back to article Nokia: Ship's now stable, all we need is passengers

Europe's biggest technology company Nokia caught a few people by surprise with its outlook yesterday. Nokia released far more information than a company typical discloses in a preview - an unusual amount. Ratings agencies may regard Nokia as "junk", and the fallen industry leader has flogged off and leased back its glittering …

COMMENTS

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  1. The_Regulator

    "but the low-cost Android experience isn't that great"

    Theres an understatement, everyone I know with a mid range android phone cannot stand the experience.

    Nokia definitely appears to be moving in the right direction, just wish I had purchased some shares back in Q3 2012 when they were running at about US $1.70 a share, could have doubled my money in less than 6 months!!

  2. AndrueC Silver badge
    Meh

    My HTC Desire lasts 4 days on a single charge if I don't use it much. It'll last nearly a week if it's left completely alone. However I did have to replace the battery with a 3Ah one.

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      My Galaxy Note (first gen) will last three-and-a-half days on a charge, though I'm sparing with the wifi. However, if it wasn't exactly the phone I wanted (handwriting was the killer app for me), I'd probably be looking at one of the new Win8 Nokias.

      (Yes, I know I've publicly said on here that Android is Google spyware, and that I'd never buy another Nokia after the recent farcical management decisions. I still believe that Android is Google spyware, and have turned off the "Background Data" to reduce that, and don't wander around with wifi turned on unless I need it. However, the new Nokias are far better than I feared they would be, and I'm keeping an eye on what happens.)

  3. HamsterNet

    The lumen looks like a really nice built phone. Just such a shame its not on Android with its Huge App store and Google features.

    Android market is ALL about having the best hardware and hardware is what Nokia do well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Android phones are beaten by the Nokia 920. There is no high end Android phone with QI charging, OIS camera and all the other features the 920 has.

      You can nitpick about cpu cores, but WP8 doesn't need a hugely powerful CPU.

      The Samsung S3 most people own in this country doesn't even do 3G.

      1. eulampios
        WTF?

        minimum system reqs

        You must be mistaken, AC. Comparing Android and Windows Phone 7/8 doesn't seem advantageous for Microsoft. E.g., compare 100MB/128MB recommended( at least) up to 2.2 RAM, 2GB storage for Android , and 256MB RAM for Windows Phone 7, 8gb disk storage.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sorry, that should say 4G not 3G. There is a 4G S3 but it's a recent model which many people have only just received.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      I quite like Android on high end kit but I don't really trust Google. In fact as time goes on I trust Google less and less. I have always had good experiences with MS and I would much more readily trust my data in their cloud.

      The MS app store and WinPhone8 will only improve over the next 2 years - If Nokia stay with the program I can see a lot of people like myself using Windows Phone8 in the future.

  4. Schultz
    Alert

    Keep the cash pump running!

    The article mentions $1bn MS cash support and $1bn income from IP. If the good ship Nokia is leaking those amounts of cash, then the ship is not as stable as it looks. If someone turns off the cash pump, the ship might go down very fast. (Just tell the investors that there is a $1bn / year cash cow on board! And you though the golden cow was only a biblical analogy?)

  5. Chris 171
    Terminator

    Symbian...

    Bring it back quietly I say & make the 808 available easily in the UK. Better that than sullying Nokia hardware with Android in my eyes. Or an N8 eqivalent with Pureview, that would sell too.

    Its clear why Elop did what he did, cant help thinking though that even if the Symbian devs were still fired there was enough life left in Belle for another flagship device or two .

    Maybe then when WP is actually up to speed with the competition, people can see a clear & simple upgrade(?) to the latest WP device, that does just what the S^3 devices can do right now and have been doing for the last 2 years!

  6. ScissorHands
    Devil

    And if Nokia had competitive phones 14 months ago?

    Instead of having to wait for Windows Phone 8?

    By doubling down on the N9 and launching a Snapdragon N9 variant on Verizon USA? The Lumia 800 was made from that cancelled N9, it was almost ready to launch and Maemo Harmattan was already running on Snapdragon anyway.

    1. Bad Beaver
      Thumb Up

      Yup

      Each and every day with my N9 is proof enough. Power to Jolla.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For f&^%'s sake. The article wasn't about whether WP was better than Android. It was about the contents of Nokia's own outlook.

    Which, incidentally, is hardly going to say 'Actually folks, the ship is about as stable as the Costa Concordia, nobody's buying the Lumia, and we can't decide whether to have Elop prosecuted or to sue his lobotomist', now, is it.

  8. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Nokia is just another Palm

    They're just taking a longer time to roll belly up.

    I still have my orphan Palm III/V/Tx and my Nokia N800 sitting in a drawer somewhere. They've been superseded by my aged & shaky Motorola Droid and my Nexus 4 (whenever that actually gets here...)

  9. Bad Beaver
    Meh

    What's missing

    Is fresh business class devices that people can be truly productive with. The E6 and E7 are both excellent devices in this regard but what are the current options? Cheapish Asha phones. Hello?

    1. mistergrantham

      Re: What's missing

      Agreed, don't know how much longer my n900 will hold together. I still can't find a more capable device/system to replace it.

    2. ted frater

      Re: What's missing

      Well, Ive some good news not yet generally known about.

      There will be a business class handset within 18 months with the following spec.

      It will be like the psion 5 same size and shape

      with a modern high res screen

      running android jelly bean so it looks like symbian on a Nokia communicator

      a full size proper button properly spaced querty kboard

      2 part hinged clamshell form factor

      made and developed in S Africa.

      Priced about the same as an Iphone. 5

  10. Christian Berger

    Split hardware from software

    I mean that''s the main problem with the "smart" phone market, you are always expected to run the operating system your hardware manufacturer intends you to do.

    It would be much better if it was like on PCs and laptops where you can easily change the operating system. You simply pop in an USB-stick and can boot whatever operating system you want.

    What would be needed for that would be an open bootloader which can boot software from the SD-card, as well as a set of "boot services" similar to the BIOS which provide you access to the hardware even if you don't have optimized drivers.

    Just like on the PC, you'd quickly have constantly improving open source software which will give commercial developments a run for its money. Just look at the sorry state of Windows before Linux was seen as an alternative. Linux has set the bar so high that Microsoft even fixes security problems, sometimes even within a month or so. Windows is now a system which is, if you don't put a user in front of it, quite secure. And this is up from "connect your Windows machine to the Internet and it'll be sending out spam in 40 minutes".

    We need something setting up the bar. With mobile phone security we are still at 1990s levels. You cannot even encrypt the flash on your mobile device properly. (Something which Microsoft claimed to be able to do since Windows 2000, and Linux can do for about the same time)

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Re: Split hardware from software

      I absolutely agree, Christian. However, the phone industry isn't going to repeat what they consider to be the mistake (in money terms) that the computing industry made in terms of openness. Lock people in and you have easy access to their money without actually having to compete. Actual efficiency doesn't count, unfortunately.

  11. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Nokia Siemens Networks

    I might be wrong (I often am) but IIRC, the Nokia/Siemens joint venture had a 6-year tenure*. As it started April 2007, that means it theoretically runs out in April this year. Of course, Elop is only one of the 'parents' (dunno who the Siemens bloke is), but will they pull the rug out from under NSN? Surprisingly - as Orlowski has pointed out - they seem to be getting profitable. Of course, they can extend, which they probably will. Several years ago, Nokia Networks held up the phone division for awhile. They might be doing it again.

    April will be an interesting month...

    *Much as I search, I can't find a reference for this, for which I apologise.

    1. Andus McCoatover
      Windows

      Re: Nokia Siemens Networks

      Seems I AM wrong...

      http://yle.fi/uutiset/analysts_nokia_still_shaky_in_smartphone_market/6448222

      Last couple of paragraphs...

  12. Jason Hindle

    Well they're certainly right about the Android low end experience

    Oddly, this is where WinPho seems to do quite well. Even a Nokia 610 I had a play with was very smooth, on a par with my S3 (pre Jelly Bean, that is). I wouldn't be surprised if we see devices like the 620 gain market share in India and other similar markets.

  13. Gordon 8
    Thumb Up

    Lumia Phones

    I have 2 - 900 & 820

    I had an N70 a few years ago, and never wanted another Nokia. Got the 900 as my HTC HD2 was dying.I have since got an 820

    900 left me feeling there should be more. Not a bad phone, but could be better.....

    I would say the 820 is the best phone I have used since my Nokia 6230 (which I still use when I travel).

    Good build quality, enough apps to keep me happy. Great navigation app (for what I had to pay for it ;-) )

  14. Richard Jones 1

    This Was Supposed To Be A Nokia Thread

    I was recently 'upgraded' by my carrier. Sadly the upgrade was an Nokia Asha 300. This might have a wonderful feature or two, (being able to stop or delete the awful music is NOT one of them). Sadly it lacks the one major feature of my elderly Nokia 6230i that I need, blue-tooth activated speaker dependant voice dialling.

    So I have upgraded from the new Asha 300 back to the old Nokia 623i, for which I have sourced a good replacement battery.

    Frankly all this talk of this operating system or that operating system leave me bored rigid. The thing is a telephone for heaven's sake, if that fails the rest is totally do not care and frankly I do not care about mobile e-mail, so called face book, 'games', very limited internet, or any other junk. If it fails as a phone it fails and it went back into its box to fill a cupboard space.

  15. Niall Wallace 1
    Facepalm

    I never believed how fragile the iPhone was until I dropped a mates all of 1m onto the pavement.

    I dropped my E72 from my bike while traveling and 30mph and all it had to show for it is a couple of scratches on the casing.

    If only S60 was as reliable as the hardware.

    That is really what keeps me buying Nokias.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cost-cutting continues at Nokia

    My colleagues and I are almost certain that we will soon (this week) become the victims of continuing cost-cutting at Nokia. It is rumoured, and a very badly-kept secret, that almost all of Nokia's IT will be outsourced, probably to HCL.

    Something has been brewing for a very long time and the top brass have done an excellent job of swearing those in the know to secrecy, but everyone knows that outsourcing is the almost inevitable outcome.

    So I rather think that this "success" has more to do with cutting costs rather than generating profits.

  17. ABapple

    Earlier Nokia smartphones poorly supported

    I have a Nokia E series. It is about 4-5 years old and works well as a phone and a camera. Great hardware but pretty useless as a "smartphone". There was one software/firmware upgrade a few months after I purchased the phone. Nothing since. I understand the same happened with the N series. It is unlikely that the millions of orphaned Nokia users will purchase a Nokia product again. My wife purchased an iPhone at the same time I got the Nokia smartphone. The iPhone is still supported.

  18. Jemma
    FAIL

    Sigh...

    I have lost track of the number of times I have said this but it looks like I will have to say it again.

    Lumia is about as popular and useful as a necrophiliac in a Maternity Ward. Its now managed to become as poisoned a brand as possible. Yes, if you are after a non iOS phone that effectively runs iOS then its fine for you. If you want something functional, forget it. Decent bluetooth capability? Nah; decent upgradability and flexibility? nope (you mean you want the right to OWN something you bought from us?!?!, How 1990's); world class cameras? nope again, because the only OS that can support PureView in its entirely is *drumroll* Symbian...you know the one you killed because more than 3 options on a menu melts American brains... should I go on?

    For less than £30 I can make my E7 mobile (yeah, running the 'outdated' and 'slow' Symbian) work as effectively as a full size laptop. There was nothing and is nothing that has the feature set and power efficiency of the Symbian/Belle OS. Nokia's Symbian/Meego smartphone customers have walked away from Lumia quicker than most of its talented engineers because they have, to misquote Caesar, come, seen, and laughed their heads off.

    Elop has even gotten to the point of pointedly NOT refusing the possible use of Android for Nokia, when Ballmers Golden Boy says that you *know* things are not going well. Elop-bey makes Lord 'Zulu, what Zulu' Chelmsford look talented... which is a hard act to follow for anyone without congenital mental problems.

    I wont be getting a Nokia for my next phone, unless I get another E7. I'll be looking at a Blackberry or one of Jolla's finest. Android on a tablet is fine, but not on a phone for me, im not potentially trusting my life to it. iOS - not until hell freezes over, to the point I told my family that if they buy it, to go somewhere else for all their support because I will not touch it. Windows Phone, why would I want to spend £500 on a baby NT box with a UI that would bore a 12 month old child (and was ported to Windows Mobile in 3 months by a guy working in his basement). Shows you how much work the MS minions put into it.

    Nokia simply have been run into the ground by Elop and I cant see a way out for them, its just too late in the day. The irony is, that S^3 etc was actually doing fantastic when he killed it, Nokia were the out and out top of the pile in almost every respect - now they are so far gone they're soon going to require a Hospice..

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