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Why Nokia left MeeGo behind: The multi-year backstory

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 13:29:20 +0000

Perhaps the biggest tech market bombshell in 2011 was Nokia’s announcement to partner with Microsoft and primarily become a Windows Phone hardware partner. After years of dominating the first smartphone age with its Symbian platform and later developing Maemo and MeeGo, Nokia’s move was a shocker. Clearly, something had to be done as the touchscreen smartphone age began dawning in 2007.

We still don’t yet know now this strategy overhaul will play out for Nokia as the first round of Lumia phones debuted earlier this year and the next generation of those, running Windows Phone 8, hit the market in the coming weeks. And we also don’t know exactly how Nokia arrived at this destination, although many of the high-level details were reported along the way.

Sampsa Kurri, founder the technology-centered site Muropaketti, does know, however. Kurri culled together bits and pieces of the story through interviews with Nokia employees based in Finland and offers up what I consider a must-read history of Nokia’s response to change, development efforts and operational choices that profoundly affected where the company is today.

Many of the details confirm the thoughts we had about what was going on at Nokia as it saw its share of the smartphone market tumble: Good ideas that were too late to implement as compared to products from more nimble competitors; considering Android long after some had advocated it; and a strategy of constant change for user interfaces and app development platforms.

If you read just one article today, I highly recommend it be Kurri’s detailed history of Nokia’s plans to propel the company forward in the face of iPhones and Androids and how its Maemo efforts fueled MeeGo only to go up in smoke for Nokia.

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Nokia’s wheels continue to fall off along the road

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:45:52 +0000

Richard Green, Nokia’s CTO, left the company today in order “to attend to a personal matter,” Nokia said. Nokia told The New York Times that Green’s return has “no specific timeline” and that the head of Nokia’s Research Center, Henry Tirri, would fill in for Green. The news of Green’s departure continues a string of personnel changes dating back to September, when Stephen Elop, then at Microsoft, was named Nokia’s new CEO.

Om and I briefly chatted this morning about the continued turmoil and he suggested the wheels may be falling off the company. I actually disagree: As I see it, the wheels have already fallen off and Nokia is simply skidding down the current road on the momentum it built as the world’s largest seller of handsets. Without wheels, that pace will stop, as evidenced by the company’s recent lowering of second-quarter and year-end outlooks. The situation has even caused Nokia to say it won’t be providing any future guidance. Sorry, but that’s not the simple problem of a blown tire.

Just one look at Nokia’s recent journey illustrates the problem:

February, 2010. Nokia merges its Maemo platform with Intel’s Moblin to create MeeGo, a mobile operating system that “will knock the socks off competitors,” I was told by a Nokia executive.
April, 2010. Nokia announces the N8 with a new version of Symbian to help it compete against growing platform share from Apple iOS and Google Android. The handset arrives in October to lackluster reviews.
September, 2010. The company looks outside the Nordic region and replaces Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo with Stephen Elop as CEO.
February, 2011. Elop drastically changes Nokia’s strategy of building both hardware and software by announcing a $1 billion partnership with Microsoft to use Windows Phone 7. Additionally, MeeGo is relegated from smartphone savior to second-class citizen as Elop calls it experimental going forward, dropping Intel like a bad date.
May, 2011. Amid low-cost Android handsets in Europe and Asia, Nokia says it expects Devices & Services’ operating margin to be substantially below its previously expected range of 6 to 9 percent, possibly becoming break-even.
June, 2011. Nokia stock hits a 13-year low.

I suspect Green doesn’t agree with the strategic changes, although that’s pure conjecture on my part. I don’t mean to lump him in with Nokia-at-large, but if I had to describe the company in just a few words, the phrase “receptive to change” wouldn’t come to mind. And if Green has personal matters to attend to, I surely wish him luck and strength. But for all of the bad coming from this situation, there’s good too because Nokia does need to change drastically and if it makes it through the current but risky transition and regains its wheels, it could be back on the road to success.

Finishing up the car analogy, Nokia’s smartphone situation reminds me of the Dodge Challenger. In the 1970s muscle car days, it was a popular model, but over time, lost its luster and was cancelled in 1983. Dodge later revived the Challenger in 2008 with a current design that included many throwback features to blend the best of the old with that of the new.

Windows Phone 7 is Nokia’s “Challenger”: The company has always made great hardware, and although not perfect, Microsoft gives Nokia some modern smartphone software for a future with potential.

Car crash image courtesy of Flickr user JJ_The_Jester
Challenger image courtesy of Flickr user butterflyx

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Could Nokia’s First MeeGo Device Be the N900?

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:15:40 +0000

Nokia’s N900 handset, which launched last year, is a step closer to running MeeGo, the open-source operating system that Nokia plans to challenge Apple and Google in the high-end smartphone and mobile device market. The latest big development brings support for 3G calling on the N900 through the MeeGo system, raising the possibility of full, official support for Nokia’s new operating system on an old Nokia handset.

Nokia’s MeeGo effort continues to develop, while the company has spent several years in a downward market share trend, dropping from 53.8 percent percent of all smartphones sold in the final quarter of 2006 to just 38.8 percent earlier this year, according to Canalys data. Nokia still sells the bulk of feature phones globally, but these devices have lower margins, leading Nokia’s net profit to drop by 40 percent in just one year.

The company’s Symbian S60 interface appears aged when compared to touch-friendly platforms like iOS and Android. Symbian^3 devices, which just starting shipping last month, are Nokia’s immediate answer to the problem, but MeeGo is the company strategy for higher-end devices, which may not be limited to smartphones.

Greater MeeGo support for the N900 isn’t completely surprising, although it comes at an interesting time for Nokia. When the company merged its Maemo efforts with Intel’s Moblin Project this February to create MeeGo, many N900 owners wondered if their Maemo device would be upgradable to MeeGo. Nokia’s message since that time has been “we’ll see,” at best, indicating that the N900 would continue to officially run Maemo, and not MeeGo. That made sense, because although MeeGo can run on ARM-powered handsets such as the N900, the platform focus is on X86-based Intel Atom-powered devices.

Over the past several months, however, the sentiment has changed as Nokia’s development team began to slowly bring greater support to the N900 for power users of the device. The official MeeGo blog reports that a future version of the operating system will support dual-booting on the N900 between both MeeGo and the Maemo platform that originally shipped with the device.

N900 Project Lead for the MeeGo effort, Harri Hakulinen, highlights what the news brings to current N900 owners, who once thought their device wouldn’t have much upgrade opportunity in the future:

On the Maemo side, there have been interesting, supporting developments going on, as well. The PR 1.3 update is quite close now, and with that you can easily dual boot between Maemo and Meego on your N900. There is also a possibility of developing applications supporting both operating systems, based on Qt and Qt Mobility APIs on the Maemo side. It means that you can develop once in PC with Qt Creator, and test your applications on both Maemo and MeeGo, directly on your N900 device!

As far as timing goes, Nokia has two important events coming up for MeeGo: a developer conference next month in Dublin and the expectation of a major MeeGo release milestone by the end of this year. Such a “milestone” may or may not be an actual device, based on my conversations with Nokia executives, which is a nebulous way of keeping options open. Next month’s MeeGo conference does have a session about the N900, however, so unless Nokia announces a new device for its MeeGo platform, the N900 is likely to be the unofficial first MeeGo device this year.

Indeed, the chances of another MeeGo handset or mobile device arriving this year are slim to none. With four new Symbian^3 devices currently on sale or arriving soon, Nokia will be focused on pushing these handsets to market through the holiday season. Intel, whose chips will power new MeeGo devices, has already tipped Nokia’s hand; an Intel executive associated to the MeeGo project reportedly said that MeeGo devices won’t arrive until 2011.

By not committing to a hardware date, Nokia can’t possibly be “late” if it doesn’t deliver a new MeeGo device in 2010. Who’s to say that the major milestone is simply a stable software release on test equipment? By improving support for MeeGo on the N900, Nokia gains the ability to say “we have a MeeGo device now” while it grabs valuable feedback on the operating system from current N900 owners. If Qt support comes to Maemo as Hakulinen mentions, developers get another test-bed for their apps, as well.

Essentially, it’s a win all around for Nokia, not to mention consumers that bought an N900 just before the device’s operating system was put on the back burner. By continuing to develop MeeGo for ARM devices, Nokia gains an out if the Intel Atom plans don’t work out as well as both companies expect them to.

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When Will Nokia's Smartphone Transition End?

Kevin C. Tofel — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0000

If you were in the handset business and were about to launch a flagship device, how would you build buzz around it? I can think of a number of ways, but with the Nokia N8, the Finnish company has done the opposite of every one of them. The new phone has the dubious distinction of being both the first and the last N-series handset built atop the new Symbian^3 platform. Nokia this week confirmed to CNet that going forward, all N-series phones will run on MeeGo, the open-source Linux-based operating system created by the merger of Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo platforms this past February.

To some degree, Nokia’s move towards MeeGo for high-end smartphones is actually old news. This past December, Nokia outlined a strategy that included delivery of the first Maemo 6 device in the second half of 2010. Maemo morphed into MeeGo two months later, so while the planned platform did shift, it was clear late last year that a change was underfoot. But Symbian was still in the mix at that time, with Nokia saying it would “re-engineer our Symbian user interface” in 2010. From what I’ve seen of Symbian^3 so far, Nokia is making progress, but now that progress will be applied to lower-end smartphones — even after it designed a potentially high-margin, flagship Symbian^3 device. As far as I’m concerned, that means Nokia still hasn’t quite figured out what it takes to compete well in today’s high-end, smartphone market.

Rafe Blandford from All About Maemo provides an interesting editorial take on Nokia’s strategic plans for MeeGo and the N-series devices, suggesting the web is making much ado about nothing:

One of the consequences of the narrowed scope of Nseries devices and fierce competition at the high end is that Symbian-powered Nseries devices make up only a small proportion (12% in Q1 2010, less now) of Nokia’s total Symbian device sales. The perception that the majority of Nokia’s Symbian devices are Nseries is simply inaccurate. As such, the end of Symbian-powered Nseries devices will have a relatively small impact on Nokia’s overall Symbian sales.

The figures Rafe quotes actually indicate to me that the problem is bigger than some perceive. If Nokia’s high-end smartphone series — where profit margins and opportunities for value-add services are greater — is small and shrinking, how is that a good thing? Yes, Nokia rules the worldwide roost when it comes to feature phones and the company has stemmed somewhat its smartphone market share losses. But Nokia would face a bleak future by relying on low-cost, low-margin feature phones over the long term as trends indicate a gradual shift away from feature phones to smartphones.

Perhaps I’m reading into Nokia’s reliance on feature phones too much. If that’s the case, how does the company plan to compete against Apple, Google, and Research In Motion? A history lesson might answer that question — how has Nokia competed over the last few years?

2007 – This year brought the first Apple iPhone as well as the highly touted Nokia N95. Running Symbian S60 3rd edition, the slider had no touchscreen and just a QVGA display. Even with an excellent 5-megapixel camera paired with Carl Zeiss optics and front-facing camera, Nokia’s worldwide smartphone share began to decline. According to figures from Canalys, Nokia’s share in the fourth quarter of 2007 fell to to 52.9 percent from 53.8 percent in the same quarter of 2006.
2008 — Apple introduced both the App Store and iPhone 3G, while very late in the year, Google launched its first Android device. Nokia’s revised the N95 with the N96, still running Symbian S60 3rd edition, but with feature pack 2. Others in the line included candy bar handsets such as the N78, N79 and the N85 slider, none of which helped Nokia add market share. In the second quarter of 2008, Canalys data measured a 45.5 percent share for Nokia smartphones worldwide.
2009 — Google Android devices really begin to proliferate, especially in the last quarter of the year due to Android 2.0 and the Motorola Droid , while Apple launched the iPhone 3GS. Nokia introduced the Symbian-powered N86 and N97 but also took experience from Internet Tablet products — the N770, N800 and N810 — and created the N900 handset running Maemo. Om felt that Nokia was on the right track, but “on a very slippery slope and unless it fields a competitive device, it will continue to see its share of the smartphone market erode.” For the third quarter of the year, Canalys reported Nokia’s share to be 39.7 percent of worldwide smartphone sales.

If the history lesson were to end here, one would expect that the N900 would be Nokia’s gateway to the future in this world of iPhones and Android handsets. But along came Symbian^3 in February of 2010 and with it, many expectations that this platform would be used for high-end Nokia phones. In April, I said that Nokia needed to step on the Symbian^3 gas pedal and a week later, the Nokia N8 was announced, which brings us full circle as both the first and last N-series device to use Symbian^3. Making matters slightly worse: Nokia hasn’t announced future upgrade support for the N900. In effect then, both the 9-month old N900 and the unreleased N8 already have an end-of-life tag on them. Meanwhile, Apple sold an estimated 1-1.5 million iPhone 4 devices on launch day and Google is enjoying 160,000 Android activations daily — an annual rate of 58.4 million units, assuming no additional growth.

With such a rich history as a leader in the handset market, the sentimental side of me wants to see Nokia succeed in the smartphone space. But a product strategy that appears to be in constant transition isn’t one that attracts either developers or customers, which makes it difficult to combat Apple and Google. So far the only thing such an approach has attracted is declining market share and reduced revenue forecasts. My hope is that the trend reverses with MeeGo — or will it turn around with the next platform after that?

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Intel, Nokia Attempt to Woo Developers for MeeGo Handsets and Netbooks

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:00:59 +0000

The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, a 3-day event for open source developers and mobile partners, kicks off today. Among the various agenda topics are both a keynote and multiple workshop sessions devoted to MeeGo, the platform created when Intel’s Moblin project and Nokia’s Maemo operating system merged at February’s Mobile World Congress. With the workshop sessions, Intel and Nokia are fighting for the attention of developers, much like other platforms are, as exemplified with the Twitter and Facebook programmer events as well as Apple and its new iPhone 4.0 OS. So why might a developer be interested in MeeGo?

For starters, MeeGo offers opportunities in both the smartphone and the netbook or tablet space. There are two MeeGo user experience frameworks — one for handsets and one for netbooks — but applications designed for MeeGo aren’t constrained to one device type. While smartphone software could require visual adjustment to run on the larger display of a netbook, for example, the software itself is created with Qt, a cross-platform development tool. Think of Qt, which Nokia purchased in January 2008, like Java’s write-once, run-anywhere approach. Nokia’s VP of MeeGo devices, Ari Jaaksi, explains the benefits best in a Linux.com interview from earlier this morning:

“Qt is a cross-platform application and UI framework used by hundreds of thousands of developers worldwide looking to create amazing user experiences on Windows, Mac, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Maemo devices. Qt will be the primary application framework for MeeGo and both Intel and Nokia are committing their investment in it. For developers interested in MeeGo, Qt helps increase the scope for their applications and services across multiple platforms, all using consistent application APIs.”

Two more carrots dangling in front of potential MeeGo developers are the Linux tie-ins and application stores. Intel’s documentation from its Beijing Developer Forum, also in progress now, points out MeeGo support for potentially thousands of native Linux software titles. And those titles targeted for MeeGo, as well as those built with the Qt framework will be available through two partner storefronts. The Intel App Up store offers software for netbooks, while Nokia is leveraging its Ovi store for handset titles. The Ovi store shelves were a little bare when I last checked on Nokia’s Maemo-powered N900 handset, so the handset maker is looking to boost the available titles.

MeeGo devices are expected in the second half of this year and 27 partners ranging from Acer to Xandros are expressing support. Notable members of the partner list include high-profile software shops like EA Mobile and Gameloft. But industry friends alone won’t turn MeeGo into a contender against the likes of Apple, Google and others with established mobile platforms. As Stacey alluded last summer in her interview with Peter Farago, the VP of mobile analytics firm Flurry, developers are the new kingmakers. The programmers attending this week’s Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit will likely decide if MeeGo gains a royal crown or simply becomes a mobile bard just passing through.

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Images courtesy of Intel

First MeeGo Builds Available for Netbooks, Handhelds

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:00:19 +0000

With so much focus on a new mobile computing device due out this weekend, you’d think everyone else in this space is standing around, right? Not so, says Nokia. The first MeeGo code drop just landed and I’m downloading it now for my netbook. There are three builds in the repository, each supporting different hardware platforms: Intel Atom netbooks, the ARM-powered Nokia N900 and Intel Atom handhelds on the Moorestown architecture. Once I get my download running from a USB drive, I’ll have a better idea of where MeeGo is headed, although the build is likely to have imperfections. In fact, I’m not sure how much functionality to expect as this is more likely a technical preview of what’s to come.

In case you’re wondering what MeeGo is and how it came to be: it’s a new open-source platform announced last month. And it’s actually a joint effort between two previous platforms: Intel’s Moblin project and Nokia’s Maemo system. Perhaps the biggest benefit to both companies is that MeeGo will support the Qt application development system, which is a cross-platform application environment and UI framework. Developers can take advantage of Qt with a “write once” approach for applications to run on desktops and mobiles.

I see the entire approach similar to that of Apple, which uses the same iPhone OS on three mobile devices: the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad. Nokia and Intel are looking for a mobile platform that appeals to consumers and developers but can run on various hardware. It’s far to early to see how they’re doing, but I’ll be watching their progress for sure. My first look at Moblin on a netbook — see the video here — was impressive for an early build. Maemo offers some positive experiences as well, especially when it comes to browsing and voice communication, so I can’t wait to see the combination of the two.

Image courtesy of Meego

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Maemo and Moblin Merged: Meego Emerges

James Kendrick — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:48:51 +0000

Nokia wasn’t happy to just announce Symbian 3 at the Mobile World Congress today, they have also announced the merging of Maemo and Moblin by Intel. The new platform that emerges as the result of the merge will be known as Meego, and is intended to power pocketable computers, netbooks, tablets and phones. Meego will be hosted by the Linux Foundation, and will be a full open source platform.

Maemo has been used by Nokia on its internet tablets, including the capable N900 smartphone. It is highly optimized for use on a small screen, and is a solid basis for Meego. Moblin is Intel’s version of Linux optimized for netbooks and similar devices, and it will form the core platform under the hood of Meego.

Meego will use the Qt application development system, a robust environment for developers. Programs for Meego can be distributed though both Nokia’s Ovi Store and Intel’s AppUp center.

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Intel, Nokia Merge Linux Operating Systems to Form MeeGo

Om Malik — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:55:45 +0000

Photo courtesy of Nokia. Paul Otellini, President & Chief Executive Officer, Intel and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, President and CEO, Nokia.

By now you might have heard that Intel and Nokia are merging their respective mobile Linux Operating Systems — Mobilin and Maemo. The merged effort is going to be called MeeGo. It will be hosted by the Linux Foundation and is targeting the whole universe of connected devices.

Here are some notable bits from the Nokia press release:

* MeeGo will support multiple hardware architectures across the broadest range of device segments, including pocketable mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
* MeeGo offers the Qt application development environment, and builds on the capabilities of the Moblin core operating system and reference user experiences.
* Developers can write once to create applications for a variety of devices and platforms, and market them through Nokia’s Ovi Store and Intel AppUpSM Center.
* MeeGo will be hosted by the Linux Foundation.
* The first release of MeeGo is expected in the second quarter of 2010 with devices launching later in the year.

The guys from The Linux Foundation are pretty excited about this. In a blog post, Jim Zemlin, executive director of the foundation, writes:

MeeGo isn’t just an important project at the Linux Foundation, it is also helpful for Linux as a platform. It combines mobile development resources that were recently split in the Maemo and Moblin projects into one well-supported, well-designed project that addresses cross-platform, cross-device and cross-architecture development. Android, ChromeOS, the Palm Pre, Bada, and dozens of traditional Linux desktop efforts use many of the components in MeeGo.

He goes on to give his reasons why he sees MeeGo as a major step forward, and better than iPad-type closed systems.

Closed platforms (like Apple’s iPad) drive up costs for consumers and limit hardware choice. MeeGo is multi-architecture and can power a broad range of devices from your TV to your car to your pocketable computer to your phone. Consumers can keep their apps and use different devices from different producers.

I’m not sure if this is going to really impact Apple. I bet this effort causes some problems with other embedded Linux OS vendors. Unlike Zemlin, I don’t think this will gain as much traction.

Why? Because the merged OS is coming to the market at a time when there is already increased demand on an increasingly precious resource: developer attention. The lack of developer attention is one of the reason why Maemo and Mobilin have not been able to get any serious traction outside their own organizations. The developers — who have multiple choices — decide which platforms succeed and which ones become roadkill. For now, developers are betting on Apple’s iPhone OS and Google’s Android.

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All About the Nokia N900 — a Roundtable Podcast

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:45:06 +0000

Although I’ve focused on my Google Nexus One for the past month, I have been swapping my SIM card into the evaluation Nokia N900 handset time and again. The device shows off a solid smartphone foundation for Nokia and I’m excited to see what Maemo 6 will bring in the second half of 2010. The browsing experience is outstanding, regardless of whether I use the native MicroB browser or the new Firefox Mobile client. I tend to stick with the native browser mainly because I see better performance and I can live without the extensibility of Firefox. Nokia also offers stellar contact integration with both VoIP and chat services in the N900 — other platforms could learn a thing or two here. But these are just my thoughts — other folks have excellent opinions of the N900 experience too.

Yesterday, I got to hear some of those opinions — as well as offer my own — in a roundtable podcast devoted solely to the Nokia N900. Jose Ortiz astutely moderated the TDL Mobile Show that hosted both myself and Lisa Gade. Lisa is a driving force behind a site I’ve followed for years — MobileTechReview. If you’re not already reading or subscribing via RSS, I think you’re missing out. Even if you’re not up to adding another site to your daily reading, I’d still check out Lisa’s detailed review of the Nokia N900 from mid-December.

In the roundtable, Jose, Lisa and I provide thoughts central to what anyone considering the N900 might want to know. From the out-of-box experience, to Maemo 5 as a platform to the pros and cons of the hardware, we hit it all during our discussion. I enjoyed the opportunity to participate in the podcast, and I hope you give it a listen to get varying viewpoints on Nokia’s latest and greatest smartphone.

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New, Open Symbian Looks Beyond Smartphones

Colin Gibbs — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:35:28 +0000

The Symbian Foundation said today that it’s completed the migration to open source — and that it’s hoping to take the mobile operating system far beyond smartphones. The transition to open source — which the Symbian Foundation crows is “the largest in software history” — enables developers and organizations to access the code for use on any platform, not just phones but tablets and a wide range of other connected devices, according to Larry Berkin, Symbian’s head of global alliances and U.S. general manager.

“If you look at eras of computing, from the desktop to the laptop to cellphones, things have grown in an order of magnitude,” Berkin told me. “My anticipation is that over the next 5-10 years you’re going to see all kinds of things. Unit volumes certainly rest in the phone space today, but we anticipate that morphing and changing.”

Nokia announced plans to take Symbian open source in June 2008, a move that including buying the remainder of the company and establishing the Symbian Foundation. But while the conversion was completed four months ahead of schedule, the OS lost substantial ground during the transition to competing platforms from Apple, RIM and Google. The shifting landscape has led some to question whether it’s already too late for Symbian to capitalize on open sourcing the OS.

But carriers are already looking to connected devices to shore up slimming voice margins, and a variety of new tablets will come to market this year. It may seem odd to hear that the 10-year-old Symbian platform is targeting the new wave of devices, but it’s a smart move for an operating system that continues to lose market share — especially now that Nokia’s long-term hopes for high-end handsets hinge on Maemo.

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