R.I.P. Nokia and Palm

[Refalm]

This week, two mobile phone companies that were too bureaucratic in its corporate processes, sold out to another company that's just as bureaucratic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12427680
Nokia is dropping MeeGo for Windows Phone 7. They were too late with developing their own smartphone system, and couldn't keep up with Android, iPhone and BlackBerry.

Now Palm is dead too. Since HP took over (a company I hate for their shitty printers), they now want to integrate WebOS into Windows, instead of a seperate OS. So no Windows, no sync between Palm Pre's and PC's. Not that it matters anyway, HP will still sell their archaic Windows Mobile 6 phones, instead of the Palm Pre, because innovation is obviously a bad word at their company.

[reactosguy]

Nokia dropped Symbian too...

[Lead Head]

I thought palm and HP just showed off WebOS 2.0?

[Refalm]

Nokia is sorry about the WP7 deal with Microsoft.

They can't convert their open source applications, because Microsoft doesn't take kindly to free software.
Their MeeGo project, which includes their excellent navigation software, is interconnected with other companies like Intel.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/365362/intel-ceo-nokia-should-have-gone-with-android

[Lead Head]

Mobile phone giant Nokia will get over a billion dollars from Microsoft for adopting its Windows Phone system, according to sources at the news agency Bloomberg. Both parties are still keeping the details of their deal under wraps, since the final agreement has not yet been signed.

Sad when you have to essentially bribe companies to use your software.

http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2011/03/nokia_to_get_a_billion_dollars_from_microsoft_2417586.html

[reactosguy]

This sucks.

I would rather improve my product and broaden my targets than get a billion dollars from a rich company. Just saying.

[Refalm]

There is going to be a bit less of Maemo, MeeGo, Qt and Symbian.

Maemo and MeeGo will go to Intel, Qt will go to some other Finnish company, and Symbian will simply die.

Read more...

Either way whether Windows Phone 7 will be successful or not, Nokia is in a bad situation.

Microsoft has enough money to shut down their mobile platform and create actually good working apps for other platforms (Exchange, Xbox Live Arcade, AD/LDAP support, etc.) instead. Then Nokia would have to pick up their unmaintained MeeGo platform again, which will be a bad idea, because it's not likely Intel will do much with that platform. Or become yet another Android using manufacturer.

If WP7 somehow becomes successful, then HTC, LG and Samsung will begin creating a lot of phones for that platform too. Seeing as Nokia is already lagging behind those companies in terms of good hardware, their investment in WP7 will become unbalanced.

From being the mobile phone that you had to have in the 90's in order to belong to the cool kids clique, to the bureaucratic mess today. It's a pretty sad story.