The Pre and WebOS were hands down the best non iPhone experience at the time. The mistake Palm made was going exclusive instead of pushing it everywhere. I don't think the Pre ever recovered from that in the USA.
The BlackBerry Z10 was also a great device but by that point there was no way BlackBerry to deploy a competing ecosystem to iPhone and Android for it to matter.
European tech was doomed in late the 90s when the EU decided to throw in with Microsoft et al instead of supporting building out a homegrown alternative ecosystem based around open source software.
Nokia was dead company walking before Stephen Elop. Elop saw the writing on the wall and made one of the choices available. A different CEO would have made a different choice but ultimately at that point it would still have been too late to save Nokia.
Nokia was a great hardware company that missed the boat when the market changed to be based around software. When the market changed again to be based around ecosystems, Nokia was beyond saving.
Was there with the company as intern and junior during Nokia and Microsoft days for Nokia Maps.
In my opinion Microsoft fumbled the app store by bloating it with questionable KPIs on number of added apps by anyone able to submit templates apps, while not getting key apps like WhatsApp on board. S\so it was a hard sell to have people's ecosystems. Same syndrome as with Zune, Tablet PC, and Microsoft Store on Windows.
Build quality and hardware of the Lumias was second only to iPhones and definitly better experience than Android.
The old Nokias had no chance compared to those, and I agree with the assessment that Nokia as Android-Vendor would have made little sense either.
> In my opinion Microsoft fumbled the app store by bloating it with questionable KPIs on number of added apps by anyone able to submit templates apps
Worse than that. IIRC, Microsoft ran contests which specifically incentivized developers to create as many apps as possible, and most of the apps they got as a result were garbage (like copies of developer examples with some of the text changed).
Nokia with android vendor would mean Nokia would survive until today - just due to the brand (it was big) and build quality.
They released an android phone that sold... many years too late.
If they released it much earlier (no microsoft) probablh Nokia would still be here - competing with Samsung, or in worst case the tier3 brand cheaper smartphones.
> made a different choice but ultimately at that point it would still have been too late to save Nokia.
You think if they made just a single decision different and bet on Android instead of Windows, they would be in the same spot today? I wouldn't be so sure. Samsung hedged their bets across both and succeeded. Both weren't great at in-house software and Nokia made better hardware.
I don't think Nokia at that point would have gone with Android with Google services which what the market wanted. They would have gone with Android with their own services (Maps etc) and app store.
I don't think that would have succeeded against Samsung and the Nexus phones.
But TBH I think going with Android would have a better move than what Elop did.
Nokia is still around, because NSN survived this mess.
As someone on the Networks side, with occasional visits to Finland headquarters, Nokia Mobiles would have done alright, if they kept down the Symbian/Linux path.
The Burning Memo killed the remaining trusth from app developers, in a company and ecosystem that was pretty much anti-Microsoft, just made the transition to have Qt properly integrated in Symbian, with PIPS and nicer Eclipse based IDE than the previous experience.
Only to be told to throw away all that developer experience, adopt Windows and .NET.
Maybe so, but could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments like this one and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42728555? A good comment needs more information than this.
If you know more than others, that's great, but then please share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, that's fine, but in that case it's best to just accept that the internet is wrong about everything and not reply.
It's a fair take. California is now unaffordable for most families and it's going to get worse.
Example: New construction in Santa Clarita (north Los Angeles county) $800k 3 bedroom town house. Even with ~50% down you are still looking around $4k+ per month in payments, with 25% of that amount being property tax.
You'll also likely be paying more due to Mello-Roos and with HOA and home insurance on top of that. Plus it's unlikely at this point you'll be able to get fire insurance.
Good luck trying to make the numbers work on the country medium income of ~$100k.
(And don't ask how someone on medium income can put 50% down on a $800k home).
Prop 13 is the third rail of California politics that is choking the state.
Until someone is willing to grab the nettle and fix the property tax situation to be fair and equitable to everyone then California cities are eventually going to run out of money to maintain infrastructure.
> Proposition 13 (officially named the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation) is an amendment of the Constitution of California enacted during 1978, by means of the initiative process, to cap property taxes and limit property reassessments to when the property changes ownership, and to require a 2/3 majority for tax increases in the state legislature.
The insidious part is that commercial real estate in California is paying the same rates as they were when the building was built, despite the fact that the value of the building has increased many times since and the building "changing" ownership many times since.
The second insidious part is that because of the enhancements to the tax code over the years it's possible to continue to pay 1978 property tax rates in perpetuity, and even pass those rates on to your descendants. You can even transfer those super low rates to a new property in some cases.
New buyers get screwed because they will be paying at today's rates. So you could be paying 10x more property tax as your neighbor for the same city services.
Public employee unions are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. Central Valley farmers are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. High-speed rail is the third rail of California politics that is choking the state. Free government services for illegal aliens are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. We have plenty of rails, take your pick.
Fairness and equity are highly subjective. If you ask any Californian they will say that someone else should pay higher taxes. I support reform of the property tax system in general but let's not forget what triggered Proposition 13 in the first place: it was a taxpayer revolt against uncontrolled and unaccountable increases in local government spending. So any reform will still require an effective means of constraining government budgets. Otherwise we'll just end up back where we started.
Prop 13 may be a part of the problem, but not the biggest. The biggest problem is the same as all the other cities without prop 13 in the country that have budget issues: pensions.
A lot of government officials abuse the system and get exhorbidant pensions, especially when early retirement options start at 50.
It's largely the same issue that every sector is experiencing. Everyone is trying for the same high end of the market crowd to extract as much prestige and profit as possible and pricing out the mass market.
Cinemas and concerts are in the same boats.
With the cost of essentials through the roof spending $$$ for a night out is now a periodic luxury rather than every Saturday night.
The common pattern is that the off-shoring company will deploy workers on site for a year to do knowledge transfer and documentation of existing processes so that they can be moved off shore.
Usually (but not always) these workers come into the US on a H-1B visa.
I have not seen this in my career. Its usually PE or cost cutting causes US roles to be split into mult off shore roles because the pay per engineer is less outside the US. Like everything else the talent is a bell curve.
There are two possible end-states for AI once a threshold is crossed:
The AIs take a look at the state of things and realize the KPIs will improve considerably if homo sapiens are removed from the picture. Cue "The Matrix" or "The Terminator" type future.
OR:
The AIs take a look and decide that keeping homo sapiens around makes things much more fun and interesting. They take over running things in a benevolent manner in collaboration with homo sapiens. At that point we end up with 'The Culture'.
Either end-state is bad for the billionaire/investor/VC class.
In the first you'll be a fed into the meat grinder just like everyone else. In the second the AIs, will do a much better job of resource allocation, will perform a decapitation strike on that demographic to capture the resources, and capitalism will largely be extinct from that point onwards.
There's a third option which I call "The Pet Future": the AIs decide we make great pets. Look at how we deal with pets. We look after them, we love them and care for them. We feed them and have them share our lives. All in the knowledge that we are superior and that they are "simpler" than us.
Kaiser does give a more integrated European style experience, however the experience largely depends on the quality of service you get from your local Kaiser doctors and hospitals.
The only times I hear about consistent experiences from a health system is when it's consistently poor. Ones where you can get good quality service are universally inconsistent.
IMHO, Kaiser is usually (but not always!) adequate, and I'd rather have good enough and easy to access than have to deal with non-integrated health care. My most recent health care experience was going to a Pediatric office (Nurse Practitioner), getting a prescription for a asthma control inhaler, where the NP was aware that insurance coverage was very selective so they picked the most likely covered. Then going to the pharmacy after waiting a customary amount of time, being told the specific one wasn't covered but they would tell the NP which one is covered and I should be able to get it by the end of the day. Call the NP office and leave a voice mail, check in with the pharmacy near close of business and no new prescription. I ended up paying for the non-covered one the next day (Saturday) because I wanted to get the kiddo's asthma under control 2 days sooner than if I waited for Monday.
This would have never happened in an integrated system --- at Kaiser, often my prescription would be ready to pick up by the time I walked within the building from the doctor to the pharmacy. In an integrated system, the prescriber always knows what's covered, and usually what's available at the pharmacy when they write the prescription. I've definitely heard things like 'they want you to try this one first, and if it doesn't work, let me know and I can write you the other one', which can be frustrating, but it's better to hear it from the MD or NP than from the Pharmacist. Sometimes, specialists have huge backlogs in an integrated system, and that's not great either, unless it's really bad, you can't get care outside the system unless you pay full fare, and many injuries have worse results with untimely aftercare. With a non-integrated system, you can at least call around and maybe find an appointment with a specialist that's a little bit farther away.
Unfortunately, I moved out of the area of Kaiser. They have been purchasing some health groups around me, but they don't control any local hospitals, and the nearest office is not really close due to local geography; choosing to live on an island is on me, but I still need to have coverage for doctors on that island.
The BlackBerry Z10 was also a great device but by that point there was no way BlackBerry to deploy a competing ecosystem to iPhone and Android for it to matter.