Rumor discussion: Nokia and Microsoft to team up on Windows Phone 7

milot.shala

Folks,

I know that you heard the rumors about Nokia and Microsoft in Windows Phone talks.

Here are several sources:

"http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374572,00.asp":http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374572,00.asp
"http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20026172-75.html":http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20026172-75.html
"http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20026172-75.html":http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20026172-75.html
"http://www.unwiredview.com/2010/12/20/holy-crap-nokia-is-in-talks-with-microsoft-about-windows-phone-devices/":http://www.unwiredview.com/2010/12/20/holy-crap-nokia-is-in-talks-with-microsoft-about-windows-phone-devices/

My thoughts are that this will never going to happen because of several reasons:

Nokia acquired Qt for focusing on Symbian and MeeGo
Taking Symbian R&D from Symbian foundation
Putting too much effort on MeeGo.

What are your thoughts?

P.S. If this topic cannot be discussed here, delete this post immediately :)

giesbert

Hi Milot Shala,
can you please use the link syntax for links? (the lying 8 above the edit field in the forum)?. Thanks.

milot.shala

Sure! Thanks for the suggestion :D

andre

Also on "Tweakers.net":http://tweakers.net/nieuws/71478/nokia-onderhandelt-met-microsoft-over-windows-phone-toestellen.html (in Dutch).

While I agree with your (edit: Milot Shala) sentiments, I am not so sure about Nokia's course. Nokia did bring in a high Microsoft guy not too long ago. Also Symbian does not have a very good name, at least not in the smartphone world. On the other hand, talking about rumours, there are also "rumours on Nokia being interested in Android":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/forums/viewthread/2344/.

Which way it will go? Probably nobody knows. The worrying thing for me is, that it sometimes feels as if even Nokia doesn't know. And if they do, they don't communicate it very clearly.

vcsala

Nobody can be sure what Nokia will do (on the surface it seems they change their mind frequently). On the other hand we have lots of rumors as people try to see behind the scenes. Moreover if you raise a topic and it will become true you are a profet, if you are wrong the world forgets your words quickly.

Anyway I do not beleive that Windows Mobile has a good name in the smartphone word. It has lots of publicity (to save their market presence) but they were not able to cope with iOS and later Android for years (similar to Symbian). On the other hand Nokia has a stable low end userbase on Symbian (this is somehow endangered by Android but it is still stable) which they can build on.

andre

Mind though, that Windows Phone 7 is a different beast from Windows Mobile. I totally agree with you where it concerns Windows Mobile (I used to own a phone with that), but at least reviews say that WP7 actually is an interesting system.

vcsala

I agree with you it is interesting, but what I wanted to say it is really late on the market and very hard to see how it will gain momentum.

[added] Maybe with Nokia... :)

andre

But isn't the same true (to an even bigger extend) for Meego?

milot.shala

Another article have a completely different and more understandable thoughts on Nokia, Android and WP7:

"http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/12/some-symbian-sanity-why-nokia-will-not-join-google-android-or-microsoft-phone-7.html":http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/12/some-symbian-sanity-why-nokia-will-not-join-google-android-or-microsoft-phone-7.html

I have read the whole article last week and according to this article Nokia always had long term plans, if they switch to either Android or WP7 it will be a short term plan and I don't think Nokia would have put too much effort on planning Symbian^4 and even releasing Symbian^3.

Also the article describes how Nokia wants to keep its customers, if you look at Nokia dumb phones, Nokia E62 and Nokia N8 you can expect same workflow, and Nokia lost 1 of 5 customers because they had a plan to migrate their users from dumb phones to smart phones.

But still they are rumors, I am waiting for the Q1 2011 because they are about to release an update to Symbian^3, Nokia E7 and other news.

vcsala

[quote author="Andre" date="1292923908"]But isn't the same true (to an even bigger extend) for Meego?[/quote]

Yes, it is. But I think Meego will mainly compete on the table market and will be available only for a very few phones.

milot.shala

I think MeeGo will be more a tablet/TV OS rather than a phone OS. Let's see maybe we are wrong on this... but still Nokia is pushing Qt and it has been said that in the future users will see one UI which will be built on top of Qt and they will not care about the underlying OS.

vcsala

[quote author="Milot Shala" date="1292925026"]Nokia is pushing Qt and it has been said that in the future users will see one UI which will be built on top of Qt and they will not care about the underlying OS.[/quote]

Which is a sound strategy, I beleive. Moreover as it can be easily available in almost all other (non-Nokia used) OSs and provides a very sizeable market for developers.

milot.shala

[quote author="VCsala" date="1292925387"]
[quote author="Milot Shala" date="1292925026"]Nokia is pushing Qt and it has been said that in the future users will see one UI which will be built on top of Qt and they will not care about the underlying OS.[/quote]

Which is a sound strategy, I beleive. Moreover as it can be easily available in almost all other (non-Nokia used) OSs and provides a very sizeable market for developers.[/quote]

You are right, for this reason they are pushing Qt Quick, because WP7 has Silverlight as its main development tool.

But again, according to my last post, I don't see Nokia will abandon Symbian or MeeGo soon and I am hoping to do so :)

maciej

WP7 on Nokia would be shooting yourself in a foot for Nokia. Besides Android would be better choice (because of market share). There are always rumors like this one when quite big transfers are happening. So everybody should be skeptical about it.

P.S. I'm waiting for MeeGo :D

milot.shala

[quote author="maciek" date="1292927927"]WP7 on Nokia would be shooting yourself in a foot for Nokia. Besides Android would be better choice (because of market share). There are always rumors like this one when quite big transfers are happening. So everybody should be skeptical about it.

P.S. I'm waiting for MeeGo :D[/quote]

According to Nokia's open source strategy I think they will go further with Android, but in the other hand Nokia's competitors are doing it with Android too.

I am waiting for MeeGo too :)

andre

[quote author="Milot Shala" date="1292924683"]Another article have a completely different and more understandable thoughts on Nokia, Android and WP7:

"http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/12/some-symbian-sanity-why-nokia-will-not-join-google-android-or-microsoft-phone-7.html":http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/12/some-symbian-sanity-why-nokia-will-not-join-google-android-or-microsoft-phone-7.html[/quote]
That sure is an interesting read. Thanks for linking to it. It does bring some perspective, even if I'm not completely done reading it yet.

milot.shala

[quote author="Andre" date="1292932385"]
[quote author="Milot Shala" date="1292924683"]Another article have a completely different and more understandable thoughts on Nokia, Android and WP7:

"http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/12/some-symbian-sanity-why-nokia-will-not-join-google-android-or-microsoft-phone-7.html":http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/12/some-symbian-sanity-why-nokia-will-not-join-google-android-or-microsoft-phone-7.html[/quote]
That sure is an interesting read. Thanks for linking to it. It does bring some perspective, even if I'm not completely done reading it yet.

[/quote]

I have read it entirely and it is a good perspective. The question was "Who invented the smart phone?" and you can imagine the answer :)

vcsala

Yes, that was a very interesting article (more so for Nokia fans). On the Nokia World it was a clear message that Nokia "as the inventor of the smart phone" do not want to let others to steal their market. So if they think it seriously (and why not) great things should come.

milot.shala

[quote author="VCsala" date="1292934883"]Yes, that was a very interesting article (more so for Nokia fans). On the Nokia World it was a clear message that Nokia "as the inventor of the smart phone" do not want to let others to steal their market. So if they think it seriously (and why not) great things should come.[/quote]

And not making any WP7 devices :)

disperso

[quote author="Milot Shala" date="1292928508"]
According to Nokia's open source strategy I think they will go further with Android, but in the other hand Nokia's competitors are doing it with Android too.
[/quote]

Android is right now the less open project of the open source world. Until some weeks ago, we didn't even knew that Gingerbread was 2.3 and not 3.0. That's an anecdote, sure, but what about publishing the source code days before they are shipping the product? What about not knowing a thing about the features of the release?

No, Android is certainly released with an open licences, but it's not developed in the open, and it's very unclear to me how Nokia could release a product with Android with the way Google/OHA works.

If Nokia and Microsoft have had conversations, is more likely that they are collaborating in services (Nokia already collaborates with Yahoo, isn't it?).