CE-Oh no he didn't! Part XLV: Symbian's Lee Williams rips into Android, implies Google is evil (video)
By Vladislav Savov 
posted Oct 26th 2009 7:06AM
posted Oct 26th 2009 7:06AM
"I don't view Apple as evil, they're just greedy... Google, come on! When you have to say in your motto that we're not evil, right away the first question in my mind is, 'why do you have to tell me that?'"All this must be tempered by the knowledge that Android is set to overtake large swathes of the mobile OS space, and some retaliatory trash talking is probably to be expected from the incumbent smartphone leader. Om does ask another sage question, in querying why Williams thinks companies are making such large investments into Android, and you'll find the answer to that and much more in the video past the break.
[Via MobileTechWorld; Thanks, fido]
Read - Lee Williams interview with GigaOM
Read - New York Times: 'Big Cellphone Makers Shifting to Android System'
Read - PCWorld: 'Android, Symbian Will Own Smartphones in 2012'
A pink shirt in 2009? Now that's evil.
Greed is good. That's the basis of capitalism. No one makes a product(s) to give away for free. Everyone one is in it for themselves, for greed. The only reason why smartphones are advancing is because everyone wants to be greedy and make the most money, which means you have to make yours better then the next guy. I'd rather buy from someone whos greedy because they want my money, and to get my money they better make what I want. We all are greedy and it is good that we are!
at the start of 2009 i was realy looking forward to the n97. then after the last firmware update on my e71 the idiots at nokia added an unremoveable camera click. yes i tried all the usual tools to remove it. didn't work. and no it's not a legal requirement here in ireland. they just decided in nokia to turn the damned thing on. now i had bought the e71 because i knew that i could turn that crappy noise off. (the loudest noise from my cubicle should not be that noise when i take screen shots!) so they had taken away a feature i has bought the camera for. that's evil! worse there was no warning in the firmware notes! so i've sworn never to buy a nokia again.
having seen the disaster that is the n97. my favourite comment of a customer who was given a free one is that after a few days he 'got used to it'. you shouldn't have to get used to a new flagship device. it should just work. that they released a buggy pos is evil. i'm never ever going to buy a piece of hardware that will only work after firmware updates when i've seen the crap they pull turning off useful features i want in a phone.
development tools. nokia should be way ahead on this one. it's the descendant of psion. on a psion i could download a 100 page manual and write apps simply and easily in opl. nokia has python. a standard language. should be easier. yet the pdfs aren't viewable in the pdf viewer on the device itself. wtf! the pdf documentation even when readable is terrible. no help to learning to program on the symbian.
ovi. were to start? i signed up when it was first announced. it crashed half way through the registration process. since then i'm bombarded with crap every month and it ignores the unsubscribe option. having seen the app store they came up with ovi? it's a slow pos. i gave my e71 to a friend who programs in python in symbian in open source projects. he likes the speed and feature set (he hates the camera click but can live with it). while waiting in the cinema for a film to start he was talking with another e71 user and decided to download an app to fix a sms bug. took him 15 minutes to find, download, locate and install the app. yes the iphone app store is resticted. yes the android marketplace is weak. but it doesn't take more than 2-3 minutes to find and install what you want. and most of that is waiting for the download!
i hope nokia fixes their problems. i hope they realise that customers decide what to buy based on their previous experiences of their phones. personally i think nokia has jumped the shark. most of my friends were waiting at the start of the year for the n97. i buy my phones unlocked, full price unsubsidised. so do most of my friends. none bought a n97. 1-2 are hoping the n900 will be the device they were waiting for. others are looking at iphones and android. me i have an iphone 3g and a htc hero. nice devices but i reckon i prefer android more. oh and guess what. both the iphone and android are silent when i take a picture. yea!
(I"ll repost this) Having worked at Doubleclick (googles ad serving engine) I understand better then most the dis-intermediation that google feeds off of. Google views it's users as grist for its mill. Free in google speak equates to a customer who has a lifetime value of between $1,600,000 to $8,000,000 - that is what you are worth to Google. In no way will Google allow anyone to poach that golden egg.
Just as the "last mile" was always the challenge in the communication world. The disconnected user was Googles Achillies heel - in the late 90's they realized that the mobile web would harm the golden egg- thus their benevolence bestowed on the peasants,,, Android, all in the name of gathering and profiling the user in increasingly intrusive ways.
But the apps are FREE! They help me with my life, now they are with me ALL the time, how can this be bad? Is your Android phone giving you $100,000 worth of value per year? It is to Google.
Google have even changed Andriods strategy based on the dumbing down of the smartphone - the iPhone. The single tasking feature phone introduced by Apple was a game changer. BUT NOT IN A POSITIVE FASHION. One of the least sophisticated mobile countries in the world -the United States of America- who's vast population is so technically backwards and incapable of managing a modern smartphone was ripe for a consumer device that was sufficiently simple to use. Using the super model axiom Apple developed a product that was beautiful, yet not intellectually challenging - and just like a super model it can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
All of Apples devices have only one purpose - defeat the evil Microsoft emprire and sell more Mac's. Hence the absolute need to introduce iTunes into your ilife to use the iPhone. Much is written about the iPhone wonderful eco-system. The pundits forget that true smart phones don't need an eco system, they survive and thrive stand alone, connected to the rest of the world via wifi, G3, G4, GX... they provide the user with a converged experience without an umbilical cord.
The iPhone showed Google two things 1) It had lost control of this entire segment of the population to the "notion of less". Less sophistication, less usability, less freedom (ironic for the company who's iconic moment was the "1984" commercial). 2)Americans are stupid enough to actually pay for applications that should be standard kit on an advanced smartphone. (As an aside I realize that over the entire span of my use of Nokia smartphones I have only bought 3 apps - Wayfinder for my 9300, Profimail for my E71{pre Nokia Messaging} and Gravity on the N97. Every thing else has been provided by Nokia at no cost as part of my handset purchase.)
So Google has moved to less free apps, simpler UI, more intrusion into the "open source" code based in it's lessons from Apple. The loss of huge swathes of America to the iPhone and the inability to get traction has turned google into a peditor on the ODM scene. Motorola, Dell, HTC, etc... who no longer have the deep pockets of Apple, Nokia, Microsoft to develop and refine mobile OS's are selling their hardware souls to Google in an attempt to stay relavent as handset makers. All these ODM's will learn, as did IBM,Compaq, HP that people use software not hardware and by turning over the reigns of the user experience to Google they will become increasingly irrelevent.
The mobile as a concept was about freedom and the old cliche is that freedom is not free. Of all the mobile platforms Googles is the worst since they lie about the price that you pay for it's use. Apple at least is open about its blatant consumerist bias and control freak nature. Nokia has shown itself to be the most benevolent - Symbian to open source, Maemo, Betalabs all in the name of a better handset experience.
How is it possible for google to make 100,000 per year off a consumer who grosses only a fraction of that? The average persons yearly disposable income is not much. With google focusing on advertising and demographics I dont see how they can pull that kinda money in.
And Americans must not be that far behind since every smartphone os besides the two that Nokia uses are American made (Rim is North American smart ass lol). And phones like the iPhone and Android arent even really competing against traditional smartphones like Blackberry, Symbian, and WM. They are taking all the old razr, and chocolate users. What are you supposed to do when people paid 300 dollars for a razr instead of getting a BlackBerry or Winmo phone?? With the advancements in technology in only makes sense that new featurephones would have some smartphone features.
And until Symbian makes a whole hearted attempt to become relevant in the US now one will care about them. Nokia will make a half assed release of a run of mill symbian phone every few years.. Yawn.. I hope they really dont wonder why no one gives a dam..
Fundamental direct marketing. Yes you may only spend hundreds, or thousands with google checkout in any given year, but the data that you provide google is worth hundreds of thousands. Not only is your data used directly re-targeting you (Reading your e-mails on g-mail and targeting ads), but compliled, abstracted, aggregated that data is sold billions, if not trillions, of times for all those ad impressions. All those blog posts you make. All the sites you search, if google is your home page...every url you type into the address bar is tracked, not to mention the TCP/IP tracking. Grand central / wave transcribes every voicemail that is left... every number you dial, or dials you, gets a reverse append to a terrestrial (postal) address - you think your carrier is the only one who knows your postal address - think again, google now knows. Your wonderful Android phone now can be cell tri-angulate your position, turn on GPS, use Google maps and you become geo-coded.
Even if you have read the license agreement and are o.k. with being an open book to google, everyone who contacts you on your Android phone, sends an e-mail to your g-mail account gets data mined without their permission. You add friends to latitude, book mark places in maps... not only does google understand you better but will link that terrestrial address to a google profile (Remember that Amazon reciept sent to your g-mail account, with your postal address? google read that information).
Americans are brilliant as sofware developers/marketers.... Absolute cattle as mobile users. The only advantage Apple, RIM (Which is Canadian, you know that big country above you?) and Microsoft have is that they know the sloth of the american consumer better then Nokia. Also remember that RIM has just moved into the smartphone realm. The BB has always been am e-mail appliance first and foremost... "smartphone" with out WiFi - please.
Symbian relevant in the US? You mean Nokia, they are different and your lack of understanding this diminishes the value of your post.
So if you don't think that your Android phone is worth $100,000 check googles valuation, that doesn't come from people typing in search terms.
its refreshing to see a well thought out comment on engadget ejvictor. nice break from the usual dismissive and narrowminded if you don't agree with me deal.
Your condescending tones are quite amusing.. I'm very adept at geography. If Nokia is European, that would make Rim American.. Period. (like I said)
I am quite aware that Symbian and Nokia are two different entities. But if Symbian chooses to only move were Nokia lets them (and while Nokia moves on to more capable platforms) that's their fault. And that would mean their North American deployment is dependent on Nokia. (like I said)
And your right that Google does make alot of money off of their customers but your number are terribly inflated. Google doesnt make 100,000 dollars a year off of any one person. If a thousand millions is a billion.. (you see where Im going)
And its funny how you say American users are cattle when we have WM, BB, Android, Iphone, and Web OS to choose from and the rest of world has only Symbian. Sounds like the opposite. (you could count maemo but as for now its more of an internet tablet platform). And then your comment saying the only advantage MS and Rim have are knowing how much of a sloth the American consumer is laughable. MS and RIM devices are hardly marketed and are for more advanced users. The same reasons that you gave for Symbian being superior to the iPhone.
You have alot of spite in your comments and it clouds your judgment. And for the record I use WM.
You are being a sophist and neither paying attention to Williams video or my posts. First as a Canadian, RIM is a global Canadian company. Nokia is a Finnish global company... respect peoples nationalities. Then again you post seems to have a very limited view of of the globe, thinking that the rest of the world has only Symbian. Thirdly, read carefully and take some economics courses. I said $100k value - I did not say that they fully monitize that value, nor that corporate valuations have anything to do with EBITA.
ejvictor, I appreciate your analysis and think it is very astute and I basically already came to the same conclusions as you. But you put it together nicely and state it well.
That said, I have to agree with others that your $100k number doesn't really make sense. It's the only part of what you say, with which I have a bone to pick. First you said an Android phone gives Google "$100,000 worth of value per year," then you qualified your claim saying, "if you don't think that your Android phone is worth $100,000 check googles [sic] valuation," and finally you changed your statement to, "I said $100k value - I did not say that they fully monitize [sic] that value."
Saying in the first instance that Google gets $100k of value "per year," certainly sounds a lot like you meant they fully monetize that value. But anyway, if your point is that each customer reflects a portion of Google's valuation, the math still doesn't add up. If each Android customer is worth $100k and Google's current market cap as of today is $175 billion, then that would mean that 1.75 million Android users account for the entire value of Google as a business. G1 sales hit the 1 million mark in April, 2009, after six months of availability, and may well have already passed the 2 million mark or more. So in order to accept your claim, one would have to believe that 1-2 million Android users alone account for more than half and perhaps the entire value of Google as a business and subsequently that the more than 100 million unique monthly Google search engine users on regular computers and tens of millions of Gmail users account for somewhere between a pittance and nothing.
Again, I think your concept is right, but the $100k number just doesn't add up.
I do have information that is not public, which drives those numbers. gg55 I appreciate your due diligence, but valuation as you describe it is Market Cap, that tends to be backwards looking based on the information that is publicly available about products and services that are known . The interesting thing about google is that they have a very complex outlook on data services. Marketing data's value is not linear, but exponential. The $100k number is based on services that may or may not be publicly disclosed or available yet. But just think about this – Augmented reality, location aware, web connected smartphone that also functions as a payment device.
Now that Forbes has broken the story that google is developing a free turn by turn navi app think about how this changes the valuation. So google will provide a turn by turn navi app, you sign up for the service. You also use g-mail, google is your search page and you use google checkout… a typical user. You want to go from your home to a new restaurant. Google is going to have you "pay" for the "free" navigation app with ads, and you will say "so what"! This is where the do no evil comes into play.
So you're going from home to the restaurant. Google's app is going to calculate the route. The app calculates that you can go down either Elm street or Maple street. Google has 1 client on Elm street and 5 clients on Maple street, which way will the app send you? This form user manipulation is very simple. Next step for google is that they tie your route into your recent searches. If you have been searching for UGG boots on the web the app will calculate that it is better for you to go down Elm street since googles client on ELM is a shoe shop that sells UGG's. The next step is that navigation is tied into your g-mail account. google knows that you bought a coffee maker from Amazon for $79.00 with shipping. On Maple street one of the clients is Bed, Bath & Beyond. As you are a mile away an ad with a coupon for 20% off pops up for that same coffee maker netting the price to $63.75 including tax – and now you see what integrated marketing can deliver. This is the holy grail of marketing and a valuation has not even been fathomed for this type of platform by the financial community.
I have a simpler request..... Nokia.... you're still using the same fonts for 30 years! Come on!
Also, I know the Swedes are up in the mountains... all healthy and whatnot.... over yonder.... were not.
Whats with the dumbell for a phone? 7 oz on the N900? Jeeez..... Is the a Nokia N900 in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Please get a clue....there is an app for that! Nokia users can load and change phone fonts to any *.tff.
He is upset, I am guessing because Symbian used to be on Top and Nokia used to be "the best". Now, with the iphone, android and webOS cutting into their space, he is just picking anf choosing his battles. Well, Even Nokia is moving towards maemo with their high end stuff. So sorry symbian, time to tweak that OS.
Of course we have to understand, Nokia owns Symbian and their market share has been falling, one can call Apple greedy (of course they are) and Nokia with 1/3 of all phone sales isn't? One can call North Americans idiots, of course many are, but thats not a limitation to nationality. Then how come Nokia's market share has risen in the US, of course not much, but slight, and the rest of the world is has tanked (for want of a better word). So symbian fanboi's can call Google evil and Apple greedy all they want, but to be honest, which of the whole lot isn't greedy, or evil if need be
Nokia does not own Symbian...is bought Symbian and turned it into a open source foundation. Every corporation is here to make a profit. It just comes down to how the corporation views its customers.
WebOS (Palm) FTW!!
They all view them as customers and do what it takes to get them to buy their product. And yes, I know Symbian is open source, still they provide what Nokia wants first and foremost and honestly thats OK. All though they do need to do a better job with S60v5 which is a mess. BTW, I do own and use an e71 and N95 which are excellent phones, I had a 5800 for less then a day before I returned it, and messed with an N97 which, could have been a killer phone but was a disappointment. (Nokia grab the concept of capacitive touch!!!!!) So its not like I don't use their devices.
Symbian should die. Period.
No company is any less evil than the other. Whether it is for the money and/or control of the market - make no mistake, they are running a business. The difference to me is, Google has found a great way to make products that benefit me, for free. Do I care if they are making money?? Not really.. this is the same reason (or was) that we have commercials on television. I'll watch a couple commercials for a good show. I'll give you some of that market data you want, if you can make my life online just a little bit simpler. That doesn't mean that I'm an idiot or lazy for wanting things simple... I realize that it's a give and take relationship. I understand if you are a privacy or OSS freak, that you won't have it... just don't come cryin' to me when things don't just work, or your "business" that is based on OSS philosophy is hurting. Why do you think Apple does so well?
Nokia phone not only offers a communication media intended for family, associates plus equals, but moreover a stand for information as well as amusement for the customer.