back to article Why doesn't Nokia buy Palm?

Nokia has endured a painful two years - a kind of corporate Lost Weekend. Instead of alcoholism, Nokia found itself distracted by completely avoidable, self-inflicted corporate restructuring and IP issues, and so technologies we saw two years ago will only start to appear in phones next year. This was very bad timing. Instead …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about Apple

    It would be a sign of Apple's stance in the patent fight with Nokia if it would swoop in and buy Palm just for its patents. That would effectively kill WebOS, but it would bolster Apple's arsenal against the feisty Finns.

    On the other hand, should Nokia acquire Palm, how would that affect the outcome of this patent spat. It's one thing to have a few GSM patents, but quite another to wield the tools of mutual self-destruction (which is what Apple's and Palm's portfolios are).

  2. David Evans
    Thumb Up

    Nice idea

    I like this, if only because WebOS is too good to be allowed to die and Nokia are probably the only ones who could give it the audience it deserves. Its better than the other suggestions I've seen elsewhere, that HTC should buy Palm (for the IP to counter their suit with Apple) or Huawei (because they have money).

    1. Ian Michael Gumby
      Thumb Up

      You can't do that....

      Purchase a company to get IP to defend oneself in an ongoing lawsuit? The company still has an alleged transgression of IP prior to the purchase. So there's still a lawsuit.

      Nokia buying Palm?

      Interesting, but if you talk about it, then it won't happen. ;-)

      There are positives and negatives to such a merger.

      1. Chris 2

        "You can't do that"

        So HTC buys the Palm IP and sues Apple for whatever infringements they can dig up. There will be some.

        And eventually everyone comes to a cosy cross-licensing agreement, which stymies Apple's plans. The only reason they're going after HTC rather than anyone else is that HTC can be got at. With Palm's IP available they've got more ammunition to tell Apple where to go.

  3. Robert Ramsay
    Thumb Down

    Why don't they buy Palm?

    Simple: They already bought Symbian, and they don't have a clue what to do with that either.

  4. envmod
    Flame

    meh

    nokia is an outdated, old hat company desperately clinging onto the last few ounces of "cool" they have left. their phones are shit and symbian is shit. get over it and throw it away. they will never buy palm (even though it is an extremely good idea) and it is this kind of thinking which has got them into their current hole.

    i predict the end of nokia as we know it within 5 years.

    1. hahnchen

      no

      Nokia beat expectations during Q4 2009, and market share was up.

      Then again, if you're only after shiny shiny "cool", you probably missed it.

      1. Johnny Tremaine

        Hunh.

        So, you're admitting that Nokia products AREN'T cool? The N95 and the E71 were, but right now, none of their phones could be possibly be deemed 'cool'.

    2. chr0m4t1c

      Not sure they'll die

      There's still a substantial market for "dumb" phones, and I doubt that'll vanish, but I think Nokia are going to find it increasingly difficult to have any kind of market share in the smartphone segment if they don't sort out a proper OS pretty damn soon.

      WebOS or Android would give them something ready-made with a proven track record, which would probably better than what they're showing in the pipeline at the moment; I can't see any of that stuff getting off the ground in a meaningful way.

      In short, after a great many years of using Nokia phone I'm almost certainly off somewhere else when my current contract runs out. In fact as my current phone isn't locked anyway I might try to sell it on and get something else before end of contract.

    3. MeRp

      Nokia

      Not only does nokia still have a pretty good grip on the dumb phone market, it pretty much has a lock on the low-end smart phone market.

      I work in an office with an iPhone fanatic and an Android freak. I happen to have a Nokia 5800. On about a weekly basis I discover something that I'm shocked neither of their phones can do but mine can. Mine cost about 1/2 what either of theirs did and mine was unlocked; both of them had to extend their contracts by 2 years. My phone's unlimited data is also half what either of them pay.

      One of my other coworkers just recently bought a phone; also a Nokia 5800, because it was the right features for the right price; he saw all of the advantages of my phone compared directly with both android and apple and chose the option that fit his needs, including his need to feed his family...

  5. Neil 7
    Linux

    Oh dear - American view point alert

    WebOS, and Palm, are rapidly becoming an irrelevance.

    Palm can't sell enough phones to spur on app development and vice versa.

    Nobody outside of the USA is interested in WebOS or even Palm these days, so why the h*ll would Nokia want to swap MeeGo (which has the backing of Intel and, at last count, 26 other serious Linux/hardware players) and invest it's high-end device future in a software stack that is quite clearly FAILING, and FAILING BADLY? WebOS is DOA, forget it, move on, it has no future. If you think WebOS is easier to develop for then it really shows you know very little about Qt and where Nokia/Intel/MeeGo are headed.

    Nokia buying Palm for WebOS is a frankly nonsensical idea, seemingly written by someone who has little idea what is happening outside of the US market which has always had more an interest in Palm than anywhere else. Palm died years ago, it's only the Americans that have kept it on life support.

    Nokia buying Palm for it's IP and then making everyone redundant has more legs.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Oh dear - American view point alert

      "why the h*ll would Nokia want to swap MeeGo"

      You didn't read the article.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes, blinkerd view.

      A year or so ago it may have helped them get back into the US market but now I doubt it. They need to build bridges with the operators to do that.

      Nokia is still by far the biggest player in the mobile phone market and Palm's expected 5 million sales in the next year are small incentive to a company that shipped over 430 million phones in 2009. (Apple was about 21 million for comparison)

      Surely Nokia's focus should be on getting OVI right and integrated with the three OS it actually has rather than trying to fold another company into the mix.

      It's also not going to be a year before the updated OS's are out. Development of MeeGo was apparently well advanced when the Nokia/Intel announcement was made. I expect the first Meego phones for xmas and the next gen Symbian^4 in Q1.

      Is the IP worth 400 Million given that Nokia probably already has cross licensing agreements with Palm for it? No Idea.

    3. Levente Szileszky
      WTF?

      RE: Neil7 - "Oh dear, the stupid PoV" - it's one thing that you never read the article...

      ...but then why are trying to sound like you *really* know this story?

      Besides the most obvious question - just who the (*&^ wants to use MeeGo (what a moronic name!) when there *IS* a PROPER MOBILE-centric linux-based OS called Android, for *free* and with 50k+ apps already available? - there's another issue, your obvious lack of understanding what WebOS brings to the table for the buyer...

      ...WebOS is by *FAR* the most elegant and best laid-out mobile platform out there, full of things implemented very well and it's the easiest of all to develop for, let alone the plethora of *PATENTS* Palm owns - if you would know anything about the subject or development would never praise another 'mee-too' linux fork against WebOS.

      FYI Palm's sales were 185k phones PER MONTH last year: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1306513

      Since December 'til date Palm sold another 500k phones.

      It's safe to assume that AT LEAST 1.5M+ phones are running WebOS out there.

      By last count ZERO DEVICES RUNNING MeeGo, period.

      Gosh, I hate when these tech loudmouthed evangelists posts these BS summaries based on some Kool-AId they got drunk on somewhere - because last time I checked MeeGo is still busy trying to merge Maemo and Moblin, there's no way in hell catching up with WebOS anytime soon..

      1. RJ
        Thumb Down

        Maemo/Meego

        Because Maemo/Meego is a proper linux distribution with package management and all the linux bells and whistles.

        I can theoretically run anything that a desktop ARM based (Smallscreen UI issues aside) Linux distribution can run.

        Can you do that on Android?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Lol...

        Good joke... Android is a Linux kernel with a Java middleware layer... in other words crap. And BTW MeeGo(and yes I know the name is stupid) is also free. As for apps you are aware you don't need to do much to run apps on Maemo/MeeGo devices? They all come with proper X11 support so you can *gasp* Run your desktop apps on it. Of course not the best solution but it works. So instead of porting/writting 50k apps you just use the same codebase all over the place.

        And there is a MeeGo base available for install on a few devices. It lacks an UI layer so far but the core and middleware supposedly are there.

        And the first mobile device that is running MeeGo is the N900 there is an image for it available ;)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Up

          Exactly

          Your comment and insight goes directly to the most important point about WebOS and Android. Thanks.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        @ Levente Szileszky

        Oh dear! 185K phones per month makes WebOS it way ahead does it? If the first Meego phone sells as well as the relatively poor N97 then it will take Nokia just 3 months to pass that total. (N97 sold 2 million in the first 3 months)

        You should also note that in the same Gartner Report you quoted .

        Symbian sold - 80.1 Million 49%

        Non Android Linux - 8.1 Million 4.7%

        Android - 6.7 Million 3.9%

        WebOS - 1.2 million 0.7%

        (Research In Motion, iPhone OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile & Other OSs omitted)

        Meego v Android? Get real! MeeGo is real open source compared to Android, hosted at the Linux Foundation. Why would a developer want to develop for it? It'sbacked by the biggest mobile player and the biggest Chip player in thw busieness. Hundreds of the apps for Meamo will either run on it or port easily to it and any skills you pick up will apply to lots of other types of devices in the future.

        So, as I understand it, WebOS is a a proprietary layer on top of a liunx kernel with a webkit based browser and a 0.7% market share, and you think that's worth $400M? Even it it were somehow a technically superior implementation protected by unbreakable patents the world does not need another proprietary mobile phone OS (Betamax got beat VHS)

        Your main point against MeeGo appears boil down to it being a a silly name! Well language is a funny thing, different cultures view words differently and Finnish is one of the stranger languages out there so it might not sound a bad to them.

        1. Levente Szileszky
          Paris Hilton

          RE: Meego v Android? Get real!

          Gosh, you guys ARE annoying... WTF TOTAL sales has to do with SMARTPHONE sales numbers?

          WTF MeeGo crap will do with selling gazillions of ~$20 crap that puts Nokia on the top of the chart?

          Nokia "smartphones" - they have very few real smartphones - selling far worse than almost anything else, I can guarantee that and also that Nokia won't give you a breakdown because it would most shareholders cry and short them immediately.

          Rest of the MeeGo argument - run desktop apps or, even worse, port them - clearly shows the lack of understanding how consumer market works and why the resounding success of Android and iPhone... way to go, Nokia - you'll end up worse than before with all this pinky ideas about cross-platform linux...

          ...while your direct competitors conquering the market by selling 60k-100k Android phones PER DAY. AS I said, you are behind and you'r e still standing still (no, "preparing" and "getting ready" doesn't matter in your bottom line.)

          "Your main point against MeeGo appears boil down to it being a a silly name! Well language is a funny thing, different cultures view words differently and Finnish is one of the stranger languages out there so it might not sound a bad to them."

          Well, my native language is Hungarian (it's the big standalone branch on the Finno-Ugric tree of the Uralic family thus coincidentally a remote cousin of Finnish :)) so I know a bit about strange languages, trust me. ;)

          Maybe it's just me but MeeGo rhymes too much with "mee-too"... linux? ;)

    4. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      As a Yurpean

      and a developer, I would love to see WebOS take off. I am probably not going to get my hands on a WebOS phone any time soon, more's the pity. If WebOS fails, it is due to business decisions and not technical merit (remember Betamax?), Nokia buying Palm could prevent that happening.

      Please do not speak for all Europeans, and if you feel an irresistible urge to do so, please try to sound more sensible

  6. hahnchen
    WTF?

    $300 - $400 million? For Palm?

    That is incredibly low. Most estimates are around the $1billion mark.

  7. Andus McCoatover

    Why? Because they're blind.

    They let Nortel's LTE* slip through their fingers to Ericcson.

    * LTE - Key to the north American market.

    God, it seems current management can't see the nose in front of their faces.

    Jorma Ollilla - where are you at the hour of our greatest need?

  8. /\/\j17
    Stop

    Nokia/Palm = Hole/Head

    Yea, buy another mobile phone OS and development team that JUST what Nokia need!

    What do you buy the company that has too many technology ivory towers that spend all their effort fighting one another rather than the competition - another technology ivory tower to join the (internal) fighting.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Yes, good idea, if you completely ignore reality.

    In 2009, Nokia sold 20.8m smartphones in the fourth quarter, compared with 15.1m the year before. It estimated that industry-wide smartphone sales were 52.4m, accounting for 16 per cent of the mobile market.

    They have 40% of the smartphone market and 40% of the total market. They are the biggest mobile device company in the world and are continuing to grow, not shrink.

    They will continue to dominate with an already successful S60 platform (Symbian^3^4 coming) dominating the low and mid range. For some perspective the Nokia 5800 took 90 days to reach 3 million. The original iPhone took 74 days to reach 1 million. And that is only one of a myriad of phones offered by Nokia.

    MeeGo is the best bet for the high end as even it's precursor Maemo easily exceeds the abilities of the iPhone as opposed to simply attempting to match it (like Android). MeeGo also has support from Intel positioning it well for tablets.

    Contrary to the opinion in the article about the success of the iPhone leaving developers wanting HTML/Javascript, the success of the iPhone has instead created a wave of Objective-C developers. QT is written in the simlar C++ and a single application can be cross compiled for S40, S60, Maemo, MeeGo, Windows, other Linux distributions etc. Giving iPhone developers an obvious place to transistion as Nokia Ovi continues to show impressive growth (1.6 million apps a day and growing fast vs 10 million a day for the more established Apple)

    I predict that 5 years from now Nokia will still be at 40% market share with powerful, well built and competent handsets and will continue to be ignored and dismissed by fans of Apple and Android.

    To sum up the only reason I can see for Nokia to buy Palm is for the patents as contrary to these "Lost Weekend" myths, they are doing quite well and are showing great potential.

    Palm should probably sell to Google or Apple who being new to the mobile market probably need the patents more than anyone else.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Yes, good idea, if you completely ignore reality.

      That's the "everything's fine" argument I hear from... major record labels.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Jobs Horns

        Yeah, whatever.

        That' is a useless thing to say.

        Major record labels have falling profits, where as Nokia has increasing market share and increasing profits.

        If you want a good story why not investigate why Apple used browser share instead of market share in the iPhone OS4 presentation.

        II'll give you a clue, they *lost* market share whereas Nokia gained, yet Nokia are on the verge of failure?

        1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

          No

          [anon]> Major record labels have falling profits, where as Nokia has increasing market share and increasing profits.

          No it doesn't. You can look up the earnings yourself.

          This is where the high margins should be:

          http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/22/smartphone_profits/

    2. John 62

      C++ similar to Obj-C?

      Both are object oriented (with ever-so-slightly different paradigms), both use .h files and both are supersets of C, but saying they're similar is like saying C# 4 is similar to C++. They're both object oriented, both have C in the name and C# even has more curlies than Obj-C!

      I'll grant you most half-competent developers will be able to switch from Obj-C to C++ more easily than, say, from either to Haskell, but be careful with comparisons. I mean, Perl is just a superset of everything!

  10. Neil 7
    Linux

    @"You didn't read the article"

    Quote from your article: "WebOS would be a huge win for development, since it's much more attractive than either Linux or Symbian"

    Linux => MeeGo, no?

    It seems that you are suggesting WebOS would be a better alternative to Linux (MeeGo) and Symbian, based on a US-centric viewpoint.

    And since Symbian is for Nokias mid-tier phones, and MeeGo is for their high-end devices, which of these two would WebOS replace? Presumably the "high-end" as that is the segment Palm are currently targetting.

    Nokia seem content on having different platforms covering each category of device, but with a common Qt development environment that will make cross platform development much easier. Javascript development is catered for by the Web Run Time, and for serious development you can build native Qt apps - it's the developers choice, they're not restricted as they would be with WebOS, iPhone or Dalvik on Android for that matter.

    You may want to familiarise yourself with the Nokia Software strategy white paper.

    http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Technology/pdf/Nokia_software_strategy_white_paper.pdf (4MB PDF)

    1. Nexox Enigma

      Still didn't read it...

      You still missed the article as demonstrated here:

      """And since Symbian is for Nokias mid-tier phones, and MeeGo is for their high-end devices, which of these two would WebOS replace?"""

      The article suggests that MeeGo would be used for netbooks, set-top boxen, and tablets. That leaves Symbian for the mid-level phones, and WebOS for the high end smart phones.

      The idea has some merit, but as other's have said, I'm not sure Nokia needs to juggle three mobile operating systems. But if MeeGo ends up much like Maemo5, I'm not sure it needs to be on things that primarily make phone calls, or anything with less than about a 1/3 megapixel screen. From what I've seen from WebOS, it does alright in devices that my previous sentence would exclude.

  11. Neil 7

    @Still didn't read it

    OK, so I was right with my first comment, the author *is* suggesting WebOS would replace MeeGo. Sorry if I didn't get around to finishing the entire piece but it was such utter nonsense I couldn't justify the waste of any more of my time. :)

    The future for Nokia - at the high end - is MeeGo. Fact. For the mid-tier it's Symbian. And both will be using Qt, with common APIs so porting won't amount to much more than changing the target architecture on the make command.

    Honestly, why the h*ll would Nokia want to throw WebOS into this mix? It's got be the dumbest idea yet - but since this is Nokia, that doesn't mean they won't do it...

    As every non-American inhabitant knows, WebOS is dead - it failed to set the world alight. Palm is dead, the rest of the industry has passed them by. The only value in the company for a firm like Nokia (or Google, or Apple or even Microsoft) is the Palm IP, certainly not WebOS.

    HTC or some other hardware-only firm could show interest in WebOS, but they'll have a tough time convincing the world outside of America that WebOS is worth consideration - HTC would be better off signing up to MeeGo, as it would be a lot cheaper and stands a greater chance of success.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: @Still didn't read it

      Try again.

    2. Levente Szileszky
      WTF?

      RE: Neil7 - "Oh dear, the completely incoherent-illogical PoV"

      "Sorry if I didn't get around to finishing the entire piece but it was such utter nonsense I couldn't justify the waste of any more of my time. :)"

      Too bad - it'd be very helpful for you to focus on reading instead writing... especially for us, in terms wasted time... :P

      "The future for Nokia - at the high end - is MeeGo. Fact. For the mid-tier it's Symbian. And both will be using Qt, with common APIs so porting won't amount to much more than changing the target architecture on the make command."

      Keep on dreaming. Nokia is the archetype of the ultra-impotent, totally clueless company, standing still while others are already way ahead of it.

      Symbian is SOOOOO DEAD it's not even funny anymore.

      "Honestly, why the h*ll would Nokia want to throw WebOS into this mix? It's got be the dumbest idea yet - but since this is Nokia, that doesn't mean they won't do it..."

      No, the dumbest idea is waste millions of dollars on creating ANOTHER linux-based mobile OS, practically useless for phones except very-high-end smartphones instead of using Android, a well-established linux-based mobile OS, scalable, 50k+ apps and zillions of devices etc.

      "As every non-American inhabitant knows, WebOS is dead - it failed to set the world alight. Palm is dead, the rest of the industry has passed them by. The only value in the company for a firm like Nokia (or Google, or Apple or even Microsoft) is the Palm IP, certainly not WebOS."

      As every non-idiot outside of Nokia knows Symbian is DEAD for high-end smartphones - no, it's more than dead, it's a miserable FAILURE for smartphones.

      Nokia tried it and failed royally - they have no clue, their UI is as outdated as one can be in 2010. Symbian's only hope if Sony Ericsson will have the resources to fix the remaining bugs in Satio which is far the best Symbian-based smartphone 'til date (and probably forever because it's hard to imagine anyone will write another, at least half-decent custom UI - something that makes Symbian bearable on the Satio.)

      "HTC or some other hardware-only firm could show interest in WebOS, but they'll have a tough time convincing the world outside of America that WebOS is worth consideration - HTC would be better off signing up to MeeGo, as it would be a lot cheaper and stands a greater chance of success."

      ROFLMAO - they will have hard time to "convince the world" (WTF?) about an OS used by 1.5M phones than about a never-heard one that nobody ever used?

      Right there, pal, right there, your logic is self-explanatory... :D

      Gosh, I hate these... I know, I know, I already told you. :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Levente Szileszky

        Is a product that's still got 40% of the market making the company over a billion a year in profit really dead? It must be nice for you to work for a company that can just throw that sort of product away.

        S60 the interface Nokia use for Symbian is old now and flaky but the core Symbian is solid and will power mid tier smartphones for some years yet especially with the new tarted up UI. In the mean time Nokia launch Megoo at the high end (based on the already working Maemo and with the best bits of Intel's Moblin) then lowly roll it down the product line until Symbian is replaced. (With Symbian, think selling cheep smart phones by thw millions in India and China)

        MeeGo isn't entierly new and its mostly complete (you can download it now.). Android isn't on "zillions of devices" Nokia outsells all Android devices combined, and why would they want to be dependent on an advertizing vendor like Google a key component of their products?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        UhOh

        "Keep on dreaming. Nokia is the archetype of the ultra-impotent, totally clueless company, standing still while others are already way ahead of it."

        There are no companies ahead of Nokia, they are the market leader.

        "Symbian is SOOOOO DEAD it's not even funny anymore."

        Devices based on Symbian OS account for 46.9% of smartphone sales, making it the world's most popular mobile operating system.

        1. Levente Szileszky

          RE: ehhh, Symbian, smartphones, WTF?

          "There are no companies ahead of Nokia, they are the market leader."

          Just WTF are you talking about? There's not a SINGLE smartphone running Symbian in the top 10...

          "Devices based on Symbian OS account for 46.9% of smartphone sales, making it the world's most popular mobile operating system."

          You're funny: SMARTPHONE SALES != ALL MOBILE SALES

          Your number is for ALL SALES: http://www.thetelecomblog.com/2010/02/24/smartphone-stats-are-in-apple-and-android-are-on-the-rise/

          You're confusing rather craptastic Nokias capable for checking emails or sending your photos via MMS with real smartphones like HTC/Android/WinMo/RIM devices.

          Dubbing Symbian as "the world's most popular mobile operating system" is probably the funniest and certainly the most clueless comments in this entire discussion here; clearly shows your understanding.

          1. ScioScio
            Headmaster

            Oh dear ...

            My number is for smartphone sales only. Symbian only runs on smartphones.

            http://www.thetelecomblog.com/2010/02/24/smartphone-stats-are-in-apple-and-android-are-on-the-rise/

            This article you have linked to agrees with everything I have said and disagrees with everything you have said, this alone proves you are probably slightly insane.

            It shows a big pie chart of SMARTPHONE sales for the year and Symbian has 47% share. The article discusses only SMARTPHONE sales.

            If you read the article further it makes reference to the curious phenomenon whereby people like you think that Symbian and Nokia are dying when in actual fact they are thriving.

            There is no standard definition of a "smartphone", I'll give you that, but if an S60 phone isn't smart then an iPhone or Android isn't either as Symbian is much more capable than these relatively new operating systems (iPhone is only getting multi-tasking this year for example).

            People are just repeating and believing, repeating and believing any old crap these days.

            I recommend you think about the assumptions you hold and verify whether they are correct or not before acting. Maybe you should read some Socrates and learn how to think straight/look at the facts before you degenerate into a total nutjob.

  12. DoorHandle
    Linux

    Meego > WebOS

    Smartphones are almost at the stage of being mini computers so it would make sense that they run a proper OS. Android, Symbian and WebOS are all designed purely for restricted mobile devices. Meego is essentially a full desktop OS with all the features you would expect from that. As far a geekery goes, having a mobile full Linux system (not one which is crippled like Android) is basically heaven.

    If you want to run regular desktop apps you should be able to on your own device then you should be able to. If you want to be able to run a database and server on your phone then you should be able to (not that many would want to but the principle stands).

    The cross platform Qt framework is also much better for software dev in general because it is cross platform. Also compiled which means you can do lots of fancy FAST stuff you can't do in Dalvik or Javascript.

    I can't wait for some decent Meego devices to come out. Mobile, compact, low power, open source hacking platforms I say! I am an Android developer and a year ago I said the same thing about Android. Problem is that HTC are locking down production devices hard now so the scope for hacking about is now tiny :( That shouldn't happen with Nokia though since they are leading the OS and making the hardware and pledging to keep them both hackable.

  13. James 47
    Stop

    Not going to happen

    Nokia's shareholders are already pissed.

    Nokia needs to concentrate on getting that $8b spent on Navteq to produce some results.

    They wrote off NSN already. They paid Qualcomm $1.5b to settle their patent spat.

    Too much money has left Nokia will little to show for it.

  14. Jerome 0

    Android

    'increasingly nervous about Google's "autistic approach to relationships"... If you were HTC, would you really want to stick with Android?'

    Indeed, poor HTC, saddled with what everyone's calling the best smartphone ever, while Google screwed them over by releasing a far less successful device (despite the fact it's identical in almost every respect). I can see why HTC would want to drop Android like a hot potato.

    Nokia too - I'm sure that their first priority, with two mobile OSs already on their hands, would be to dash out and spend good money on a third (especially one that hardly anybody's heard of). If they really can't capitalise on what they already have, the only viable alternative I can see is to jump ship to Android fast.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Eh, it might work...

    Palm has a pretty decent OS on shit hardware. Nokia makes great hardware, but all their OSes are crap. I'd hope we'd get a great OS on nice hardware, but the reality is we'd probably get a crashing OS on hardware that lasts less than a month.

    Seriously, I'd ***LOVE*** to have WebOS on an N810. I'd probably pee my britches if that happened. My N800 is rock-solid and has lasted several years of being treated like a red-headed stepson, but the Maemo OS on it is grotty, and literally got worse with each release.

  16. Lars Silver badge

    I think

    Even if I am not totally sure, if I think, or not, but I think Nokia lost its concentration for a year or rather two, regarding "smart phones". So the question is would buying Palm add anything or would it in fact make this effort of concentrating still harder.

    Palm, as a name, may still have some value but Nokia would not use that name, anyway.

    Remains WebOS, which is certainly fine, but then again do they not have enough of their "own".

    Remains the people at "Palm" and again would they add anything to the ability of Nokia to regain some concentration.

    And only the IP part, well, that would not be nice, as they would have to do all the axing.

  17. Johnny Tremaine

    MeeGo, Symbian, blah, blah, blah...

    The fact of the matter is, the major application developers simply don't care about developing for MeeGo and care even less about Symbian.

    Over the last couple of years, all you heard from the Nokia side was, 'just wait, in two years' or 'just wait until next year'. Every year is apparently a transition year.

    Nokia won't have the luxury of sitting out 2010 as another 'transition year'. If they don't release a couple of products that knocks everyone's socks off and makes the HTC Evo look like yesterday's tech, then they're in huge trouble.

  18. Liam Proven Silver badge

    I don't buy it, Andrew

    Not this time.

    It isn't a good fit for Nokia, as others have pointed out. They already have at least 3 phone OSs, one Linux-based, shipping in a 4th generation product & with major-player interest & support.

    Apple? Naah, they're laughing all the way to the bank.

    HTC - if, as the rumours have it, it really does want an in-house OS - is a *much* better fit. It has some great hardware but no OS of its own & some of its best hardware - like the Universal, AKA Qtek 9000, I used to have myself - was crippled with the abysmal WinCE. If it wants to differentiate itself from the growing Android crowd, WebOS is a gem & well worth it. If it can afford it. I love the look of WebOS, I just don't like the Palm hardware. It could buy Access & reunify the 2 arms of the old Palm empire, too.

    Rank outsider: Well, Oracle could buy into a whole new market with Palm, I guess.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: I don't buy it, Andrew

      hi Liam - A good fit? Depends on what you're trying to fit, where.

      Ask yourself if the Nokia N97 mini and the X6 for example would be more or less attractive to punters if they had run WebOS?

      I think they would be great phones and would be flying off the shelves right now.

      "WebOS is a gem & well worth it."

      If Nokia is in the business of selling phones, then WebOS is a good fit. With Symbian replacing S40, Linux for netbooks and set-top boxes, it couldn't work out better.

      1. Liam Proven Silver badge

        @Andrew:

        Yes, you're probably right, several current Nokias would be more attractive running WebOS than Symbian. (A Symbian phone owner writes...)

        But Espoo is already heading in that direction with the N900, I think. Trialling their own phone-enabled Linux in a geek device before refining the UI & taking it to bigger markets.

        After buying-in Symbian, I think Palm would be too much of a climb-down.

        Symbian's not a good fit for touchscreen finger-operated phones, I suspect. Certainly my E90 (with the latest v400 firmware) clunks very badly indeed next to Android or iPhone... and *surely* they must know this.

        I think Symbian ought to be destined for keypad-operated non-touchscreen featurephones and Maemo/Meego/Moblin/whatever for high-end gefingerpoken type gadgets.

        But I've never understood the mindset of those crazy Finns. Virtually the whole adult world loved the 6310i, for instance, so they killed it and offered tiny toylike hairdressers' phones in its place. Incomprehensible.

        1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

          Re: @Andrew:

          You'll have to prise my 6310i out of my cold dead hands.

  19. LTE
    WTF?

    Clueless

    Your clueless NA point of view is obsurd. Watch Q1 earnings on 4/22 as Nokia grows it's worldwide smartphone market share. Palm WebOS is dead outside of NA and even in NA it is a sinking ship. Meego, Symbian^3,^4 with Qt porting across all devices will gain share & app's in 2010, 2011. IP property for $400 billion?? Palm cross liscences more Nokia IP than the reverse.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Clueless

      You've got a job selling success like 2008, 2009 to the shareholders. And you want more of the same?

      1. hahnchen

        Re: Clueless

        No, a desperate acquisition is more of the same. $1billion for yet another OS for Nokia to wrangle.

        The time it would take Nokia to get behind webOS and its 2200 apps, would see it being released after Symbian 3 anyway - oh snap! Another OS that does the same thing.

      2. LTE
        WTF?

        Clueless

        Easy to be an armchair quarteback Andrew... So lets look ahead.

        -2010 product roadmaps for all major carriers are set, with the exception of filling some volume gaps where the demand exceeds the supply estimate.

        -Nokia has said they will gain value share & smartphone share in 2010. On 4/22 you can listen again.

        -Adoption of Symbian ^3 will be rapid in 2 half 2010. Carries have already committed globally.

        -2011 product roadmaps will be negotiated in earnest Q3 & Q4 2010, with Meego & Symbian ^4 capturing a significant slice of it.

        -There is not one global operator outside of NA interested in the niche WebOS for 2011 & beyond.

        1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

          Re: Clueless

          You missed a few out: Nokia helping to broker a lasting Middle East peace agreement (Q3), Nokia Research proving room temperature cold fusion (Q4) then commercialising it (1H 2011).

  20. Levente Szileszky
    Stop

    RE: Neil7 - "Oh dear, even more stupid PoV"...

    ...please, PLEASE STOP with your inane, illogical NONSENSE....

    "If you think WebOS is easier to develop for then it really shows you know very little about Qt and where Nokia/Intel/MeeGo are headed."

    Oh no... yeah, how much better to develop like that than, say, IN MY BROWSER - see http://ares.palm.com/Ares/index.html -, ad absurdum even on my phone...?

    MeeGo... to pee...

    Gosh... did I mention I hate these tech evangelists high on company Kool-Aid...? ;)

  21. Chris Beach

    Not Nokia, one of the others though?

    I can't see Nokia wanting the 3 OS's. I think they'd much rather push Symbian ^3/^4 out, and keep that push concentrated. People arguing about the difficulties of development, seem to forget that its been around for the longest and has the largest install base...so developers will never be hard to find.

    However Samsung:, ditch the stupid and unproven bada crap, hopefully they haven't pissed to much money on it. They can make the phones, and have the size to support both Android and WebOS devices. The only issue I can see is can they scale either os down to the dumb phone range?

    HTC does sound good, but it could alienate them from their current core of winmo and android, so unless they came out with a set of outstanding webos devices.

    The other option would be one of the more Japan/Asia corps like Panasonic, Toshiba etc that want more of an eu/us presence.

  22. Christian Berger

    Why not an open bootloader?

    Why not just have an open bootloader so I can install any OS I want?

  23. Sander van der Wal
    Jobs Halo

    Is WebOS good for a "software-and-services" company.

    There is no doubt that Nokia will alienate their remaining developers ("both of them", as they say) if they would buy Palm. But that isn't important, the question is whether Nokia will be able to sell more devices and more software and services if they would buy Palm for WebOS.

    It might be true that WebOS is better for writing third party apps, I have not looked at it. But will it enable Nokia itself to write better software and services? I don't think so. Let us look at the other attempts to create a software economy based upon web apps on mobile.

    1) Apple did it in the first year of iPhone OS. Failure, the apps craze happened after Apple released their native SDK and put a proper App Store in iTunes.

    2) Nokia and their widsets. Failure. Ovi Store however, which is a kind of App Store, is catching on and making more and more money for participatring developers.

    3) Palm and WebOS widgets. Failure. Palm released a native SDK, but after alienating their old developers en not having lots of phones out, going native did not work anymore.

    Also, Nokia's first Ovi client was a widset, AFAIK, and it was not very good at all. That means that widgets are not mature enough to write software that can compete with native software.

    Conclusion: you cannot write compelling software on a smartphone using widgets. And that is bad news for a software and services company.

    There is also of course the in-company wars that will start when Nokia starts using WebOS. Nokia has been gearing up to dump Symbian and start using Linux and Qt for a long time, I don't think it will manage another internal OS war.

    The exact OS won't matter much at this time for device sales. That might change if people have spend a lot of cash on software for a certain platform, so they will tend to stay with that platform. And that is good for device sales. Nokia is at a disadvantage here, buying a Nokia does not guarantee that your software will move to the next device you buy from Nokia. Adding another platform (WebOS) to the mix (S40, Symbian, Meego) makes this worse.

    What might help is that Nokia replaces it's own widsets with WebOS'es high level layers, putting it on top of Symbian and MeeGo, as a Qt alternative.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Is WebOS good for a "software-and-services" company.

      +5

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    eh?

    What are these so called dynamite patents people are on about? Forgive me if I am being ignorant but isn't WebOS based on Webkit which was originally developed by Apple anyway (and open source)? How is that ammunition?

    1. Liam Proven Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      KHTML + Apple = Webkit

      Webkit is indeed open source & was developed by Apple, but it's a refinement of the KDE Project's KHTML renderer framework. It's not original to Apple at all.

      1. Levente Szileszky
        Thumb Up

        RE: KHTML + Apple = Webkit

        Pssst, don't confuse the Faithful - in their mind everything was developed by Apple...

        ...which is, as we know, literally never true, there's not a single case (hardware, software, feature, service, anything) when Apple developed (forget inventions) anything that did not exist before.

  25. Neil 7
    Go

    It's all about applications

    At the end of the day, the OS isn't that important anymore for Nokia - it's the application layer which is now their primary focus, hence the unification that will come through Qt (a recent Nokia aquisition).

    Linux, Symbian, whatever - as long as the OS supports the Qt environment and APIs, Nokia doesn't care.

    Since WebOS is based on Linux, it simply means that WebOS is just a user interface. Does WebOS support Qt and the associated APIs? No, and assuming that Qt support is ever added it would simply be turning WebOS into a Qt/Linux distribution, ie. MeeGo, which is well advanced within Nokia and has much broader support.

    And that's why Nokia buying Palm for WebOS is such a ridiculous concept - it's already heading in the right direction with MeeGo and Qt, so switching to or even being distracted by WebOS would be a very big mistake.

    The number of end user sales doesn't justify the continued existence of WebOS in any shape or form under Nokia - I wouldn't be surprised if the Nokia N900 has already sold more units than all WebOS devices put together.

    Nokia should buy Palm solely for whatever interesting IP they may have, at a bargain basement price, then close it down and consign it to history. And with a bit of luck Levente turns out to be a Palm employee... ;-)

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Bah

      Since when have open source hobbyists ever produced a really brilliant UI? they may be good at the API and architectural side of things (although they get carried away and overcomplicate things), but Palm has produced a much better mobile interface than any of the other open source mobile projects.

      An attractive, usable interface that rivals even Apple.

  26. OMGeek
    Unhappy

    Sorry, another United States-ian perspective...

    I'd be sad about this only because that means I'll never see another WebOS phone on CDMA (please spare your CDMA vs GSM banter). The GSM providers here are gawd awful, and apparently hate Nokia, given the complete lack of devices available (or perhaps it's the other way around in this case, which is entirely believable)

    :(

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      CDMA providers aren't big fans either

      Verizon only lists 2 Nokia handsets, a 7705 and a 2705 (no smartphones) and Sprint doesn't offer ANY handsets from Nokia.

      I can only presume that the lack of decent Nokia handsets in the US is because of a failure of competition, so the providers are big enough to ignore their customers needs.

  27. This post has been deleted by its author

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Astute reporting... but more on perceptions..

    I think so too. This is a golden opportunity. North Americans are very partisan. One of the factors in the granny phone's success was the demise of Motorola as phone maker - similarly RIM v Palm earlier. NA insulars want 'local' brands. Locals don't much like Nokia because it's 'euro'

    A Palm in the portfolio would create that entirely false 'made in USA' feel that makes effete men and grannies go get an iProne.

    1. OMGeek
      Thumb Down

      ugh.

      I'm pretty sure HTC is not "local" and we're buying them up left and right. Same with Lg or Samsung or, hell, even Motorola. Apple is the only local phone "maker" besides Palm, and only one of them appear to be doing well... and their phones aren't even "made in USA" for that "made in USA feel". Try China.

      Take a look at any of the websites of any of the NA providers. There is practically no offering for anything Nokia. There's never any advertising for Nokia. Ever. Don't try to make the people on this side of the pond look snobbish when we don't even have a say in the matter. I'd buy Nokia in a heartbeat if we had ANY decent offerings.

      Thumbs down, though it's not the finger I'd prefer to show you.

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