Bteljuice

So Nokia will be shipping phones with WP7 as of 4th quarter 2011. Symbian is out, WP7 is in.....So..... Nokia and MS stocks going up?

Oh and, NOKIA CEO Stephen Elop seems to have the 7th largest Share of MS ....... could there be something played out? (he rejects this accusation and explains what it's about).

What are your thoughts?

swajames

Probably quite the reverse. Nokia stock took an absolute hammering after this announcement - it lost 14%.

That said, the memo from Elop last week that set the agenda for this MS deal was pretty much spot on. Nokia has only really been successful at the low end of the market in recent years and they were going nowhere fast. It is no longer just about the OS, it is all about the ecosystem and that's where Nokia/Symbian were struggling.

swajames

Some quotes from Elop's memo.

"...there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem."
"They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range."
"Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry's innovation to its core."
"We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market."
"...Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements..."
"Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem."
"We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally. Nokia, our platform is burning."

Theo

That takes the E7 off my shortlist, probably will not get that much aftersales as it carries the outgoing OS.
Shame, liked the potential of their new MeeGo OS, as opposed to Windows Mobile...

DD_545i

I like what the google guy said about the venture: "Two Turkeys do not make an Eagle".

Bteljuice

Regarding Elop's statement: Whatever is being said isn't really what's happening behind the scene (we all know that) . I'm not much of an Analyst but won't this joint venture increase stocks when WP7 phones start rolling out in the 4th quarter. Sure they're going to have a hit at first (stocks going down) but with such a venture, won't stocks go back up? (i'm just asking, trying to understand this whole thing, I have no knowledge regarding stocks).

Also, won't this venture be something that is being played out from the inside? (not just for the benefit of both companies)

What I had in mind is, release this statement -> make it official at MWC (which was today) -> people from the inside would have sold stocks in advance before they went down -> Stocks go down -> the same people buy more share of the stocks -> 6-8month, gradual increase in stocks.

I'm just thinking out loud, it's a dirty world (or maybe I watched too much Wallstreet ).

As for the MeeGo product, this is going to be one of them, The intel Tablet.

Keep your thoughts coming, want to hear and learn more.
Thank you

DD_545i

My interpretation of the reason this is being taken negatively, is that people believe that there are only two rising / maintaining stars in the smartphone market, and they are the iOS from Apple, and Android from Google. Blackberrys, while still having a strong business marketshare, are losing out big time for the personal users - mostly to Android. Once Android and iOS get the same kind of security that BB has in place, they could kill off Blackberry all together. No idea if that would happen, a lot of people like those little keyboards, but it's a possibility.

What is sure, is that Symbian missed out on being the major competitor to iOS in the last few years. There was every chance it could have happened, but it just never made the progress needed. The move that analysts think Nokia should have made, to accept they're a handset maker and jump on the Android OS bandwagon and compete head-on with HTC, Samsung, Motorola and LG purely on the quality of their hardware, never happened. Instead they've decided to go with WP7, which doesn't have any marketshare really, and there's not a lot of user excitement about it either. I've used Windows since 1990 on my computers, but I have no wish to have it on my phone. Microsoft won't be giving it away (like Google do) so you'll be paying a premium on your phone price to get WP7, and what restrictions will there be on apps? If it goes the Apple app market route then that's not going to work because they don't have the hypnotized followers that Apple has who'll accept any kind of restriction and be happy about it.

Bteljuice

Good point from everyone all way around. Keep them coming, share your thoughts.

a few years back (2-3years), Windows was a HUGE hit in smartphones (windows 6.1,6.5). They did have one of the big cut of the cake.. Until Android got released and kicked MS out of the circle. They pretty much fell downwards when they said about WP7 not having multitasking nor Copy paste feature (which copy paste will be released in march and Multitaksing in 3rd or 4th quarter update).
I am sure there was a reason for this, but once those statements were said before WP7 launch, everyone moved to Android (including myself).

I am currently running both WP7 and Android 2.3 on my HD2 and have to say that no way on earth would i stick with WP7. Too many things missing, still think WM6.5.3 was wayyy better.

ImolaRedM

Elop came from MS and understands that MS doesn't want to get in the hardware business. 4 years ago when the iPhone came out the market looked very different. A lot of companies were taken by surprise and now with Android also in the game things have shifted and Nokia has been hemorrhaging in the smart phone business. MS has taken the 'stability first, feature second' approach with Win7 and it's still early in the game for that OS.

There are lots of plays being made in this space and it's exciting to watch. I think the landscape will look very different in another 3-4 years. If Nokia didn't make this strategic move I really don't think they would be much of a player in the near future. Morotola seems to have put many of it's eggs in the Android/Verizon basket and it could cost them. A large portion of their profits come from a single carrier. Blackberry is on the decline and the other hardware makers are busy pumping out ever cheaper phones and fragmenting the market to compete on cost.

If Nokia can make a range of low to high end phones that sell to a wide range of carriers then I see this as a good move for WinMo7 and Nokia as long as MS keeps pushing out new releases that are stable and offer the features that people now expect in a smart phone.

swajames

Well, the first WP7 updates didn't quite go as planned...

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/new...pdate-does.ars