Nokia’s Symbian Heading Towards Extinction

February 11th, 2011 • Mark Guim • 42 comments

If you’re still thinking Symbian will linger around, don’t count on it. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and CFO Timo Ihamuotila shared a slide during this morning’s briefing that paints a very clear picture. Symbian is heading into extinction. Windows Phone is the future for Nokia. Slide after the jump.

Mobile devices

Engadget wrote a very fitting headline, “RIP: Symbian.” We’re not going to see the death of Symbian immediately though. Elop said they’re still expecting to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come.

Would you still buy devices running on a dying platform?

http://kamuselektrik.wordpress.com/ kamuscasio

With an OS already confirmed as dead OTW by that dumb CEO, who would buy it? Who’ll develop apps for it?

I know i won’t. At least don’t announce it as dead yet if you still don’t have any WP7 device to show.
http://kamuselektrik.wordpress.com/ kamuscasio

With an OS already confirmed as dead OTW by that dumb CEO, who would buy it? Who’ll develop apps for it?

I know i won’t. At least don’t announce it as dead yet if you still don’t have any WP7 device to show.
- atom
  
  It was pretty irresponsible for them to announce symbian’s death before they even have wp7 phones to show off… as evidenced by how he’s just torpedoed the stock price.
  
  there was some posting on another site showing some initial reaction from some developers who are already ceasing projects on symbian.. again this was irresponsible from the CEO’s perspective, they should have just announced wp7 phones and had a couple to show off, once it’s ready then they can start de-spooling symbian/meego etc..
  
  think of phones like the e7.. it came out what last week? it has 0 chance of sales now.. irresponsible…
  - pingo
    
    Clearly this an action to destroy Nokia!!
  - pingo
    
    Clearly this an action to destroy Nokia!!
    - Ivan4879
      
      it was the plan all along so nokia sales will go down and their stock go down so microsoft can buy them at a very cheap price in the future .. I feel bad and i’m mexican, sad day for the finns. fuck that trojan FLOP …
- http://twitter.com/chrisyeoh chrisyeoh
  
  I guess this is what he meant by Nokia jumping into a deep black sea (Windows Phone) from a burning platform (Symbian). It’s good that they announced it early (even before they have WP device) to avoid wasting anymore of developers time and resources. And for them to have more time to migrate their existing project to WP platform.
http://twitter.com/filiprino Filiprino

Would you still buy devices running on a dying platform?

If you are an uninformed customer, yes. Most part of Symbian customers are people that use their smartphones as dumbphones on steroids. But those people are tempted by geek Android buyers. Now Nokia decided to put Windows Phone on their phones, kick Symbian and park MeeGo. Well, not good news, but not that bad for those who were waiting for MeeGo, although now in the most part they will buy an Android phone.
Good luck to Nokia.
- What’s this?
  
  I so hope you are right concerning MeeGo. I was really looking forward to a mobile running MeeGo. But didn’t Elop kill both Symbian and MeeGo yesterday?
  Actually I was hoping to hear something new about MeeGo at yesterdays announcement, but there was not much. One phone this year… okay. And then? Will Intel still develop MeeGo? Will anyone? Will there be Apps, support, whatnot?
http://twitter.com/filiprino Filiprino

Would you still buy devices running on a dying platform?

If you are an uninformed customer, yes. Most part of Symbian customers are people that use their smartphones as dumbphones on steroids. But those people are tempted by geek Android buyers. Now Nokia decided to put Windows Phone on their phones, kick Symbian and park MeeGo. Well, not good news, but not that bad for those who were waiting for MeeGo, although now in the most part they will buy an Android phone.
Good luck to Nokia.
apina

I just uninstalled my Nokia SDK. MeeGo and QT are now de facto dead.
apina

I just uninstalled my Nokia SDK. MeeGo and QT are now de facto dead.
http://twitter.com/_Lupa Luiz Paulo Rosa

No developer will waste time on Symbian after that slide.
Symbian is dead now.
Very sad for me to have a N8 on my pocket now…
http://twitter.com/bragzter Bradley Larcher

i never thought i would see this day. why kill symbian. symbian does pretty well in other parts of the globe, its just america that was the hard market to break.
- HVD
  
  that moron Elop is American though.. so it is the world to them…
  Nokia made a big mistake back then when they hired an American that too a MS guy…
- HVD
  
  that moron Elop is American though.. so it is the world to them…
  Nokia made a big mistake back then when they hired an American that too a MS guy…
  - Curtis
    
    isn’t he Canadian?
    - Mark
      
      Yep he is a Canadian, but most Canadians are not like him!
    - HVD
      
      Yep.. Canadian… My bad…
    - http://twitter.com/a_cross Allen Cross
      
      …my vote for the most parochial, uninformed statement in this thread. Congratulations!
http://twitter.com/neha_gargi Neha Gargi

who would like to buy phones with a dying OS?? Why are they pitching so much about N8 looks like that’s just an useless device. There might be updates in symbian but who would want to stick to it. It would be best if they either rework on win 7 completely and release it soon to all the users. other wise no one would probably be willing to buy N8 or E7 anymore. They shouldn’t have ditched Meego, that’s a BIG MISTAKE. Meego is so sophisticated and stylish, it would have put them right at the top instantly once released. I am feeling totally weird right now after hearing the news. Nokia needs to deliver now rather than promising to deliver. Others have gone far ahead and they are just planning and they would probably go on planning forever.
- Humptydoo
  
  I’m with you. The sooner they get that wp7 out there, the better.
Mark

Nokia was it’s own unique company, but partnership with Microsoft makes them less or a loss of identity. I am not a big fan of Symbian, but it was it’s own unique OS… I love Maemo, but they gave on it and with Meego, it will become a second thought. Now making Windows the main OS is again a loss of identity. Why didn’t they listen to the customers, WE didn’t ask much, but to keep their promises.. Instead of the many disappoints and delays. Sad days indeed…
A-S-D

We may not buy phones from a dying platform but people who don’t know any better or can’t afford better phones certainly will.
A-S-D

We may not buy phones from a dying platform but people who don’t know any better or can’t afford better phones certainly will.
Mr Johnson

Goodbye Nokia… WP7 was born dead. No sane customer will ever buy a phone with this system on it.
Anonymous

Why don’t they just relegate Symbian to their “dumbphone” line if they did that i could live with the addition of WP7
http://twitter.com/jjarmasz Jerzy Jarmasz

WinMo 6.x is still outselling WP7 apparently. So maybe people do buy devices from a dead platform… a little. Feel vaguely tempted to get an N8 or other S^3 device just as a collector’s item — “look, this was one of the last proper devices Nokia made!”
- Cocco Bill
  
  The camera on N8 is so good that I would still buy one. I really love that I have proper digital camera with me always.
  
  F*ck Elop though. Most idiotic move and the only rational reason behind it is to plummet Nokia’s stock and then have Microsoft buy it cheap.
- http://twitter.com/a_cross Allen Cross
  
  True enough. As I see it, there are two main reasons for this: (1) Carriers know it’s a dying OS, so WM 6.5 phones are selling for cheap…or free. (2) Businesses know there’s no crossover from WM 6.5 to WP7, so they’re loading up on phones to avoid dealing with the headache of an OS change. However, we are told that page-impressions from Windows mobile browsers (6.5 + 7, both) fell during during 2010Q4. That’s a telling statistic, given the phenomenal growth of smartphones in that period.
  
  Thus, WM 6.5′s example offers little hope of sustainability, so there’s no particularly hopeful lesson here for Symbian owners.
Anonymous

Ya right kill off a great OS and expect to sell 150 million devices. Its confirmed Elop is on dope
shadowninty
Alai132

WP7 is dead. Elop more cares about WP7 than it’s company nokia. I love symbian^3 on my N8. I feel anger. I don’t want WP7, it’s useles and stupid system. I know that my voice will change nothing, but I can’t be silent. I’m so sad. Nobody will develop software for symbian^3. All effords to release meege has gone. Nokia will die. I can’t wathing it.
Thenokiablog

Nokia has been running around like a headless chicken for the past year. As a previous Nokia employee of Nokia Music I can say this with a great deal of authority.

In Music we’ve been busy re-writing the same functionallity time and time again – simply changing the architecture but adding no new features. The latest move was to re-write the whole store in LAMP (non-Microsoft). We sacked a whole bunch of .net developers and hired dozens of senior Java guys. Now that Nokia are pro Microsoft I guess they’ll sack the Java guys too.

But there never was any real belief in what we were producing. Most of the developers at Bristol rejected the free phones given to them by Nokia and opted to spend significant amounts of money buying an Android of iPhone.

Not only that but when we wanted to listen to music at work (as was the standard practice on Fridays) we had a SPOTIFY account that was sponsored by SENIOR managment.

As a company, Nokia could not give the hardware to their staff and we could not produce a site thet even we liked!

Go Figure!
Thenokiablog

Lets forget the past. Windows Mobile 7 is actually a very capiable OS for mobile devices. I know it’s Microsoft but Microsoft are not the big bad wolf they used to be. As a corporation they bend over backwards for their developer community and that is a breath of fresh air compared to the open source vendors who want to charge a fortune for support (afetr all that’s the only way they can make money).

Open source is not so open afterall. Just try upgrading your Android phone without voiding the warrenty.

I’ve developed using both Microsoft and open source technologies and personallay I like the stability of the proprietry platform. Afterall, Apple is the ULTIMATE proprietry platform and nobody hates them!
- UB
  
  >Apple is the ULTIMATE proprietry platform and nobody hates them!
  That’s sarcasm right? Is your whole post sarcasm?
  
  >Windows Mobile 7 is actually a very capiable OS
  No Video Calls
  No Multitasking
  No USB Mass Storage
  No Bluetooth File Sending
  Locked SD Cards
  
  Yep, sarcasm…
- http://nowardev.wordpress.com/ nowardev
  
  stability omg omg you was not on the windos 7 user at all if you consider it stable …
  wtf in the airport windows 7 sucks a lots stable ? if the user are always saying that is slow after 3 months bah..
  
  well apple works without virus and it’s speed is always the same
  windows has a speed that decrease with time even with windows7 like always.. and you can’t do a lots of stuff
  
  you can’t even controll if you want what they are always sending via internet… i have read a lots of article about their statistics.. i hate them yea.
  
  and… htc with windows mobile sucks at all , i have tried to sell it .. no one wants that system.
- eka2
  
  you can update your android phone as long updates are official from google and /or accepted by network…if you try to root your android phone you will lose the warrenty….
  why is wp7 so capable os…because you can’t use bluetooth , no proper connection with a pc (using windows) or multitasking….yes you right….is very capable …how manywp7 phones were sold ??? maybe max 2 million (max) …symbian sold 2.9 milllion devices in america …. apple are the only ones who understand mobile market….and maybe android….
http://nowardev.wordpress.com/ nowardev

hhahahahahhha
i am symbian user and… i will never buy a windowsvirusinsecurenocustumoizablenousercontrolledgoldenjail system i will buy android xD

nokia + microsoft = -10% nokia stock nice job hahahhahaha
http://nwerneck.sdf.org dividebyzero

The first WP7 phone is predicted to arrive only in 2012. At the same time, 150 million is approximately the number of Symbian phones that Nokia should sell in 2011, considering the current rates. So that would mean just that they will still work with Symbian, but starting in 2012 they will release just WP7 phones. When you say it like this, it doesn’t look that smooth a transition anymore.
Superrei

Well you can kill Symbian but not replacing it with WP7 is just another dumb idea. Put Meego into the phones not WP7 please.
Superrei

Well you can kill Symbian but replacing it with WP7 is just another dumb idea. Put Meego into the phones not WP7 please.

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