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Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

Summary: Sometimes people say the daftest things ...This has to be the daftest quote of the month, from Nokia's outgoing head of smartphones Anssi Vanjoki.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

By for Hardware 2.0 |

Sometimes people say the daftest things ...

This has to be the daftest quote of the month, from Nokia's outgoing head of smartphones Anssi Vanjoki (subscription required for full read):

Anssi Vanjoki, outgoing head of Nokia's smartphone division, likens mobile phone makers that adopt Google's software to Finnish boys who"pee in their pants" for warmth in the winter. Temporary relief is followed by an even worse predicament.

The argument that Vanjoki is making here is that handset makers are condemning themselves to permanent low profitability because the Android OS doesn't allow manufacturers to differentiate their product from the competition. Fair point, and a criticism that can be leveled at the Microsoft mobile platform too.

Problem is, the flipside though is fragmentation. Nokia certainly has the clout to push its own mobile OS, but it's an increasingly tough sell. Look at the profitability of PC OEMs compared to Apple, but you don't see PC OEMs all making their own OSes ... Taking an OS and fostering from that a platform takes time, effort, commitment, money and trust from developers.

Topics: Nokia, Android, Google

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45 comments
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  • I hope your pee-pee freeze up...

    ROTFLMAO.
    Snooki_smoosh_smoosh
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

    Yea...but Apple and Nokia will not fair much better. Any new feature by either will be copied by Android. Fierce competition is only going to make it better for consumers.
    bmonsterman
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

      @bmonsterman
      Plagiarism != competition. Just responding to your argument, not saying that the Android OS is a copy of iOS or Symbian.
      MG537-23482538203179240121698430309828
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

      @bmonsterman I'd prefer to piss in my pants than have Nokis piss on my head.
      Steve__Jobs
      Reply Vote

  • I guess we can see why he is an *outgoing* executive...

    if that is how he chooses to get his point across. If it is, in any way, indicative of his conversational tone then I would love to see him in a contentious board meeting. Yes, he must be quite the professional.

    As always, just my $0.02 observing this absurd mess we call society and your opinion may well vary.

    Regards,
    Jon
    JonathonDoe
    Reply Vote

    • Though I don't agree with him...

      @JonathonDoe

      I find his tone a very welcome change to the meaningless, spineless business speak that so many executives and marketing people spew at the public.

      He is being very direct, casual, yet moderately assertive, without being combative or obnoxious. Now whether his assessment is correct and Nokia is able to execute his grand plan remains to be seen. If they fail, his comments will be just some (more colorful) marketing bluster.
      colinnwn
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

        @colinnwn
        Its easy to be snarky adn not combative when there is nobody there for the counter point. If he had said that about apple and steve jobs was in the room......somehow I doubt there would be a friendly discussion.
        rengek
        Reply Vote

    • Outgoing

      @JonathonDoe I agree. He should have said he was cautiously optimistic, and that he hoped to leverage the synergies of deep competence with best-of-breed first movers.
      Robert Hahn
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

        @Robert Hahn - LMFAF!!!
        Gr8Music
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

        @Robert Hahn

        And throw in that this current resorption of market capitulation will serve only to enhance our cognizance of outwardly expanding opportunities.
        Lackosleep
        Reply Vote

  • i think HP agrees with Vanjoki..

    hence their purchase of Palm for WebOS..

    if you don't have a mobile OS or don't have the in-house capability to produce one.. that is one thing, but if you do or you can buy such capability then it is short sighted to use an off the shelf OS.. because Vanjoki is right.. at the end of the day it will just be a race to the bottom and commoditization of your product with thin margins, exactly like exist in the PC computer market, where the only real differentiator is price.

    this might be good for consumers (cheap phones), but is not that great for vendors.. vendors like HTC, Samgung etc are used to such markets but vendors like Motorola will be crushed in the long run.. at the end of the day there will be only 2-3 vendors producing android cell phones as the market will only support that number of vendors given the large ship volume necessary to make up for the thin margins..
    doctorSpoc
    Reply Vote

    • OEM's have chosen to take the race to bottom

      @doctorSpoc... on economic computing. Of course their profits mean using low grade materials, and near slave labor workforce. And in order to get the economy of scale, they have to sell a huge number of units to even close to profitable.<br><br>If these OEM's had any brains they would return to a normal profit margin, which is yes a 30% profit margin, unfortunately like Apple they probably would still use the cheap workforces in Asia. But even there though some quality level materials and hopefully some better workmanship would lead to yes, a little more expensive products, but at least the product wouldn't fall apart after a year of use, like the crap Wal-mart sells.
      Snooki_smoosh_smoosh
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

        @JM1981 You think achieving a 30% profit margin is simply a strategy choice???<br><br>The only company I know of that hits that kind of margin is Microsoft, and they do it via having a monopoly... companies would love to have a monopoly situation that allows for high profit margins, but can't because their competitors will eat them alive. Shaving price (and therefor margin) is the only way to survive, most people will buy the cheaper product that falls apart.<br><br>It's not companies that are driving this direction, it's consumers.
        wzrobin
        Reply Vote

      • Microsoft's margin is MUCH higher than 30%

        @wzrobin But they're essentially a pure software company. The [i]second[/i] copy of every piece of software they sell is arguably "profit."

        The [i]real[/i] reason that Apple can get away with a 30%+ margin in hardware is that they [i]care[/i] about producing a high-quality product. Check out http://stagetwo.com/2010/09/the-real-secret-of-apples-product-philosophy/ Money quote: [i]"We often hear that Apple 'plays the game' better than Sony, HP, Dell, etc ? that?s not quite right. Apple is playing an entirely different game. What?s most amazing about this? Nobody else seems to want to play with them, they just keep playing the 'other' game, and poorly."[/i]
        matthew_maurice
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

        30% profit margin? add pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, and investment banking among others. They all operate in oligopolies with tremendous barriers to entry.
        Consumer goods companies have long discovered that asthetic product attributes are what drive purchases... make it look nice and people overwhelmingly believe that equates to good quality. Hyundai couldn't have done a better job understanding this when they first entered the US auto market. But over time, the sentiment became negative and they spent years just trying to regain the confidence of the same market. Think how many avg Joes still believe Hyundai's are low quality even though the industry experts don't.
        Lackosleep
        Reply Vote

    • Given past precedent

      @doctorSpoc

      It is pretty hard to argue that ANY mobile phone manufacturer (besides Apple and maybe BB) has the in-house capability to produce a positively differentiated phone OS. Most of them are so pathetic that they are easily forgotten and orphaned after a couple years.

      Much wiser I think both in the short and long term to use Android as a base, and create your own frontend. This is much easier to do from an engineering and interface prospective than to create a whole and desirable robust OS with app ecosystem.

      If you do a good job, people will buy. If you do a bad job on the frontend, and lock your hardware to the firmware so people can't revert to generic Android, then people won't even buy your "differentiated commodity" product.
      colinnwn
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

      @doctorSpoc

      The motorola handset division would have already died without Android. Name one successful non-android phone they've made since the Razr.

      2-3 vendors? Only happens in America. Only Americans expect just one company to somehow accrue ALL of the talent. In PC/laptops you have Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Sony, BenQ, Samsung, Panasonic, Toshiba, and at least half a dozen others. The U.S. pays attention to Acer and HP because they're the top 2. Nonsense.
      tkejlboom
      Reply Vote

  • Nokia still sucks...

    so I guess we shouldn't expect more from the "outgoing head of Nokia?s smartphone division". Ten years ago, easily 9 out of 10 people I knew who had a cell phone had a Nokia. Today that number has dwindled to the point where I can't think of anyone who still has a Nokia. Lots of Motorolas. Lots of iPhones. Lots of HTCs. A few Blackberrys. Even a Samsung or two. No Nokias.
    jasonp@...
    Reply Vote

    • that's only true in north america.. not the rest of the world...

      @jasonp@...
      doctorSpoc
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Nokia: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants for warmth in winter'

    That's still far better than Nokia's predicament - they're [i]peeing in their pants all year long[/i] as the emerging markets (which is their bread and butter) begin to place their collective eye on touchscreen smartphones and apps ecosystems and away from the feature phones that they sell.

    What Nokia clearly doesn't get is that things have now changed at the consumer end. In the past, Nokia and others could sell phones on the basis of their hardware capabilities alone and few gave any thought to the integrated OS on the device. These days, software (both OS and apps) on the phone is playing a much bigger role, and if you don't have or are not affiliated with a vibrant, visible software ecosystem that everyone wants to develop for, you're finished....or in Nokia's case, [i]Finnished[/i].
    eMJayy
    Reply Vote
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