Earlier than Nokia collapsed, a quiet struggle performed out inside its engineering ranks—U.S. groups pushing for touchscreens, Finnish groups clinging to buttons. One insider now at Tesla says the indicators have been clear, however nobody needed to see them.
Yun Ta Tsai, a senior engineer at Tesla, took to X to recount a pivotal second throughout Nokia’s decline. As a member of the staff pushing for an all-touchscreen design, Tsai recollects inner resistance that foreshadowed the corporate’s downfall. “We even demonstrated some apps on iPod Contact with some idea experiences,” he wrote, attempting to persuade colleagues that slim, buttonless telephones have been the longer term.
However the Finnish engineers refused. “What if the touchscreen stopped working?” “It doesn’t work with large thumbs.” “Clients would really feel insecure with out bodily buttons.” For each motive to maneuver ahead, Tsai stated there have been “1000’s” of causes to not.
“The US engineers have been pissed off as a result of they might see the writing on the wall,” Tsai famous. The actual concern, he concluded, was deeper than design: “It was very troublesome for a corporation to surrender its legacy crutches. Virtually by no means.”
That mindset prolonged to software program. Whereas Apple and Android reshaped the cellular panorama, Nokia clung to its outdated Symbian OS, then gambled on Microsoft’s Home windows Telephone—an OS with little developer assist and even much less client traction. The choice to keep away from Android left Nokia lower off from the ecosystem that powered Samsung, HTC, and Huawei’s meteoric rise.
Business analysts repeatedly flagged the danger. “Nokia might must ‘take the [Android] capsule earlier than [it] can’t afford to take action anymore,’” one report warned. Nokia didn’t.
What started as a debate over thumb dimension turned an emblem of company paralysis. Nokia’s engineers couldn’t agree on the longer term—and by the point they did, it had already arrived.
