“Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said the company is not going to rush a tablet to market just to join in the device cavalcade, and will instead focus on ensuring that the device has a ‘uniquely Nokia perspective,'” Phil Goldstein reports for FierceWireless. “‘We could take advantage of Microsoft technology and software, and build a Windows-oriented tablet, or we could do things with some of the other software assets that we have,'” Elop said. ‘Our team right now is assessing what’s the right tablet strategy for Nokia.'”
MacDailyNews Take: So-called team sits around Espoo conference room table staring blankly at each other. Several long minutes pass. One finally pipes up, “You’ve got to be fscking kidding me.”
Goldstein reports, “Microsoft has not indicated that it intends to make Windows Phone 7 work on tablets; Nokia still has access to MeeGo software and intends to release one MeeGo device this year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In order for a tablet to be uniquely Nokia, it would have to feature antiquated software, an indecipherable user interface, be shaped like a candy bar, made out of grayish/silver plastic, require a stylus, and sell no more than 32 total units in the U.S.A.
hahahaha
You have to give him credit for that statement. So often we complain about the fake iPad makers. I hope Nokia does make something uniquely Nokia. First, they have to develop their own OS and NOT be another Android clone or Windows disaster.
Can only imagine what Nokia’s “team” looks like.
The Nokia Flop. Really, that ‘s what they call it???!?!?!?
When Nokia finally makes it mind up, the “Pad” business will be already been divided by Apple and Google! Uniquely Nokia will mean certain failure!
When Nokia finally makes up its mind, Apple will have moved beyond the iPad to the next great thing. Elop will be quoted as saying, “We certainly didn’t see that coming!” Ballmer will throw another couple of chairs and tell investors that the iPad was another rounding error, proving he’s a roundhead in a room full of cavaliers.
“In order for a tablet to be uniquely Nokia, it would have to feature antiquated software, an indecipherable user interface, be shaped like a candy bar, made out of grayish/silver plastic, require a stylus, and sell no more than 32 total units in the U.S.A.”
Exactly what i thought when i clicked the article.
Ha….FAIL.
Don’t forget it has to have a 24 Megapixel camera! And, it must take 5 to 10 steps to do anything. Comes with a manual as thick as a dictionary.
Why do they think they even need to be in the computer/tablet business? They are struggling doing a decent “smartphone”. Get that right and then may worry about going into something else. And supporting two totally different operating systems is crazy. Oh well, guess this is why I don’t get paid the big bucks.
I used to laugh at Nokia’s public comments. Now…it’s just sad. They are done. Put a fork in them (and Microsoft).
Elop’s eFlop.
4 years into the touch screen revolution and Nokia is still deciding “what’s the right tablet strategy for Nokia”.
I give Nokia an F for execution.
Now that is leadership on the cutting edge…like they cut off the prior CEO. But it is the Board of Directors that waited to change CEO. I suggest Nokia needs a Board of Directors overhaul.
BoC: an ‘F’ for execution is inadequate.
In my book, Nokia gets an ‘F’ for market intelligence and strategy and its Board an ‘F’ for being asleep during its watch.
2007 was a year of previews of things to come [iPhone then iPod Touch] and Nokia was not only wrong footed that year (losing form $6B in market cap) but failed to react in a coherent manner to the new smartphone space Apple created.
MeeGo to Apple Store
every turd is unique. Guess that’s Nokia.
Light years away or behind Nokia 🙂
Meantime, AAPL sells millions and making bacon 🙂 iOS matures and $150 Billion CASH/Short/Long Term securities later for Apple!
Buy AAPL stocks before it goes to $422 this year and $524 next year!!!
I think he’s being pretty smart.
I’ve mentioned before that the tablet market is a cunningly baited trap for other companies. Observing Apple’s runaway success, the immediate reaction of CEOs is to want a slice of the action and few CEOs of tech companies will be able to resist trying.
The cost of launching a decent tablet is incredibly high and you’ll be up against a lot of competition, so most who launch a tablet will lose massive amounts of money in the process.
There are only two options in the tablet market. One is to take on the iPad directly, but to do so you need to compare favourably with the iPad and sell for no more than the iPad. The alternative is to go for the cheap end of the market and sell rubbish.
There is no significant money to be made from either of those strategies. Therefore most companies who enter the tablet market will lose a great deal of money.
Elop is being cleverer than most because he knows that his company could not rise to that challenge and is avoiding wasting money developing a project that is unlikely to succeed.
Entering the tablet market could well have been a fatal blow for Nokia. The blow that finally kills Nokia will now be a little harder to predict.
alanaudio, the two options you have outlined are correct but you are overlooking a key condition that any entrant in this market must now have in place before launching their offering: a well populated app store to support the user of such a device.
And beyond the app store, an infrastructure to support the device in the hands of the AVERAGE consumer e.g., the Apple eco-system.
In other words, with Apple now working on its third generation iPad, competitors like Nokia are going to have an increasingly greater challenge entering the market.
And any company using Andriod has the added challenge of having to compete against other Andriod purveyors as well as Apple. [I laugh when I see some armchair tech pundit publish pie charts depicting ‘iOS vs Andriod’ because that is not the real story…]
Nokia would be best advised to think long and hard before committing shareholders capital to complete in this space.
It may be more appropriate for them to walk away and find some other space to focus on.
The problem is, if you cede the tablet market to Apple, as an iPad market, not a tablet one, then you cede all the profits to Apple.
That profit gives Apple even more ammunition to kill you in the market you are concentrating on, ie smartphones. Without profit, you are ceding the future to the ones making the profit.
What I would do strategically, is create a tablet, but price it $100 less than the iPad. A total cut-rate tablet that doesn’t compare to the iPad. But, most PC users won’t care. They bought PCs! They only care about price, so you offer a cut-rate tablet that sucks, but it’s cheaper. Kind of like a Nook Color. What does that do? Well, it may force Apple to lower its price, cutting into Apple margins, and lowering Apple’s profit. Now, this would probably fail, but not having any tablet is definitely a fail.
Remember the Zune? Well, Microsoft thought they could sell the 30GB Zune for $299. Apple cut them off at the knees by intro’ing an iPod for $249. Microsoft was forced to match Apple’s price, and what little profit there was, was eliminated. That’s how you wound the competition.
Good point KenC.
Works only if your company has a ton of cash to burn… which Apple has lots of.
A tablet priced lower than an iPad would still require an app store and infrastructure to make it appealing to the consumer. Remember the JooJoo that was launched within days of the original iPad?
As you pointed out, Apple can at any time not just drain the swamp but boil the ocean to boot!
My point is that Nokia missed the cycle completely. Its share price has been in the weeds since late 2006. At a tenth of Apple’s market cap, Nokia has to be very careful about how it places its bets. Its investors will not tolerate a share price decline for long. It is a volatile stock to hold.
It also has to figure out just what it is at heart. Apple has done that. That’s why it’s no longer called Apple Computer Inc. but rather, Apple Inc. [there is a big clue in that]
Wow- they’re ‘just now assessing’ it? Too bad they didn’t come up with this idea several years ago when Apple started ‘just thinking about it’…
I worked for those clowns for 14 years. They will fsck it up and build a frankenstein turd
Unique might be good. Uniquely Nokia, not so much.
Seriously, in this industry, other than Apple, no one else is able to anything unique that’s worth having.
I think HP will, when it actually gets to market. Putting WebOS on phones, tablets, and PCs will give them something that Android, Nokia, and RIM can’t do. It is a copied OSX approach, one that is working well. With their business contacts and premium floor space in every electronics store they will have a marketing powerhouse. Of course they need to get something on the market, and a lot of apps. When that happens everything will change. Understand I will stay Apple all the way, I am no fan of HP.
Jumped from a burning platform and the team gathers to think if they should be swimming.
The Finnish team. Very appropriate name.
Choices, choices… Symbian, Meego, Microsoft, Android… Symbian, Meego, Microsoft, Android…
Nokia needs to get a clue. Their time to decide was several years ago. It’s 2011, and their competitor has its second generation product ruling the market.
I’m glad I dumped my small holdings in Nokia a few years back (at a loss, natch!). Their day is done. Whatever their history or sales volume, they’re now a niche player in this industry.
Funny. The last time I saw a Nokia was in the new Star Trek movie. I can still hear Kirk’s stepdad calling the car an antique. More so now…
I think alanaudio may have the right perspective, but it basically means that they may never join the party. By not jumping in they may spare themselves and their stockholders massive losses of money, but they will miss an entire market and never even get a toe-hold in.
The Elop pad is going to save Ballmers ass.
Yes, we want this to be an unique experience. Let me introduce you to our team from Microsoft……..
LOL. You know that they will just end up copying iOS and Apple hardware design in the end. How these guys talk with a straight face as if they truly believe what their saying is true is hilarious!