Updates to this story
Dump Meego and switch to Windows Phone 7 is the message sent to Nokia this week by a number of analysts.
In an open letter to Stephen Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Berenberg Bank's Adnaan Ahmad said Nokia's move to Windows Phone 7 would benefit both companies.
The analysts urged the struggling company to ditch the Symbian OS - which has been dropped by the likes of Sony Ericsson and Samsung - as well as the unreleased released MeeGo. They said developing smartphones with Microsoft's OS would give them a much better advantage.
The recommendations come as Nokia's newly appointed CEO, Stephen Elop plans to talk about how he will turn around the struggling business next week.
"Get rid of your own proprietary high-end solution (MeeGo) – it’s the biggest joke in the tech industry right now and will put you even further behind Apple and Google," Ahmad advised Elop.
"Focus your high-end portfolio around WP7, and over time you can take the cost down (that’s Steve [Ballmer's] job and cost base) to get this into the mid-range market.
"Push your Symbian solutions into the low-to-mid-range smartphone market as quickly as possible to defend market share versus Android’s upcoming lowered cost ecosystem."
Ahmad claims Microsoft also needs the support of the world's biggest smartphone maker. "Two million units [of Windows Phone 7] shipped in the last quarter is not really much to write home about, given $500m in marketing programmes (ouch), but with Nokia on-side, you get access to a potential 20-25 percent global share over time – and exclusivity.
The analyst's advice was echoed by Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair, who said the switch to Windows Phone 7 "would address the key concern we have had about Nokia for the last several years: terrible software".
MeeGo, which is in joint development with Intel, has already had its fair share of trouble despite it not even being launched. Back in November we heard that developers were none too trusting of the OS. Reasons for this included that it was late to market, it showed no signs of a solid app framework and didn't have enough to differentiate it from other popular choices. Intel and Co. continue to pin hopes on Meego - showing off with a spendthrift attitude at a conference in Dublin where they rented the entire Guinness brewery.
And it doesn't seem Nokia's people have faith in the OS either. In October its MeeGo Devices VP, Ari Jaaksi resigned - leaving the company in the lurch.
Oh please, where do you dig this tripe up from.
So nokia should ditch it's own 'proprietary' smartphone os, and instead buy somebody else's paying a 'per handset' license. And where is the money for Nokia in that idea einstein?
To describe MeeGo as proprietary means you probably have not read the wikipedia page, so here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo
From that source here is the list of companies supporting the project:
Acer, Amino, Asianux, Asus, basysKom, BMW Group , Collabora, Ltd., CS2C, DeviceVM, EA Mobile, Gameloft, Hancom, Linpus, Maemo Community Council, Mandriva, Metasys, Miracle, MontaVista Software, PixArt, Red Flag, ST-Ericsson, Tencent, TurboLinux, VietSoftware, Wind River, WTEC and Xandros
If you add together smartphone sales for RIM+Blackberry+win7, it just about adds up to the number of units Nokia shipped last quarter.
Nokia sells worldwide in huge volume, a fact a lot of commentators seem blinkered to when commenting on Europe or USA in isolation.
Nokia would be better with Android, but it seems now that it can't adopt it without hurting some egos, then go WP7, but not without taking a really fat wad of cash. M$ is waiting open armed for every major phone maker, and willing to spend a lot.
Just bury Symbian very deep, and never show it back again!
Well it will be waiting a long time then. You have to own something better to win over the competition to 'your way'.
Q4 sales of windows phone last year: 3.9% of market
Q4 sales of windows phone this year: 3.1% of market
The customer just doesn't want that walled garden crap. With win7 phone, they tried to just copy Apple model, but come out a poor second in the locked down league. Puts them in last place in overall numbers.
Nokia sells 1 in 3 of every phone worldwide. Likely to continue that way, because with Symbian and a similar MeeGo, however they manage it, they have brand loyalty.
If win7 every reaches over 5% (doubtful), then you might be able to hope that one day it would have 'brand loyalty', but that is a lot of "if's"
Look closely at the numbers for the next quarter for win7 phone. Ballmer is sending up all sorts of smoke screens at the moment, but the analysts are pouring over the last set of figures, and will be asking some difficult questions about win7 phone SALES next time.
All that advertising cost a packet, for what? 3% market share ... unsustainable to prop it up that way.
Especially as the core market 'desktop OS' division has stalled. Can microsoft afford to support loss making divisions? Maybe back 5 years ago, but not today. Analysts will simply replace ballmer and get somebody more ruthless about per-division SALES and PROFIT