Kind of.

All components have a cost, including the software. Let's say LG can include CrapKeyboard 1.0 for free, and GoodKeyboard 3.7 for $0.05/unit. Guess which one they're going to include?

Yes, phone pricing is broken down to that level. The cost of the supported software is a lot higher than the cost of the no-longer-supported software, because they're still paying the developers to support it. As long as CrapKeyboard used to work at least halfway decently (and it must have, because it was in the old production line), throw it in there.

It's a pretty simple explanation, actually.

Be cautious in what you claim. Dropping it in the toilet isn't a maneuver most of us would consider "smart".

No, but receiving a "free" phone and complaining that the free-market isn't forcing the vendor to fix its shortcomings is kind of disingenuous.

In the olden days, we'd have said he's "looking a gift horse in the mouth."

Of course they were failing. They were failing in 2011, and they knew it, and in case they didn't know it, their CEO told them so. Go re-read their CEO's Burning Platform memo in case you had forgotten how badly they were doing.

In 2007, Apple stepped in and not only did they define a new high-end smartphone market, they owned it, and shared it with nobody. Nokia went from sharing the top-of-the-line smartphone market with Blackberry to a middle-of-the-road smartphone company, and they did it without moving a step. About a year later Google delivered Android, which redefined and then completely dominated the low-end smartphone market. Meanwhile, Nokia delivered nothing new. Nothing. They feebly tried to do something with Maemo (and later MeeGo), but couldn't even ship it. This was about 2009. And Android makers didn't stop there, either. The Galaxy S (as you mentioned) came out in 2010, pushing the out of the low-end smartphone market into Apple's market, and that was the herald for Nokia's decline. In 2010.

Meanwhile, MediaTek had shipped a reference design for low-end phones in 2008. Any plant in Shenzhen could now produce a cheap handset for about $10, so they did, filling shipping containers with the cheap phones that have become ubiquitous in the developing world. Nokia couldn't ship a cheap phone for twice that price. When you're buying cheap phones, you're going to pay the lowest price - so the cost-conscious consumers immediately abandoned Nokia's low end.

All this happened from 2007 through about 2010. Elop's memo came out in 2011, just after Android sales had exceeded theirs for the first time, signalling the end of Nokia's relevance in the marketplace. Nokia's marketshare continued to decline, as they shipped nothing noteworthy. By last year, Nokia was barely remembered as that company that used to make phones before iPhones came out.

That is completely wrong. Microsoft bought them in September of 2013. According to my calendar, that was last year. "Failing" is a polite word for the dire straits Nokia was in at that time. Microsoft didn't drive them any place they hadn't already gone themselves. Perhaps you're confusing the sale of Nokia with the agreement Nokia made to adopt Windows 8 for the cash they needed to keep the lights on. Nokia had already failed to deliver Maemo, which had been in the works since before the introduction of the iPhone. Nokia was incapable of delivering a smartphone OS. They had four years and couldn't do it. MeeGo might have eventually done something for them, but it would have been an even smaller market than Microsoft could deliver.

Let me repeat: Nokia needed Microsoft's cash just to stay in business, back in 2011. That is not the sign of a healthy company.

All that and I still have to say the Microsoft phone is not a terrible device. Nokia put a really nice camera in there, the battery life is good, the screen is clear, and the device is really well made. But the Windows app store is sadly lacking, and Cortana is certainly not yet at the caliber of Siri. It's still just an also-ran in the phone market.

Microsoft had nothing to do with Nokia's decline. Nokia did that to themselves by standing perfectly still, while the entire market passed them by on both sides. Microsoft just picked them up for the scrap value.

so says an a/c ? really? you are more scared to comment with your ID than I am?

hey, if what I said makes me a terr-a-wrist(tm), then I'll accept that label. the label is now meaningless.

one wonders if the revolutionists who FOUNDED the US would be now called terrorists.

its meaningless. no more meaning than 'boogeyman'.

who really gives a shit, anyway. the US has lost all moral high ground over the last few decades and we are circling the drain, at this point.

I love what my country used to stand for. but now, its nothing that I would recognize as my own homeland, anymore.

and I give fuck-all who thinks what of me, for I am speaking the truth, here. and everyone with half a mind knows it.

Microsoft has done some really brilliant things as of late. They've wholeheartedly adopted automated testing for everything. I don't know if they have any product teams that aren't Agile, or aren't doing test driven development. I recently asked a product manager about his product's defect backlog, and he shot me with a cold stare: "We don't have any known defects in our product. As soon as a bug report arrives, the entire team drops what they're doing, and within 15 minutes a developer is working on repro'ing it, and it's fixed within a day. These are very rare occurrences." This was for a million line shrink-wrapped product.

Although it's taking them a long time to turn their teams around, Microsoft finally knows how to engineer code right, and they are quite willing to share with anyone willing to listen. But too many of their clients don't listen, too many of their vendors and suppliers don't listen (driver bugs, etc), too many of their own internal teams are still dragging legacy code bases forward, and they still have a long history of bugs that we all remember. Another problem they have is economic: their primary competition is their old products, like Office 2007, which are good enough for most businesses and students. They really want to get everyone on their Azure cloud, using Office365, live, OneCloud, and to rent computing resources from them, and that's driving a lot of their products in an unnatural direction for their consumers.

Their marketing people haven't helped. Windows RT? Really, they had to emulate Apple's walled garden? The closed iOS ecosystem is about the worst thing Apple ever did to their customers, The Apple tax sucks 30% from every dollar spent on the platform, and there's virtually no escape. And because we all know it sucks, we won't willingly jump into it again - so Microsoft loses even more.

Their forays into other platforms have been abysmal: Ford's SYNC is a crime against drivers. They bought a failing phone company for their hardware, turned out walled garden phones, and nobody showed up. Their previous attempts at embedded systems make people WinCE. And because they start everything out as closed source, and try to contain their own stuff, they see every product as a battle entering competition to the death, instead of an opportunity to cooperate. That got them a long way, and made them a lot of money, but now there are good alternatives, and nobody gives a damn anymore. The stuff they're producing now will all be too much, but way too late.

wrong. the US now does not care about anything but itself.

rights belong to the highest bidder or power holder.

that means: not you or me and certainly not some powerless speech-giving org.

the US is out of control. we all know this now and we all see it.

the question is: who has enough power to control the current top-dog and put him back in his dog-house?

THAT is the question. the US is not going to give in willingly.

I guess its at last a tiny half-step - having the ROW realize that the US is out of control and is violating the rights of, pretty much, anyone who dares try have a private thought or conversation.

I don't think you considered the depth of the question: what is the risk? Could your device contain credit card information? Could it have your social security numbers? Could it have a way to access your bank account? Your retirement accounts? Your brokerage accounts? A lot of your personal finances could be at risk. Are you wealthy enough to be worth kidnapping, and if so, could the device provide access to your family's panic room, or to your alarm system? What about medical information? Assign dollar values to those (it's certainly nebulous, but you want to end up with some kind of estimate) and add up your overall potential for loss. Now, divide by the likelihood your device will be compromised - you might estimate that tens of millions of devices are recycled each year, and you might figure a hundred thousand are handled by people who would like to steal from them, giving you roughly a 1 in 100 chance of having your device compromised. Would you bet the information above on those odds for $300?

Maybe you don't think you have very much worth stealing. Perhaps you're young, and don't have a retirement account, and not much in the bank, so your financial risk is only $1,000. Maybe you don't see any risk at leaking your health data. And maybe you're supremely confident in your abilities to wipe the flash RAM. Good for you, take the $300 and spend it. For you, it's a solid bet. For those of us with more at risk, it's not such a sure thing; even if I am confident in my skills at wiping these devices, what if I make a mistake?

yep

well according to the supreme court corporations = people and money = free speech so at least the "people" have their "free speech"

yep. really disappointed in silicon valley nerds if the above article is true.

high five, Al.