had an E62 and an E71, but I never saw a single one of those used by anyone else.
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