back to article Microsoft axes ‘dozens’ more from former Nokia phone biz

Nadella isn’t not done yet. Microsoft has made further redundancies in its the old Nokia phone division, as Finnish paper Helsingen Sanomat reports. The number is “dozens” according to the paper, and these are additional redundancies over the layoffs already announced, hitting the Lumia marketing teams. “The reduction is due …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows Phone

    Cue Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2

    1. Bob Vistakin
    2. Mpeler
      Mushroom

      Re: Windows Phone - "Phone alone"

      OK, so they trashed Windoze, first with the "Ribbon", and next with (cracked) tiles, so a PC gets to play "phone" rather than do real work.

      Next, they buy Nokia, and attempt to shrink a PC operating system onto it, so that a phone can (try to) run PC apps.

      Because no one is writing phone apps for the Microsoft phones.

      My son has a Lumia 630, loves it, would like to "graduate" to the bigger, better(?) Lumia/Microsoft phones (and their great cameras, etc.), but, what is there? A lot of apps that he wants/needs simply don't exist. Encapsulated Android or IOS apps probably won't help, but we're looking for options.

      Nutella &co. have really lost track.

      I'm beginning to doubt that M$ has any vision of where they want to go (remember "where do you want to go today?" ???) other than complete control of hardware that they didn't buy, and massive amounts of telemetry info that they can sell to others for revenues on top of those gathered by their unjustifiably exorbitant pricing SCHEME. M$ has no idea whatsoever of where they want to go, today, or any other day. (I can give them some suggestions...).

      Nokia's hardware, and solid reliability are wonderful. I have an ancient 6210 (!) that has endured being dropped in (salty) snow, punted underneath my car, dragged back out, dropped, rained upon, and abused in a number of ways (no phone throw, though). And, like the legendary Timex watch(es), it takes a licking, but keeps on ticking.

      Microsoft, on the other hand, only tick people off, and they can lick...................

      Not even IBM in their greatest years, with their best developers, and their massive funding, could do a "one-size-fits-all-devices" OS. What kind of idiotic, astonishing hubris makes Microsoft think they can do it?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I still don't know why

    So, what where MS buying?

    - The 'Nokia' brand? They'd already ruined that, and can't use it now anyway.

    - The expertise? They've fired them all.

    - To stop Nokia releasing their Android device, and subsequently dropping Windows like the rest of them ...?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I still don't know why

      The modern Microsoft seems to have lost all sense of focus, drunkenly stumbling from one crisis to the next. Remember when technology companies used to be about, you know, technology? I do.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I still don't know why

        "Remember when technology companies used to be about, you know, technology? "

        Unfortunatly phones are a lifestyle/fashion purchase now. Technology doesn't really come into it anymore as peak functionality was reached quite a while back.

    2. Lysenko

      Re: I still don't know why

      They still have the Patents. They're probably worth something.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        Re: I still don't know why

        They still have the Patents

        Who does? Microsoft? No, Nokia kept hold of all the IP in the deal, Microsoft just got licences.

        1. Lysenko

          Re: I still don't know why

          Yes, sorry - I phrased that badly. I meant that MSFT got (and has) access to Nokia's IP and all the cross licensing deals with Qualcomm, Apple, Google etc. Depending on how MSFT plan to play mobile[1] in future, that may still be worth something - though obviously not enough to justify the whole fiasco.

          [1] By that I mean any battery powered and wirelessly connected gadgets.

        2. Mpeler
          Pirate

          Re: I still don't know why

          "They still have the Patents

          "Who does? Microsoft? No, Nokia kept hold of all the IP in the deal, Microsoft just got licences."

          Hmmm. M$ just got licences. Hoist by their own petard.

          Arrrrr, me bucko, and Nutella should be walkin' the plank fer this one...

    3. King Jack

      Re: I still don't know why

      That has always puzzled me too. It's not just M$ other companies buy things up, do nothing with them, then shut them down. All I know is that somewhere someone must be making money from this practice. Still anything that speeds up the death of M$ is fine by me.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I still don't know why

        MS has not a problem with acquisitions. It has a problem with CEOs.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I still don't know why

        All I know is that somewhere someone must be making money from this practice.

        Yes, investment banks, accountants, lawyers and management consultants. It has been recognised for years that M&A destroys shareholder value, but for incompetent executives, M&A is a sexy diversion from the boring grind of delivering innovation, good value or great service.

        Why bother growing the business that employs you, when you could just fritter your own shareholder's money buying some growth? If you're a UK reader, look at Sainsbury's trying to buy Argos. Sainsbury's can't run their own stores terribly well, have never been very good at supply chain management and stock availability. So heck knows why the idiot directors of Sainsburys think they will be able to run Argos better than its existing management. But the reason for this is that Sainsbury aren't growing. Rather than focus on why that is, and adapt their business model to the new reality, they decide that they will buy the turnover of a dissimilar business, and then try and integrate a general retailer into their grocery stores. It's a stupid, stupid, stupid idea, invented by idiots, with greedy advisors egging the Sainsbury board along.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Re: I still don't know why

          >...a sexy diversion from the boring grind of delivering... great service.

          ?????????????????????????????????????????????????

          ????????????????????? WTF ???????????????????????

          ?????????????????????????????????????????????????

          What century are you living in?

          ...and how can I get there?

          1. Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure

            Re: I still don't know why

            It is more like "the painful realisation that a significant number of senior executives in tech companies are embarrassingly inadequate when it come to delivering either innovation or decent customer service so they want to distract shareholders and the general public from this humiliating truth" hence M&As aplenty.

      3. Phil Kingston

        Re: I still don't know why

        They get IP, significant amounts of user data and, possibly significantly, they get to stop someone else buying them.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: anything that speeds up the death of M$ is fine by me

        Yes, I can hardly wait till they die in a fire, though the risk is, that some outfit like Oracle will end up with the OS...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I still don't know why

      >So, what where MS buying?

      A dream.

      It was the corporate equivalent of the rest of us buying lottery tickets.

    5. Vince

      Re: I still don't know why

      I believe they thought they were buying themselves into owning the only real vendor shipping Windows Phones to protect themselves against defection, and from there use it to make Windows Phone a big thing.

      Unfortunately for them, and me as I stupidly gave them my hard earned for a 950xl and regret it, they've failed.

      In my view, Windows Phone 8.1 was actually just fine, stable, reliable, features worked, it just needed newer faster hardware (easy), and further software enhancement.

      Instead they replaced it with the unfinished, broken, badly thought out Windows 10 Mobile or whatever it's actually supposed to be called, and made a fledgling system utterly horrible, unreliable and frankly not fit for purpose. I'm through with Microsoft's bull when it comes to phones now, they've changed direction 3 times, and never stop when they find the right combo.

      Windows Phone 7... binned so fast my hardware still looks minty fresh.

      Windows Phone 8... actually works.... binned

      Windows 10 Mobile.... er... yeah.... it'll be ready later, with forced updates... maybe...

    6. N13L5

      Re: I still don't know why

      Every so often, a CEO must create some kind of massive tax write-off, in order to stiff the countries they operate in.

      These are best done by destroying some competitor if it can be arranged.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow , a whole 10 months old!

    Its a sorry comment on current consumer society that a phone that is 10 months old is starting to be considered over the hill. Actually I'd go so far as to say its pathetic. Have the Oooh Shiny! losers taken over everything now?

  4. Mikel

    To be fair...

    They failed.

    After all, they're Marketing. They're supposed to be able to sell shoes to snakes.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: To be fair...

      That's the problem, right there. They were being told to sell snakes to shoes.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    I know one man who is worried...

    That's right, the Windows Mobile Developer team could get his P45 too!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I know one man who is worried...

      Too late, he already died of boredom.

  6. Dan Wilkie

    OK I'm confused. Is he not done yet, or isn't he not done yet?

    Sorry, no outbound email from here so you get the public stocks.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Job well done

    They made quite an excellent phone end proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot by putting horrendous software on it.

    I'm starting to think Nadella is under orders to run Nokia into the ground. He's getting quite good at ruining perfectly good hardware with Win 10. I'm convinced they designed it for exactly this purpose.

  8. Planty Bronze badge

    Handy helper

    For orlowski terminology.

    Windows Phone darling: "value segment "

    Android: "landfill"

    Live by the sword, die by the sword as they say...

  9. Bob Vistakin
    Devil

    Makes things easier for mobile dev shops though, now they know for sure there's no point in developing for windows phone. Tough on those who ignored microsofts history of shitting on them at every turn, but wtf - if they haven't seen their true colours by now they never will.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Will it blend?

    Microsoft should just get into producing those Youtube videos where they pour petrol on the latest iPhone (or this case Nokia) and show the destructive results.

  11. J. R. Hartley

    In other words

    He's done then.

  12. bvonr

    Windows 10 WORKS

    I am an everyday user. I have a Lumia 830 with Windows 10 Tech preview installed and I have absolutely no problems with my phone. It is the best phone I have ever used.

    1. Bob Vistakin
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows 10 WORKS

      I knew there was someone that bought one. All the others seem to have been given away to TV production companies to be used for product placement in TV's and films

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Should have foreseen this day coming when Trojan Horse Elop galloped into Nokia.

    Bed, made, lie.

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