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传诺基亚将与微软联姻 WP7登陆Nokia手机平台

发布时间:2010-09-26 15:22:24 Tags:,,,

据可靠消息透露,诺基亚很可能新增手机操作平台,Windows Phone 7即是首选;另外,诺基亚董事会已授权新任掌门人、前微软首席执行官斯蒂芬·埃洛普(Stephen Elop)对手机操作系统决策、企业发展联盟这两项公司运营战略进行改革。(尽管诺基亚否认这一报道,但根据我们掌握的其他线索已足够证明这一说法。)

will Nokia build Windows phones

will Nokia build Windows phones

原先传言诺基亚将抛弃Symbian,迎娶更具竞争力的Android的说法至今尚无明证,但手机操作系统与企业发展联盟,确实是新官上任的斯蒂芬·埃洛普面临的两个重大抉择。

如果诺基亚真采用了Windows Phone 7,那么微软在手机平台的地盘之争将更具筹码,有了诺基亚这个世界手机生产之王的撑腰,WP7将分得苹果iOS和谷歌Android之后的第三块大蛋糕。要知道在最近几个月中,微软手机平台在市场上正节节败退,据非官方介绍,目前仅HTC、三星、LG、Asus和戴尔手机有意选用WP7系统;曾经打得火热的同盟惠普已经决定自立门户,选用自主开发的手机平台,而索爱则干脆宣布明年将投奔Android怀抱。

果真达成了这桩交易,对诺基亚来说也是个极划算的买卖。诺基亚正指望埃洛普的微软背景可以带来更多软件专家和尖端技术,重振往日雄风。因为2007年苹果推出iPhone后,诺基亚的市值便直线下滑了三分之二,少赚了650亿美元。在上周的诺基亚世界大会中,埃普洛也重申了引导诺基亚恢复荣光的决心,表示将把“开发商”这一核心词汇灌输到诺基亚发展理念。

埃洛普的走马上任使美国再次将目光转向诺基亚,因为在4个月前,诺基亚董事会已聘请了一名硅谷首席技术官瑞奇·格林(Rich Green,世界上最大的UNIX系统供应商Sun公司的前任总裁)。早在上周伦敦诺基亚展销会上,关于诺基亚可能与微软合并的传闻就已经此起彼伏,不绝于耳。据知情人消息,格林确实在不遗余力地评估诺基亚的软件资产,但两者合并一事却从未发生。可以说诺基亚未来将向何处去,完全取决于埃诺普作何选择。

初来乍到的埃洛普曾告诉《金融时报》记者,美国是这场手机创新革命的中心,这也是诺基亚极力争夺的市场,“手机产业革命原先发端于亚洲,后来横扫欧洲大陆,现在轮到北美坐庄。北美市场有许多手机创新技术和理念,诺基亚不能缺席。”

诺基亚上周刚刚宣布推出新一季的Symbian手机,其中包括拳头产品诺基亚N8手机。据了解,N8的订单来势汹汹,让诺基亚始料未及。诺基亚市场执行副总裁尼科拉斯·萨万德(Niklas Savander)预计, Symbian^3手机的出货量有可能超过5000万部。

知情人还透露,诺基亚将与美国电话电报公司(AT&T),将在两周后开幕的美国无线通讯交易展会(CTIA trade show)上,联合宣布美国运营商面向全美销售N8手机的消息。诺基亚已在美国市场失势多年,这一举动意在打响手机翻身战,收复北美市场。当然,与其他手机制造商一样,诺基亚也难免一些硬伤,应用开发商并不十分看好Symbian手机,因为Symbian系统确实不太理想。

Symbian的未来走向也是埃洛普需要考量的核心问题,从2008年开始,诺基亚就已试图将Symbian改造成更加现代化的操作系统,并为开发商提供跨平台软件开发工具箱Qt。

诺基亚在3个月前推出了Symbian的Qt软件开发工具包(SDK),并承诺通过Qt手机SDK,原来使用Symbian C++开展工作的开发商,只需编写70%以下的代码,消耗50%的时间就能完成同样的应用开发任务。诺基亚Qt高级产品经理蒂亚戈·马西埃拉(Thiago Macieira)表示,目前已有25万名应用开发商使用Qt工具,公司当前面临的任务仍是说服更多开发商选择诺基亚SDK。

市场调研公司Visionmobile最近公布了一项名为《手机应用开发商经济效益调查》(mobile developer economics)的报告,指出开发商对原版Symbian开发工具评价最低,因为使用Symbian开发应用,往往需要先耗费15个月之久的时间掌握Symbian C++语言。

Average time required to master each platform

Average time required to master each platform

也就是说,如果使用了Qt手机SDK,等于节省使用Symbian C++一半的时间。

在上周的2010年诺基亚开发者峰会上,记者就Qt话题采访了多名应用开发商。来自Futurice开发公司的迈克尔·萨马里(Michael Samarin)对Qt的评价相当正面,他的说法也得到了其他开发商普遍赞同。萨马里认为,与Qt的优势相比较,它所面临的挑战微不足道。开发商们一致认为,诺基亚Ovi Store的服务水平确实大有长进,其运营商计费系统对提高应用营收转化率大有裨益。

使用Qt的应用开发商很快就能找到理想的应用运行平台,因为新款Symbian^3手机以及N8手机即将上市,而且目前热卖的20多款Symbian手机同样支持运行Qt。诺基亚N8和E7都是十分过硬的产品,除非2011年优化了用户界面的Symbian^4 手机问世才能把它们比下去。(据Visionmobile报告,约一半的Symbian、黑莓、Windows Phone平台应用开发商认为这些系统无法创造理想的用户界面。)

现在,诺基亚新任CEO斯蒂芬·埃洛普所面临的问题就是,如何把控好诺基亚的巨人转身。尽管Symbian仍在困难中前进,但已有传言称诺基亚将在今年第四季度推出MeeGo手机,而且与WP7的合作也已经初现轮廓。斯蒂芬·埃洛普将如何打破诺基亚的发展瓶颈?让我们拭目以待。

Will Nokia build Windows phones?

(Update: Nokia disagrees with our report. However, we have two additional sources which agree with it).

According to a trusted source, Nokia is now likely to use Windows Phone 7 as an additional platform for its phones. Also, Nokia’s board has given new ex-Microsoft CEO Stephen Elop the green light to change the company’s strategy if needed, a source familiar with these matters said. This new mandate includes decisions on OS strategy or alliances.

Prior rumours of either Nokia dropping Symbian or adopting the competing Android platform have been unfounded. It’s only now that such strategic options are becoming viable to a Nokia CEO.

Nokia embracing Windows Phone 7 would be a key win for Microsoft and would make it the third major platform behind Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android at a time when there’s a major OS landgrab going on. In recent months Microsoft has faced serious setbacks attracting device makers to the new platform, with only HTC, Samsung and LG unofficially confirmed as launch partners (update: Asus and Dell, too). Long-time ally HP has shifted its strategy to its own platform, and Sony-Ericsson has gone all Android for 2011 .

Nokia is counting on Elop’s software expertise and willingness to shake up businesses as it tries to revive its fortunes in the mobile-phone market. Since the launch of Apple’s iPhone in June 2007, Nokia’s share price has fallen by almost two-thirds, decreasing the company value by around $65 billion. At last week’s Nokia World, Elop reiterated that, like his former Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer, his credo of choice is “developers, developers, developers” and he intends to instill this credo into Nokia.

Elop’s hiring is part of a new US focus for Nokia. Four months ago Nokia’s Board had hired a new Silicon Valley-based CTO in Rich Green, a former software boss at Sun. At last week’s Nokia trade show in London there were various rumours of a possible Nokia and Microsoft merger. According to our sources, Green is currently leading a due diligence effort to evaluate Nokia’s various software assets, but no actual merger talks have happened. The results of this diligence and the conclusions made by Elop will be key to Nokia’s future.

In the first interview in his new Nokia role, Elop told the Financial Times that innovation in the mobile industry had shifted to the US, where the group has struggled to compete. “That’s a shift from years before when the development of the mobile industry tended to start in Asia and move through Europe and then to North America. Now there’s fresh innovation in North America and it’s critically important for Nokia to be participating in that market.”

Nokia just announced a family of new-generation Symbian phones last week, including its new flagship device, the N8. Pre-orders for the N8 are the strongest the company has ever seen. Niklas Savander, EVP for marketing, predicted at the event that the company will ship more than 50 million new Symbian^3 phones.

Sources are  also telling us that at the CTIA trade show in two weeks Nokia and AT&T will announce that the US carrier will sell the N8 in the US.  This would be a major win for Nokia’s Symbian operating system and for Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile gadget maker, which, for various reasons, has failed to gain traction in the US in recent years. Nokia, amongst other hanset makers, has had a hard time attracting developers to build apps for its phones because Symbian has been a bit of a bear to use.

Amongst the key question Elop will have to evaluate is the role of Symbian going forward. Since 2008, key to Nokia’s strategy was to transform Symbian into a modern-day OS and make cross-platform development software Qt the main tool for its developers.

Three months ago Nokia launched its Nokia Qt software development kit (SDK) for Symbian. With the Qt mobile SDK, Nokia promises that developers will use 70% less code and develop apps in 50% of the time it would take them on native Symbian C++. According to Thiago Macieira, Nokia Senior Product Manager for Qt, there are 250,000 developers already using Qt. Now the company’s challenge is to convince developers to give the Nokia SDK a chance.

Leading mobile market analysis firm Visionmobile recently made an extensive study of the current state of “mobile developer economics”. Across most important categories, developing in native Symbian fared last in developer’s assessments. For example, it takes developers on average 15 months to master native Symbian C++.

With that 50%, Symbian’s attractiveness to developers goes from dead-last to middle of the pack.

At the Nokia Developer Summit 2010 last week I discussed Qt with various developers. Particularly there was a session led by Michael Samarin from development company Futurice who described the challenges with current Qt cross-platform development. Samarin’s response to Qt was overwhelmingly positive, as was the response of the developers in the room, and the challenges he described,overall, were trivial. Developer sentiment was that Nokia’s equivalent to Apple’s App Store, the Ovi app store, seems to be much improved and that operator billing is proving to have great effect on app monetization.

Developers will quickly find an installed base for Symbian apps developed with Qt. The new Symbian^3 phones, including Nokia’s new flagship N8 phone, will support Qt, and so will 20 of the current top-selling Symbian devices. While even Symbian fanboys are not ready to compare the N8 to the iPhone or the cutting edge Android phones, both the N8 and the E7 are solid devices. Still,much better Symbian phone reviews will likely not happen until a much needed Qt UI renewal in Symbian^4 phones takes place at some point in 2011. (In the Visionmobile study, around 50 out of 100 Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Phone perplatform respondents were annoyed with the difficulty in creating great UIs.)

The question is, what will Nokia’s new CEO, Stephen Elop, do to accelerate Nokia’s turnaround. With Symbian embattered but improving, Nokia still rumoured to be launching a family of MeeGo devices in Q4 2010 and now Windows Phone 7 getting into the picture, all bets are on the table.(source:venturebeat)

声明:本文中文为游戏邦翻译,英文原文采用venturebeat,转载请保留版权信息,谢谢!


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