How were they better than Symbian smartphones ? Even to this day there are things I can do on Symbian which I can not do on WP, such as attaching a PDF file to an e-mail. The multitasking on Symbian is still superior, and it runs on hardware so old and slow.. WP won't even be able to boot.
The reason Windows Mobile got killed in the market place was the fact that Pegasus (windows CE) was much heavier than Symbian.. that's why Nokia went with that instead of CE and the rest is history.
Here:
Symbian, The Secret History: Dark Star ?€? The Register
"At Comdex that year, Microsoft unveiled its Pegasus project, called Windows CE. It had signed up Casio and others to release Psion-like palmtops – but they were poorly received. They were ungainly and couldn’t match the performance or battery life of Psion’s machines. Nevertheless, fear of Microsoft was perceptible.
“We said to Nokia, the world thinks the solution is Microsoft. The US didn’t know us – they hadn't got a clue who Psion is. But the Nokias don't want to give their business to Microsoft,” Randall remembers.
When you read EPOC/Psion read Symbian.
So Nokia didn't want to deal with MS for number of reasonsm but I think this
"The sophistication and superiority of Epoc, compared to Windows CE, were evident to the pundits, who threw laurels at Psion's new machine. Psion users were used to a month on two AA batteries – and the Series 5 very nearly matched that. But it had striven to match the flexibility of paper (Psion had viewed Filofax users as their traditional competition) with a 32bit world. Pictures could be embedded in a diary entry, for example."
"When Psion’s engineers tested Windows CE on the same hardware as Psion’s own Epoc, they found the Microsoft software was four times as power hungry.
"There's no way our engineers are going to go to Windows,” piped up one attendee.
Is one of the main reasons.. The difference in power consumption still holds true to this day, its just that at this point it doesn't matter because we have 3000 mah batts as standard and everyone is used to charging their phone once or even twice per 24hrs.
This bit is the most important one, and it really shaped Microsoft's mobile efforts in the 90s going into the 00s. They knew that it was extremely important to get the major OEMs on board, but... Nokia killed that dream
"“We went to Nokia and told them we think we can spin Psion Software out of Psion. Nokia said 'Let's go to Ericsson'. We wanted to get Motorola involved - but we'll agree everyone's an equal citizen.”
Nokia and Ericsson visited Psion's London HQ on 7 April, 1998. After that, the project became known as Saturn - Nokia and Ericsson's code name.
A month later, on 7 and 8 May, the details were thrashed out. Nokia, Ericsson and Psion – represented by East, Wood and Christensen – met for retreats at Nokia – the small town that gave the Finnish giant its name. Much of Nokia's planning and R&D takes place at nearby Tampere, in a sprawling modernistic facility, but the company retains a Mansion in the old town.
The decision to exclude Motorola from the planning was deliberate.
The positive reception from Nokia and Ericsson – and evident agreement between the three – delighted Potter, who went on to change his mind, and gave the spin-out the full blessing."
And after they got Motorola on board as well..
The other task was for the new partners to break the news to Microsoft.
The task of the courtesy call to Bill Gates fell to Nokia’s corporate executive vice president, and later CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
“Kallasvuo told us it was the worst call of his career. Gates was like a baby throwing his toys out of his pram. He was screaming.”
Microsoft was left with HP, Casio, DELL, etc. They simply had NO chance against Ericsson and Nokia. It was a colossal blow to their strategy and Gates knew that..
We all know how this panned out for Nokia.. sheer incompetence ran the system to the ground -> the iPhone -> panic mode -> major lossless -> Microsoft finally gets what they want and buys the whole fing thing.
Its very important to understand the journey which led us to the Lumia line which we now enjoy. It wasn't pretty.
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