Nokia Faces Class-Action Suit Over Windows Phone Deal 257
nk497 writes "Nokia has been hit with a class-action suit, with the claimant accusing the company of making 'false and misleading' statements about the ability of its deal with Microsoft to revive the struggling mobile maker. 'The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants told investors that Nokia's conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market,' read a statement (PDF) from the law firm Robbins Geller Rudman and Dowd. 'It did not.'"
Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:2, Interesting)
It just proves that in America, you can sue anybody for anything.
Nokia's defense would obviously be that market conditions changed, they could not possibly know the future, and all business decisions are inherently risky.
Also, given that Microsoft invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Nokia, their decision to go with Windows phone OS can hardly be regarded as the riskiest of choices. When one of the world's largest corporations invests in you, you are not going to go out of business the next day, o
Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
It just proves that in America, you can sue anybody for anything.
Uh...yeah? That's the way the system works. Anyone can bring an action against anyone else and the court must hear it.
I could file paperwork with my local court saying you are a douche and that somehow harmed me. They would read through the documents and (probably pretty easily) come to the conclusion that I haven't made a case that you broke the law and/or harmed me and throw it out.
Some cases aren't as clear-cut as my example and require a judge and jury to decide.
Could you imagine if we used your model? You can't sue anybody for anything--only stuff I think is legit. That would put you in a fairly powerful position....something like 'dictator' or whatever.
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Hell, everyone on slashdot complaints how companies just want quick profit. Microsoft and Nokia are fresh air to that.
... Because they just want quick bancrupcy? There was some proverb about eggs and baskets, could somebody remind this guy? Because WP7 was rather sketchy basket, and Elop dumped all his eggs in there happily.
P.S: For fuck's sake, stop being so obvious with your sockpuppets. Recycled talk points are recycled:
Hell, everyone on slashdot complaints how companies just want quick profit. Microsoft and Nokia are fresh air to that.
Most people tend to bitch how companies don't think long term but just want quick cash. Well, not Microsoft. [slashdot.org] -- InsightIn140Bytes
People on slashdot always complain that companies aren't thinking long term but instead just try to get quick profits. [slashdot.org] -- TechNY
Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the cancer that is killing slashdot....
Not that I like borrowing phraseology from /b/, but it seems to be true. Half of slashdot these days is people yelling 'shill' at each other, and that's because people like those you mention are on here, being paid shills.
Marketers, brand managers, social networking managers, image managers, whatever you want to call them, can and will insert themselves into every aspect of human communication, exploit it for their own short term gain, and ruin it.
Bill Hicks came right out and told them to kill themselves. I would ask that first they look inside and ask themselves if being a professional liar is what they wanted to be when they grew up, you know, a complete scumbag that undermines faith in humanity. Because that's what they are, make no mistake, a drain on society and a waste of human flesh.
And if that doesn't wake them from their behaviour then, well, go watch some Bill Hicks.
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Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm ok with fanboy comments. For whatever reasons, people frequently become fans of things they like, and like to talk about these things to other people. Back in the old days, it was Ford fanboys versus Chevy fanboys. Sure, fanboy comments can be annoying when they're dumb, but at least they're honest comments from people who actually like the thing they're defending (even if they're morons :-)
Shills, however, are not the same. These are people who are professional liars, paid to act like a fanboy and talk about (or rather, generate hype or "buzz") something like they're really a satisfied customer, when they're not, they're just a plant. It's totally dishonest and despicable, and steps should be taken to keep these scum out. I like your idea about the new-account cooling off period, though I'm not sure it'll help that much because a professional shill will have the patience to wait out that cooling off period and then start making posts.
The dropping of ACs, however, can be problematic. Many people make use of AC posting when they want to write something that could get them in trouble if it were linked to their real identity, and even though we use handles here, you can figure out a lot about people from their posting history and quite possibly figure out their real identity (and some people make no attempt to hide it and actually post their homepage). Being able to post sensitive stuff as AC helps keep it anonymous and lets such people speak their mind without much fear of their employer or whoever finding out. This would be a bad thing to lose, though on the other hand it would be nice to get rid of the many full-time ACs who just post trollish and assholish comments. However, I don't think this would help much with the shills; they seem to actually go to the trouble usually of getting a real account, so that they can appear more legitimate.
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Or it's hedging their investment to make sure the CEO doesn't give himself giant bonuses as the ship is sinking and screwing the investors for everything he can.
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Nokia got to where it was by being #1 everywhere but in a single region (+unconquerable Japan). That region was North America.
If you think that they were mostly selling cheap phones in Europe with their >50% smartphone marketshare, I have land on the moon to sell you.
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The suit alleges Nokia lied to investors. This is very serious. Corporations lying to investors is not taken likely. If Nokia knowingly over-stated performance, then yes the suit has merit. Nokia had an entire year to turn things around. As it turned out, they did not. A bad 2012 1Q and project bad 2Q means Nokia is failing and that the deal with Microsoft did not help Nokia.
Learn a thing or two about corporate financial reporting.
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Forward-looking statements have disclaimers. This guy is a moron. There was no 'lying' to this at all.
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And why would Nokia choose a path where they were sure to fail? The guy filing the suit is a moron indeed. There's a reason it's called investing and not saving; there is a risk you lose all your money. He was free to sell his Nokia shares at the time. There was a chance that Windows Mobile would score big in the corporate world. It didn't.
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Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)
It didn't.
Nokia's entire argument in 1 word: Yet.
Whether they are right or not who knows, but their plan to save the company with Windows phones is still in its early phases. Which is a commentary on their poor execution, but it's still a plan in motion. The guy filing the suit is either a moron, or is in trouble with his own investors and is trying to get himself press for looking like he's doing something.
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And why would Nokia choose a path where they were sure to fail? The guy filing the suit is a moron indeed. There's a reason it's called investing and not saving; there is a risk you lose all your money. He was free to sell his Nokia shares at the time. There was a chance that Windows Mobile would score big in the corporate world. It didn't.
That's his point. He would have sold his shares if Nokia was forthright in telling investors what the real situation was. Corporations are liable for information and promises they tell investors. Whether or not Nokia was misleading or not will be for the courts to decide.
What the courts will not be deciding is whether or not it was a good decision to go with Windows Mobile, only whether or not Nokia mislead the investors. These suits happen all the time.
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Unless Nokia said "We 100% guarantee a positive return on the Windows Phone investment for our part of your portfolio!" then there is no case. The effort to use Windows Phone to climb in the market is ongoing, and I highly doubt Nokia would be stupid enough to issue an actual promise for return to its investors.
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And you know this how?
He probably RTFS:
'The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants told investors that Nokia's conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market,'
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Because I actually read their entire statement including the huge disclaimer about forward-looking statements contained in it?
Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, what? Nokia just released their first Windows Phones in November 2011, neither were released in the United States. At some point they released the Lumia 710 in the United States, and it sold pretty well, but it was on the smallest of the big carriers: T-Mobile. Now, Nokia has added the Lumia 900 to AT&T and it is supposedly selling pretty well (I live near a Microsoft Store, and I can honestly say that the store itself has been recently more popular than the Apple Store in the mall, but that mostly has to do with location within the mall; I have also seen a lot of people walking out with new Lumia 900 phones).
Anyway, all of this is to say that you have no idea what you are talking about when you are talking about financial reporting. Two phones are not going to save a company, and at least two bad quarters were expected. Nokia is just now getting back into the swing of things, and people looking for instant success are both naive and represent what is wrong with investors in general these days.
Otherwise, Motorola Mobility going with that "Android" platform is really proving to be a sinking ship, right? Because they've had two bad quarters too.
Learn a thing or two about corporate financial reporting.
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people looking for instant success are both naive and represent what is wrong with investors in general these days.
Or, more often on this site, they need some superficial confirmation that Nokia was wrong in abandoning a Linux-based platform and going with Microsoft.
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If I was still a Nokia shareholder I would be stupid.
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That statement could not be much more ironic given the phrasing of your entire post.
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with Nokia abandoning a promising platform that has still sold very well compared to their new lumia line
Last time this came up, it turned out [slashdot.org] there are no credible sources confirming this.
and going with an unproven OS that has been out almost two years now and still has done nothing but collect dust on retailers shelves worldwide.
"Almost two years" is about one and a half, actually. I suggest you go to your nearest AT&T store and check the dust on the shelves stocking Lumia 900 (I heard you don't have to go very far inside, they put them up front). Or T-Mobile with their little brother model, for that matter.
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I suggest you look at the marketshare statistics. WP7 has somewhere around 5% of the smartphone market, if that.
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At some point they released the Lumia 710 in the United States, and it sold pretty well, but it was on the smallest of the big carriers: T-Mobile.
Determines by what you mean "pretty well". I think I read that Nokia sold 2M Lumias since December. 2M in the US over 2 quarters isn't exactly a lot and Lumias don't appear to be selling nearly as well elsewhere. Nokia sold roughly 300K Symbian in Q1 and between 1.5-2M in Q4. It doesn't look good for WP7 if it can't beat a platform that isn't being advertised and is being actively phased out.
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I think I'm going to sue the arcade in the mall. I wanted to play a game, but I couldn't. I had two bad quarters...
8-|
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I don't know about the legality, but a lot of people jumped ship when this deal was struck...I do recall many people had substantial disagreements with the deal in the first place.
Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at various SEC mandated, or voluntary, disclosures from publicly traded companies, you'll almost always see something like this example [timewarner.com] from Time Warner.
Legally, distinguishing between statements of fact and 'forward looking statements' makes a difference. It's like the securities equivalent of the “These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.” tag you always see on 'dietary supplements'.
So, if some optimist was given information that constituted a forward looking statement, with the usual boilerplate, about what Nokia hoped their strategy would do, they can go shove it. If Nokia outright claimed that this move would have a specific, definite effect, on their market position or stock price, Nokia may well have shoved their foot in their mouth, good and hard...
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+ 1 insightful.
Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that Nokia intentionally and dramatically increased this risk by killing MeeGo, which is a production quality OS which kicks the shit out of Android and Windows Phone 7.
I believe it's highly likely that Elop is acting in bad faith. However, unless a high ranking Nokia exec leaks information, I don't think there will be any tangible evidence against him.
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Except that Nokia intentionally and dramatically increased this risk by killing MeeGo, which is a production quality OS which kicks the shit out of Android and Windows Phone 7.
MeeGo proper was never even released on any commercially available device. What N9 got is a Maemo version bastardized and rebranded as MeeGo. And as somebody who has actually used the N9 and the Lumia 800 back to back, I attest that the software in N9 is nowhere near the quality of Windows Phone 7.
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> by killing MeeGo, which is a production quality OS which kicks the shit out of Android and Windows Phone 7.
And OpenMoko kicked the shit out of the iPhone too,right?
Meanwhile in the real world, if there's no ecosystem or a company not capable of creating one, there is no sale.
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And yet the N9 sold more than the Lumias, despite having limited market presence, few apps and no future whatsoever.
If you repeat this urban myth a hundred times, it will become even more truthy.
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That said, I believe Nokia would be better off turning their engineering expertise to producing some Android phones, to take advantage of the enormous app market. They are capable of making a great phone, but their operating systems have been marginalized by the success of Apple and Android.
You are writing this as if there were some problem with finding great phone hardware for Android. While Samsung pulling out another plastic fantastic design for Galaxy S III gives some truth to this, I don't think Android needs Nokia so badly that it would find immediate success with Android devices.
So why not go with one of the winners?
Because it's better to go where the puck may be found when you get there, than chasing where it is now?
Smartphones are not an established market, nobody knows how it will change over the next few years. It's not
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No, the stable has finally put the old nag to long-deserved rest and now it fields the spunky new breed. You keep betting on your favorite, no worries :-)
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You can sue anybody, for anything. It's winning on the frivolous cases that is much less common. Often, if you bring a stupid lawsuit, you end up paying for it yourself when you get laughed out of court.
In this case, as long as the documents/correspondence the investors are citing has "we hope", "data shows", or "we believe" before "Windows phone is going to save us" then the plaintiff is SOL from the start, and the lawyers filing the suit are going to be out a TON of money.
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The result of their strategy so far has been to accelerate their loss of market share, declaring symbian dead has been very effective at driving users away from the platform while changing plans for what your going to replace it with doesn't help.
Also market conditions haven't changed that much, windows mobile was never very successful and windows phone wasnt very successful before the nokia deal so they had no real reason to believe it would be afterwards. On the other hand they had every reason to believe
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>>>It's like the PC business all over again..... margins are so small and there's nothing to differentiate one from another
Never thought of it like that. The old IBM PC has evolved into a commodity item like shavers or microwaves. I guess it's only a matter of time until I can get one at Walmart for sub-100 dollars.
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The difference is, Android phones still sell. Windows Phones do not.
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Nokia needed to produce several phones ar
Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:4, Informative)
The difficulty with the N900 was that they introduced one phone.
Now I can think of a certain company that did quite well on just a single model phone. Just one model, their very first model, and it was a big hit. Every year or so an update on that one model, maybe selling the older model in tandem for a while, but basically their whole phone line-up is just one model.
Re:Another ridiculous lawsuit (Score:4, Interesting)
This issue was discussed extensively on talk.maemo.org, but you are mostly correct. I had an N900 for a very long time, and not only did it have an awkward form factor due to its bulk and resistive screen (some UI elements were only accessible with the stylus), the hardware also had an enormous defect. The USB port would fall out even without being abused. At first Nokia denied the issue outright, but then started replacing the damaged phones. Which phone you'd get would be anyone's guess, ranging from the N900, N8 or E7.
I still loved it though, and with care and a couple of mods my USB survived. I loved the fully customizable interface (for instance one thing that just pisses me off about Android is the desktop grid that insists on spacing icons miles away from each other unless you run alternative launchers). I loved the true Linux repositories and apps that did not have ads. Yes, developers should be able to make money, but on the N900 people developed apps like they do on Linux, because it's fun and interesting. And I never found myself missing any features because some random Android app did not have an N900 equivalent.
The N900 was not without other problems. In Canada on my carrier I could only get Edge, not 3G. The hardware, while high end when the phone was released, is really old now and you could feel it. But most importantly, Nokia gave up on it only a year after its release. Ditching a high end, $700 phone so quickly is inexcusable. Their infrequent software updates, left bugs that were never fixed until the CSSU took over.
And you simply can't maintain a community around a single device. Eventually my N900 broke down when I crashed my bike, and when faced with replacing it I opted for a much faster Android. Many lead developers for the N900 went the same route, and I can't blame them.
So yes, Nokia should have released several devices running Maemo 5, and should have continued development of that platform. Jumping to Maemo 6, then Meego, then Windows only made them waste time and resources. I disagree with the need to always have a bleeding edge platform, which is why Maemo 5 was abandoned. Take the Samsung Galaxy Note for instance, which shipped with Android 2.3.5, a year and a half old OS and is extremely popular.
So they gave up control over half their product to a company that is known to release crappy OSes. Development and support may no longer be Nokia's responsibility, but it definitely affects its bottom line.
Hahahahaha (Score:5, Funny)
Whose platform is burning now, E-flop?
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Whose platform is burning now, E-flop?
Still more profitable than Xbox, so it's OK.
He is still a Microsoft employee, right?
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Over the whole time the project existed, it's still billions in the red.
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Most likely because they got rid of Elop. Of course, Sony has been doing their best to run off PS3 customers. Which brings up and interesting question; did Sony hire a former MS exec a few years ago?
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Oh yeah, baby. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to sue for every stock I have that has lost value.
And when I'm done, I'm going to sue all the companies who didn't go up as much as I would've liked!
I'll be rich!
Re:Oh yeah, baby. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll be rich!
no you won't, but your lawyers will be :)
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Why not sue Elop himself?
The ole' Embrace and Extend (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically speaking, entering any kind of business deal with Microsoft usually ends badly.
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I hate Microsoft like Satan hates his mother-in-law, but there's very little chance what you said is true. Some high profile cases have gone down the toilet hole, but a company the size of MS must work with hundreds of companies none of which would bother with MS if what you said was true.
Re:The ole' Embrace and Extend (Score:5, Informative)
When one of the world's largest corporations invests in you, you are not going to go out of business the next day, or the next year.
ïMicrosoft's new "strategic partnership" with Nokia is not its first. For a decade the software company has courted and consummated relationships with a variety of companies in mobile and telecom. Here are the ones I can remember:
LG. In February 2009 Microsoft Corp. signed a multiyear agreement for Windows Mobile to be included on devices from LG Electronics Inc. LG would use Windows Mobile as its "primary platform"for smartphones and produce about 50 models running the software.
What happened? LG made a few Windows Mobile devices but with WinMo uncompetitive, they abandoned the platform and moved to Android losing years of market presence and all their profits.
Motorola. In September 2003, Motorola and Microsoft announced an alliance. "Starting with the introduction of the new Motorola MPx200 mobile phone with Microsoft Windows Mobile software, the companies will collaborate on a series of Smartphone and Pocket PC wireless devices designed to create a virtual "remote control" for the Web-centric, work-centric, always-on-the-go mobile professional." In addition, the alliance includes cooperation on joint marketing and wireless developer programs.
What happened? Motorola launched a series of Windows Mobile phones culminating in the Motorola Q "Blackberry killer". As Motorola hit the rocks in profitability new management reached for the Android liferaft. The company now relies exclusively on the Droid franchise.
Palm. In September 2005 Palm and Microsoft announced a strategic alliance to "accelerate the Smartphone market segment with a new device for mobile professionals and businesses. Palm has licensed the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system for an expanded line of Treo Smartphones, the first of which will be available on Verizon Wirelessâ(TM) national wireless broadband network."
What happened? Palm shipped a few Windows Mobile, famously dismissing Appleâ(TM)s potential entry as something "PC guys" could never achieve. A new CEO, a private placement and an acquisition later the company is a division of HP making its own operating system.
Nortel. When Steve Ballmer was famously laughing at the iPhone and saying that he likes the Windows Mobile strategy "a lot" he was sitting next to the then-CEO of Nortel (Mike Zafirovski formerly of Motorola) with whom the company had just closed a strategic deal. "an alliance between Microsoft and Nortel announced in July 2006 ⦠includes three new joint solutions to dramatically improve business communications by breaking down the barriers between voice, e-mail, instant messaging, multimedia conferencing and other forms of communication".
What happened? Nortel declared bankruptcy two years later.
Verizon. In January 2009 "Verizon Wireless has selected Microsoft Corp. to provide portal, local and Internet search as well as mobile advertising services to customers on its devices. The five-year agreement will go into effect in the first half of 2009 when Microsoft Live Search is targeted to be available on new Verizon Wireless feature phones and smartphones." The deal would ensure Bing distribution to all of Verizonâ(TM)s smartphone customers.
What happened? Bing did ship on some devices but in October 2009 Droid came to Verizon.
Ericsson. In September 2000, "Ericsson and Microsoft Corp. today launched Ericsson Microsoft Mobile Venture AB. This previously announced joint company will drive the mobile Internet by developing and marketing mobile e-mail solutions for operators. The first solutions are expected to be on the market by the end of the year. The company is part of a broader strategic alliance between Ericsson and Microsoft"
What happened? Ericsson divested itself of the mobile division forming a joint venture which would go on and make more strategic alliances with Microsoft over Windows Mobile culmina
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That's about the best post I've ever seen on Slashdot. Sorry I can't mod up - others, please do the honours.
Re:The ole' Embrace and Extend (Score:5, Informative)
Adding an attribution to Horace Dediu (the original author) is not that hard.
Or possibly even a link to the original article [asymco.com].
Re:The ole' Embrace and Extend (Score:4, Informative)
--Horace
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Yeah, Dell has done pretty poorly.
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Historically speaking, entering any kind of business deal with Microsoft usually ends badly.
You mean like, Intel,AMD, Nvidia, HTC(who started out as a only-Windows Mobile OEM), Dell, HP, Sony, ASUS, Acer, Samsung, Lenovo... all of these got burnt and didn't make lots of profits because of their partnership with MS right?
I think your sense of history is broken.
The Microsoft mobile kiss of death... (Score:5, Insightful)
...claims another victim.
Does "class action suit" not mean what it used to? (Score:5, Interesting)
Filed in New York by a single complainant, the class-action suit....
Surely if there is a single complainant then this should not be a class action suit?
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Surely if there is a single complainant then this should not be a class action suit?
As I've understood it, in class actions you sue for "me and everybody else like me", you don't actually need more than one direct victim if the suit passes muster. Not that I think this one will..
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Only directly affected people can start a class action suit. Lawyers will try to get more people in on the suit.
Gains of class action suits:
1) "Victims" give the defendants a slap on the wrist (possibly a change in policy, etc) and generally come out with a few dollars
2) Lawyers make ridiculous sums of money
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Generally in class action lawsuits, the "victims" weren't harmed for a lot individually to start with. Thus, without the class action, each of them would have had to sue the defendant individually, meaning they all had to separately pay for lawyers, which may or may not have been cost effective.
I'd like to hear your ideas on a better way to compensate a large group of people who had been harmed, but not to a large extent.
Re:Does "class action suit" not mean what it used (Score:5, Informative)
The single claimant believes that there are other people that have the identical claim and it would be in Nokia and the courts interest if there was one lawsuit instead of many lawsuits.
The problem for Nokia share holders is that it appears that their CEO is getting more compensation from Microsoft than Nokia, furthering this appearance of impropriety is his decisions that appear to favor Microsoft over Nokia.
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The problem for Nokia share holders is that it appears that their CEO is getting more compensation from Microsoft than Nokia
Source?
So (Score:2)
So the problem of the claimant is that Nokia is struggling, and his solution is to sue them, which could cause even more struggles?
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Stocks (Score:2)
Sounds to me like some whiny babies shouldn't be investing in the stock market.
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Big Surprise! (Score:2)
What is a "Nokia"?
Seriously, the stakeholders can only blame themselves for not seeing this coming.
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What is a "Nokia"?
A person, just like you and me :P
Right... (Score:2)
defendants told investors that Nokia's conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market...It did not.'"
And you think hitting them with a lawsuit will?
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However, for the purpose of GP, the lack of long-term interest in corporation is the plague of all publicly-owned businesses everywhere. Why invest in long-term research and growth if you are only going to be a CEO for a few years? Why should investors care if they can dump company stock at the first opportunity?
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What an idiot. (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure Nokia, just like any public corporation disclaims any and all of these forward-looking statements. This will get thrown out and the guy should be fined heavily for lawyer's fees and for frivulous litigation.
So.. (Score:2)
Nokia's accidental viral marketing campaign (Score:3)
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pity the newer ones aren't.
The older nokia phones had user replacable covers that were a good mm or so from the screen. So you could crack the cover (say by sitting on your coat with your phone and keys in the pocket) and the screen would still be fine. with the newer phones that is not the case (mine is on it's third screen)
Oh and with the old phones you could disable the backlight and the screen was still perfectly usable, again can't do that with the modern ones.
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Really, I have a nokia N8 which is a fairly new Nokia phone. I have great fun with the apple fan boys at work when they go on about how wonderful theirs is and I point out that apart from apps there is little to choose between them*. However one of the tests they will never take me up on is the drop test.
I've tested (intentionally or otherwise) it against wood, concrete and beer - so far so good up to about 6 foot. I have yet to find an iphone that has survived a drop of more than about 4 foot onto wood...
I
This is what happens... (Score:2)
when you elop(e) with someone MS.
Your shareholders will want divorce and demand alimony.
As a N9 owner (Score:4, Informative)
The rough edges of the N9 were minor. It came with real multitasking and copy/paste from the first version. It's a great phone, and despite its rough edges it would have worked out well. There are a few gaps though, not the least bit applications. Nokia makes up for th at by including support for many things right out of the box.
The biggest flaw with the N9 was that the OS was NOT a major OS. The decision to move to WP7, while lamentable was sensible. However I wonder if at the rate of innovation if the N9 would have been where it needs to be today.
The deal that was not struck that should have, was to get Samsung on board and using MeeGo. That would have brought enough attention to get MeeGo established in the mobile marketplace.
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But it was ready, with multiple handsets in the pipeline (Lumia hardware was originally Harmattan targeted) and it would have been a stunning, welcome replacement for Symbian at Nokia's high end. I don't think for a moment they would have had trouble creating a userbase for it.
It may have happened, but likely not until well after Nokia themselves had tran
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The biggest flaw with the N9 was that the OS was NOT a major OS
The thing is I don't see WP7 as a major OS either. MS were late to the "multitouch+decent browser" smartphone market and then threw away the goodwill they had when they threw out all support for applications from thier pre-mulitouch smartphone platforn and replaced it with a locked down .net environment.
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around the time they made the decision wp7 was a fairly marginal OS as well. still is(in pure numbers).
it's just too bad that the leadership before elop was even stupider than elop(the company was on autopilot for years without direction, "shit will sort itself out" mode for meego,symbian etc for _years_).
what the the wp7 did do was buy couple of years of excuses while waiting for the next version! a game nokia has liked to play since early 2000's it seems..
anyhow - ms was shitting bricks because htc was m
Law protect you from being robbed, not suckered (Score:2)
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Taking over a company by proxy without investing a single cent is something Finnish "SEC" should look at closely, if their govt officials weren't all bought and paid for.
Or perhaps, contrary to what armchair business analysts on Slashdot tend to think, they see that no such takeover has taken place.
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I see this meme all the time. Please explain how Microsoft could install Nokia's CEO. The board's members have nothing to do with Microsoft.
The chairman of the board who just left is Jorma.
Here's his wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila [wikipedia.org]
Read his profile through and you wouldn't think he could hand the company to MS even if paid a few million? Hell, his stock in Nokia would dip by that much for a little change in the stock price.
Microsoft had a reason to destroy Nokia (Score:5, Interesting)
With the planned successors to the N900, people would no longer need separate phones and computers. They would just have their Nokia N900-successor, carrying that with them all the time. At home, or in the office, they would attach a keyboard wirelessly and plug in a screen--and there is their computer. This would have led to a revolution in the way both computers and phones are considered.
The N900 ran Linux. So the N900 was a vector for getting rid of Windows. Microsoft saw the threat, presumably, and moved to destroy it.
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"If the polishing had been done."
But it didn't and Nokia released it anyway. The only people I hear lamenting about or even using the N900 are geeks on Slashdot.
I seriously doubt the specific reason Microsoft singled Nokia out was because the N900 ran Linux. Every Android and iPhone out there is running something other than Windows. It's gone way beyond threat, Microsoft is a minor player at the moment in the mobile OS arena at the moment and that can be attributed to waiting so long to take it seriously
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Yeah, just remove the Elop and you've got a killer N9/N950 product-line to introduce into a hungry public. Even though he relegated the sales of the N9 to the nether-regions of the world (*not* the EU or US mind you!), sales of the N9 best sales of Wp7 phones.
Heck, the N950 is an awesome N9 with a keyboard and Nokia hasn't even sold any(!) The N950 were *given* to developers to code N9 applications. Nokia could ditch Elop and start selling linux smartphones again with products ready to go. No, Elop sells th
Somebody sounds impatient (Score:2)
It's a little bit of a longer game right now. Microsoft/Nokia haven't even fired up the main thrusters for this round. Until Windows 8 is ready, there's not going to be much happening. Once that is ready, and they come out with all guns blazing, it's going to be an interesting spectacle.
For a long while it's just been Microsoft wanting to maintain it's dominant position, but this time it's a battle for the basic survival of Microsoft. They are going to fight, and fight hard. They may win, they may lose. Whi
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And what law did they break? Ths guy is an idiot for not understanding what a forward looking statement is and tat they are ALWAYS heavily disclaimed. He's clearly too dumb to be an investor.
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Everybody knows that any game console besides Playstation and Nintendo is doomed to extinction
FTFY.