Thursday, April 26, 2012

Nokia: How to Destroy a Company - Part 1

Nokia's troubles are well known today. The company recently announced disastrous quarterly results, with their handset sales declining 39% quarter on quarter. That's right: 39%. Even more spectacularly, their smartphone sales fell 50%. Wonder why? Just look at the pathetic Nokia lineup. Their top end phones are based on Windows Phone, a system nobody seems very interested in. Their middle tier is still running Symbian which is now a pale copy of Android. And their feature phones - such as the Asha series and X2 -02 which I own - offer sub par features with the added attraction of instability and bugs.

I think Nokia's fate was cemented once Mr Stephen Elop stepped into the CEO's shoes. The decision to abandon Symbian has been disastrous. This is the guy who, while announcing the best Nokia handset ever (N9), also announced that Nokia was abandoning the excellent OS underlying the N9, Meego. This is the same Meego that Nokia previously spent a billion Euros on.

Today, there is an article by a worldwide respected industry expert, Mr Eldar Murtazin from Russia. I have seen Mr Murtazin go from a great Nokia champion to one of it's biggest opponents (with good reason, I might add). Here is a link to this great article. In the second part, I hope to cover my personal experiences with Nokia devices and chronicle the demise of a great company from a consumer's viewpoint.

http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2012/birulki-166-en.shtml

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