Nokia Selling Its Headquarters To Raise Funds 186
PolygamousRanchKid writes with news the Nokia is looking to generate some cash by selling its headquarters and leasing it back from the new owner. The sale price for the 48,000 sq. meter building is €170 million.
"The struggling mobile phone company has operated in the glass and steel building in Espoo near Helsinki, known as Nokia House, since 1997. The sale is another step towards reducing costs and concentrating on its core business. Nokia has spent almost a third of its cash reserves in 12 months, and in October had about €3.6bn left in the bank to turn itself into a smartphone manufacturer capable of competing with Apple and Samsung."
Tax or Financial Engineering (Score:3)
I wonder if they are doing this for
Tax Reasons: In the U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts have favorable tax treatment – which is why the owner of the building and the occupier of the building is almost never the same, or for
Financial Engineering reasons: a one time transaction to raise cash and is good window dressing for the financial statements. Better than taking out a mortgage, but it’s only a one time, stop gap measure.
Re:Tax or Financial Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
3) Monetary reasons. They actually need the cash right now to stay in business. They're betting on a recovery and future sales covering the cost of money. (Speaking as having worked for a failing company that tried this. It probably helped them stay in business for a few more months.)
Re:Tax or Financial Engineering (Score:4, Interesting)
4) Protection from a hostile takeover. The first thing that corporate raiders look at, is what assets a distressed company has. If the stock market value of a company is less than its physical or intellectual property assets, you can by it, sell the assets, close up shop, and make a tidy profit.
Nokia has just made itself 170 million € less attractive to corporate raiders.
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1. 7 Digit UID, check.
2. Bashing non-conservative talking points, check.
3. Talking about the stock market as if it is not a rigged game for the rich, check.
Why is this post not at -1?
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Er – I am not a jaded socialist.
If Finland’s tax code allows REITs then this maneuver will create long term value for the company. (I dislike REITs because the REIT tax code distorts the real economy - which might give you a hint where I am on the political / economic spectrum).
If Nokia is doing this for some quick cash and for some window dressing to its balance sheet – that is something else. That would reek of short term desperation – which implies long term hardship.
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Stop doing that then. A get rich fast scheme is hardly worth your life.
A really sad demise (Score:5, Interesting)
I was one of a series of consultants they did not listen to with regard to Open Sourcing Symbian and what was, and was not, still of value in Symbian at that late date. Much of what they really valued - like the Symbian kernel - wasn't really business-differentiating in the eyes of the customer and nobody wanted it any longer, but yet they spent Billions on it.
Their destiny is to become a patent troll or to have their assets bought by one. What a shame.
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Maybe I'm not the average customer but the Symbian kernel is differentiating to me. Symbian phones are fast as hell and have battery life that Linux and BSD powered smartphones can only dream of.
Re:A really sad demise (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe so, but would you have spent a king's ransom to make it run IPV6? I think they did.
What demise? (Score:2)
So, they are in the sad company of their neighbors in Keilaniemi, like Kone and Fortum, who have also sold their headquarters to real estate conglomerates years ago and stayed on as tenants. Of those, only Neste Oil still owns their HQ.
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And if they can't fix the company, holding onto that ownership title will help them how?
It can be the case of somebody finally taking a hard look on things and saying: "WTF are we still doing this when we could get 170 million now and save on upkeep costs in the long run". Makes sense when a corporation optimizes its finances. It evidently made sense to Kone, who are not in any kind of trouble.
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How exactly would they save on upkeep costs in the long run?
Whoever they lease the building from is going to want the building properly maintained (especially considering nokia aren't likely to be around very long, so they will need to find replacement tenants soon), as well as making a profit from leasing it out,
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It was an anecdote for a while that their MeeGo / Harmattan based N9 was outselling their entire Lumia line combined, despite Nokia doing it's best to bury the thing, by not selling it in such core markets as the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc ... this may have been true of Q4 2011, although Nokia have released no real numbers on the N9.
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of course they are. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why of course they are selling the headquarters. Why would Microsoft need it when they already have a headquarters? All they just want the patents software(nokia maps) talent and factories. They already have all the bureaucracy and buildings they need.
Re:of course they are. (Score:5, Insightful)
Side note, does Microsoft actually need Nokia's factories or talent? Once Microsoft owns the IP, can't they simply close everything down and move the business to the US, and the manufacturing to China? If Microsoft is only concerned with (essentially) one product (the Windows 8 phone), why would they need Nokia's talent at all?
Side side note, I wonder if this will have an appreciable effect on the economy of Finland? (Probably not, but I don't have the numbers in front of me.)
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They probably don't "need it" but with the MS surface move Microsoft has made signals that they want a more apple like hardware operation, where they control hardware and software. Nokia has everything MS need aside for a phone and tablet show. Nokia had had dismal product lines recently but that because their CEO is trying to kill them so his former employer can buy up Nokia on the cheap. mind you much of thier products lines failing has been because they killed everything except windows phone but even the
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Let me try to refine this question - Do you want to manufacture high quality phones or clone phones? I don’t know the answer.
Nokia is known for 1. Engineers who make really good hardware and 2. High quality manufacturing in context of supplying different models in different markets (think different languages, networking standards, supply chains, etc.).
Now, can Nokia charge a premium for it’s hardware over it’s rivals “beige box” android rivals? If the answer is yet then MSFT sh
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> Let me try to refine this question - Do you want to manufacture high quality phones or clone phones? I don’t know the answer.
In the context of this question, you want to manufacture Windows 8 phones, and *only* Windows 8 phones. Whether that falls into either above category is a matter of opinion.
> Nokia is known for 1. Engineers who make really good hardware and 2. High quality manufacturing in context of supplying different models in different markets (think different languages, networking
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Many Nokia factories are in other parts of Europe (or further) with cheaper labor rates. To be fair there was also some sense of being a larger EU/World player than just a Finnish brand. But some bad blood generated when they backed out of factory plans in Bochum Germany.
The Nokia talent is good though, better than MS talent. If MS wants to make a good phone then there is no better place to look for talent; unless they merely want an inexpensive phone. However phones these days aren't really much in the
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Ooh. Well done, Microsoft. I wonder if they had some investments on the exchange rate markets.
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I understand, but if Microsoft acquires them, that will all by necessity go away.
Google sells Android for less than free ... (Score:2)
Microsoft charged money for their software, and Nokia is history.
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Seen how much money Microsoft is making out of Android?
Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seen how much money Microsoft is making out of Android?
More than they make from Windows Phone.
Android is all swag (Score:2)
Google makes more from iOS than they do from Android.
and Apple basically just prints money
I bet you can't show me current figures to support your claim. Ignoring the indirect benefits of not having another vendor dominate the smart-phone market, when you want make money from advertising on mobile, or the intangible benefits it brings like heavily promoting its brands Google; Chrome; Android; Nexus; Gmail; Play; Wallet; Google+ etc. I suspect the direct benefit from taking a cut from every sale on play as it continues to be launched; inproved; expanded.
As for Apple printing money...absolutely, bu
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As for Apple printing money...absolutely, but as the tablet; phone market continue to mature its pursuit of profit over marketshare. Is looking increasingly shaky, but hey they learnt last time they did this right....
I don't understand all the people who measure and forecast success according to marketshare. Minority platforms not only can be healthy, they also can outperform majority platforms.
For one obvious example, Apple has about 10% marketshare for computers and low single-digit percentage in the installed base. Yet, Apple has fully dominated the consumer computer industry in terms of profit and growth. Apple does better than every single one of its competitors in consumer computing (selling new computers) becaus
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Why does anyone even talk about smartphone OS marketshare as if it matters?
Because it matters. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html [cnet.com].
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I bet you can't show me current figures to support your claim.
Eric Schmidt's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Hearing, August last year. He admitted that two thirds of Google's revenue from mobile comes from Apple devices.
Nobody knows? (Score:2)
Seen how much money Microsoft is making out of Android?
What money!? There is loads of nominal amounts listed around the internet, Thinks hinted at of what has happened behind closed doors. We know a lot of deals have been struck we just can only speculate at what they are. The reality is I suspect very little actual money has changed hands.
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Apple irrelevant; Android got swag (Score:2)
the fact of the matter is that for every vendor making money off of Android at least a dozen have come and failed.
Show me these facts. The irony in reference to this post is Asus and Sony are now profitable since they dropped Windows. Samsung I believe is making out like gangbusters. Lenovo; ZTE; Huawei doing great. Stop spreading this ill informed garbage.
Oh your making a point about your beloved Apple making lots of profits...I'm afraid Apples pursuit of profits is already hurting Apples market share, which didn't work out well l
You need to reread your links. (Score:2)
Yes, their market share has gone down because the market has expanded with tons of shitty Android phones flooding the market not because they are selling less phones and tablets.
LOL and that is the point. Android had great phones at every price range...apple have only one phone, and its poor value..and its killing them. You need to recheck your links [those that aren't behind paywalls] I don't think you read them they include quotes like "now held over 12 percent of the Chinese smartphone market." and "It also claimed that the Ascend P1 and Ascend D1 had become best selling handsets in China, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and Canada"...a market Apple is being outsold 21:1 by And
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Why a smart phone manufacturer? (Score:2)
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I would highly doubt that market is anywhere near as profitable as the smartphone market was.
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But it's going to be a diminishing market. The majority of phones seem to be offered on a plan basis in Western countries, so even phones which would be prohibitively expensive up front are available to people who would otherwise get feature phones.
The only people I know with feature phones are people who explicitly do not want a smart phone (generally, but not always, the older generation). For most people, the cost difference between a plan with a feature phone, and a plan with a smart phone is marginal.
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Cancelling troll mod because phone moderation is a bad idea.
They gave it away (Score:2)
There is still a big feature phone market out there.
Elop destroyed it by saying they were crap. In fact the OS set to replace symbian on these featurephones, the linux based "Meltemi" was cancelled make of that what you will. Samsung [featurephones]...and well "Value Android" are replacing these. I think you will be astonished at how powerful these value androids are...Check out the Huawei Ascend G330 look at the specs http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_ascend_g330-4966.php [gsmarena.com].
They DIDN'T give it away (Score:3)
Nokia is selling featurephones like hotcakes, they just don't run that ugly OS called Symbian. No Linux either, but who says that everything under the sun should run Linux?
Just because you don't see these phones sold on the perennially screwed U.S. market does not give you an excuse to repeat misinformation.
They need to sell Finland (Score:2)
Finland's GDP was US$189.4 billion in 2010 v's Apple's revenue of US$156.508 billion in 2012. Hard to compete when you rival's revenue exceeds your own countries' GPD.
Re:They need to sell Finland (Score:4, Interesting)
GDP is more akin to profit then to revenue. Apple's net profit was 47b in 2012, or about 1/4 of Finland. We should compare apples to Apple.
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GDP is more akin to profit then to revenue. Apple's net profit was 47b in 2012, or about 1/4 of Finland. We should compare apples to Apple.
False.
Whichever method you use for calculating GDP, it is measuring economic activity -thus revenue, not profit.
Simply put: "[GDP] is akin to ignoring a company's balance sheet, and judging it solely on the basis of its income statement." http://en.wikipedia.or [wikipedia.org]
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I am going to disagree with you.
Pick apart the wiki article you posted and you will see things like: .Corporate profits
Production approach: Net Value Added = Gross Value of output – Value of Intermediate Consumption. (where Gross value of output is revenue) or
Income approach:
Etc.
Here is an example.
In country Y
Manufacture A has revenue of 45b and profits of 5b.
Middle Man B distributes company’s A product. It has revues of 50b
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Maybe for phones – but smartphones are the future – and it does not look pretty for Nokia.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart-6 [economist.com]
Makes you wonder... (Score:2)
Is Apple doing well (Score:3)
Apple is doing well now
Apple had had billions wiped off its value; Its market share is declining; The launch quarter figures for its most profitable product the iphone, and its new product the iPad is already being overtaken by Android...again. There last product launch the mini, was disappointing.
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The thing is, Apple went through hard times and managed to turn things around. People were predicting they would go out of business for years, then came iTunes, OS X, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, all of which have been resounding successes, propelling Apple to previously unthinkable heights.
Nokia actually has a similar story. It's an old company, and they have been in many businesses that they have since abandoned for more profitable ones. The question is: Will they be able to do it again?
As far as I
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Part of the decline of Apple during the mid-80s was due to the incredibly inept management that Apple used after Jobs left, but Jobs wasn't exactly instilling the same values at Apple back then that he did in his second tenure.
It was Apple's arrogance that caused the hardships of the 90s, and their recognition of that arrogance and the purging of all the busywork ridiculous money-bleeding projects, as well as a good amount of luck and a nice fat settlement of what could have been a billion dollar lawsuit ov
How long before (Score:2)
they put Navteq up for sale?
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How much money do you think Apple would pay for it, considering the spotlight shown on their rather mediocre maps app?
The Microsoft and the Nokia (Score:5, Interesting)
A Microsoft asked a Nokia to carry him across a river. The Nokia refused because it was afraid of getting stung by the Microsoft. But the clever Microsoft argued that if it stings the Nokia then they would both drown. So the Nokia agrees and carries the Microsoft into the river. Halfway across the Microsoft stings the Nokia dooming them both. In its dying breath the Nokia asks the Microsoft why it did such a thing. The Microsoft replies "it is my nature".
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A Microsoft asked a Nokia to carry him across a river. The Nokia
refused because it was afraid of getting stung by the Microsoft.
But the clever Microsoft argued that if it stings the Nokia then
they would both drown. So the Nokia agrees and carries the
Microsoft into the river. Halfway across the Microsoft stings
the Nokia dooming them both. In its dying breath the Nokia asks
the Microsoft why it did such a thing.
The Microsoft looks to HTC and Samsung as the Nokia sank. Grinning, it reaches for Nokia's patents as it goes under, whispering, "You see, Nokia, I can swim."
sell the HQ (Score:2)
Congress could sell the Capitol building to aid in reducing the deficit
California: ahead of the curve (Score:2)
California was going to try to sell and lease-back a few buildings, but they bailed out before they did the deed...
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The Capitol building is OK. It just needs to be fumigated.
Nokia Meets Monty Python's Meaning of Life (Score:3)
You see, we leased this back from the company we sold it to, and that way it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.
Everyone applauds.
Reduce costs? (Score:2)
This won't reduce costs, day to day costs will increase as they will now be leasing the building and the new owners will want to profit from doing so, it will just give them a temporary injection of cash.
There can be only 2 (Score:2)
There are only two phone companies: Samsung and Apple. All others will disappear soon.
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Worked out great for Google!
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Google got a nice campus out of it.
Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is SLASHDOT. We are BIAS.
You mean the company that single handedly set the web back at least five years and has been criminally convicted for anti competitive behavior and the company that is being run into the ground by the 8th largest shareholder of the previously mentioned company?
Gee, I wonder why anyone would hate them.
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...and has been criminally convicted for anti competitive behavior...
Not to nitpick too much, but the court decision was not criminal and therefore not a "conviction". It was a civil anti-trust suit.
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I'll try that one - the ruling forced Microsoft to survive on the merits of their products rather than strong arm tactics to force business partners to submit to their wishes. No innovation allowed that would circumvent their leverage of Office into every other aspect of business computing.
There was lots of innovation going on and lots of excitement about what could be done with a microcomputer. Microsoft uniquely understood the power of cross platform capabilities (that's exactly where they started - porti
Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly how did MS set the web back 5 years?
Oh.. that 5 year span when NOTHING improved on IE? That piece of time between the death of Netscape and the advent of tabbed browsing (and RSS feeds) on Firefox? The lack of innovation certainly WAS Microsoft's fault. Not only that, it was their plan - eliminate everything else so they didn't have to spend money on competition.
People used IE in the early 2000s because it came with the computer. Microsoft had won the desktop wars and with it, everything else. The era of being cross platform was gone. Everyone clicked the Big Blue E to get on the Internet and nobody was going to PAY for Netscape. IE was the logical choice as most people thought Microsoft was the only source for computer software. Under threat of never seeing your precious Word and Excel documents again, they were right.
The ability to stifle innovation (including their own) came from two things; Microsoft Server Extensions and tolerance to really bad code, both of which were a good thing in a way. The big problem with Netscape at the time is they were trying really hard to be W3C standards compliant and, except for the addition of Java to Netscape, things moved very slowly. Microsoft grew impatient with the W3C and leapt out way ahead with Server Extensions, those little addons which made the browser much more like a client-server relationship instead of the stateless relationship originally intended with browsers. Front Page made it easy to activate complex tasks by moving the heavy lifting to the server and calling it with a simple trigger in HTML.
Of course, Server Extensions brought many new capabilities never before seen on a browser, something the W3C couldn't keep up with and it was never Microsoft's intention to standardize them (as in go through a standards committee to define and publish the technology). The problem was that all these sites were "IE Only". Microsoft was VERY close to ensuring anyone not using a totally Microsoft technology chain on the Internet saw a blank screen. In other words, they nearly owned the Internet.
IE's tolerance for bad coding was good for IE users as it rendered pages with broken code pretty well. Microsoft handed out a lot of free copies of Front Page to create this broken code which would render with unexpected results on other browsers. Front Page (and plain bad hand coding) made anything other than IE look illiterate. That's the price of sitting around on your hands. Microsoft was there to take it all away in a long series of brilliant chess moves... and then everything went thud for a while.
It actually functioned rather well when it was novel, but nothing moved in terms of real technical advances unless Microsoft was threatened by some shred of competition which was quickly squashed. The next software patch would allow IE to do the same thing for free but for Windows only. Otherwise, Microsoft pretty much sat on their asses and took their sweet old time releasing anything new. Innovation was dead as long as nobody dared try to use anything else.
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There was Opera "between the death of Netscape and the advent of tabbed browsing (and RSS feeds) on Firefox".
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Which at the time was not free, and could not render many of the broken sites designed specifically for ie... The fact that it was the sites that were broken and not the browser didn't matter to users, they blamed the browser.
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People used IE in the early 2000s because it came with the computer.
I'm an IT guy, I used IE because it was better than anything else available at the time. Most other "people" clearly thought the same thing.
most people thought Microsoft was the only source for computer software. Under threat of never seeing your precious Word and Excel documents again, they were right.
Crap. People used MS because it was the one of the only producers of user friendly software that wasn't a pile of steaming dog turd. Firefox, Apple and Google showed that if you produce quality products, people will use them.
Innovation was dead as long as nobody dared try to use anything else.
Jesus fucking Christ, if innovation died then where the fuck did Apple and Google and Facebook come from? The biggest IT companies around all ca
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Jesus fucking Christ yourself, buddy. Apple, Google and Facebook was disruptive to Microsoft and only had a choice to face an uphill battle against it or partner with it. There were innovators and practically every one of them had to battle Microsoft in one way or another. Hell, Microsoft even viewed newspapers and television as competition. I'm an IT guy too with the difference that I also saw the strengths of things NOT Microsoft.
It's pretty well documented that Microsoft leveraged three things because of
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It's really hard to have an intelligent exchange just about anywhere, and you're becoming a poster child as to why.
Ever hear of "embrace, extend, extinguish"? Microsoft built in browser incompatibilities with an object tag for ActiveX to make sure Netscape and Opera performed poorly (Opera sued for that), MSN.com even served a different CSS to Opera visitors to make it look broken, for a while, you saw a blank screen on msn.com unless your user-agent string said MSIE, they extended and broke CSS favoring th
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I refute your claim that NS was trying to support standards any more than IE was, and assert that they were trying harder to deviate from standards.
Netscape tried to push their own tag which was needed for overlapping elements in that browser (nothing else worked with z-index), a small violation of the HTML spec, and a huge violation of the CSS spec. They also didn't support any units except px, and sometimes %. Stylesheets wouldn't render at all if you turned off javascript. As others have said, it's a
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Better browsers were out for quite some time before firefox started gaining traction, and most of that was not because firefox was a better browser but because ie was a massive security hole and people were getting owned with drive by exploits on a regular basis.
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Re:Why O Why o Why ELOP??? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing they can do now is make Android phones, in a marketplace dominated by Samsung.
Their Linux OS efforts are now so far behind, and with the sale of Qt, not likely to pick up speed, that they can't take the risk of trying to introduce another "burning platform" to the mix. Apple are not going to license them iOS, and Windows Phone is obviously a no-go (does the N9 *still* outsell all their Lumia lines?)
The board are likely not able to mentally process the idea that the only way forward for Nokia is as a minority player in the smartphone market. They've been so used to dominating the mobile phone market, that anything that isn't domination just doesn't sound good enough. Windows Phone is their only hope for domination, because it's the only thing that can significantly differentiate them from all the Android phones out there.
Honestly, they should go for Android ASAP. Nokia still has brand recognition - they are still the iconic phone brand that people think of, still the most recognisable default ringtone in the world, still have a reputation for quality. They should leverage their ability to build decent hardware, slap Android on it, get out there in the market (Android is the *largest* high end mobile market), and fight for their survival.
Alas, they've become lazy. They don't want to fight - they didn't have to for so long. Instead, they are King of the Windows Phone market. Whoopee-do.
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Alas, they've become lazy. They don't want to fight - they didn't have to for so long.
They did fight! They just kept losing. Various Symbian refreshes and many years spent on Maemo/Meego that yielded only marketshare to iOS and Android.
Instead, they are King of the Windows Phone market. Whoopee-do.
Personally i think they should have become the champion of stock Android, with timely updates running the stock OS on well-built and well-engineered hardware, sticking to what Nokia is good at. But even that would be a big gamble and would make them a Nexus competitor. Making some Nokia-specific - but compatible - distribution of Android would probably offer l
Nothing to do with perhaps a Memo (Score:5, Insightful)
This is SLASHDOT. We are BIAS.
Its not bias of slashdot!? that has made Microsoft Windows Phone and that Nokia Strategy as popular Marmite covered spiders. Nokia twinning themselves *exclusively* with an OS that late; with less features and incompatible with its predecessors, with no viable upgrade path, with proprietary software...on hardware made in china; with less features than its predecessors or the competition at the cost to real peoples jobs, its market value, revenues; market share; brand value....only for it being replace with the latest suitor HTC [with the pattern repeated as Microsoft become their own OEM]. Has become a patent troll with Microsoft...while devaluing those patents to anyone who would have bought them.
I'm just barely touching the surface of what is perhaps a decline of company on an unrepresented scale. I find it insulting to an nth degree that anyone would try to pass anything, anyone saying anything against this is, as emotional, although I suspect the thousands of newly unemployed probably aren't loving them right now.
Re:Nothing to do with perhaps a Memo (Score:5, Funny)
Hehe... You said "surface"
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At least when IBM entered it's decline in the mid-80s and early 90s, it was smart enough to divest losing businesses (PC business, though Lenovo is making a go of it now) and rely on proven revenue where they make some of the best stuff on the market: servers and services.
Microsoft only has software, and it's dwindled to the Windows products, Office, and Exchange. Everything else is a loser, and the lack of innovation is starting to show cracks in the remaining three.
No hate here, just sorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is painful to see such a fantastic nerd friendly company hit bottom like this. I really would like them become a phoenix and raise from their ashes, but I'm not seeing it in the cards. But you know, if they would only ship an updated version of their famed N900 I'd certainly be willing to send another $600 their way, and I'd be willing to wager so would a few other million people as well. Hope those 170 million Euros will keep Nokia alive long enough to come to its senses.
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I've been watching Jolla, but thanks! The N9 doesn't even have a real keyboard so it is hardly a replacement for the N900.
Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I do not own any Nokia shares - and I thank the man upstairs for granting me the wisdom for keeping myself away from Nokia as far as I can.
Back to the main stuff ---
I still do not understand the rationale of Nokia's BoD hiring a M$ mole to run Nokia.
What's so special of that M$ mole in the first place?
I mean, look at Nokia now, versus the Nokia before that M$ mole took over.
Nokia was in a decline - yes, a decline, before the M$ mole was hired.
After that mole took over, Nokia took a nose dive.
No longer a decline, but a nosedive.
For how many quarters already Nokia has posted a loss?
Because of that M$ mole, Nokia has run out of cash - and now, even its HQ building has to be sold to raise some.
Man ...
As I have said - I just do.not.understand !!
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Samsung has more than 3 OS for their phones. It does not seem to hurt them. A company like Nokia could bet on several horses in 2009 without worries, as long as management had clear goals and niches for each OS. Making a Nokia build with Android OS would sell.
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Nokia could improve Symbian (big costs to improve the system itself, small costs in changing mindsharing) OR improve Meego (not so big costs improving the system, bigger costs creating another software ecosystem and gaining mindshre).
But no! Let's try another complete new thing. something that don't have mindshare, don't have software ecosystem and it's not even ready yet!
Windows Phone 7.5 was basically ready by the time they put out first phones with it. MeeGo... don't get me started, I worked on it. Nokia has Microsoft's shoulder now to drive the software ecosystem; alone, it did not stand a chance. The competencies simply weren't there in sufficient strength, and it would take a lot of time and pain to build them. Moreover, there was a lot of "anti-competency" in the company, all the dead weight accrued during the Symbian years.
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Nokia could improve Symbian (big costs to improve the system itself, small costs in changing mindsharing)
The reality is Symbian was never going to be able to compete with iOS and Android, the app selection would never get close thanks to the development tools, SDK and APIs making it painful to develop for.
improve Meego (not so big costs improving the system, bigger costs creating another software ecosystem and gaining mindshre).
They spent years on that project, then the merge with Moblin and got absolutely nowhere.
But no! Let's try another complete new thing. something that don't have mindshare, don't have software ecosystem and it's not even ready yet!
Well actually it was ready by the time Nokia were ready, and wrt mindshare and the software ecosystem they stood a far better chance with someone like Microsoft pushing those as well than they would going it alone. Sure th
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Also, it beg's the question, irregardlessly, I could care less?
This wins.
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It "reduces costs" on the VERY short term, as you get an influx of cash and then essentially have to pay it back plus the holding company's profit margin. A desperate company will try this at some point, hoping against hope that this allows them to stay in business long enough to turn it around.
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I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?
Re:"The sale is another step towards reducinCostco (Score:2)
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Some good points, but I've yet to see an instance where a company sold their buildings to a holding company so that they could grow or shrink or move elsewhere more efficiently. I've only ever seen it as a short term cash grab.
Even if you owned the buildings, you (as a company) probably did not build them, nor do you necessarily have to have a crew to maintain them. All that can be contracted out. Moreover, you can sell a building with a 30 year mortgage and still recover some equity, whereas getting out
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You're right, but it's, like, something to try before going under. A responsible CEO will try it. Of course, a responsible CEO wouldn't have been in the position in the first place, but never mind...