Nokia veteran leads MeeGo and Symbian fight
Reorg to combat Apple and Google
A 19-year Nokia veteran will lead the mobile giant's open-source smartphone fight against Apple and Google.
Marketing chief Anssi Vanjoki will head Nokia's newly created mobile solutions group beginning in July, Nokia said on Tuesday. The new group's remit is to research, develop, and build devices using the joint MeeGo mobile Linux effort with Intel and smartphones based on Symbian, the open-source platform that's been somewhat tangential to Nokia until now.
Vanjoki's group will continue to develop Ovi as a service for MeeGo devices and Symbian phones, and it will lead development and deployment of news services on Nokia phones.
Nokia's bio of Vanjoki describes him as a visionary whose work "focused on developing the Nokia brand and positioning the company as the worlds of mobility, computing and the internet have converged".
The elevation of open-source on phones and devices followed the reorganization of Nokia's devices and services business. Under that re-org, a mobile phones unit will build "feature rich" phones and use the S40, while a separate marketing group will lead supply chain, sales, and - yes - marketing. In an interesting footnote, Sun Microsystems' former executive vice president of software Rich Green was named chief technology officer reporting to Vanjoki.
Green, who led Sun's Java and middleware, was cut by Sun following one final re-org designed to stave off the company's inevitable death. At Nokia, Green will be responsible for driving common technical architectures across the company, Nokia said.
The re-organization of Nokia's devices and services business comes as Apple and Android continue to challenge the incumbent for users and developers.
Nokia remains the world's largest handset maker with 39.1 per cent of the worldwide smart phone market, but Apple has carved out 16.1 per cent in less than three years, according to IDC. Apple has grown at the expense of RIM, but Nokia can't afford complacency.
Symbian has remained strangely outside Nokia's corporate epicenter despite the latter's swashbuckling buy-out of co-owners in 2008 and subsequent open sourcing of its code. And while Symbian talks of attracting developers, those developers are building applications for the iPhone or Android instead.
As for Android, signs are that it's gaining momentum: Google's mobile OS moved past the iPhone to grab the number two spot in the US for the first quarter of this year, according to NPD. Android accounted for 28 per cent of smartphones sold, compared with 21 per cent for the iPhone. RIM's BlackBerry was still top with 36 per cent. ®
COMMENTS
S60 is Symbian
No it's not.
S60 = Series 60. Just as S40 = Series 40.
S60 runs ON TOP of Symbian.
The 2 are independent of each other. Symbian is the OS, S60 is the "front end" applications.
Qt also runs on top of Symbian OS.
Unfortunately, Nokia themselves sometimes perpetuate the common misunderstanding that S60 and Symbian are inseparable whenever there's bad press against their (as in Nokia developed) S60. (Or maybe it's just the way El Reg spreads that news).
Embrace the Android, Nokia!
Rather than fight an attack on all fronts, with a bloated and increasing unpopular re-hash of Symbian, buy yourself some time and launch an Android handset FFS!
You can piss about developing your own OS as much as you like then, as you'd have staved the flow of customers away from Nokia for better handsets that work simply.
Been loyal to you, Nokia, for 14 years, but have jumped to the 'droid and wont look again at anything powered by Symbian or Meego (or whatever it's called) as it just ruins the phone.
no notification of messages received.
What the beep, buzz and blue flashing light don't do it for you?
Front Facing Camera
So what? Has ANYONE ever actually made, or wanted to make a video call...?
