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Surprised about the surprises (Or why nokias deal was a logic step)

So.. Nokia and Microsoft heh? Well well what do you say about that. I’m for one are most certainly NOT surprised about that. Ever since Nokia bought Trolltech I was a bit uneasy and unhappy about it. Nokia never stroke me as the company that does much community work that doesn’t end up in their pockets immediately. Sure sure they have done some Open Source stuff in their times, but only to attract more developers and get even more money. To make long words short: They are capitalist. Always were and always will be I guess. So when they bought Trolltech I was not happy about it. And my experiences later on definitely were proof of that (I refer to a “nice” telephone session we had on the Randa Multimedia Sprint with the Nokia guys about Qt Multimedia). Qt was beginning to fall in line with Nokias “Money is everything. Community nothing” mantra. Call me paranoid but right then I already felt that it wasn’t quite the end of it. So Nokia now turns to a company that’s following the same call (for money and no community) they have for years. Its almost like people on a sinking ship holding on to one another and hoping they won’t drown. If not for all the implications on KDE and Amarok I most certainly would find it amusing. I for one haven’t used Nokia devices for a long time now and am only using Microsoft products if I have to. So the only thing (apart from the Qt stuff) this deal changes for me is that I can only party once instead of twice when the Nokia/Microsoft ship will finally bubble away in the deep ocean of “Nice try”. Too bad :-P.

10 Responses to “Surprised about the surprises (Or why nokias deal was a logic step)”

  • Joe says:

    Sorry, but you are completely off-base. This has ZERRRRRRRRRRROOOO to do with the Community or QT and everything to do with the fact that Nokia needs a quick turnaround on an OS provider and Microsoft has the OS ready to roll and huge marketing behind it.

    Sorry to spoil the conspiracy theory you had going on here, but I work for Nokia and we were pretty desperate to turn our company around.

  • Well as I said I understand it from Nokias point of view. I don’t even blame them for it. The decision Trolltech made to get bought from Nokia is more the issue. First they got bought and now they will be either sold for scrap or lie around useless and dry out. Both not very nice prospects. But when you say this has nothing to do with community I disagree. With buying Trolltech Nokia has accepted the responsibility to care for the community that comes with Trolltech. And I hate to say it but they clearly DO NOT CARE. Qt is to Nokia just and asset that can be used (or not) at will. If it gets useless they will either drop it like its hot or sell it. Here in Germany Nokia has most definitely shown its true face already. One of some reasons I don’t use Nokia devices anymore. And I can say this: This deal won’t bring you more users.. it’ll scare those aways who where still hoping for better times. But as I said: Nokia made my choice of future investments in the mobile market a lot easier ;o).

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  • The User says:

    For me recent Nokia-community-activities seemed to be quite honest, until now. It seemt to be a real floss-everywhere, strategy, while Google keeps a lot of secrets and has privacy problems.

    “Here in Germany Nokia has most definitely shown its true face already”
    You are talking about “Bochum”? Nonsense, why shouldn’t they move to Romania? Romanian people aren’t “worse” than German people, other companies produce their devices in Taiwan with exorbitant suicide-rates etc.

    @Joe
    “This has ZERRRRRRRRRRROOOO to do with the Community or QT and everything to do with the fact that Nokia needs a quick turnaround on an OS provider and Microsoft has the OS ready to roll and huge marketing behind it.”
    That’s the end.

    • Its not so much WHAT they did in Bochum, but rather HOW they did it. Collection subventions from the government just to pack and run shortly after is hardly an act of heroism in my eyes (Especially if its my government :-P). It can be legal in any way you want. It stinks. Call me blind or call me biased, but that was an act of capitalism. Especially when Nokia made a good fortune in Bochum and just wanted to make EVEN MORE money elsewhere. In the end they dropped them like a piece of shit. I don’t like stuff like that. I know its the usual way to go in the business area today.. but maybe I though Nokia was better then tat. I most certainly were wrong.

      • The User says:

        Some subventions can’t rescue ailing business, that’s normal, they got the subventions years before, and then they decided to go to Romania. Other people got the jobs, everything okay, imo.

  • cheap laptop battery says:

    An analyst compared the Nokia-MSFT deal to “two unpopular kids in high school with rich parents suddenly becoming prom king and queen.” LOL!

  • g says:

    I felt and feel exactly as the owner of this blog. What bothers me is that now that Nokia gives up on Qt, its development will suffer, because, face it, we hobbyist hackers only implement the fun stuff and not the hard, unpleasant things that need to be implemented in libraries such as Qt.

  • Sorry Daniel,

    but your article is simply a load of BS. Please don’t comment on things that you don’t fully understand. You are wrong in so many ways, it’s not even funny.

    Try to be reasonable, try to imagine why Qt still is relevant to Nokia. Think about the the big picture. Then maybe you might change your views.

    Cheers,
    Mark.

    • Well thats exactly what I did. What in the name of god should a company that commits itself to primarily use MS Software in the future do with a sub company that develops software that won’t run on this platform? There a some scenarios for this: convert it so it runs on the desired platform (which means that work for other platforms will suffer), put money into other areas (which means the whole sub company will suffer and so will their work) or sell the sub company because their work has become useless (which in my point of view seems to be the most painless solution). And just because we where talking about being reasonable: No offense meant but employers of Nokia are not really the most unbiased contributors in those discussions. They might know things from the inside we don’t, but they most certainly won’t present their employer in a bad way if those things are bad. And its rather easy to change my views.. not with words but with actions.. and Nokias actions in the last year definitely spoke for themselves.. in MY opinion.