| Rainbird said: Awesome, I'm sure this will bring both companies a great step forward! Now let's see some products! |
Actually, Nokia shares just plummeted 9% :) This move basically means that
a) years of investment in the Symbian ecosystem were effectively wasted
b) years of investment in the Meego / QT / Linux ecosystem were effectively wasted
c) they have a difficult migration path for the next few years
d) when they eventually create their new ecosystem and products, they will be tied to MS hands and feet, and effectively they will be hardware producers with little control on the direction of the smartphone tier.
Conversely Motorola, HTC, Samsung have a high degree of customizabilty with Android, thus they can choose to steer at any time to offer value over their competitors in the form of interface, integration, apps, online services etc. Even more so HP with WebOS.
I hope Nokia can manage, but we're past the time when designing good hardware and well tailored basic interfaces for feature phones was enough. It's now all about the software ecosystem and being able to accomodate new ideas with great agility. Relinquishing all control on the smartphone OS? Doesn't look all that promising for this goal.
