Microsoft dumped a ton of money into Nokia to seal the deal and also to help with a massive advertising campaign that still did not help move the new Lumia phones off of the shelves. Nokia was not alone in this though as Samsung, HTC and others were also seeing low consumer demand for the new phone OS from Microsoft. Now Elop has some tough decisions to make between keeping loyal to Microsoft and keeping investors happy. Unfortunately for Elop and Nokia both of these choices come at a price.
If Nokia moves away from Microsoft to Android, Firefox, Ubuntu, or indeed any other phone OS they lose Microsoft as a primary partner and the money that they bring to the table. If they piss off their investors they also lose money as people start dumping stock and also take their investment money to other companies that will listen to them. This almost seems like a no-win situation for Nokia, but fortunately for them it is not.
No one would argue that Nokia makes a solid product. They have a ton of experience in the mobile market and made one of the first and most popular PDA phones ever back in the 1990s’ in the form of the 9000 Communicator. They know how to make a phone they just do not have an OS that appeals to the majority of the market. Elop is unwilling to make the move away from Microsoft though and has closed the door on phones running Google’s OS despite Investors pleas for them to find another path.
One investor made the comment “Are you aware that results are what matter? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Please switch to another road,” which is a clear indication that they want Nokia to move in another direction besides Windows Phone. Instead of considering other and more popular phone operating systems Elop is trying to compete in the low-end market with a $99 phone. Sadly, this is also not going to give results as there are too many other phones out there in this price range (again with more popular operating systems).
Nokia could be on a downward spiral that they cannot get out of as they have linked their fate with Microsoft and Windows 8/RT. The fact that Microsoft is now admitting that their top-down push for the Modern UI has failed is even more damning for Nokia who would have benefited if this approach had worked. The market simply reiterated that they are not interested in the tile based look and feel that Windows Phone brings to the table and both Microsoft and Nokia should have seen that from the low market share that Windows Phone has right now. It would have been a different story if Windows Phone was showing strong growth, but it was not and is actually losing a little ground to Android and iOS. We expect to see this increase once companies like Firefox and Ubuntu gain traction in the market and pick up manufacturing partners like Samsung, HTC, LG and others.
Right now Nokia has investor sentimentality on their side, but that will only last so long before they pull their money and bail on a company and CEO that cannot make the right decisions to help bring Nokia back to prominence. Maybe Elop’s refusal to look at other options will motivate them to look at replacing him even if it costs them money in the short term a new leader with an open mind and willingness to look at other platforms for their phones could make a world of difference. We would honestly love to see a phone with the quality hardware and style that is in the Lumia series running an Android OS, we are fairly confident that the market would react favorably to it as well giving Nokia a phone that would actually help turn their fate around.
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