I think Nokia's future is really going to be determined by their ability to make great software. There is no question that they can make great hardware, but pretty much in all cases their software is letting them down. Can this hardware engineering dominated company make the shift to an organisation that can make great software? Do the managers and executive team know how to hire, motivate and manage great software people? Beyond that: Can they get their software teams to release quality products that get deployed to end-users? Can they do effective developer support and platform evangelism?
I kind of always root for Nokia because they are a successful European tech company. Unfortunately for the past 10 years they haven't failed to let expectations down. Maybe all this increased competition will get them to make all the changes they need - they certainly sounded serious at a developer outreach event I went to last year. The event still didn't leave me convinced they understood hackers though, or how to inspire application developers to write for their platforms.
But I voted it up since the original didn't get any attention.
I think Nokia is at an 'interesting' point. Here in Europe, they are way more important than either Apple or any of the various Android things, but they look wobbly. I will be curious to see how things work out for them, if they are indeed able to reinvent themselves.
No, what I'm saying is that they should commit themselves to one OS for high end devices. As a developer, how do I know whether Maemo or Symbian has a future? Neither has a significant installed base outside of Nokia. Right now Nokia doesn't exist for me as a developer. I don't believe a word they say. They are confused and I believe they could announce Android support tomorrow.
I think the point is that Nokia is splitting developer attention between two incompatible platforms, rather than choosing one and getting it on as many devices as possible.
The answer is hopefully never. Android is an over-hyped mobile OS in geek circles (The Google Andoid Army), but it is not well known in the market. It is almost unheard of in Europe for instance...
Personally I dislike Android from all possible points of view. Both technically (Java, HTC) and philosophically (Ad-OS, cloud).
While I agree that Nokia has a lot of problems and is getting more and more irrelevant these days, to be fair the same question could be asked about Apple and you would get a similar answer and somehow that wouldn't be a bad thing in Apple's context so I think you have to dig deeper to find the real problems of Nokia. I think it can be summarized by "trying too hard".
[ Deleted comment mentions that they are slowly fading ]
Very slowly, and starting from a commanding advantage, if what's available in most stores here in Italy is anything to go by. I recall that Austrian stores were similar: sure there's an iPhone or two, but there are tons of Nokias everywhere. But they are in a bit of a decline and don't seem to really have a clear direction for what to do about it.
It's very good. I've been a very happy owner of both 770 and N810 (the "Internet Tablets" that were the grandparents of N900.
The points are two:
1) directions seems not clear... maemo is gtk+-based, but Nokia bought Trolltech (and qt). This version of maemo is still gtk-based but, they say, "next will be qt-based". Older products are now totally discontinued (no updates, no new version of OS)... It is complicated to trust them
2) iPhoneOS is FUN to program and there is a clear business model and "go to market" strategy for indipendent software developers. Hey, it happens you can actually, and easily, making money with your hobby! That give iPhoneOS the impressive number of apps it have, many of them of high quality (because you can have, and typically have, actual paying customers)... Maemo is Debian, with a VERY small screen, in terms of resolution, no clear way of making some money and a (relatively) boring SDK.
Just to be clear: maemo is WAY better than Symbian (hey, you have to have Windows to develop for symbian, last time I looked upon it) and I would really like (like the other guy) to have a debian-based OS on my phone. And I use a Nokia as my primary PHONE (and I use iphone as a portable internet device).
But it's true (and the article is very well written): the bears are on the door and they have to reinvent themeselves.
btw: give a look to the Ovi Store sometimes... is really depressing (and often gives curious errors).
* Will they really put all their weight behind it? My guess is that there's an internal struggle between that and Symbian.
* Will they be able to make it as nice as Android? I care about the fact that it's open source and hackable, but what most people are going to worry about is how well it works, and what the application writing process is like. I doubt there are many Debian apps that are all that useful as-is on a phone - maybe in 5 years, but not right now.
1) I don't think Nokia has much of a choice if they're going to be in the smartphone market.
2) Programatically, they've got Qt now, which is easily comparable to Cocoa, and doesn't require devs to learn a new programming language.
I haven't looked at android's, nor have I heard any commentary, which usually isn't a good indicator.
Out of the 3 (or 5, +palm +msft), it's going to come down to device/network/developer relations. This market's still pretty open, and nobody's really doing a great job on #3 yet.
Then again, I'm wondering if the portable app market's nearly as important as is commonly thought; perhaps the web really has changed this game permanently.
Android uses Java (well, underneath it isn't really Java, but that's mostly besides the point). You get a lot of standard Java stuff, and use Android-specific stuff for the UI.
It's a decent environment, is easy to get set up and get going, and works on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
The Google guys definitely 'get' how to push their stuff - from day 1, they have had a bunch of guys on #android on Freenode to help people out and answer questions.
Qt is supposed to be pretty nice (I've never used it though), and C++ is certainly popular, but both will require some adaptation to the mobile phone world, and that will take time.
Err... [citation needed]? C++ is definitely used out there - that's what Symbian apps are written with. However, there is also a lot of J2ME (Java) code out there as well. J2ME runs on a huge number of devices, and is actually not that bad a platform, considering its age; just that things like Android and iPhone are much better.
Symbian OS had 50% of the smartphone market as of August 2009. And 50% of the market in that dataset is a majority - probably a good enough a citation for "C++ was the mobile world" when you consider what that would have looked like before the iPhone.
The majority of phones out there that are not "smart phones" and are quite programmable, via J2ME. Also, Symbian OS doesn't necessarily mean that you have to write in C++, as they run J2ME as well. You do get better results and more integration with the C++ API, but it's apparently quite a pain in the ass to use.
For some reason, people here seem to think that iPhones and other fancy devices are all there is out there.
I originally wrote Hecl to run on a Nokia 3100, which came out something like 5+ years ago, and was certainly not top of the line then (it was about 100 euros, IIRC).
A Nokia rep announced unofficially that Maemo is the future operating system for the Nokia N series phones. Symbian will be kept for the Nokia E series.
Us & Europe, Yes, thay are in Trouble . But in Emerging Markets, it's only the top 10 % who can afford/ will want the RIM/Apple/Google phones. So they still have some legs there for the nxt 5 years.
It's a fundamental change in the way mobile phoes & their markets work that has caught them. and i guess there'll never be that Nokia Domination again in US & Europe.
I kind of always root for Nokia because they are a successful European tech company. Unfortunately for the past 10 years they haven't failed to let expectations down. Maybe all this increased competition will get them to make all the changes they need - they certainly sounded serious at a developer outreach event I went to last year. The event still didn't leave me convinced they understood hackers though, or how to inspire application developers to write for their platforms.