"If you’re going to kill someone, there isn’t much reason to get all worked up about it and angry. You just pull the trigger. Any discussions beforehand are a waste of time."

--Jim Allchin, Microsoft's Platform Group Vice President

Summary: The latest Vista Phony 7 problems show why Microsoft's Stephen Elop had Nokia commit suicide (for the interim elevation of Microsoft)

WE probably do not cover the Nokia story as much as we ought to [1, 2, 3, 4]. We foresaw the situation since the very first day when Elop entered Nokia and we wrote over a dozen posts on the subject before Elop made it all official, e.g.:

1. Microsoft President Quits, But is Nokia the Next Victim?
2. Microsoft Passes More of Its Executives to the MSBBC. What About Nokia?
3. Microsoft Insiders Galore: BBC, Nokia, Others Already Damaged by Microsoft Hires
4. Taking Over Linux, by Proxy
5. Linux Battle in Mobile Phones Becomes Primarily Legal, Not Technical, Due to Software Patents
6. Linspire/Ballnux in Tablets; HP Possibly Experiments With Vista 7 in Slate After Abandoning It, Then Hiring From Microsoft
7. If You Can't Beat Them, Hijack Them (Microsoft Joins Nokia and It Already Shows)
8. New Article Says Nokia Might be Bought by Microsoft After Appointing Microsoft President as CEO
9. Entryism Watch: Yahoo! Keeps Being Abducted by Microsoft Executives, HP Cancels Android Projects After CEO Appointment From SAP
10. As Expected, Nokia and HP Betray Linux Under Microsoft-sympathetic New Leadership
11. Head of Microsoft Romania Quits, Entryism Revisited
12. Microsoft's Favourite 'Reporters' Are Attacking Nokia, Pushing it Into Microsoft's Arms
13. Will Elop Choose the Future (Linux) or His Past (Microsoft) for Nokia?
14. Analyst Wants Microsoft's Elop (Now Nokia CEO) to Shoot Down Linux Programmes
15. Microsoft Disruptors Versus Linux Smartphones Domination
16. Report: Nokia's New CEO From Microsoft About to Fire Existing Nokia Executives
17. Poisoning Mobile Linux With Microsoft Staff and Mono
18. Microsoft's President Elop is Allegedly Killing Linux Inside Nokia/Intel, Just When MeeGo Gets Android Compatibility (Updated)
19. Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Confirm Elop Speaks With His Old Colleagues at Microsoft

Several people have adopted our playful name for WP7, Vista Phony 7. "Vista Phony 7 Pay per Weight Edition launched," dented several people in recent days. They were referring to the bricking of phones [1, 2], which also resembles the 'bricking' of Vista-running machines following 'bad' patches (the machines would no longer boot, as we covered at the time). Microsoft's spin has begun to come out and Microsoft boosters like Peter Bright do their thing while OpenBytes offers a sanity check and Andrew Orlowski, a longtime MAFIAA and Microsoft apologist, says that "Microsoft bricking lesson bodes badly for Elop's Brave New Nokia" [via Homer et al.]

Earlier this week Microsoft issued, and then withdrew, a software update for its Windows Phone devices. According to Microsoft it affected "a small number" of users of Samsung WP7 phones. For some users the consequences were serious - the phone was "bricked", meaning it was not only non-functional, but couldn't be restored into a working state by the user. Click here to find out more!

It's a nightmare for the manufacturer, because it requires an expensive return to a repair centre, and the customer, once burned, is much less likely to become a repeat purchaser. That "small number" may be as high as ten per cent.

Bizarrely, the patch didn't contain any new features. It was a notification about new features to come, the equivalent of that little alert you get in XP telling you that there's a new version of Software Update available - which really means you're several hours (and reboots) away from having an update to the system.

[...]

He evidently has a low regard for Nokia's ability to get things done quickly, and so has handed Nokia's WP development to small teams, to work closely with Microsoft and in isolation from the juggernaut of the bureaucracy he inherited. In essence, he's created a skunkworks within Nokia, while the old company is destroyed around it.

Jobs did something similar when he returned to Apple. Elop's conundrum is that he still needs a large, complex administrative apparatus to produce modern phones.

Richard Hillesley has a somewhat belated analysis of the Nokia situation:

Nokia is exposed and naked in the storm and has several open source technologies in its care. Nokia's agreement with Microsoft and the subsequent downgrading of MeeGo will have knock-on effects for the Linux ecosystem. Many smaller companies have been funded by Nokia to work on MeeGo, and withdrawal of funding could be damaging in other areas.

Intel's AppUp is affected pretty badly by Elop's sabotage and just a few days ago someone from the AppUp blog ranted about the Windows side of AppUp:

So yeah, there's just a little venting of frustration there but the final word is in where we've come TO and not where we've come FROM. Each app gets a little easier, we make fewer mistakes and we learn more tricks. More to the point – we keep on submitting apps, which should be filed under "actions speak louder than words."

Windows is just a mess and Intel knows that too. Nokia did not need Windows. Over the years it deliberately avoided Windows because it realised that it needed to have some control over the operating system and its features/cost. Elop has just bricked Nokia for Microsoft's benefit and we'll continue to deliver updates on the subject on a daily basis, under "Nokia/MeeGo/Maemo" in our lump of links. It is a serious case study demostrating Microsoft entryism. Elop even had a lot of Microsoft shares when he did this, and none of Nokia's. ⬆

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