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Comment Nokia smartphones were screwed even before Elop (Score 1) 218

There has been quite a few ex-engineer discussions here in Finland, especially now that some employee NDA are expiring

Long before Elop Nokia board realised they are screwed in Smartphone market. They hired him with full understanding of his MS history.

For background:

  • Although regular phones were the main product for Nokia, they felt they need good presence at smartphones to maintain brand
  • Nokia was caught somewhat off-guard with sudden popularity of ecosystem based smartphones (read : iPhone)

All their options were pretty bad:

  • Symbian was dying as ecosystem, pretty much partner everyone had left it
  • Co-operation with Intel (Moblin/MeeGo/Maemo) wasn't producing expected results (Intel sucked at battery life, QT issues, CDMA etc), ecosystem would have been still small
  • Google wouldn't give them any special Android package -> they would be competing against emerging asian brands on HW alone
  • Windows phone was pretty much only sensible option, especially since MS desperately needed credible partners

Not sure if Elop's burning platform mail was a clear blunder, or actually required to get Nokia research & development focused (it was technically just internal memo).

You can read more from techiical arcticle based on interviewing Nokia (ex)engineers : http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego

-Lasse

Comment Re:Are you Insane? (Score 2, Informative) 546

How can you even remotely consider that a landowner actually OWNS that land if he does not have the simple right of preventing others from taking its resources without permission?

Because in reality no country in world allows you to 'own' anything; you'll just have different kinds of control for such property.

And by habit you'll just define the word 'own' to match the degree of control you're used to.

Historically England was crowded place, every good piece of land effectively used. Hence the strict rules for control, with harsh penalties (e.g. ban on hunting "King's deers"). The attitude in time carried over to the States.

Now compare to Finland, with used to have nothing but vast forests, with no powerful local lords. Thus the tradition of freeish access, common to other Nordic countries with similar history.

See a short introduction about "Everyman's Right" by Finnish Ministry of Environment: http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?contentid=1045 23&lan=EN

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