Nokia layoffs million people R & D center also affected

Leung Tech Liang Chen July 19 reports

This should be a hard-working inspirational story, but Microsoft's new CEO Nadra is bent on the fate of Nokia X come to an end. The reason is simple: messy organizational structure after the merger, long-term loss of mobile phone business, the core technology used in the hands of its competitors.

Nadra said in an e-mail to all employees Thursday that it plans to move the design and products of the Nokia X-Series phones to Lumia devices running Windows Phone systems.

However, almost all the criticisms were directed at Elop, who actually implemented the decision. He was Nokia's CEO and is now executive vice president of equipment and services at Microsoft. He explained the decision in detail in a layoff email on 12,500 people.

One of the effects of Microsoft's big layoffs is that Nokia has completely lost its power in product planning.

In fact, Microsoft did not give Nokia the chance to try. Nokia X Series was launched on its own software platform from its launch, and while based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project), all Google services have been removed and replaced with Microsoft's own services such as OneDirve, Bing . In addition, Nokia X series has its own exclusive application store, and is through the "Featured" before the application on the line.

However, the Nokia X series has been controversial since its release in February. From the product itself, Microsoft took over, not only to maintain its own Windows Phone ecosystem, but also need to create an additional set of Android ecosystem to keep Nokia X series running smoothly.

Taking the Chinese market as an example, in order to promote the Nokia X series to enter the market quickly, Nokia not only cooperates with UC to set up an application store, but also cooperates with the music frog OS to let users choose their more familiar Android operation interface.

A product manager in the series has said it had hoped to use this product to attract potential users and developers to the Windows Phone camp. But this does not mean that the market recognition, because in itself is a drink thirst quencher thing, consumers do not necessarily Nokia fantasy pay.

Third-party advisory body GfK data show that during the March-May period, the Chinese market, Nokia X-series retail sales of 132,000 units, accounting for only about 0.14% of total sales.

Not only that, from Nokia's earnings in recent years, Microsoft's acquisition of equipment and services sector will be a long-term loss of state, and can not bring new profits. After the acquisition, Microsoft's total number of employees will also be expanded from 99,000 to more than 127,000 people. Microsoft, which had a per-capita profit below Google and Apple, added to the inefficiencies that it has been to inefficient IT companies.

Nadella apparently already aware of these potential Microsoft crisis. In a memo written by him, it is mentioned that the goal of layoffs is to simplify the work and integrate the incorporated Nokia department. To this end, after cutting some departments, Microsoft still set up different mobile phones for different markets, but the product line is more focused on Lumia.

"Focus" has become Nadla in this business the most important keywords. From the outside world is also true, Gartner analyst Lv Junkuan said that Microsoft should be more focused.

Therefore, the Nokia X project must be stopped. This means that Nadella still has to clean up its predecessor, Ballmer, to find a new way for Microsoft in the post-PC era.

Restore Nokia X's business logic

Is such a project looks very different from the original Nokia, but in the eyes of some people is shouldering the task of driving mobile phone sales, and Nokia had previously promised to partners is much higher than the current sales of the actual sales.

A mobile industry source told Tencent Technologies that in 2013, the Nokia Machine, which Nokia called its "moblie phone," has faced a crisis of declining market sales, even a quarterly decline of about 20%. Nokia's Beijing-based R & D department sees this phenomenon, and they want to seek self-help, meanwhile, the price of low-end Android smartphones has come close to that of Nokia's low-end phones Asha series.

These two reasons make the embryonic form of Nokia X series begin to appear. However, the Nokia X-Series from the blueprint to the final landing has been Elop affirmed. Even speculation that Elop used to urge Microsoft to speed up the completion of the acquisition of Nokia.

These thoughts became a paradox after Microsoft acquired them. Because Microsoft does not allow Nokia to produce products that support its competitors' operating systems internally, Nokia even said it could make and sell Nokia X.

In fact, Nokia has been on the cutting edge of the Nokia X series. On the one hand, Nokia X series pricing can not exceed the mid-range, the latter has been based on Windows Phone products; the other hand, the price of Windows Phone mobile phones continue to decline, and Android phones are almost the same. So, no matter whether Nokia can make Nokia X series, Microsoft is difficult to adhere to Nokia's product planning.

After Nadella became CEO, Microsoft has become more agile, so cutting off unreasonable projects is more in line with business logic. However, the large backlog of Nokia X inventory is a potential vulnerability that Microsoft has not yet addressed.

Nadella New Deal is still mobile first

"Moving first, cloud first" This is the most important strategic thinking that Nadra put forward at the beginning of his administration. To this end, at the Build conference in 2014, Microsoft dispenses with system licensing fees for Windows Phone up to 9 inches and is aggressively pulling OEMs in an attempt to expand the layout of Windows Phone. Although the time is short, but Microsoft is trying to abandon the traditional source of revenue in order to adapt to the mobile terminal.

Now, after five months of combing, Nadella's definition of the future of Microsoft in his eyes more and more clear, and he will reshape Microsoft's corporate culture. A week ago, Nadella announced his thinking outwards that "the strategy of equipment and services will help us to make the transition and we now need to find further our unique strategy."

Just before Microsoft released its 2014 fourth-quarter earnings report, Nadella's series of moves indicated that it gradually set off a line with Ballmer's era. Nadella also specifically made the acquisition of Nokia, the goal was re-elaborated, "We will be responsible for the Windows Phone market."

Third-party data show that as of May 2014, Microsoft's Windows Phone camp, Nokia's share of 93.7%. In order to smooth development, Microsoft apparently needs more OEM manufacturers support, it will end product line that supports Android, will help enhance the confidence of Microsoft to develop Windows Phone.

From February this year to the current results, the results are more significant, about 20 OEM manufacturers have joined the Microsoft ecosystem.

At the same time, Microsoft is stepping up its cooperation with Qualcomm to launch the QRD reference design to help manufacturers in the Android camp launch Windows Phone devices quickly. Microsoft also launched a new hardware partner portal to help outsiders understand how to quickly build a Windows Phone device.