It looked like Nokia was financially struggling, as a result, its stock prices shrank and the collapse of the Soviet Union added to the agony of the company as it was a major customer for Nokia. He opposed the idea of selling the mobile-phone division of Nokia and turned it into a telecom-based company. This decision proved to be fruitful and helped Nokia to enter the golden period. In , it overtook Motorola and became the No. Nokia became a household name and continued to gather more ground in the market.
Nokia was the pioneer of innovation. It knew that mobile phones are the future and it capitalized on the opportunity. In the following years, it launched many different phones.
Nokia became the first company to introduce a camera on a mobile phone. In , the market share of Nokia swelled up to Thus, began the downfall of the telecom giant. From being the largest telecom company in the world in to being on the brink of bankruptcy in , Nokia saw their worst days. The downfall of Nokia was a consequence of many internal and external factors. There were many reasons that led to the failure of Nokia. Among them, the major reasons were:.
When Nokia realized its mistakes, it was a little too late, by then Apple and Google were already established in the market and their market share was steadily declining. One year later, Nokia announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft and adopted Windows OS for the phones. This decision was taken in hopes of reviving Nokia as a smartphone brand. The main problem with Windows phones was the limited number of apps. Nokia sales declined further in and The state of Nokia deteriorated to a point where it was going to become bankrupt.
The venture was called Nokia Siemens Networks. And while Intel had been busy pushing its own WiMAX wireless broadband tech, it only managed to burn a lot of cash in the process. For the MeeGo collaboration, this translated into even more delays while LTE support was being developed. That said, the Finnish company was still the second largest smartphone vendor in the world, but this was only the beginning of its decline. Furthermore, Nokia had a strong fanbase and owned a strong portfolio of intellectual property, but that year the company realized this was no longer enough.
There was a ton of internal debate over how to pivot from this situation, and of course, one of the proposals was a move to Android. For Nokia, moving to Android would have been relatively low-risk for a number of reasons.
This would instantly solve the issue of compatibility with the Android OS, and provide access to an arguably better app ecosystem, complete with a larger population of developers. At the same time, the combined might of Nokia and Google could have given both a strong foothold in the mobile space. And for a company that had become used to controlling the software running on its phones, ceding some of this control to Google was seen as a ridiculous move.
A move to Android would also be an uphill against Samsung, who was already seen as the king of Android phones. For some at Nokia, Microsoft seemed like the most logical choice of partner moving forward. The two companies had already been working together to bring the Office Mobile suite to Symbian, which was heralded as the beginning of a long-term partnership on developing mobile productivity and collaboration tools.
At the same time, both Nokia and Microsoft would have to build a strong app ecosystem, and neither excelled in that area. In the middle of this internal debate about future strategy, Nokia underwent another reshuffling in an effort to further simplify its corporate structure. But without a coherent strategy in place, the expensive restructuring was frowned upon by shareholders, who thought this was a sign that Kallasvuo was no longer fit for the role of CEO.
Nokia still held a strong position in the smartphone market, with a 38 percent share of the global sales, but market researchers at Gartner predicted at the time that Symbian would soon be overtaken by Android while Windows Phone would slowly wither away over time. Another option would have been Anssi Vanjoki, who had been cooking up a rescue strategy for Nokia around high-end smartphones running MeeGo.
However, Vanjoki was a passionate, outspoken leader who often clashed with the Nokia board, so Elop was ultimately seen as the better fit.
Vanjoki resigned the day the decision was made. However, he had his doubts about whether this was the best way forward, so he also became preoccupied with the idea of expanding on the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. He also saw MeeGo development as slow and Symbian as a growing barrier to making progress in being more competitive against these emerging platforms. On February 11, , the Elopian Nokia announced it was going to forge a broad strategic partnership with Microsoft to create a new global mobile ecosystem.
However, the latter assumed the right to license the OS to third parties. Support for Symbian phones would soon be outsourced to Accenture, along with the transferring of 2, engineers to the latter firm. As for MeeGo, it would be open-sourced and was to become a tool for experimentation for next-generation devices and platforms.
News of the radical pivot sent Nokia shares tumbling and left many Nokians in shock, especially as the company would also cut thousands of jobs and close some research and development centers in the process. Elop proceeded to replace them with other Nokians, which earned him some love internally.
With this out of the way, Elop began mapping roles across Microsoft and Nokia to ensure every part of Windows Phone development would go smoothly, from product architecture to features and everything in between.
This was seen by Nokians as a breath of fresh air, and at first they were very impressed with this new partnership with Microsofties. Nokia was preparing the release of its first and last MeeGo phone, the N9. This was a fascinating device that received a lot of praise for its unique industrial design, beautiful screen, sturdy construction, excellent battery life, great camera quality, and friendly user interface. Despite being quite chunky and over 12 mm at its thickest, they way the body was curved and the way the screen looked as if it melted into the body of the phone made this a very good looking device.
In retrospect, its exterior design has aged gracefully when compared to many phones of that era. The 3. The 8-megapixel camera, while admittedly a step down form the megapixel shooter on its predecessor, the N8, still produced decent quality images and video worthy of a Nokia flagship phone. The Swipe UI made one-handed use a pleasant experience, while the double tap to wake function would bring up the lockscreen, no buttons needed.
It turned out that Nokia had put a great deal of faith in brand loyalty, but most people were reluctant to make the jump from Symbian to Windows Phone, no matter how good the hardware was. The Lumia that Nokia launched that year looked quite similar to the Nokia N9 in terms of design, but the internals were different and the operating system even more so.
On the outside, the most notable differences included a set of capacitive Windows Phone navigation keys on the front, a dedicated shutter button, and a smaller screen. Battery life varied a lot with use, but the Lumia could easily make it through a day of use. The Windows Phone experience was eventually infused with some Nokia improvements here and there, namely swipe gestures and double-tap-to-wake, but they were not there at launch.
Some loved the Live Tiles on the home screen, which were a unique take on how widgets should look like, while others loathed this design. The same was true for the entire Metro Design Language that was applied throughout the Windows Phone user interface — a lot of Microsoft Zune fans loved it, plenty were drawn to its minimalist, flat interface, but there were also people who found it lifeless in comparison to iOS and Android.
Otherwise, the Lumia ran Windows Phone 7. That includes the Lumia , a device that Nokia released only months before the new operating system was launched. The only upgrade these devices would see over time was Windows Phone 7. It had numerous improvements over Windows Phone 7, the first of which was the ability to resize Live Tiles on the Start screen. The lock screen allowed you to customize up to five apps to show the number of notifications and one for detailed notifications.
Then there was support for better hardware such as multi-core Qualcomm chipsets, higher resolution displays, as well as support for NFC and microSD cards. Microsoft owned Skype and had begun integrating it into Windows Phone, and the introduction of Internet Explorer 10 brought a lot of improvements to the web browsing experience, from better HTML5 support to a faster rendering engine.
There was also an Xbox Smart Glass app that allowed you to control your Xbox console. When using the Camera app, you could now install so-called Lenses that were essentially plugins that added certain functionality, like adding filters or scanning QR codes. By the end of , it was estimated that Nokia had sold over 1 million Lumia devices, which seemed almost like an optimistic number if you ignore that in one of every two smartphones sold worldwide were Nokia smartphones. He was soon followed by chairman Jorma Ollila, who had already announced he would resign in In February , Nokia announced it would cut 4, jobs at its phone manufacturing plants, and that was followed in June by a second round of 10, jobs, bringing the total at over 40, job cuts since Elop took on his role as Nokia CEO.
These smartphones came in 3G and 4G variants, and offered some improvements such as better screens, PureView cameras, faster processors, and Qi wireless charging.
Reviewers found them great in terms of hardware and praised the Nokia software enhancements, but again stressed the deficient app ecosystem as a reason to steer clear for most people.
Still, Nokia powered through with the introduction of the Lumia , which was exclusive to Verizon in the US. It was also in that Nokia revealed that Symbian had reached the end of the line, after sales volume dipped below half that of Lumia handsets.
Coupled with support for 3x optical zoom and the ability to adapt for both and aspect ratios, this earned the PureView a reputation as one of the best camera phones in history. The dual microphone setup also helped users capture better audio than most other phones at the time, especially when recording video at a concert.
Nokia had been working for years to perfect the camera technology in this device, which was making use of pixel binning to produce higher quality stills well before this imaging technique would became cool. However, the large size of the camera module posed some design challenges, so Nokia had to shave off some of the thickness of the phone to make it more appealing in an era where phone manufacturers were striving for the thinnest and lightest designs.
This resulted in a large camera bump on the back of the PureView — a polarizing design choice at the time but quite common today. By this time, the app situation was also somewhat improved, with most major apps covered and plenty of third-party clients for the ones that were missing. Still, many outside of Nokia as well as inside the company did wonder if Android could have been a better fit for Lumia phones.
The Lumia was infused with a lot of DNA from both Nokia and Microsoft, from its chunky and colorful unibody polycarbonate construction to its powerful rear camera with Carl Zeiss optics, to its ClearBlack display that paired perfectly with the black background of the type- and motion-heavy user interface of Windows Phone.
It was the ultimate embodiment of our camera-obsessed culture, and most — if not all —people who bought one will attest to you that it got them excited about taking photos of everything.
That is, until you wanted to take pictures in dual-capture mode, which saved a megapixel image along with an oversampled 5-megapixel one. The Lumia Camera app had a lot of manual options you could fiddle with just like on a real camera, and the experience was completed by the presence of a dedicated two-stage shutter button.
Fast forward to today for a minute and you still see people drawing comparisons between the camera kings of today and the old but gold Lumia Later that year, Nokia introduced the Lumia and the Lumia , two phones designed to appeal to people who wanted the largest screen possible. This would prove fruitless as the Windows RT experiment came to an abrupt end a mere two years later. Nokia continued to bleed money despite slow and steady growth of Lumia sales.
The company revealed during an investor call that it had sold 8. This was the ninth straight quarter where the company recorded losses, so the Nokia board scrambled to find a solution to the issue and in the process became open to the idea of selling the Devices and Services business unit to Microsoft. The Redmond giant saw this as an excellent opportunity to become a devices and services company, but for Nokia this was a necessary move to save the rest of its businesses — the HERE mapping service, the Nokia Siemens Networks unit, and the the Advanced Technologies licensing arm.
The deal ultimately saw some Nokians part ways, including Marko Ahtisaari, who oversaw the development of the Lumia hardware design language, and Lumia photography lead Ari Partinen, who went to Apple. The company also tried its luck with some short-lived consumer projects that involved licensing its intellectual property to third-party manufacturers such as Foxconn. It was only sold in China and Europe in relatively limited quantities, but Nokia still considered it a success.
Despite many fans yearning for Nokia to return to the consumer market in one way or another, the company quashed any rumors that suggested it had plans to do so. At the same time, it was eager to get rid of its HERE mapping unit, which was operating at a loss. One notable attempt resulted in the OZO VR camera system, a ludicrously expensive contraption that Nokia marketed to filmmakers as a great tool to capture degree video.
Despite its attractive, futuristic design and technical qualities, it failed to gain any traction and resulted in the discontinuation of the project two years after its unveiling. The company took a hit from this and was forced to cut jobs from its Advanced Technologies unit. The new group produced a number of fitness trackers, smart scales, and other digital health products, but none of these were a huge success. Eventually, the Finnish company found a new opportunity after Microsoft sold the feature phones business it had bought from Nokia to a Foxconn subsidiary called FIH Mobile, as well as newly-formed Finnish company called HMD Global that included several Nokia veterans and faithfuls.
Some of these came straight to HMD Global after being laid off from Microsoft, as the latter sought to streamline its Devices business. Nokia agreed to license its brand to HMD, who would proceed to flood the market with Android and feature phones, including revivals of a few popular Nokia phones from the early s. Reviewers praised the detailed pictures produced by the Nokia 9 and noted the internal hardware was a bit dated. Yet, there's hardly anything to differentiate these devices to comparable alternatives from other manufacturers.
That they sell in the millions is a testament to the lingering power of the Nokia brand and the legacy it created. Some speculate the Nokia brand still has a chance of a real comeback that would see it catch up with the top five global smartphone brands. The company is slowly expanding in more markets and has some 5G handsets in the pipeline that should make an appearance soon. That said, HMD is taking the slow and steady approach that revolves around churning decent mid-range phones and encouraging hundreds of millions of people who still use feature phones to upgrade to a Nokia smartphone.
There will be some flagships here and there, but at this stage HMD is mostly focused on building momentum. As it stands, the two Finnish companies have a relatively low risk arrangement where one licenses its brand and intellectual property while the other uses several original design manufacturers in China to produce phones with minimal development costs.
The present-day Nokia is almost entirely focused on becoming the front-runner in the race to supply mobile operators around the world with 5G equipment. After a difficult and the appointment of a new CEO, the company started a painful restructuring that will see 10, jobs being cut in the coming years. For now, Nokia remains afloat and even edges out its competitors in the telecom market in terms of contracts, while HMD is trying its best to build Nokia back into a household name.
The book authors conducted interviews with over people, many of them Nokians that had worked or were still working at the company. In the book, the authors ask the question whether he was the wrong person to lead the company at the time. Many felt his portrayal of the situation was an exaggeration that was carefully timed so as to get the Nokia leadership to be more receptive to a radical action plan.
When Elop assessed the viability of the MeeGo project, he became acutely aware that it was going to need more time before anything good could come out of it. In retrospect, sunsetting MeeGo was probably a bad decision, even if the project was clearly overstaffed.
Instead, Nokia could have built a compatibility layer to let Android apps run on MeeGo handsets, which could have solved the problem of app availability. The announcement that Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as the de facto operating system for its handsets moving forward left the impression that Symbian and MeeGo were already dead. The sale of its billionth phone in Nigeria the following year underlined the global reach it had achieved. Trouble was around the corner.
A product recall affecting up to 46m handsets in dented its reputation. Yet the factor that would topple Nokia so spectacularly was not in its own factories, but Apple's. The launch of the iPhone made Nokia's conventional phones suddenly look as dated as the Gorba. Nokia profits slumped while iPhone sales boomed. Financial crisis compounded its woes: more job cuts followed. Nokia bosses admitted they had been too slow to respond to the new technology. In profits turned to losses. With Samsung and Google's Android also menacing, Nokia called in a first non-Finnish chief executive to turn things round, installing former Microsoft man Stephen Elop at the helm.
Elop could not deliver good news.
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