Rumor discussion: Nokia and Microsoft to team up on Windows Phone 7
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Nokia say that Windows Phone will be the primary smartphone strategy, implying there will be others - but it's unclear what form that will take?
They say a Meego device will still be released this year - perhaps they still intend to keep Meego for tablets?
The mention of 150 million more Symbian devices carries the clear implication that it will come to an end, and will be phased out to be replaced by WP.
I think it's a shame that they won't do Symbian for the low end. A great thing about Symbian is its lower system requirements, and as phone technology advances, I wonder if lower end phones could run it (you can already get Symbian phones like the Nokia 5230 for under £70). It would compete better than Android here, and wipe the floor with similarly priced "feature phone" OSs.
Clearly Nokia aren't going to ditch their low end phones (which sell an awful lot). But it seems sad to me if they phase out Symbian, whilst keeping S40 around!
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Bad news indeed, but by no means disruptive news for Qt as a whole. Apart from having been on the track of becoming one of the big 3 dev plattforms for mobile apps and yesterday been pulled off this track, Qt is still the best generall application framework around. That will not change in the near future.
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For desktop app devs nothing really changes. I don't think Qt will be unmaintained and neglegted. Maybe some features not related to mobile apps will get more attention?
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If you have put all your hopes and business in the mobile market, then you have to jump on another framework. Mobile apps are all about "ecosystems" (I hate this word ...). That part is really the problem there, as an ecosystem needs a huge company's effort. But for you as a developer: Not a problem. If you have been smart enough to learn Qt, you can learn Java, obj-c or C# with ease. No braincell committed to Qt is wasted! C# as a language doesn't seem to be too bad ... uuups, did I just write or only think this? :-)
So, heads up! Qt might have just lost the prospect of becoming the greatest from being great. But that takes nothing away from still being great!
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It makes me feel sad and played. How could Nokia do such a thing to Qt. I'll probably to switch to Android as a primary target and use Qt for non profit pet projects.
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Indeed. Betrayal of the Qt devs is what comes to my mind. In october putting up a whole charade, claiming that Qt would be the platform for all Nokia's. That they were betting the company on it. A few short months later, the certificates from the exams taken there not even in the mail yet(!), Nokia practically dumps Qt. It is a knife in the back.
In my opinion, it seems Nokia wasted way too much time with first building Meamo, and then starting all over with Meego, and first setting Symbian apart, and then pulling it back into the company again. How long will this WP7 adventure last? Untill the company is really drowned?
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Symbian/Meego with Qt was an unbeatable platform.
Symbian sales are still increasing rapidly (faster than iOS sales). There were an extra 10 million Symbian devices sold this year compared to last year. For iOS, 8 million.
In the last 2 months of 2010, 5 million Symbian^3 handsets were sold. WP7? 2 million.
A massive 100 million Symbian handsets sold last year. More than all iOS and Android handsets combined. It broke a world record.You can't expect the marketshare to remain above 30%, however, with all these new competitors in the market that weren't there before.
What happens when you have a monopoly and it turns in to a duopoly, now an oligopoly. Yes, marketshare obviously falls. Nokia had a massive marketshare but for them to maintain this means the other players are doing something very wrong. They aren't. That Symbian is still increasing in sales in 2011 shows that the platform is not dying at all.
Nokia doing a deal with Microsoft isn't a bad thing. They should have shared ecosystems. That is, Microsoft Office/Live/Zune/Xbox in exchange for free Navteq map data and using Bing search and ads on their device.
Throw in Qt support for Visual Studio and WP7 which benefits both parties.But to adopt WP7 is just wrong in every single way. Two years before they transition? Did they really think Symbian/Meego/Qt would take longer than this to clean up and mature? Imagine what Qt would have looked like in 2 years with the leaps and bounds it has been making.
In the Q & A talk I watched as I tried to understand Elop's grand plan I heard Elop explain that he will release a single Meego tablet so that he may "learn" from it. That is, an experiment. Sounds like Maemo all over again.
The thing that scares me is that someone from the Guardian asks:
Guardian: "But who would buy a Meego device if it's going to be dead ...?"
Elop: "Well, I think you're answering your own question. If in fact something is dead, then it's best not to ship it." -
Wow, even 2 days didn't past since new Nokia strategic declaration and you have already buried Nokia and Qt. Who you think you are? Prophets? Say me, please, when the UFO eventually come to Earth I need to be ready.
Seriously, nothing bad has been happened. I really like Nokia phones, I really like MS products and enjoy with Qt framework development. Nokia will have a great profit from this connection as well as Microsoft will. And I'm sure Qt will have a great future too. Just be patient. At the moment NOTHING DISASTROUS HAPPENED.
"This post":http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/12/nokia-new-strategic-direction-what-is-the-future-for-qt/ explains something but there are again too many crying children in the comments. It seems they don't read anything and don't think about anything except mythical betrayal of them by Nokia. It is a business baby(c).
I don't want to make prediction but my opinion is that this union will give great phones in the market and Qt will be growing not slower than it did for past 2 years.
Men just do not cry around. You are programmer or what? -
@ ixSci ...
When you read that http://news.techworld.com/applications/3245323/nokia-backs-qt-framework-for-symbian-and-meego-development/
and Two month latter, that Nokia phone developement is Now WP7 only WITHOUT Qt... sorry ... We are not crying ... -
Noone is crying but the fact are talking.Meego was the strategic plateform and QT the language to use.
from qtnext :
http://getsatisfaction.com/nokia/topics/petition_to_nokia_reconsider_meego_as_strategic_platform
also :
According to Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop, the Symbian and MeeGo operating systems will only disappear gradually from the Nokia handsets in favour of Windows Phone 7, which Nokia is to adopt "as its choice smartphone platform".not clear enough?
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I have an idee ... Nokia should add .DotNet documentation in http://doc.qt.nokia.com/ so we will start .dotNet smoothly ;(
it's not possible that Nokia play this Game ... using Qt developer to help transition to WP7, ... and trash it ...
NOKIA YOU LIE TOO MUCH ... It's Over -
mm, proof-link about "MeeGo operating systems will only disappear gradually from the Nokia handsets in favour of Windows Phone 7"?
If you just read the facts you will see the at the moment the only one even happened: Meego has been declined for smart-phones for some period(maybe forever). But there was nothing said about tablets\pads\portable PC and other devices. Maybe we should be a little more patient and wait for tendencies in Qt development?
Moreover, Nokia can bring smart-phones with Meego on the market later when Meego will be fully ready. I don't think it is the right time to judge about Qt future, that is my opinion. -
dguimard, sorry but is is not a proof-link. It is not citation of Elop but it is conclusion of the article writer. And nothing more. Moreover, how can MeeGo gradually disappear from headsets when there is no devices with that platform? Mystery. :)
It is an easy way to blame Nokia in all men crimes and demand divorce but maybe we should stream our energy in Qt development instead? Qt will be here and Nokia will be here. A few thousand offended developers will change nothing. -
Also I have heard rumors on employees being laid off. When the Symbian Foundation was closed down there were 1000's of Symbian experts working for Symbian Foundation who were not taken back to Nokia.
Now everything seems to be clear, why this was done so. The current decision to go with WM7 seems to have been made long back.
I am afraid that QDN does not go the way Symbian Foundation went.
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I am not blaming Nokia but the way the communication was done,you can admit that it added a lot of confusion.
All Forum are expressing the same feeling , of anger because it s about passionate people for there favorite Brand,Nokia.From this article ,and what happend at Tampere last friday...
From what happend to Maemo and the result that we all know..
I think we are feeling less confident about what Nokia will say...
Remember 3 month ago what was saying Nokia about QT...
1 phone running Meego this year will probably make us happy :) -
I can understand all your frustration and anger. Everybody is more or less confused. We know that this announcement took you by surprise and that you feel betrayed and left in the dark.
But seriously, there is no decision that Qt will go away. And if you ask for my personal opinion, it's not going to be the case.
Let's just see how things really look like when the dust has settled a bit. It's weekend now, and at least here in Oslo, the sun is shining.
Time for some afternoon coffee. Nothing we can do right now.
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Oh, and maybe have a look at Quim's post over at the Maemo forum: http://bit.ly/hOiFic
I hope that helps you understand what we're up to at the moment. -
Hello fellow Qt devs, and thanks to Alexandra for the previous posts. I've dreamed last night of the next internal memo from S. Elop, i thought to reproduce it there to cheer you up a bit :-)
To: Qt team
From: Stephen ElopIn my last letter i've left you with a difficult choice: stay on the burning platform and die quickly and horribly, or jump into the frozen waters and die slowly and horribly - except for a very slim chance of rescue. I hope you've not lost too much sleep on that decision, because as you see i've already made it for you (i'm the boss, remember ?): you'll jump! If this predicament seems particularly cruel, think of the marketing, PR and sales team that will have to promote and sell 150 MILLIONS MORE symbian devices, ha ha!
Have a nice day,
Stephen.
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xsacha: I couldn't agree with you more. It depresses me how the media, and many people, moan about Nokia's falling market share, when as you point out, Nokia's sales are increasing, and the falling market share is a statistical quirk due to an enlarging market, with more people entering the market.
Consider, is it better to be 60% in a tiny market, or 30% in a massive market, with far more sales? Yet I bet when the Ipad's market share falls as more tablets come onto the market, we won't hear the media criticising Apple...
That said, who knows - I would hope that Nokia are aware of Symbian's success. I guess they think that WP is a better technology for future development, or perhaps they no longer want to spend the R&D on maintaining an OS themselves. I'm not saying it's a good thing - it is indeed very risky, but who knows.
The funny thing is that even if this move is a disaster for Nokia relative to their current success, they could still ship enough WP phones to massively increase its growth, perhaps still doing better than Apple. So despite a disaster, the headlines will be "Windows Phone now outsells the Iphone", which after hearing so many Iphone users loving to mock Windows Phone, I would find rather funny :)
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Developers are leaving Nokia because of this, Nokia will not have many fresh apps to offer their customers before the first wp7 devices. And when that happends, wp7 got a lot less apps than Nokia do today. So.. I don't see any reason that customers will want any new Nokia devices from this day on.
This is the start of the end of a very nice company that had a bright future.