Anssi Vanjoki, marking his first day as Nokia's Head of Mobile Solutions, and in the face of recent widespread criticism of Nokia's high end device performance and strategy, has come out with some hard hitting statements in a feature on Nokia's Conversations blog. He underlines the importance of Symbian for Nokia, suggests that a Symbian^4 powered Nseries device is 'a very strong possibility', says that, for consumers, MeeGo will mean having 'true computing power in your pocket' and that MeeGo gives Nokia the ability 'to take mobile technology beyond the smartphone'. Read on for further details.
Read on in the full article.
The last person I heard talking like this was Lee Williams and till now his talk has proved to be just that, mere talk.
Lets hope Anssi Vanjoki turns out to be better.
Like so many others I have been disappointed by Nokia. I loved my E71 and was burned by the 5800 and N97. I got a N900 and while it's speed cannot be matched i want a phone that is supported by the market and is "mainstream". I was holding out hope for the N8, yet was guarded.
After reading this article my decision has been made I think. Why get a N8 only to get a phone that the market AND Nokia won't support?! Only NSeries to have Symbian^3? Then why install S^3 on it????
Time for me to move on. I am leaning towards the htc EVO.
Well, it's refreshing to see Nokia trying to put a new guru in place who seems to understand the challenges Nokia faces in the rapidly changing and accelerated smartphone market. I wish them every success. But last week my eyes were opened and I've now seen real computing power in a pocket...I've been exclusively a Nokia/Symbian user for the past ten years but last week bought a MyTouch 3G Slide from T-Mobile, running Android 2.1 with all Google's integrated online apps and turn-by-turn navigation. My gosh, what a vast difference. For the entire week I've been astonished by the speed, features, availability of apps, useability and functionality of Android and the customized Sense UI. I don't mean just eye candy (though it's very cool too), I mean the entire experience. I really feel like I've been living in the Dark Ages till now and am almost mad at Nokia. They have a long way to catch up, and Google and Apple aren't going to be sitting still in the meantime. At this point it'll take a lot to make me come back to Nokia. One minor annoyance, incidentally, is the name MeeGo...couldn't they and Intel have come up with something a little more inspiring for the "fightback?" IMHO MeeGo sounds like something a small child would say. Best wishes in the fightback, Nokia, at least it now seems you're realizing your situation.
Because other devices will have S^3 - and besides, applications written in Qt will be compatible with both versions. To be honest a don't see the argument that since the N8 is (supposedly) the last N-Series Symbian device, this is somehow some kind of drawback. Do explain, please...
It's good that he's coming out swinging, but the talk of using Symbian^4 is a bit confusing. I thought the message earlier was pretty clear that MeeGo was the way forward for the N-Series. They'll need to clarify their messaging here for those developers who want to go beyond the boundaries of QT.
Just too late...just too late for meego to win vs android
android is now a consolidated platform, developers and users love this os, android is used by all the big company (samsung, htc, motorola etc..) each company built various models with this os and developers are so good to develop for android...else megoo will be used only from nokia that will build only 1 or 2 devices with this os at year developers so not very attracted to develop for it...and i don't hope too much in the qt's...
Android 3 this december will kill meego i'm a nokia fan but the true is that!
And about symbian? Symbian is a good os but as declared by nokia will be used only for x and c series in other words only for the mid-range smartphone
maemo = meego = not success (see the bad n900 story..)
nokia will back the queen of the smartphone market (as 2007 with n95 remeber?) only when its nseries adopting android as primary os..
Megoo symbian and other stuff just not hi end just middle range..
Just too late nokia 😞
Typical for Nokia - promises, promises... Always next year, never now.
talk is easy and cheap, deliver a good phone is complicated and expensive; I guess we are starting with the former...😞
"But what is consistently overlooked is that Symbian still accounts for more than two-fifths of the global smartphone market. We believe the Nokia N8 will have great appeal"
a phone with a small ecosystem is not a smartphone, it's a featurephone so drop the smartphone market share please 😞
It's very very sad for me to see Nokia in this terrible state and in hindsight adopting Android temporarily would have done less damage to the brand that this enormous whole in the portfolio.
If the right people in the right place inside the company really care about this company, I'm sure they will make the right decision...
Great to see this piece by Vanjoki. I have no doubt that Nokia are on the rebound and will win at the high end, mid range, and low end. I think everyone should ignore the naysayers - whingers always shout the loudest. The loss of Symbian-Guru is pretty meaningless.
Thank God Nokia aren't going to use Android, that would have been an almighty mistake. It's nowhere near as mature or capable as Symbian and those asking for it (or jumping ship to it) are judging a book badly by it's cover and will regret their move.
Wait and see - all this talk about Nokia and Symbian being on the way out was the most utter piece of total rubbish, is a storm in a teacup, and shows the people who spout it to be ignorant in the extreme.
Nokia and Symbian will rule over the mobile market for a long time to come.
The fight-back doesn't start now. It will start when (if...) Nokia releases competitive phones. Available on the market, not some vague promises on the internet/Youtube.
So far N8, Symbian^3, Symbian^4, MeeGo are just vapourware, years late vs. competition.
I have briefly used Samsung Wave with Bada OS yesterday and could not believe how nice it was vs Symbian^1. How is it possible for a newcomer to leap frog Nokia so quickly?
Anyway, it's too late for me, after terrible experience with 5800 I am just waiting for iPhone 4.
Why do Nokia do everything to Slow,thats what they do All the Time,the Company that always announce mobiles to Early an Annoy its followers waiting ages for the phone to be Released,for a Example just look at the Current N8,announced in April then in June Apple release the New iPhone just 2 weeks after they released it but end of August early September the N8 will be finally Released,They were the slowest in the Touch Screen Market an still got some work to do,Slow reaction to the Potential of Apple in the Mobile Market an thought nobody could Challenge them to be put the sales an shares down,hope the Big shake up at Nokia gets them back Challenging at the Top,Symbian 3 or 4 an Meego better be Top Range mobiles that are really Outstanding from Nokia or they might be another shake up at Nokia,Also Better Screen Resolutions wanted on Nokia mobiles nowdays to challenge Apple an Samsung mobiles then there mobiles will be really Top Class
A couple of thoughts and concerns on this press release:
- It's good that he mentions that Nokia needs to get back to number one on high-end devices. It's hidden recognition that Symbian is really not the future in that market and where Nokia needs work
- The fact that he still mentions Symbian on the N-series that contradict their own statement a few days ago just shows how all over the map Nokia still is on mobile product strategy
- The fact that he refuses to mention iOS and Android in this mobile pocket computer space he proclaims with Meego also shows the denial on how Nokia is behind, since there are cross-market products based on unified OS strategies already from Apple and on the way from Android/Google. Android Linux came from a computer OS. iOS came from OS X. He really needs to show that Nokia recognizes that there's already competition in that space, and that they will try their best to take the lead there. Powerful devices in our pocket? Apple is already moving there with huge hardware in miniature form. Android is already making the leap from phone to tablets. Why not recognize the value of a Meego tablet? Is putting a size emphasis really necessary?
- there's no doubt that N8 will be a massive hit, but that's mainly due to price point, seems like. If this was priced anywhere near Android or Apple devices, I doubt it will ever fly. And I doubt that the HW enhancements will be enough to compensate for the sub-par user experience and justify a premium. They've stated 500USD/370EUR. I'm sure that will drop, and quickly, like most other Symbian devices in the past. It's just another sign that the definition of smartphone is changing. Else why have this new "mobile pocket computing" space that Symbian is not a part of?
- It's good that Android will not come out Nokia. That means certain death to all the Ovi services they've built so far if they've adopted that strategy.
Gene
Don't know if it's only me, but the statement seems to say that there WILL be Nseries running Symbian in the future, that Symbian^4 will be used, and as no-one has seen it yet it can hardly be argued that it won't be a good OS (I have my doubts about it competing with Android and Apple) but we really need to wait and see. As for Meego, same thing, when a finished product is available and can be used, we can judge it then. I really hope the promise is fulfilled and look forward to seeing it in action, if Nokia's developers (and the whole open source community) and resources cannot develop a world 'matching' smartphone they deserve to lose out. I don't think that they need a 'worldbeater', peoples requirements are different, and so what's good or bad or best is subjective. All I want is a fast, reliable smartphone, and preferably a Nokia one. If they can't produce the goods, then I will launch the lifeboat, but I think they deserve a chance first , maybe a last chance, but a chance !
There's S^3 now, then there's S^4 and guess what after S^4 comes S^5. Does it mean S^4 is also going to be "unsupported" because there's another version available? Of course not.
So just please stop painting gloomy images based on a number, there's going to be version after version 6 months apart so if you continue thinking like that you'll turn into madness in couple of years.
Also putting Android into Nokia phones is madness, pure madness. How is Android better than Symbian or MeeGo/Maemo? In some odd way Android that has even smaller market share than iPhone for example is considered already like a huge threat. The already sold Symbian devices don't disappear overnight, and new ones are still sold almost more than rest of the OS's combined etc. Android can gain market share, it can be even bigger than Symbian or MeeGo (or both), but there are countless of manufacturers, currently dividing the Android market share quite evenly. Where's the profits in that?
Who suggests Android for Nokia doesn't really understand mobile devices, the market and economy at all.
N�rde wrote:There's S^3 now
Now? Where? On YouTube videos?
carman58 wrote:we really need to wait and see
How many years can you wait, when everybody around has more modern phones? I am embarrassed to use my 5800 in public now 😊
It seems to me the Symbian-guru.com latest post has stirred up something in Finland. Hopefully something will change now for the high end market. Let's not forget, it is indeed only the high end market that continues to complain about this stuff. Joe Average isn't.
i do find it crazy some of the rubbish that is posted on these threads. its so hard to read i think i may have to find another site for my symbian/meego info.
"i may have to find another site for my symbian/meego info."
Presumably you won't bother registering there either, Mr Unregistered??
What I need is a plug-in for my browser that strips out anything 'Unregistered'!! 8-)
hello Steve, are you happy now?
Unregistered wrote: The loss of Symbian-Guru is pretty meaningless.
Yeah, so meaningless that your new man mentioned him by name!
Unregistered wrote:
Thank God Nokia aren't going to use Android, that would have been an almighty mistake. It's nowhere near as mature or capable as Symbian and those asking for it (or jumping ship to it) are judging a book badly by it's cover and will regret their move.
I dunno, even a short term use of Android would be a reasonable idea. I mean, look at the N8, you buy it, hardly any software will be written or converted as devs have no idea if there will be more high end Symbian 3 handsets, at least if they went to Android, there would be 60k apps from Day 1
Why do you think Apple have sold over 2m iPhone 4's (flawed at that!) in a week? Apps.
Unregistered wrote:
Nokia and Symbian will rule over the mobile market for a long time to come.
Well, they already lost the top end, so I have no idea why you are so confident of that!
Regards
Kev
Interesting to see Anssi Vanjoki getting involved in the comments on the post on Nokia Conversations (and yes he really did write it himself). Can't think of many companies where this would happen.
Interesting to read some of the criticism in this thread. Yes it is talk, but isn't it a good thing that this is being talked about? Action comes after while - today was only Vanjoki's second day in the new position after all... It sometimes feels like Nokia is criticised if they don't and criticised if they do.
Unregistered wrote:i do find it crazy some of the rubbish that is posted on these threads. its so hard to read i think i may have to find another site for my symbian/meego info.
There's a balance between letting people have their say and useful commenting. I've always taken a very liberal view. It also hard to say 'let's remove a comment because its not realistic / wrong'. A good example of this is the comments which say 'go to Android'. This is something Nokia aren't going to do simply because it would concede way too much (even leaving aside technical issues). Doing it temporarily as some suggest is even more unrealistic - it simply does not work that way (thinking about the way products are produced, support chains, logistics etc.). However these comments aren't evil or bad as such.
On All About Meego we are using disqus for comments and its my intention to switch over here too. I think that will help with the issue. Be interested to hear your opinion on this.
For the time being please stick with us and, if necessary, ignore the comments.
of course, if you are going to suffer at least suffer with style 😉 let's forget the android bandwagon completely, we are doing just fine!
Wait and see - all this talk about Nokia and Symbian being on the way out was the most utter piece of total rubbish, is a storm in a teacup, and shows the people who spout it to be ignorant in the extreme.
in the teacup, please also add some profit warnings communicated by Nokia itself and 50% drop in market cap since march...oh, but that's because the stupid americans invest in the stock market and they don't get the mobile market. they just don't get it...sorry.
Of course in a growing market there is still space for some players so we'll keep listening to the nice story about the 40% "smartphone" market share, 30% "smartphone" market share and 20% "smartphone" market share.
A good example of this is the comments which say 'go to Android'. This is something Nokia aren't going to do simply because it would concede way too much (even leaving aside technical issues). Doing it temporarily as some suggest is even more unrealistic - it simply does not work that way (thinking about the way products are produced, support chains, logistics etc.).
The symbian ecosystem seems to me completely reset. Going forward i don't see this changing at least until 2012. Oh, by the way, I don't see the competition crying too much about logistic problems with Android. Of course you become a simple OEM and the Android game is an expensive one but that is what you pay when you are 1 step behind your competitors. it's life 😞
I'm just curious to see how many "smartphone users" nokia is able to convert to meego once the brand is damaged completely (and that applies to featurephone upgrades as well) 😞
i will of course stick to all about symbian. just some frustration with some of the comments. seems like some people want to talk about everything except symbian. keep up the good work. also enjoying allaboutmeego
i forgot to log so i apologise for my unregistered post.
Using someone else's OS puts your destiny in their hands and makes your product one of the clones. A top mobile phone player won't do that and it's weak and pathetic to suggest such a surrender.
It's also stupid because you can't chop and change every 5 minutes, you can't retrain hundreds of people suddenly and you can't take your eye off the main goal. Symbian ^3 and ^4 have been under development for a long time already - the choice to develop them was taken long ago and Nokia is sticking to them.
The delay is an excellent sign of the determination not to repeat past mistakes and people who complain about it really are the kind of people who cause quality problems inside companies.
The interesting point is that Symbian^3 is the first new OS version that will have been produced since the integration of Symbian Software Ltd that Nokia acquired. In the past Nokia was far behind the versions of the OS that were being released by Symbian. It is likely that they have done a massive catch-up and that the company works a lot better with the barriers taken down between the os provider and the UI/environment.
What people are going to get from this is going to be like the difference between a rose and a plastic flower. Android buys people off with how easy it is to write Java apps, Apple with the UI but both try to get you to use lots of data which is expensive. On a Nokia I can use GPS and maps anywhere and without paying a penny in roaming charges or needing a connection i.e. your device really has something inside it that can be counted on. This is just my example but it is how I see Finns coming out as they change their game plan.
And finally, given the need to compete and their skill at managing the Bill of Materials for all their phones, they'll find ways to bring all this good stuff to hundreds of millions more people than anyone else.
Mysterion wrote:
The interesting point is that Symbian^3 is the first new OS version that will have been produced since the integration of Symbian Software Ltd that Nokia acquired. In the past Nokia was far behind the versions of the OS that were being released by Symbian. It is likely that they have done a massive catch-up and that the company works a lot better with the barriers taken down between the os provider and the UI/environment.
Symbian^2 was the first new OS version that was produced out of Symbian Foundation. Nokia's not using it in any device. It is being used by a couple Japanese manufacturers for their NTT DoCoMo models.
In the past, Nokia has not been "far behind" Symbian OS versions, but the delay from when the OS release was finished to when the first devices came out has been longer (6-8 months), whereas with the Symbian^3 the delay is around 3 months (Symbian^3 finished in June, and the N8 is out probably September).
And in the past, Nokia - as other manufacturers - have also skipped Symbian versions. E.g., nobody used Symbian v9.0.
There have also been manufacturer specific branches; like Symbian 7.0s for Nokia, whereas UIQ 2.0 phones used Symbian 7.0 (without the 's'😉.
�surprise a lot of people with its power and speed� I have no doubt of the power thing. But where does Anssi get the impression of speed from? In almost all the demo/hand-on videos, there is no single sign of SPEED compared to iPhone and android, unless he is comparing it with N97/mini.
Without criticizing Nokia or Mr. Vanjoki, all I'll say is that going forward, job #1 for the Finns in Espoo will be getting all the third party developers who abandoned Symbian (or simply regarded it as irrelevant) back again with a compelling Qt-Meego story/campaign.
If two years from now, developers haven't bought into the platform, Mr. Vanjoki and his co-workers may as well draw the curtains closed, turn out the lights and go home.
Oh, and getting some compelling media content onto your platform (something that will give a potential Meego tablet device a fighting chance against the iTunes ecosystem and content store) is also important. Maybe do a vast content deal with Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
N/A wrote:
In the past, Nokia has not been "far behind" Symbian OS versions, but the delay from when the OS release was finished to when the first devices came out has been longer (6-8 months), whereas with the Symbian^3 the delay is around 3 months (Symbian^3 finished in June, and the N8 is out probably September).
.
So you are making the point for me - faster times since the acquisition.
6-8 months (which I dispute anyhow but I'm not going to say why) is an *incredible* amount of time and if you think that's ok then you must work or have worked for Nokia and be accustomed to it somehow.
Imagine a car assembly line where engines were produced 6-8 months before they were needed! There is no stock cost in software but there is a lot of waste of effort with trying to work on new versions and support old ones. The company is also not realising it's potential which is expensive. One part of the machinery is running fast so one should redirect some of its power to the other machinery to even things out and advance more smoothly.