[charleso]

How much in the minority am I for thinking this is a good plan for Nokia?

Echoing my post in another thread, Apple received $150 million in financing from Microsoft back in 1997 in exchange for including IE on the Mac (among other partnership goodies).

If you don't recall that period of computer history (when Apple almost went bust), you may want to watch this Steve Jobs Macworld 1997 presentation discussing their joint venture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY

"Kneeling before Zod" didn't turn out too badly for Apple.

[cosmicray]

> Echoing my post in another thread, Apple received $150 million in financing from Microsoft back in 1997 in exchange for including IE on the Mac (among other partnership goodies).

Actually, based on my hazy recollection, someone at Apple had discovered an IP violation by MSFT (something to do with QuickTime code having leaked over to MSFT). Apple at that time was in pretty dire shape. Steve basically called up (Bill or Ballmer, not sure which) and said here's the deal..., after which it was decided that rather than protracted litigation, Apple would take a $150M investment from MSFT, and would issue a special class of stock, which could be convertible to regular stock at a later date. I do believe there was some kind of agreement to include MSIE, and/or that MSFT would make Office for the Mac a guaranteed product for a certain period of time.

From what I read, no one lost money on the deal. The cash investment helped Apple survive the rough patch, MSFT sold off their investment at a later date, Office moved on to be a solid product on the Mac, etc.

I do not believe that MSFT would have done any of this without a little persuasive arm twisting.

[Pooter]

I don't think the comparison between 1997 Apple and 2011 Nokia is particularly close, or instructive for understanding the deal.

But I do agree that this probably is a good deal Nokia; and for Microsoft. Nokia was never all tha great with software, and is generally a hardware engineering focused company. Basically, they're outsourcing all the software dev work to Microsoft. And, apparently, getting paid (possibly very well) to do so.

Microsoft, on the other hand, buys themselves exclusivity with a major hardware manufacturer. Instead of getting secondary consideration after Android from the likes of motorola or HTC, they get the whole smartphone focus from a company with a reputation for producing reliable and high quality hardware.

Honestly, and all jokes about two dinosaurs getting together to avoid extinction aside, this is probably the best move for both companies, if they're going to stand an chance of being able to compete in the upcoming smartphone market.

[Geee]

I never got this argument that "Nokia is a hardware company, they don't do good software." That's a shallow argument which doesn't really mean anything at all.

After all, most of their R&D budget is in software development. They have developed two dumbphone OSes (S30, S40) and two smartphone OSes (Symbian, Maemo), which are feature-by-feature the most complete software in the market. There's lots more of course.

But their software sucks.. Why?

[Pooter]

Im fine with the dumb phone OSes they've produced - they're actually nice to use and probably the best of such systems that I've used.

My experiences with their symbian devices, though (all s60, devices) was terrible. Crashy, with ugly and poorly implemented features, and a ui experience well behind other devices. To be honest, I haven't tried the ^3 series, but the reviews I've read don't indicate to me that they've addressed the problems.

Maemo, I've played with a bit, and it seems fine, but not great and not compelling over iOS or Android. And ive only seen it on one of their tablets.

Maybe its personal preference, dunno.