I still remember my Nokia 2100, that was my primary means of 'connecting' with my friends and family during my engineering studies. It was perfectly suitable for crystal clear calling, messaging, was very sturdy (I don't even remember how many times it has fallen, taped as well, but still it worked just fine...with days worth of battery life...!) and above all, very cheap ! At that time, Nokia was a synonym for mobile.
But from then to now, what changed (or probably did not change) this company to an extent that from a point where they had almost monopoly on this so very booming market, fell to a level that they had to take such drastic measures so as to abandon their 'in-house creation' - the Symbian ! The case of Nokia reminds me of another giants in their industry who have been through the same stage - Ford (a popular quote "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.").
But why did this happen, was it inability to look beyond the obvious, was it the company structure which was hierarchical to the extent that decision making was next to impossible, or was it the thinking - "Why to change a successful recipe?". Possibly, it was a combination of all of them. As per some sources, Nokia had a prototype of possibly the 'first ever' smartphones designed as early as 2005...but then they rejected any further development on the same then restating their theory that there is not much market for such mobiles...! But then came iPhone and people were drawn to it their new 'touch-technology' which drew considerable interests and even more profits. Even then, Nokia did not realize the shift, or even if they did, they did not perceive it to be 'Big enough to hurt their eco-system'...! But with the introduction of iPhone 3G and 3GS, and other companies also introducing their first prototypes of smartphones in the market, Nokia found that they have postponed the decision way too long not to be in a spot of bother.
At this time, they still were very sure that Symbian is the way to go for Nokia...few reasons I can think of behind this...Firstly, of the past success and the fear of abandoning what has been great (to say the least) and Secondly, the pro-Symbian voices in the company were pretty strong...enough to make sure that they were being heard and Thirdly, the company structure that was not meant to be flexible and agile. But anyway, though late, they did climb on the smartphone market (with the Symbian, ofcourse).
The dynamics of mobile industry had now changed drastically...Nokia were like dinosaurs in an age where beind as nimble and swift as birds was the order of the day ! They had reached a point where though they were still leading the volumes, but the profits were consistently falling. Now they did feel that they needed to take some immediate measures to compensate for this situational disadvantage. And then came Maemo and Meego (in partnership with Intel).
That was certainly a step in the right direction, just the strategy behind promoting this was not well laid out. Nokia wanted Meego to be as a side project (Symbian still being their flagship OS). If we look into the first Maemo device, Nokia N900, it certainly was very impressive...! A positive user experience, refreshingly positive and way more CPU boost than most of the other existing smartphones in the market then. But then, did we hear any followup devices with an improved version of Maemo? Nope, that did not happen...instead what we heard were new smartphones (especially N8) with Symbian - once again! By this time, iPhone had set the standards and moulded the definition of a smartphone such as to suit its needs. To add on to it, the Google Android had improved impressively and pretty quickly with more and more handset manufacturers now joining hands with Android as a preferred software to align with their hardware - but not Nokia.
Now Nokia are in a state where they know that they had to make some revolutionary changes, but what??? They have not been used to being in this situation, neither are they used to change. So they decide to 'finally' part ways with Symbian and partner with Microsoft. Nokia, no doubt, still produce some of the best hardware, but, it is still to be seen how this partnership can succeed. We can now discuss (for and against) about the decision they took as to why they did not go for Android, which has recently outnumbered iPhone on the basis of sales (by volume). But personally, I think they made the best possible decision, given the circumstances to partner with a company with which they share some synergy, be it on the level of organizational composition and corporate decision making or maybe on the company objectives. But considering how dynamic the smartphone market is now, where Moore's Law of technological advancement is basically modified to the core... (not long ago the 1Ghz Hummingbird snapdragon processor and Nvidia Tegra 1Ghz processor were introduced, and now we have new smartphones introduced @MWC 2011 which are running on a dual-core 1Ghz Nvidia Tegra processor. And if this was not enough, Nvidia have announced that they will soon introduced a quad-core mobile processor - codenamed, 'Kal-El', very soon - and all these advancements are just about the processors!), it is still to be seen how will this partnership prosper, but this certainly marks a sad end to a very enterprising life of the very reliable - Symbian !
On a positive note, I still foresee a future for their partnership with Intel on their fledgeling OS, the Meego. At the recently concluded MWC 2011 (at Barcelona), they have unveiled a new tablet running Meego and another netbook which runs an impressively interfaced version of Meego. But if it has what it takes to reach the heights once Symbian conquered, is still to be seen...but I am hopeful...
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