Nokia adopt Windows Phone 7 as smartphone platform

Forums › Legacy mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Web OS, Symbian, Meego, Blackberry) › Nokia adopt Windows Phone 7 as smartphone platform

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Ultimate Geek
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#439737 15-Feb-2011 12:26

Regs:
jfanning:
freitasm: Which is completely different from the Windows Phone 7, haven't you heard about it?

That's funny, because all the people who complain about Symbian have only ever used an old version of it,

i have a sony vivaz that i got as a prize. its a fairly modern version of the symbian OS, i believe. After a week of using the phone i threw it in a drawer and went back to using my old Palm Treo 750 with Windows Mobile 6.0. The experience on the Vivaz was pretty horrible overall. The RoadSync app for email was painful to use and very unintuitive. Trying to use apps on the 'internet' was painful - and i'm a very techy guy, i'd hate to see a non-techy person struggle with it. The updates to the phone are few and far-between. the only redeeming feature on the phone was the awesome camera/video quality. i believe that Sony has ditched the symbian now for android.

EDIT: oh, the other big thing that bugged me about the Vivaz was that i couldnt always use the same onscreen keyboards in different apps...

The Vivaz uses S60 5th edition, that's not a modern version.

I used a Nokia E65 for years, it used a real old version of Symbian, apart from the small screen I used to use internet apps fine, exchange email worked on it, google mail and sync worked fine. I far preferred it to WM6.5.

I just purchased a Android 2.2 phone and found they don't support wifi proxies, and the feature still hasn't been added to Android. People are going to complain no matter what they get.

jfanning

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Ultimate Geek
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#439739 15-Feb-2011 12:30

freitasm:As for Symbian... I do try all the handsets I can from time to time, exactly to avoid this "I haven't used and I don't like" approach. The last I tried was last year with one of the flagship Nokia E series handset, and the experience was bad - from the lacking messaging support to the old style user interface.

One of the S60 3rd, or 5th edition ones?

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#439751 15-Feb-2011 12:39

freitasm: .... (edit)... E series handset, and the experience was bad - from the lacking messaging support to the old style user interface.

The UI (and I guess you're not talking about the keypad/keyboard here) can be quite a personal thing. Often it's the UI that predetermines if you like/dislike the device.... it either works the way you do (expect it to), or it doesn't.

For years I think that Nokia had the most intuitive UI, which is why they gained soo much market share. But their conservative approach to things saw them left behind when innovative touch screen screen options hit the market. And it's that (and MS) conservatism that could be the destructive negative in this alliance.

Apple has pinned it's colours on effectively annual innovations and a very focused product group... love it or move along. Android has snowballed into an almost anarchistic platform where Google has had to rein in its rolling upgrade/release programme, to keep hardware manufacturers on side, whilst the android amateurs and development community continue to push the innovation boundaries within the platforms.

Nokia and Microsoft seem to be looking for that conservative middle ground. Reliability and innovation thru stability and the power/strength of their brand. It's a solid move for MS as Google slide into the netbook market with their Chrome OS..... for Nokia it's a far from conservative strategic move to keep them in the smart high end handset game.... and maybe avoid some other kind of handset alliance. (Remember when you used to be able to choose between Sony or Ericcson handsets?)

Regs

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#439773 15-Feb-2011 13:08

jfanning: The Vivaz uses S60 5th edition, that's not a modern version.

and there is one of the problems of Symbian - and Android too - in my opinion. This device is less than 12 month old, but is apparently running something thats not up-to-date. WP7 and IOS are much more likely to be running on the latest version on any given handset given the consistency in hardware.

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jfanning

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Ultimate Geek
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#439810 15-Feb-2011 13:54

Regs:
jfanning: The Vivaz uses S60 5th edition, that's not a modern version.

and there is one of the problems of Symbian - and Android too - in my opinion. This device is less than 12 month old, but is apparently running something thats not up-to-date. WP7 and IOS are much more likely to be running on the latest version on any given handset given the consistency in hardware.

Symbian didn't release the phone, Sony did.

freitasm

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#439818 15-Feb-2011 14:19

Point missed... Regs is talking about platform fragmentation.

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#439859 15-Feb-2011 15:38

freitasm: Point missed... Regs is taalking about platform fragmentation.

i didn't miss any point, this can happen on any platform, and with any manufacturers.

HTC current sell WM7 and 6.5 phones, other manufacturers mix and match OSs. Even with Apple you can't be sure they will be running the latest version.

Regs

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#439902 15-Feb-2011 17:03

jfanning:
freitasm: Point missed... Regs is taalking about platform fragmentation.

i didn't miss any point, this can happen on any platform, and with any manufacturers.

HTC current sell WM7 and 6.5 phones, other manufacturers mix and match OSs. Even with Apple you can't be sure they will be running the latest version.

put aside WM6.5 (and earlier) - cause it has the same fragmentation issues as symbian and android.

if you own an Apple or WP7 device you are going to be more likely to be able to upgrade to the latest version because it wont require your OEM to tailor the software to fit their hardware first. thats the difference.

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mckenndk

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#439903 15-Feb-2011 17:06

I had a N95 from 2007 to 2009 and a N86 8MP from 2009 to 2010.

I have to say the N95 was a great phone at its time, good screen size and stylish, the N86 just improved on it with ovi and the free maps.

Once I used the Samsung Galaxy S running Androd 2.1 I was converted and alot of people moaning about the touch on the N97 did not convince me to move up in the Symbian world.
I have not used an apple phone so I could not compair but I am sure if I was an apple fan I would of converted stright away after using an Iphone.

The main features of the N86 I miss is the 8mp camera with flash (even though the Galaxy does HD video) but you should get this with Windows Phone 7, the FM transmitter so you can play your music without cables/adapters from your phone and the security the N86 had that you could send a text to the phone that will lock it and only allow it to receive calls.
Saying that the Galaxy S has the mobile AP (turns it into a wifi access point) and better wifi management.

I hope that windows mobile 7 will include some of these features that nokia have provided in the past, I don't buy apps so I won't miss anything if I move OS's.

So all have their good and bad points.

Dion

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#440060 16-Feb-2011 01:37

freitasm:

As for Symbian... I do try all the handsets I can from time to time, exactly to avoid this "I haven't used and I don't like" approach. The last I tried was last year with one of the flagship Nokia E series handset, and the experience was bad - from the lacking messaging support to the old style user interface.

Friends in the industry and press have said that the new Nokia E7 actually feels pretty stable and snappy, better than e.g. the flagship N8.

I think the move is pretty good for both Microsoft and Nokia. MS hasn't got too much strength behind the WP7 and Nokia is a great partner for them (and MS seems to agree as they're paying Nokia billions for the move). Nokia does know how to make hardware efficiently and as a big partner with MS, they will influence the WP7. Nokia's greatest advantage is the geographical coverage, logistics and very efficient manufacturing.

It took three years for iOS to get cut & paste and multitasking (to the user). WP7 was announced last year and by the end of this year it will have both. Not bad for a development speed. WP7 seems to follow the iOS path, first rock solid platform and features are built on top of that. Development tools is also something that MS is good at.

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#440556 17-Feb-2011 08:41

There's been very little comment about this on the Geekzone Symbian forum. However there's been a bit of acitivity on other sites, much of what I've read is from people anti to the Microsoft/Nokia alliance, with some people being very vocal.

Since most of the comment on Geekzone has been on this thread I though i'd post my thoughts here as well.

Right from the start I should point out that I don't think that Windows Mobile 7 is going to do anything for Nokia that Symbian or Meego could not have done with some tweaking and perhaps an OS name change, except perhaps help break into the North American market. However that might already be in doubt as there are already reports of one North American carrier refusing to deploy Nokia W7 mobile phones.

Who has the most to gain from this partnership? In my opinion Microsoft. They need to vastly increase their OS's market share. Nokia already had a major slice of the market, yes, it's share had been diminishing but to some extent this was a result of new entrants. Nokia didn't need to choose Microsoft, they had their own platform, they no doubt could have chosen Andriod and possibly HP's WebOS which in my opinion due to its Palm heritage will be a better OS than W7 mobile.

Microsoft have also gained access to Nokia's worldwide mobile infrastructure and billing systems etc. Among other things, access to Nokia's mapping for use with their search engine Bing, to rival Google and their maps.

Microsoft needed Nokia more than Nokia needed Microsoft. What has Microsoft brought to Nokia?

At this point I don't believe that Nokia has gained anything that puts them ahead of where they are now. Right now W7 mobile is behind where Symbian is with functionality, sure there are improvements about to be announced which will rectify some of the W7 mobile deficiencies. I do wonder how much ex Microsoft employee, now Nokia CEO, Mr Elop, had to do with this new partnership and whether this partnership would have happened without him as Nokia's CEO.

There have been several partnerships in the past like this with Microsoft, most of which have been dismal failures for the companies that have partnered with Microsoft. Nowhere have I seen it said that Nokia is not going to continue with Symbian and or Meego OS phones, at least in the short term. They have said W7 mobile will be their primary platform but haven't said it will be their only smart phone platform. I stand to be correct on this. As a result I cannot help wondering is Nokia is keeping it's bases covered to some extent by still maintaining some level of Symbian/Meego deployment. There seems to be plenty of support out in the market place for Symbian/Meego devices.

Back to my earlier comment about the suitability of Symbian/Meego. I believe that Symbian and or Meego could be easily developed with a new GUI etc which would answer most if not all of the critics. Take a look at the aftermarket GUI's like SPB Mobile Shell. While not being perfect it is a great example of what can be done with Symbian as it is now, without further development. I'm not a software person but I imagine that if something like SPB Mobile Shell can be overlaid onto an OS to the effect that it has, it must be possible to achieve at least as good if not better if this type of GUI were embedded as part of the OEM OS.

To finish, I am not anti W7 mobile, this could be an exciting new platform that will deliver great results. Both compnaies need it to work, though Microsoft more than Nokia I think. Right now I have my reservations about the success of this partnership. Interesting times ahead.

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#440578 17-Feb-2011 09:26

I agree with Technofreek that MS stand to gain more but perhaps only in the short term.

MS need to get the WM7 platform up to critical mass as soon as possible, and thats where Nokia should benefit. They don't have to concentrate resources on OS development (and MS should have more resources in this area than Nokia do so it'll speed up that part of the dev cycle). Nokia can to continue to work on it's own OS options for (initially) the lower market devices, which sell more widely and probably have longer product lives than high end units And as they're able to take some of the time critical path lines out of the process it should produce a better product but with some savings.

Sure MS have had other venture failures of this type, but with Google moving into the laptop space (thru its Chrome based netbooks) MS can see that if they can't hook customers by offering inter-platform products they'll be at the top of a long slide.

Theres Clouds over MS that they didn't see coming, I'm sure they'll throw buckets at Nokia because they need the emerging mobile users to be branded with windows logos

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#440581 17-Feb-2011 09:35

Technofreak:
I do wonder how much ex Microsoft employee, now Nokia CEO, Mr Elop, had to do with this new partnership and whether this partnership would have happened without him as Nokia's CEO.

This has been discussed in the finnish press a lot over the weekend. From the friday's "what an earth happened?" to the "doom's day" weekend followed by "things gonna be alright" this week. Nokia is a very emotional thing for us finns.

Jorma Ollila, current chairman of the board of Nokia (former CEO), also said his first words about this alliance today on the finnish TV and basicly confirmed that this was not an Elop decision.

It was a board decision, Nokia has thought about the future a great deal over the last 12+ months, and Mr. Elop was chosen to be the person to execute the plan. As the interviews and presentations over the weekend has shown, he is pretty good with the words (and not an American, at least here in Europe people put a big difference between Canada and the US).

Obviously just changing the platform will not "fix Nokia", there is a lot of slack in the organization and the middle management needs to be flattened. Perhaps one day Nokia HQ will no longer be called PowerPoint Palace.

From the technical perspective, the problems have been known for years and Nokia has spent billions in trying to fix them. With very little results. I personally had used Nokia phones since the early 90's and my first non-Nokia was back in 2002 the Ericsson (before Sony-) T68i. It was better than any Nokia at the time and did use Nokia models after that, my none of the models were the great ones like in the 90's. None of the models were as exciting to wait for. A friend put it well: "They put EDGE on a phone with 6 keys and a flash light, and left it out from a business model". Segmentation failed.

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#440591 17-Feb-2011 10:22

Technofreak: ... [snip] Windows Mobile 7

Windows Phone 7.

Technofreak: Who has the most to gain from this partnership? In my opinion Microsoft. They need to vastly increase their OS's market share. Nokia already had a major slice of the market, yes, it's share had been diminishing but to some extent this was a result of new entrants. Nokia didn't need to choose Microsoft, they had their own platform, they no doubt could have chosen Andriod and possibly HP's WebOS which in my opinion due to its Palm heritage will be a better OS than W7 mobile.

Microsoft will be the winner, with instant access to Nokia's distribution channels. Currently HTC, LG and Dell are very limited and have not much reach into some mobile markets, specially in developing countries.

We only have one Windows Phone 7 model available to retail in New Zealand... Telecom New Zealand can't manage to get the LG Windows Phone 7 in the retail channel, limiting it to business customers.

Technofreak: Microsoft have also gained access to Nokia's worldwide mobile infrastructure and billing systems etc. Among other things, access to Nokia's mapping for use with their search engine Bing, to rival Google and their maps.

This is big.

Technofreak: Microsoft needed Nokia more than Nokia needed Microsoft.

So it seems.

Back to my earlier comment about the suitability of Symbian/Meego. I believe that Symbian and or Meego could be easily developed with a new GUI etc which would answer most if not all of the critics. Take a look at the aftermarket GUI's like SPB Mobile Shell. While not being perfect it is a great example of what can be done with Symbian as it is now, without further development.

The problem is "platform". Windows Phone 7 is being developed with specific requirements, and designed to take advantage of modern mobile processor features, mobile GPUs and more. Even Android is not taking advantage of graphics capabilities brought by the use of mobile GPUs. This kind of platform model is being dictated by Microsoft, making the OS very powerful.

Retrofitting this kind of platform model to old OS is hard. That's why it's not ok to compare Windows Mobile 6.x and Windows Phone 7. They are very completely different beasts.

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#440597 17-Feb-2011 10:32

one big advantage that microsoft can bring to the party is their developer network. they have top class development tools and a huge base of .Net/Silverlight developers out there. the ability to develop stuff for WP7, Windows and XBOX using similar toolsets cant be underestimated.

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