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WSJ paints a picture of a once innovative, now broken Nokia

Categories: Nokia
By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, July 19th, 2012 at 12:40 PM

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the sad state of Nokia. We’ve all heard the tale of how the Finnish handset maker is struggling, but what’s interesting about the WSJ piece is its focus on Nokia’s shining past.  Speaking with Frank Nuovo, the former chief designer at Nokia, the WSJ talks about a Nokia phone with a touchscreen and a single button that predates the iPhone by seven years. The company also developed a prototype tablet computer in the late 1990s that shares some of the features of the iPad.”Oh my God, we had it completely nailed, ,” says Nuovo when thinking back about these early devices.

What happened to Nokia is not unique. The company was producing ” unpolished gems” in its R&D labs, but this technology was not making it out of testing. When Stephen Elop took, one of his missions was to get Nokia’s hot technology like the Pureview camera technology into the hands of consumers. You can read more about Elop’s vision for Nokia in this recent WSJ interview and the article about Nokia’s past and present here.

[Via WSJ]

About The Author

Kelly Hodgkins

Kelly spent the last four years covering mobile technology at places like BGR, Gizmodo and The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Before writing, she spent a few years working with and teaching others how to use Adobe Flash and Macromedia Director. Even earlier than that, she spent several years as a Ph.D student in Microbiology. When she's not writing, she can be found fishing the lakes and hiking the mountains of Western Maine with her husband and tribe of children. You can follow her on Twitter @kellyhodgkins.

  • Coelho_osvaldo

    Legacy kills and there is nothing that can fight legacy.

    Companies go down grasping in their hands legacy.

     

    I know of guys who brought customers at Siemens HQ to keep a product alive.
    Circuit switch EWSD killed Siemens, AXE killed Ericsson. 5ESS killed Lucent…

     

    Up came ZTE and Huawei that had no legacy circuit switches legacy holders whispering
    in the CEO’s ears.

     

    Around 2002, when 3G was taxing towards the runway (and I can tell you I
    was very interested in that thing to take off since implementing telecoms projects
    is my livelyhood) I was telling my friends:

     

    Look, right now, in Stockholm, Finland or Munich there are lots of guys who
    came up with GSM who are telling the CEO and CFO that 3G will happen by 2015!!

     

    Those guys want the control of everything and kill anything that is being
    born that lessens their control.

    These guys love innovation, but only if that innovation is wrapped up
    around the platform that they have milked to advance on their careers.

    Now Samsung and Apple created touch phones and send into oblivion all those
    guys who -in bend with operators- went down grasping their ‘chocolate bars’
    mobile phones.

     

    And I can tell you: right now they are telling their CEOs and CFOs:

    There still be millions of users for the old chocolate bars phones, like
    elderly people who does not need the features and are not at easy with the touch
    phones and such non sense.

     

    Perhaps Steve Jobs genius was not to listen to legacy stakeholders

    • Imax4u_2000

      I worked for Nokia and Its not that there were not good Ideas it just that they had bad management

      • Indytiger

        I work for Nokia Siemens Networks and they too like Nokia have bad management. Ex-Nokia guys trying to save Ex-nokia employees. Basically Ex-Nokians are very cold blooded. They aren’t warm and communicative or express themselves well.

        Like the symbian platforms, the reporting too is so complicated in the financials that it defies all logic. one tends to tear their hair off trying to figure out the way these guys in finance tend to work and survive. Even the auditors dont seem to be convinced with the Financial reporting.

        Well like all things come to an end, Nokia is already becoming a defunct brand.

      • Indytiger

        I work for Nokia Siemens Networks and they too like Nokia have bad management. Ex-Nokia guys trying to save Ex-nokia employees. Basically Ex-Nokians are very cold blooded. They aren’t warm and communicative or express themselves well.

        Like the symbian platforms, the reporting too is so complicated in the financials that it defies all logic. one tends to tear their hair off trying to figure out the way these guys in finance tend to work and survive. Even the auditors dont seem to be convinced with the Financial reporting.

        Well like all things come to an end, Nokia is already becoming a defunct brand.

    • Guest

      This reminds me of Xerox and all the cutting edge innovations they created in the computer industry but did not implement or market well but others used.

  • Chuck

    Well, Mr Elop is the one who is slowly killing Symbian after killing Meego. Mr. Elop is trying to impose Windows Phone on us. He got it completely wrong.

    Nokia E6-00 is my last phone. I’ll be moving to Android or iPhone… I know Mr. Elop’s intentions.