History
Pre-telecommunications era
.png)
The predecessors of the modern Nokia were the Nokia Company (Nokia Aktiebolag), Finnish Rubber Works Ltd (Suomen Gummitehdas Oy) andFinnish Cable Works Ltd (Suomen Kaapelitehdas Oy).
Nokia's history started in 1865 when mining engineer Fredrik Idestam established a groundwood pulp mill on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids in the town of Tampere, in southwestern Finland in Russian Empire and started manufacturing paper. In 1868, Idestam built a second mill near the town of Nokia, fifteen kilometres (nine miles) west of Tampere by the Nokianvirta river, which had better resources for hydropower production. In 1871, Idestam, with the help of his close friend statesman Leo Mechelin, renamed and transformed his firm into a share company, thereby founding the Nokia Company, the name it is still known by today.
Toward the end of the 19th century, Mechelin's wishes to expand into the electricity business were at first thwarted by Idestam's opposition. However, Idestam's retirement from the management of the company in 1896 allowed Mechelin to become the company's chairman (from 1898 until 1914) and sell most shareholders on his plans, thus realizing his vision. In 1902, Nokia added electricity generation to its business activities.
Industrial conglomerate
In 1898, Eduard Polón founded Finnish Rubber Works, manufacturer of galoshes and other rubber products, which later became Nokia's rubber business. At the beginning of the 20th century, Finnish Rubber Works established its factories near the town of Nokia and they began using Nokia as its product brand. In 1912, Arvid Wickström founded Finnish Cable Works, producer oftelephone, telegraph and electrical cables and the foundation of Nokia's cable and electronics businesses. At the end of the 1910s, shortly after World War I, the Nokia Company was nearing bankruptcy. To ensure the continuation of electricity supply from Nokia's generators, Finnish Rubber Works acquired the business of the insolvent company. In 1922, Finnish Rubber Works acquired Finnish Cable Works. In 1937, Verner Weckman, a sport wrestler and Finland's first Olympic Gold medalist, became president of Finnish Cable Works, after 16 years as its technical director. After World War II, Finnish Cable Works supplied cables to the Soviet Union as part of Finland's war reparations. This gave the company a good foothold for later trade.
The three companies, which had been jointly owned since 1922, were merged to form a new industrial conglomerate, Nokia Corporation in 1967 and paved the way for Nokia's future as a global corporation. The new company was involved in many industries, producing at one time or another paper products, car and bicycle tires, footwear (including rubber boots), communications cables, televisions and other consumer electronics, personal computers, electricity generation machinery, robotics, capacitors, military communications and equipment (such as the SANLA M/90device and the M61 gas mask for the Finnish Army), plastics, aluminium and chemicals. Each business unit had its own director who reported to the first Nokia Corporation President, Björn Westerlund. As the president of the Finnish Cable Works, he had been responsible for setting up the company's first electronics department in 1960, sowing the seeds of Nokia's future in telecommunications.
Eventually, the company decided to leave consumer electronics behind in the 1990s and focused solely on the fastest growing segments in telecommunications. Nokian Tyres, manufacturer of tires, split from Nokia Corporation to form its own company in 1988 and two years later Nokian Footwear, manufacturer of rubber boots, was founded. During the rest of the 1990s, Nokia divested itself of all of its non-telecommunications businesses.
Product releases
Nokia launched its Nokia 1100 handset in 2003, with over 200 million units shipped, was the best-selling mobile phone of all time and the world's top-selling consumer electronics product. Also that year, Nokia is cited in Michael Saylor's 2012 book, The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything, as one of the first players in the mobile space to recognize that there was a market opportunity in combining a game console and a mobile phone (both of which many gamers were carrying in 2003) into the N-Gage. The N-Gage was a mobile phone and game console meant to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance, though it cost twice as much and was said to resemble a taco.
In May 2007, Nokia released its first touch screen phone, the Nokia 7710, which was also a huge success. In November 2007, Nokia announced and released the Nokia N82, its first Nseries phone with Xenon flash. At the Nokia World conference in December 2007, Nokia announced their "Comes With Music" program: Nokia device buyers are to receive a year of complimentary access to music downloads.The service became commercially available in the second half of 2008.
Nokia Productions was the first ever mobile filmmaking project directed by Spike Lee. Work began in April 2008, and the film premiered in October 2008.
In 2008, Nokia released the Nokia E71 which was marketed to directly compete with the other BlackBerry-type devices offering a full "qwerty" keyboard and cheaper prices. Nokia announced in August 2009 that they will be selling a high-end Windows-based mini laptop called the Nokia Booklet 3G.On 2 September 2009, Nokia launched two new music and social networking phones, the X6 and X3. The Nokia X6 features 32GB of on-board memory with a 3.2" finger touch interface and comes with a music playback time of 35 hours. The Nokia X3 is a first series 40 Ovi Store-enabled device. The X3 is a music device that comes with stereo speakers, built-in FM radio, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. On 10 September 2009, Nokia unveiled the 7705 Twist, a phone sporting a square shape that swivels open to reveal a full QWERTY keypad, featuring a 3 megapixel camera, web browsing, voice commands and weighting around 3.44 ounces (98 g).
Symbian
.jpg)
Originally Nokia phones had a custom Nokia OS operating system developed specifically for Nokia mobile phones.
The first Nseries device, the N90, utilised the older Symbian OS 8.1 mobile operating system, as did the N70. Subsequently Nokia switched to using SymbianOS 9 for all later Nseries devices (except the N72, which was based on the N70). Newer Nseries devices incorporate newer revisions of SymbianOS 9 that include Feature Packs. The N800, N810, N900, N9 are as of April 2012 the only Nseries devices (therefore excluding Lumia devices) to not use Symbian OS. They use the Linux-based Maemo.
Nokia stated that Maemo would be developed alongside Symbian. Maemo had since (Maemo "6" and beyond) merged with Intel's Moblin, and became MeeGo. MeeGo was later canceled and a development is now continued under name Tizen.
The Nokia N8 is the first device to function on the Symbian^3 mobile operating system.
Nokia revealed that the N8 will be the last device in its flagship N-series devices to ship with Symbian OS.
Instead, Nokia will use Microsoft Windows Phone for its high-end flagship Lumia devices, and revealed the Nokia N9 will function on the MeeGo mobile operating system.
Alliance with Microsoft
On 11 February 2011, Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft employee, unveiled a new strategic alliance with Microsoft, and announced it would replaceSymbian and MeeGo with Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system except for mid-to-low-end devices, which would continue to run under Symbian. Nokia was also to invest into the Series 40 platform and release a single MeeGo product in 2011.
As part of the restructuring plan, Nokia planned to reduce spending on research and development, instead customising and enhancing the software line for Windows Phone 7. Nokia's "applications and content store" (Ovi) becomes integrated into the Windows Phone Marketplace, and Nokia Maps is at the heart of Microsoft's Bing and AdCenter. Microsoft provides developer tools to Nokia to replace theQt framework, which is not supported by Windows Phone 7 devices.
Symbian becomes described as a "franchise platform" with Nokia planning to sell 150 million Symbian devices after the alliance was set up. MeeGo emphasis is on longer-term exploration, with plans to ship "a MeeGo-related product" later in 2012. Microsoft's search engine,Bing becomes the search engine for all Nokia phones. Nokia also gets some level of customisation on WP7.
After this announcement, Nokia's share price fell about 14%, its biggest drop since July 2009.
As Nokia was the largest mobile phone manufacturer worldwide at the time, it was suggested the alliance would make Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 a stronger contender against Android and iOS. In June 2011 Nokia was overtaken by Apple as the world's biggest smartphone maker by volume. In August 2011 Chris Weber, head of Nokia's subsidiary in the U.S., stated "The reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn't matter what we do (elsewhere)." He further added "North America is a priority for Nokia (...) because it is a key market for Microsoft."
European carriers have stated that Nokia Windows phones are not good enough to compete with Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy phones, that "they are overpriced for what is not an innovative product" and that "No one comes into the store and asks for a Windows phone".
Plant movements
Nokia opened its Komárom, Hungary mobile phone factory on 5 May 2000.
In March 2007, Nokia signed a memorandum with Cluj County Council, Romania to open a new plant near the city in Jucu commune. Moving the production from the Bochum, Germany factory to a low wage country created an uproar in Germany. Nokia recently moved its North American Headquarters to Sunnyvale.
Reorganizations
In April 2003, the troubles of the networks equipment division caused the corporation to resort to similar streamlining practices on that side, including layoffs and organizational restructuring.This diminished Nokia's public image in Finland, and produced a number of court cases and an episode of a documentary television show critical of Nokia.
On February 2006, Nokia and Sanyo announced a memorandum of understanding to create a joint venture addressing the CDMA handset business. But in June, they announced ending negotiations without agreement. Nokia also stated its decision to pull out of CDMA research and development, to continue CDMA business in selected markets.
In June 2006, Jorma Ollila left his position as CEO to become the chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and to give way for Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
In May 2008, Nokia announced on their annual stockholder meeting that they want to shift to the Internet business as a whole. Nokia no longer wants to be seen as the telephone company.Google, Apple and Microsoft are not seen as natural competition for their new image but they are considered as major important players to deal with.
In November 2008, Nokia announced it was ceasing mobile phone distribution in Japan. Following early December, distribution of Nokia E71 is cancelled, both from NTT docomo and SoftBank Mobile. Nokia Japan retains global research & development programs, sourcing business, and an MVNO venture of Vertu luxury phones, using docomo's telecommunications network.
In February 2012, Nokia anonunced it was laying off 4000 employees to move manufacturing from Europe and Mexico to Asia.
In March 2012, Nokia annonunced it was laying off 1000 employess from its Salo, Finland factory to focus on software.
No comments:
Post a Comment