Thanks a lot for this story. Elop decisions, especially considering the actuals products and this story, might have been the best at the time. As people say, "to fight the next battle, you must first survive"
I remember feeling uneasy when the Qt move was announced, but this story gives all the background info, and all the pieces fit it.
Qt might have seemed like a good idea given the proximity of trolltech and the possibility of joining Symbian and Meego, but it was just a too much - even for Nokia. They should have killed either one of the projects so that the other could have survived - preferably Symbian since it might have looked like another PalmOS-style agony.
Anyway, Nokia seems to be back on track. If the windows phone deal goes sour and Jolla proves that Qt was a good idea, Nokia can still license it - or try resurrecting something else like webos.
I sure don't see them going the Android route, where the phones have become a commodity.
Too bad they didn't keep using GTK. The N900 was not market ready, but with another couple of iterations it could have been. Trying to add in Qt just sealed their coffin.
Android phones are not a commodity. That a lot of the Android phone models are cheap, goes to show that there is a really big market for phones that sell for a few bucks on a 2-year old contract.
However take for instance the Galaxy S phones. Galaxy S III sells for €569 without a contract in my country, and with a subsidised price of €219 for a €37/month contract.
That's not cheap, and it isn't a commodity. Down here Galaxy S devices have always been at about the same price as iPhone models. And people still buy them like crazy, even if the average monthly salary is less than €1000 per month.
The market is big and only growing. There is enough room for everybody, low-end or high-end.
It's a little ironic you say that though, because that is how Nokia grew, by commoditizing phones. They basically created the feature-phone market.
I presume you mean the N9? The N900 was Nokia's inaugural WP7 phone.
I still want to get one one day, probably not for daily use, but as a historical artifact from the history of the mobile revolution, a tragically brilliant product born at exactly the wrong time.
I remember feeling uneasy when the Qt move was announced, but this story gives all the background info, and all the pieces fit it.
Qt might have seemed like a good idea given the proximity of trolltech and the possibility of joining Symbian and Meego, but it was just a too much - even for Nokia. They should have killed either one of the projects so that the other could have survived - preferably Symbian since it might have looked like another PalmOS-style agony.
Anyway, Nokia seems to be back on track. If the windows phone deal goes sour and Jolla proves that Qt was a good idea, Nokia can still license it - or try resurrecting something else like webos.
I sure don't see them going the Android route, where the phones have become a commodity.
Too bad they didn't keep using GTK. The N900 was not market ready, but with another couple of iterations it could have been. Trying to add in Qt just sealed their coffin.
(BTW I deeply love my N900, which I still use.)