{"id":969,"date":"2011-02-16T02:11:54","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T07:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=969"},"modified":"2011-02-19T04:27:27","modified_gmt":"2011-02-19T09:27:27","slug":"the-nokia-takeover-its-not-just-about-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=969","title":{"rendered":"The Nokia Takeover; It’s Not Just About Phones."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the company that brought cell phones to the Third World.  This is the company from whom I got the most basic cellphone 7 years ago, a phone which continued to surprise me with capabilities which I only expect on a smart phone today.  Tethering.  Nowhere in the marketing material had tethering been mentioned.  And not just tethering via USB, but bluetooth tethering.  Nobody spent any time upselling that feature, but some firmware developer (probably many, and Symbian firmware, no less) had obviously spent a lot of time getting it to work, and work superbly.  Music.  It wasn’t supposed to have a music player, or so I thought.  But it did.  And it sounded amazing.  The best speaker I have ever encountered on cellphone.  Except for the two Nokia’s I’ve had since then.  That cheap little dumbphone was dripping quality out of everywhere.<\/p>\n

Nokia built things with a presumption of usability beyond expectations.  All other products I have encountered–certainly true of my experience with cell phones, and overwhelmingly true for all products I have encountered in the American market–never provided more than I expected them to, and almost always less.  That is how manufacturers carve more profit from a sale, by packing as few features into a product as possible while still technically meeting the minimum specs necessary to sell it.  Nokia did more than the minimum.<\/p>\n

The Google motto is “Don’t be evil.”   Commendable.  But such a statement would have not made any sense to a company like Nokia.  I don’t believe the possibility of being evil would ever even occur to them.  Only in America is it necessary to admonish against evilness, since it is so often used here for political, financial and personal gains.  But that is not so in Finland.  Theirs is a humane society.  For no reason other than it is good; for people it is good.<\/p>\n

No one seems to grasp the implications of this takeover of Nokia by the evil empire.  Or maybe they are smart, and just keep their mouths shut about it.  But I don’t really think Microsoft went to Espoo because they want a place to peddle Windows Phone.  I also don’t think they have not been vying for this takeover for years.  In fact, I would venture to guess that some very big money in this country has been maneuvering for a very long time to destabilize Nokia, both internally and externally, probably through manipulation of various investment channels, and other methods we just do not want to think about.  The best cover for evil deeds is the reluctance of good people to contemplate the depths to which evil people will stoop.  Sadly, nothing would surprise me.<\/p>\n

Nokia is not precious to Microsoft for its failing, misguided, start-and-stop software strategies.  I don’t even think that Microsoft is the primary player here.  They are a more than willing player to be sure.  But something tells me there are bigger things moving Microsoft.  And probably bigger money than even Microsoft has.  What is precious about Nokia is something other than phones.  It has a global presence that any power broker would envy.  Microsoft may shadow Nokia’s presence in many places, but not everywhere.  And nowhere with the depth and expertise of Nokia’s global presence.  In one fell swoop they have doubled–nay, tripled–their influence on this planet.  But this is only supposed to be about finding a home for Windows Phone, right? <\/p>\n

Nokia is not restricted to the manufacture of handsets either.  They have hardware and assets extant in some very significant areas, like telecommunications equipment<\/a> deployed throughout the nations of the Middle-East, specifically, telecommunications monitoring<\/strong> equipment.  Racks and racks of bugging hardware, for every regime that could afford the best.  Not what the “connecting people” company wanted you to know about.  But they have it.  Or they had it.  Now Microsoft has it.  Or rather, the US has it.  Precious.  Well worth everything I suspect they have invested in this takeover.  Certainly such a prize would justify years of planning, extensive subterfuge, and industrial espionage on a scale unheard of before; all of this and then some to have unfettered direct access to all the intelligence one’s black heart could desire.<\/p>\n

And none of this even addresses the value of having access to every single Nokia cellphone all over the planet.  That’s almost all of them, Androids notwithstanding.  Beyond priceless.<\/p>\n

Sound crazy?  It is.  And don’t believe a word of it.  Because you are not supposed to.  But it does possibly explain some things.  Why else would one turkey want to takeover another turkey?  And it inspires some very unpleasant dreams.<\/p>\n

But this is only supposed to be about Windows Phone, right?  Right.  Go back to sleep.  It was just a bad dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the company that brought cell phones to the Third World.  This is the company from whom I got the most basic cellphone 7 years ago, a phone which continued to surprise me with capabilities which I only expect … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}