Nokia Windows Phone 7 “won’t happen” says ex-employee

December 31, 2010 | By l3v5y

Watts Martin, an ex-employee of mobile giant Nokia, has said on his blog that the most recent batch of rumours about a Nokia WP7 device – which he claims can all be traced to posts made by mobile-review.com’s Eldar Murtazin – are unfounded.

…there is no guarantee of that at all, because it is stark raving loony. A lot of the reporting on Nokia I’ve seen seems to miss a fundamental fact: they are, in their fashion, just as insistent on control over their ecosystem as Apple is.

Martin, who was recently laid off from Nokia, reckons that WP7 as an OS gives Nokia no advantages – even as a stopgap – over their Symbian and MeeGo operating systems, and that Nokia’s OS strategy leaves no room for WP7. What do our readers think? Are his arguments persuasive?

Thanks to Richard Ericsson for the tip.

About Olly Levett

Tagged microsoft, nokia, rumour, windows phone 7

syrinx

Makes sense to me. Nokia has maintained that MeeGo will be used for high-end phones and Symbian for mid-to-low end phones. They probably won't be able to bounce back for another year or year and a half. I am interested in MeeGo simply because I'm a tech and gadget geek. I'm looking forward to seeing their MeeGo-powered phones.
sidecomment

As implausible as it sounds, I have to remember that a company that big could manufacture a line of hair dryers if they wanted to. In other words, if they decide that a new product will make money and not cannibalize their existing product line too much, they might go for it. Since we aren't privy to the inter-company CEO pow-wows, there's no way to know except to watch and see what happens.
zzz

One laid-of,f low level Nokia employee blogs about his opinion and it's a big news everywhere. LOL

Guys, I think there's enough smoke to assume that Nokia is in serious talks with MS. All you need to know is that Nokia hasn't denied the latest rumor.

People who think MeeGo will be the future of a successful Nokia need to get a grip.

simbadogg

Microsoft, after released the courier tech videos neither confirmed nor denied that it was a real product….where exactly is that product now?
You seem to have no idea how corporations work as far as leaked, or rumored information. Because someone says no comment, or declines to comment altogether doesn't mean yes. and it doesn't mean no. it just means they dont want to talk about it.
And why would u say that Meego is not the future of nokia. So i guess they're just going to continue to waste hundreds of millions of dollars with intel, and just let their entire future go up in smoke for wp7. yeah, i think that's more unlikely.

zzz

I dont think you understand. Rumor like that hurts Nokia a lot because it puts more uncertainty to Nokia's commitment to Symbian and MeeGo. Now, if the rumor was not true, Nokia would have come out and said empathetically that MeeGo is the future and WP7 is not. But they didn't. The only reason would be if it's the deal is done or in advanced stage.

Look for Nokia to announce a multi-platform strategy soon. MeeGo is simply not competitive enough in the long run. For Nokia to bet their farm on MeeGo would be very unwise. They will likely be the next Palm for gods sake. They know this, that's why they are talking with MS. Doesn't matter how much they have spent.

simbadogg

okay, i think i just lot the ability to have any type of intelligent discussion with you. The moment that yous said that the worlds largest cell phone manufacturer, doesn't stand a chance with meego, when they haven't even released a single device into market with it…yeah that's a bit dumb if you ask me. I was going to ask you how you came to that conclusion, but frankly it doesn't really matter. You're dismissing something that hasn't even been finalized yet, and hasn't even had a single phone released yet…makes no sense to me.
Regardless of what you think, there are millions of people the world over that will buy meego, for better or for worse, because nokia is all they know, and they're comfortable w/ the manufacturer.

pinguino1

You are absolutely right. It´s It´s impossible to have an intelligent discussion with you when your best argument for your case is to call other people´s opinion dumb, remove your question, disregard what others think and finalize with a "…make no sense to me".

WOW! That´s a lot of contribution to a discussion that for others is not dumb.
Sorry for my interruption. Let´s continue with the topic.

Rico

Stupid rumor is stupid, especially when Eldar is the root and said rumor is about Nokia.

I really think the majority of the buzz around this came from US bloggers. Not surprising considering many in the US, even phone bloggers, aren't familiar with the inner workings at Nokia like they are Apple or Android. The blame really lies with Nokia there.

And GP007 while I maintain my position stated in the previous Nokia rumor post, I do owe you a massive apology for embarrassingly confusing Series 40 with Symbian. It's really embarassing that I made that mistake, especially given that I do follow Nokia. Sorry about that. :S
zzz

At the minimum, MS should be able to use the Nokia talk to get the best deal out of existing OEM partners (Samsung, HTC, LG etc), maybe forcing them to commit to WP7 more than would have been otherwise. If Samsungs and HTCs play hard-to-get because they are too busy with Android, another small but real possiblity I see is MS buying a majority stake in Nokia and develop/sell their own WP7 devices like Apple does.
David

Really?

Who cares what one laid-off employee says!

Come on! Please don't downgrade the blog posts to the level of engadget or gizmodo with not even importnat comment from some ex-employee.

Nokia decision about the OS they use on their handset is something that people with more power in NOKIA has to decide to do it or not.

If they go with Windows Phone 7 then that would be great for them to have more customers and also good for WP7 but if they decide to not then well nothing major for WP7 and they lose some potential market.

Anyway opinion of ex-employee of Nokia in some blog is really doesnt matter! Be more professional!
Drewidian

I hope that they hire someone who actually reads these posts. They need to take a direction that will truly promote the ecosystem and not just the phone. Whith the integration of Xbox, Zune, Office, and everything that shows the potential of this juggernaut, they could rule the smartphone market. New execs… Please READ THIS AND UNDERSTAND ECOSYSTEMS. All they need is a really good marketing campaign to deal with the following issues.

1) Apple and Google have a huge head start over them and have established brand awareness that has made them extremely popular with individual consumers. 2) MS has a long standing history of producing products that are not intuitive from a technology novice's perspective, and thus have had several products tarnish their image(Vista, Kin, Zune to some extent, etc) 3) MS has a huge number of divisions whose products are at long last being integrated into a single platform and getting all of those products to work together seamlessly is a huge challenge.

Having 10s or 100s of millions of dollars to throw at a product has never guaranteed success. To be honest their product has had a slow start. What they need to do to address these issues in my opinion is to throw a "Hail Mary" and show the world that they are in it to win it.

If I was Balmer I'd do this deal for the next 6 months (Maybe permanently for this generation). If a person buys a windows phone on a two year contract and within 30 days of purchase they get an XBox Live Gold account and an annual Zune Pass, that person gets a free Xbox 360S 4GB. Why? Because not only will you make enough to cover the cost of the console (Zune Pass and XBox Live comes to about $210) you will have people buying into your ecosystem. Once in, if it is attractive enough, you'll see that it is hard to get out of both Zune pass and Xbox live. It also (almost) guarantees that people will buy 2-3 games and potentially music videos, movies and other apps that will bring in more money over the long run. If a person averages 4 games($50) a year, plus say 5 movies($10), and 15 apps( $1), that is almost $265 a year, plus the next year it means another zune pass and Xbox live gold renewal($210). It really adds up. MS would also take sales from Google and Apple simply because they really can't compete with MS due to their lack of similar services. Sure Apple has itunes and Google has its android Market, but Apple doesn't have gaming, Office, or the Enterprise Services, and Google doesn't have the Media or gaming services that MS has. Google does have some enterprise services, but not to the depth or breadth that MS does. Oh yeah… don't forget… Once you have a "Free" Xbox console it makes that $150 for Kinect and the 3-5 additional games easier to swallow for potentially another $200 – $300 in sales of which MS gets a % of the games.

Winning over the Consumers is what MS needs to do, and if they were giving away XBoxes now, it wouldn't be a contest. I'm just not sure MS will do it until they are floundering like HPalm. Sometimes its best to strike earlier than later.