諾基亞何以折戟智能手機市場(下)

In late 2004, U.S. manufacturer Motorola scored a world-wide hit with its thin Razr flip-phones. Nokia weathered criticism from investors that it was expending too much effort on high-end smartphones while its rival ate into its lucrative business selling expensive 'dumb' phones to upwardly mobile people around the world.

2004年底，美國製造商摩托羅拉(Motorola)憑藉其輕薄的Razr掀蓋式手機在世界上一炮打響。諾基亞遭到了投資者的批評。他們說，在競爭對手侵蝕其頗爲賺錢的業務、向全球社會經濟地位不斷提高的用戶銷售昂貴的“傻瓜”手機時，諾基亞卻在高端智能手機上花費了太多的精力。

After Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's former chief financial officer, took the helm from Mr. Ollila in 2006, he merged Nokia's smartphone and basic-phone operations. The result, said several former executives, was that the more profitable basic phone business started calling the shots.

2006年諾基亞前首席財務長康培凱(Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo)接替奧利拉擔任首席執行長，之後他將諾基亞的智能手機和功能手機業務合二爲一。該公司數位前高管說，結果就造成更爲盈利的功能手機業務開始左右整體業務的發展。

'The Nokia bias went backwards,' said Jari Pasanen, a member of a group Nokia set up in 2004 to create multimedia services for smartphones and now a venture capitalist in Finland. 'It went toward traditional mobile phones.'

諾基亞2004年設立了一個爲智能手機創建多媒體服務的集團。該集團成員帕薩寧(Jari Pasanen)說，諾基亞的側重點倒退回去了，它走向了傳統手機。帕薩寧目前是芬蘭的一名風險投資家。

Nokia's smartphones had hit the market too early, before consumers or wireless networks were ready to make use of them. And when the iPhone emerged, Nokia failed to recognize the threat.

諾基亞智能手機的面市太超前了，當時消費者和無線網絡還沒有做好接納智能手機的準備。此外，當iPhone出現時，諾基亞沒有認識到它所帶來的威脅。

Nokia engineers' 'tear-down' reports, according to people who saw them, emphasized that the iPhone was expensive to manufacture and only worked on second-generation networks-primitive compared with Nokia's 3G technology. One report noted that the iPhone didn't come close to passing Nokia's rigorous 'drop test,' in which a phone is dropped five feet onto concrete from a variety of angles.

據看過諾基亞工程師的“詆譭”報告的人說，報告中強調，iPhone製造成本高，只能用於第二代網絡，這與諾基亞的3G技術相比太原始了。有一份報告說，iPhone距離能夠通過諾基亞嚴格的“掉落測試”還差得遠。在這個測試中，手機需要從五英尺高的高度以不同角度掉落到水泥地面上。

Yet consumers loved the iPhone, and by 2008 Nokia executives had realized that matching Apple's slick operating system amounted to their biggest challenge.

然而，消費者對iPhone愛不釋手。到2008年時，諾基亞高管們已經意識到，要與蘋果美妙絕倫的操作系統比肩是他們的最大挑戰。

One team tried to revamp Symbian, the aging operating system that ran most Nokia smartphones. Another effort, eventually dubbed MeeGo, tried to build a new system from the ground up.

一個研發團隊試圖改造諾基亞大多數智能手機所使用的老舊的塞班(Symbian)系統，而另一個團隊則試圖從頭開始打造一個名爲MeeGo的全新操作系統。

People involved with both efforts say the two teams competed with each other for support within the company and the attention of top executives-a problem that plagued Nokia's R&D operations.

據曾經在兩個研發團隊工作過的人說，在爭取公司內部支持以及高層關注等問題上兩支團隊相互競爭，這一問題困擾着諾基亞的研發業務。

'You were spending more time fighting politics than doing design,' said Alastair Curtis, Nokia's chief designer from 2006 to 2009. The organizational structure was so convoluted, he added, that 'it was hard for the team to drive through a coherent, consistent, beautiful experience.'

在2006年至2009年擔任諾基亞首席設計師的柯蒂斯(Alastair Curtis)說，他們花在政治鬥爭上的時間比花在設計上的時間多。柯蒂斯還說，諾基亞的組織結構錯綜複雜，想要完成一個連貫、一致且美妙的研發過程對研發團隊來說很難。

In 2010, for instance, Nokia was hashing out some details of software that would make it easier for outside programmers to write applications that could work on any Nokia smartphone.

例如在2010年，諾基亞召集工程師試圖敲定一款軟件的某些細節。這款軟件能讓外部程序員更加方便地編寫出能夠在任何一款諾基亞智能手機上運行的應用程序。

At some companies, such decisions might be made around a conference table. In Nokia's case, the meeting involved gathering about 100 engineers and product managers from offices as far-flung as Massachusetts and China in a hotel ballroom in Mainz, Germany, two people who attended the meeting recall.

在一些公司，可能只要在會議桌旁開個會就能做出此類決定。但據兩位與會人員回憶，諾基亞卻將大約100名工程師和產品經理召集到德國美因茨一家酒店的宴會廳內開會，他們中一些人甚至是從美國馬薩諸塞州和中國遠道而來的。

Over three days, the Nokia employees sat on folding chairs and jotted notes on an array of paper easels. Representatives of MeeGo, Symbian and other programs within Nokia all struggled to make themselves heard.

在三天的時間裏，諾基亞員工坐在摺疊椅上記着筆記。MeeGo、塞班以及諾基亞內部其它項目組都在努力發出自己的聲音。

'People were trying to keep their jobs,' one person there recalls. 'Each group was accountable for delivering the most competitive phone.'

一位與會者回憶，大家都試圖保住自己的飯碗。每個團隊都有責任拿出最具競爭力的手機。

Key business partners were frustrated as well. Shortly after Apple began selling the iPhone in June 2007, chip supplier Qualcomm Corp. QCOM +2.92% settled a long running patent battle with Nokia and began collaborating on projects.

諾基亞的關鍵業務合作伙伴也感到非常沮喪。在蘋果於2007年6月開始銷售iPhone後不久，芯片供應商高通公司(Qualcomm Corp.)和諾基亞就一場專利持久戰達成和解，雙方開始在項目上展開合作。

'What struck me when we started working with Nokia back in 2008 was how Nokia spent much more time than other device makers just strategizing,' Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul Jacobs said. 'We would present Nokia with a new technology that to us would seem as a big opportunity. Instead of just diving into this opportunity, Nokia would spend a long time, maybe six to nine months, just assessing the opportunity. And by that time the opportunity often just went away.'

高通公司首席執行長雅各布(Paul Jacobs)說，2008年我們開始和諾基亞展開合作的時候，給我留下深刻印象的是，和其它設備製造商相比，諾基亞花在制定戰略上的時間要多得多。有時我們會給諾基亞提供一項新技術，在我們看來，這可能會是一個巨大商機。不過諾基亞不是馬上開始利用這個機會，而是花很長時間（可能要六到九個月）來評估這個機會。等到他們評估好了時，機會往往已從手中溜走了。

When Mr. Elop took over as CEO in 2010 Nokia was spending 5 billion a year on R&D-30% of the mobile phone industry's total, according to Bernstein research. Yet it remained far from launching a legitimate competitor to the iPhone.

研究機構Bernstein research的數據表明，埃洛普2010年擔任CEO的時候，諾基亞每年的研發費用高達50億歐元，這一數字佔手機產業研發總經費的30%。但諾基亞始終沒有推出一個足以和iPhone相匹敵的機型。

Before the latest round of cuts, he said, the company was still struggling to focus on useful R&D. Mr. Elop has sifted through data and visited labs around the world to personally terminate projects that weren't core priorities-like one to help buyers in India link their phones to new government identification numbers.

雅各布說，在最近這輪裁減成本之前，諾基亞仍然未能很好地把精力集中到有用的研發項目上。埃洛普仔細審查數據，拜訪位於全球各地的實驗室，親自終止那些非重點項目，比如一個可以將印度用戶的手機同新公佈的政府身份識別碼聯繫在一起的工具。

Mr. Elop is refocusing around services like location and mapping, which came with the company's $8 billion 2008 acquisition of Navteq.

埃洛普重新將業務重心放到定位和地圖服務上。諾基亞2008年花80億美元收購Navteq之後獲得了其定位和地圖業務。

But he is having trouble rolling out products that catch on with consumers. Nokia's latest phone, the Lumia, has been well reviewed, but sales may suffer as consumers hold out for the next version of Microsoft's software, due later this year.

但在推出受消費者歡迎的產品一事上埃洛普碰到了麻煩。諾基亞新出的手機Lumia雖受好評，但由於消費者在微軟下一代操作系統軟件今年晚些時候推出前不願購買這款手機，Lumia的銷量可能會受到影響。

Jo Harlow, whom Mr. Elop appointed head of smartphones shortly after he became CEO, said Nokia will launch lower-priced Lumia devices in the coming months to better compete with aggressive Asian device makers such as China's Huawei Technologies. Ms. Harlow said the company is also 'very interested' in entering the tablet market.

埃洛普成爲CEO之後不久任命的智能手機業務主管哈洛(Jo Harlow)說，諾基亞將在未來幾個月內推出低價Lumia手機，以便更好地同中國的華爲技術有限公司(Huawei Technologies)等雄心勃勃的亞洲手機廠商競爭。哈洛還說，諾基亞也對進入平板電腦市場“非常感興趣”。

Mr. Elop has shaken up a sales and marketing department, replacing Chief Operating Officer Jerri DeVard and two other executives after the Lumia launch. In June, Mr. Elop picked Chris Weber, a 47-year-old former Microsoft colleague who had been running Nokia's North American effort, to take over. Ms. DeVard couldn't be reached for comment.

埃洛普對銷售和營銷部進行了一次很大的人事調整。在推出Lumia手機之後，埃洛普換掉了首席運營長德瓦德(Jerri DeVard)和另外兩名高管。今年6月，埃洛普挑中他在微軟時的同事、現年47歲的韋伯(Chris Weber)接手德瓦德的工作。記者無法聯繫德瓦德置評。

Nokia still is struggling to turn its good ideas into products. The first half of the year saw Nokia book more patents than in any six-month period since 2007, Mr. Elop said, leaving Nokia with more than 30,000 in all. Some might be sold to raise cash, he said.

諾基亞在將良好創意轉變爲產品方面依然表現得不盡如人意。埃洛普說，今年上半年諾基亞提交的專利數量是自2007年以來半年時間內最多的。諾基亞申報的專利總數超過3萬件。埃洛普說，可能會出售一些專利以籌集現金。

'We may decide there could be elements of it that could be sold off, turned into more immediate cash for us-which is something that is important when you're going through a turnaround,' Mr. Elop said.

埃洛普說，我們可能會決定出售部分專利，以籌集我們更爲急需的現金。當企業處在扭虧爲盈階段時，現金很重要。