Issue #1: Jolla Survival Plan (failure is not an option) [released 2015-12-18] [released]

asked 2015-11-27 23:39:20 +0300

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updated 2016-01-30 16:15:13 +0300

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[UPDATE 2016-01-30] Tablet Solution
Jolla has presented their answer for the TabletGate. Case closed. In my opinion, the answer "accept community made patches upstream" is now the best idea for securing a successful future for Jolla.
[UPDATE 2015-12-18] Jolla is back in business!
Congratulations! The correct answer has obviously been to be successful in negotiations and to cut costs. But as the author of this post I will take the freedom to accept answers as I see appropriate from now on. There have been some very good suggestions here and Jolla management would be wise to study them in detail.
But for the moment, let us celebrate that this bug has been fixed :-)

If you agree that Jolla and Sailfish OS must live on, please vote this up!

Help making this the top issue to send out a clear message that we do not want the Jolla ship to go down without a fight. (Show a great heart and give your vote even if you do not like everything that follows. BTW, this is a community wiki, your votes do not increase my karma.)

Contribute your ideas what Jolla should do now as answers (how to raise money, what business strategies to pursue, what mistakes to correct, etc.). One idea only per answer. Do not duplicate existing answers, vote for them. Use comments (not answers) for discussions and criticism.

Interesting background information:

[UPDATE 2015-12-15] Rowing the boat frantically: It looks positive, and a solution is possible already in the next few days. Sailfish OS 2.0.1, is coming up soon.
http://reviewjolla.blogspot.ch/2015/12/news-update-debts-on-hold-at-jolla.html

Jolla is now fighting for its survival. The key thing in this fight is that we succeed in our December financing round. If we do so, also the Tablet project can be resolved.
https://blog.jolla.com/open-letter-jolla-community/

I believe that through this program Jolla can turn its business to be profitable in the future.
http://reviewjolla.blogspot.ch/2015/11/news-jolla-financial-trouble-debt.html

As a Jolla employee -who is still an employee- despite the layoff notice, I can tell you that there is still hope in the company surviving.
http://reviewjolla.blogspot.ch/2015/11/its-not-delays-its-that-world-is-slow.html

Jolla is hopeful that it can raise additional funding in December.
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/13626-jolla-unable-to-deliver-pre-ordered-tablets.html

[UPDATE 2015-11-30, some valid points to consider] Issue #2: Why Jolla deserved to fail (opinion)https://together.jolla.com/question/123511/issue-2-why-jolla-deserved-to-fail-opinion/

Nokia rumored to bring out a new smartphone with Android and Windows:
http://www.pressexaminer.com/nokia-c1-rumors-legends-return/79170
How about Sailfish as a 3rd option?

Nokia Launches $16.6 Billion Offer for Alcatel-Lucent
http://www.wsj.com/articles/nokia-launches-16-6-billion-offer-for-alcatel-lucent-1447845588
Nokia seems to have money to spend. It would be nothing but fair if they would correct their mistake and help out Jolla now!

Why you should vote for this issue:

Jolla disappearing from the surface of earth is the most serious possible bug, isn't it? So this issue rightfully deserves more votes than even the notorious "Downloadable map-data and offline turn by turn navigation in Maps".

Look around and understand that there is NO shortage of money on this planet. It just happens that a lot of money flows to stupid or outright destructive purposes. Random examples:

A single man is valued at 120 million Euros, more than twice the sum that has been invested in Jolla.
http://www.transfermarkt.com/spieler-statistik/wertvollstespieler/marktwertetop
A house is being sold for $22.9 million in La Jolla. Impress your girl-friend by investing in Jolla rather than buying her a villa in La Jolla (pun intended)!
http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/hot-property/la-fi-hotprop-ted-waitt-house-20151124-story.html
The U.S. Postal Service loses $25 million. A day.
http://www.newsmax.com/US/post-office-congress-pensions/2013/05/28/id/506654/
The criminals of ISIS have a yearly budget of two frickin billion dollars to bring hate, fear and destruction to the world.
http://europe.newsweek.com/isis-release-2015-budget-projections-2bn-250m-surplus-296577

The list is endless and you can certainly agree with me that the money invested in Jolla has produced much better results than many other "investments". Well, maybe except for the first point in the list... Messi is cool :-)

We really had enough bullshit on this planet and it is about time something good happened. Jolla surviving would be a nice start.
In our minds, let us all disagree with the gloom and doom for Jolla and instead envision a bright future where a user-friendly and mature Sailfish OS will give Google and Apple a run for their money and make Microsoft turn green with envy. The biggest battles are fought on a mental level. May the force be with Jolla :-)

Why am I writing this?

This week I happened to wear my Jolla T-shirt ("I am the first one") that I got for placing an early order.
I felt nostalgic and remembered how hopeful I was for this device, how much I enjoyed each update and how I grew to like this phone with all the faults it surely still has.
I remembered the many hours wasted away for rooting my Android devices just so I could use them reasonably. And I shuddered at the thought of having to return to this tedious route.
I remembered how much I read and learned about Windows Phone, iOs, Ubuntu phone, Firefox OS, Bada, Plasma Mobile, Tizen and BlackBerry OS 10.
All of these operating systems have serious drawbacks and even with its current weaknesses Saifish OS always came out on top as the best OS for my personal requirements.
So I decided that Jolla and Sailfish OS have to survive. And I hope you agree with me.

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The question has been closed for the following reason "released in a software update" by nthn
close date 2017-03-06 12:44:07.959738

Comments

That's the spirit! :) I'm happy to see this post. At least something cheerful! :)

Venemo ( 2015-11-28 11:40:02 +0300 )edit

+1 Let's vote it up +2000!

lakutalo ( 2015-11-28 12:48:10 +0300 )edit

Voted already, Jolla disappearing is definitely not an option, alot of people love the phone am using, how sad would it be if the phone goes out of the market

DameCENO ( 2015-11-28 15:33:29 +0300 )edit

Thank you for the commitment. I think this is the perfect answer on the current developments.

cma ( 2015-11-28 17:09:04 +0300 )edit

Nokia buying Jolla is my biggest dream at the moment. Because Sailfish is the only one for me and that with Nokias hardware would be supercool.

MJolla ( 2015-11-30 21:24:38 +0300 )edit

48 Answers

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answered 2015-11-28 11:33:50 +0300

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updated 2015-11-28 11:34:14 +0300

ausgeregelt

1045 ●21 ●35 ●40

Jolla management action:

Go public: Sell shares. It worked for the greek banks at least...

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I would buy jolla stocks. Many other people would too..

Flight406 ( 2015-11-28 20:23:15 +0300 )edit

Include one or two Jolla shares with every device sold.

danfin ( 2015-11-29 12:48:05 +0300 )edit

who owns the company? Which stock market are Jolla OY shares traded on?

danfin ( 2015-11-29 12:48:46 +0300 )edit

That would be more of a long-term action, since at present circumstances it would hardly flush a lot of fresh money into Jolla's empty tills, along with the fact that for now it would dilute present owner's shares beyond recognition to get a bit out of it, which would never get their consent. Maybe it would be easier to emit corporate bonds, still at quite low ratings and hence high interest. BTW as a matter of fact, we've already started the same discussion [here]. :) And last but not least, I would invest, too. @danfin, it's an OY, but not public yet. A bit outdated, but may give a clue about the shareholder structure: this post.

lakutalo ( 2015-11-29 13:01:38 +0300 )edit

if not shares how about bonds instead?

Rommi ( 2015-11-29 16:40:05 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-28 14:30:51 +0300

Mano
706 ●9 ●17 ●23

One suggestion/idea is still missing here, imho.:

Relese the Merkel-Phone 4.0 ;-)

Merkel-Phone is an allusion to the NSA monitoring and (il)legal observation widely practiced these days.

First, the apps need polishing to make it on par with Nokia's E7 – 6 years old, but does support (working, multiple account) SIP, Calendar, Notes, Contacts (all synchronized), Quick-Dial, (IPsec)VPN, Navigation etc. (missing any of E7's usability features is a serious regression imho).

Next, get most out of your solid, SailfishOS base and provide what no other consumer-vendor provides: Security and Privacy! (Jollaphone can't compete at consumer-level in it's current state, not even close :-() That's what most users of the current community wants, but most of them can take care on their own to get encryption implemented etc.

But german Chancellor Merkel would pay Jolla for doing that. If I remember correctly, they spend 1.5k€ per CryptoPhone. Probably "Germany" won't realistically be Jolla's first customer for that kind of hardened Jollaphone, but I can imagine that there is a market for that. And much bigger profit margins, which I guess are reachable much easier with SailfishOS as base system than with any other established system. Just make the implementation public, let some security experts triage it and hire some dozen call center agents to process orders ;-)

-Mano

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I like the idea. If they cannot find a government to pay they might try this as crowdfunding.

StaticNoiseLog ( 2015-11-28 15:12:18 +0300 )edit

Excellent :) Actually the first line should read like "Ask Angela Merkel..."

lakutalo ( 2015-11-28 18:56:00 +0300 )edit

The E7 was a really nice phone, but even then, some of its in-built apps were showing their age a little. Perhaps there were some big improvements with Symbian Anna, etc, but I wasn't able to install it as it required to be installed via Windows (rather than the computer-free downloadable updates that Sailfish OS supports).

dave ( 2015-12-11 03:32:55 +0300 )edit

The best thing about the E7 was its slide-out physical keyboard, so much faster and more usable than the on-screen keyboard. I can't help but think that Jolla would have gained much more interest and sales had they developed a TOH keyboard right from the start.

dave ( 2015-12-11 03:35:35 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-28 12:01:19 +0300

pawel

14895 ●231 ●341 ●376

Define 1 or 2 phones as 'officially' ported to Sailfish and offer subscriptions (plans) for those. there might be enough people looking for better phone hardware and willing to pay on a yearly / monthly bases

i.e. Nexus5 seems to work 100% already now with Sailfish, so why not offer 20-40 bucks a year plan for Sailfish OS on it ? this could bring money quite quickly.

let people vote (they do it anyway here in tjc) and choose another one

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I think this is a good option. I would pay a regular fee each month for Sailfish OS updates.

Stephan ( 2015-12-02 18:53:00 +0300 )edit

It's a bad option... Have an OS for a fee? Never. Sell it to other phones? Why not. Subscriptions? Just nope.

Rikudou_Sennin ( 2015-12-02 22:35:45 +0300 )edit

I'd also pay some fee for the availability of updates of SFOS into some other 'officially' supported hardware.

dchornillos ( 2015-12-19 18:16:42 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-29 09:23:07 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2015-12-01 00:40:33 +0300

StaticNoiseLog

5633 ●58 ●77 ●97

Antti Saarnio action:

Take 1 hour every 14 days to comment on the suggestions made here. You, personally. This will show the community that you are doing your job and will educate us on what are realistic expectations and what is impossible, and the reasons why. I am sure you can pick up some inspirations by interacting with Jolla supporters, so it would be time spent well. Think of Jolla management as an agile team, reporting back here to the stakeholders in biweekly sprint reviews. In the same way as it is good practice to do for the software developers on whom the future of Sailfish OS depends.

Note: You only have to do it if this issue makes it to the "front page", i.e. more than 325 votes.

UPDATE 2015-11-30: This post is on the "front page" (1st page of searches when ordered by votes). So please, Dr. Saarnio, let us know your opinion on the different suggestions made here.

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answered 2015-11-27 23:49:24 +0300

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updated 2015-11-28 00:18:25 +0300

StaticNoiseLog

5633 ●58 ●77 ●97

Jolla management action:

Embrace the USA as a friendly market and try to find investors there. It was a mistake not to support the usual networks of the USA, Canada and Australia. These are huge markets that could have helped the sales figures enormously.

BRICs is all good and nice, but they are not the answer to all problems of the world. Brazil and India are cool, but do you really think Russia and China care more about individual freedom than the USA?

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seriously, i think they considered this, but didn' t wanted to be forced to implement a backdoor in their devices.. ;)

toba ( 2015-11-28 12:21:13 +0300 )edit

I read somewhere ( I think arstechnica) about some smartphone maker (propably chinese) that wanted to release his product in USA but changed his mind after realising that making compatibility certificates for 3 major American operators would cost more than producing a batch of devices for the local market. Add to that different chipsets for different operators, several versions of the smarpthone and you have just propably exceeded jollas whole budget.

Mądry ( 2015-11-28 18:47:04 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-29 21:02:51 +0300

poddl

5982 ●65 ●93 ●94

http://www.edor.de/

Jolla management action:

Sell products in your online store. Since several month, nearly all is sold out. No "other half", no Accessories, still no batteries, I'm wondering long time already, how to survive, without selling the products you made. The only company which does not need to sell their products.

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PS: ...and deliver them.

objectifnul ( 2015-11-29 21:07:25 +0300 )edit

Even now, the Jolla phone is listed for sale on the Jolla website as having "user replaceable battery". That implies the possibility of having a spare battery with which to replace the one that the phone shipped with, yet we cannot buy spare batteries from Jolla nor from third-parties. The aftermarket is an opportunity to make some profit, so use it!

tehhel ( 2015-12-05 15:40:41 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-27 23:58:09 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2015-11-28 00:18:58 +0300

StaticNoiseLog

5633 ●58 ●77 ●97

Jolla management action:

Get in touch with Sony. Ask them if they would not want to port Sailfish OS to last year's Xperia Z4. It is still awesome HW but probably quite cheap to manufacture. I think a second OS on their Xperia platform could make sense.

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Why not get in touch with Huawei. They built awesome and affordable phones, too (e.g. P8 (lite)). And they're much closer to the chinese market than Sony.
Or Gigaset. They are new to the smartphone market with three ambitious phones of their Gigaset ME series.
They are well known for their office phones and handsets but totally new to smartphones. As a newcomer they might be more open to new OSs than the big players.
As a european phone-manufactorer they have the business-contacts and distribution chains. The thought of a phone "Made in europe" might attract them, too.

There are many phones from many companys could imagine to be my next one with Sailfish on.
Jolla should talk to all of them.

jcoder ( 2015-11-28 01:46:45 +0300 )edit

they should do official PuzzlePhone support so we could help them through the PuzzlePhone campaign. atm it seems the PuzzlePhone campaign fails so they need some help too. If they would have a real SFOS perk i feel they would also be at 480% (hopefully with a different outcome then)

michel ( 2015-11-28 03:03:48 +0300 )edit

PuzzlePhone is to small. They won't impress potential investors but will require a huge effort to port the OS to that phone.
I think Intex was a fine choice. Jolla should help them with their contacts to expand to europe (and maybe other markets).
Ubuntu managed to get their OS into the shelves of MediaMarkt through their partnership with BQ. So potential customers can touch and try that OS at the local electronic distrubutor in their town.
Jolla has to find some partners with a minimum amount of sold units like BQ, Wiko or Gigaset who have already built up distribution-chains to bring SFOS into the local stores and into the hands and sight of potential buyers, too.

jcoder ( 2015-11-28 03:54:07 +0300 )edit

hmm but Jolla has nothing to offer for big players especially now. Why would they even consider SFOS? But sure you are right Jolla needs to get SFOS into local electronic shops

michel ( 2015-11-28 05:02:23 +0300 )edit

What has Ubuntu Touch to offer SFOS has not? I think we (Jolla and the community) should have a little more self-confidence. Sailfish has matured a lot in the last two years and is imo absolutly ready for end users.
More and more poeple appreciate privacy. SFOS has a good reputation in this regard.

Even if there are not so many native applications SFOS has one big advantage compared to alternative OSs like Ubuntu Touch, Windows Phone or FFOS: You can run almost any android app you got used to if a native app doen't exist. The step for average joe to switch from android to Sailfish is much smaller than to any other OS.
Looking at what I can do with SFOS compared to Ubuntu Touch I must say: It should be much easier to sell an SFOS-phone than an UT-phone. Still Ubuntu has convinced at least BQ and Meizu. Why shouldn't that be possible for Jolla?

Btw. many big players make losses with their hardware business. Maybe together with Jolla they could find opportunities to gain money not only by selling hardware. (Jolla has to make the shop ready for paid-content though- imo one of the most urging steps)

jcoder ( 2015-11-28 05:48:08 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-28 14:46:52 +0300

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updated 2015-11-28 22:27:17 +0300

tortoisedoc

11414 ●172 ●269 ●287

http://kastlunger.blogspo...

Jolla management action

If you believe you have a valid hand of good cards, in poker, and are fairly confident about the other's player's cards, you go ALL IN.

Release a high-end jolla2 phone under the NOKIA brand.

Given jolla is focussing on SW; the phone could be branded NOKIA; and the OS as (SFOS) jolla. Of course, jolla would still finance the HW, but the design / format could be something known already (TOH?) with just a rebrand.

On top of that; product will leverage from visibility of NOKIA brand; as well as proving to NOKIA that a jolla NOKIA phone is (technically) viable, therefore making it attractive for NOKIA.

Investors will be interested as per the above reason to be associated with the NOKIA brand; but also there will be something to show to investors, associated with the NOKIA brand.

As the System is much more ripe than what was on jolla1, the experience will be unique once again, and jolla will be able to complete the twirks currently missing to make it a true average-joe phone. Therefore the overhyping will e avoided this time around.

Key aspects:

It MUST be high end
It MUST be a big screen
It SHOULD have a HW keyboard

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IMHO, a mid-priced phone with a less-than-five-inch screen should be available too.

Of course, innovative form factors are welcome (remember Nokia Communicators)

objectifnul ( 2015-11-28 19:05:58 +0300 )edit

Why Nokia?

stephan ( 2015-11-30 00:30:23 +0300 )edit

Who else is licensing their brand for third parties? Which can provide the same level of visibility? To whom jolla has relations to?

tortoisedoc ( 2015-11-30 09:15:22 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-28 16:50:16 +0300

cma
343 ●3 ●8 ●10

updated 2015-11-28 16:53:55 +0300

Jolla management action

Define and communicate a long-term strategy and USPs of SFOS

I have been a backer of the Jolla project since the beginning. However, I find the lack of orientation disturbing. Sure, for the community the selling point is "alternative OS" and "open source". But that is not necessarily a selling point for investors and licensing deals. What we have seen is going from "Ambience" and "TOH" to "Security" to "Multitasking" to "BRIC phone" and partner space. None of the concepts actually are USPs for Sailfish because of many changes in the strategic orientation.

What I would like to see (and I guess investors as well) is a clear vision for the future of Sailfish OS.

What is the core selling point of the OS?
How will it develop in the future?
How will monetization work?

I would like to give some concrete examples. Please feel free to add additions in the comments:

Use the concept of partner space for extra layers of security and sell yearly subscriptions in addition to a free version
Offer payable applications
Open harbour to payable applications as well and take a small fee per application

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That's one of the most important actions! A long term strategy gives trust to the company as well as its management. And THAT is most important in hard times!!!

M.Bln. ( 2015-11-28 23:13:46 +0300 )edit

Jolla to be the Red Hat of Sailfish...

zlutor ( 2015-11-29 21:16:09 +0300 )edit

Thinking of it, the thing I have always been looking for in a mobile phone is battery life. I get 4 days out of my Jolla with my usage profile. I think it is an area where Sailfish OS excels.

StaticNoiseLog ( 2015-11-30 09:21:08 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-11-29 11:17:27 +0300

jcoder
1311 ●11 ●20 ●24

updated 2015-11-29 11:18:22 +0300

Crowdfund porting SFOS to FairPhone 2
The only reason I din't pre-order a FairPhone straight after Jolla and FairPhone announced to port SFOS to that phone was that I would like to show that I want to have SFOS running on it.

I want the market (espacially FP) to recognize that I don't want to buy just another Android-device that only has a different approach on hardware production. Although I appreciate that approach the software-side is much more important to me.

I trust in the community and into Jolla that the announced port will come and that it will reach a state to use it as a daily driver. Still I don't know what it will be:

will it be officially supported?
will I have the chance to purchase an official version with aliendalvik support?
if so: will it be in form of a phone I can buy in the future with pre-installed SFOS or can I purchase a full-featured SFOS package for a FairPhone I already buy today?

Jolla and the community are already working on that project. Why not gather some money with a crowdfunding to support that project and to show us where the journey is going?

Let us choose between different perks e.g.:

FP2 earlybird edition (580,-- EUR): Get a FP2 as soon as FairPhone can deliver (in their normal schedule). For those ones who want the phone asap and want to help the porters with testing. The phone comes with Android pre-installed. Users can install SFOS alphas, betas, community-editions as soon as available.
FP2 earlybird full-featured edition (630,-- EUR): same as earlybird edition but with an upgrade to official supported full-featured-edition (including aliendalvik) when available.
FP2 Sailfish edition (580,--): This phone comes Sailfish OS pre-installed and will be delivered as soon as the port is ready to be officially supported. (feature-wise it would be something like a successor of the Jolla 1)
FP2 MultiRom edition (630,--): Same as 'Sailfish edition' but with both Android and SFOS pre-installed. For the ones who are not decided to stay with SFOS and want to keep Android as their backup.
FP2 preorderers-edition (50,-- EUR): For the folks from FairPhone community who already purchased a FP2 (Android-version) in their pre-ordner campaign. Get officially supported SFOS to be installed by the user.
FP2 preorderers-full-featured-edition (100,-- EUR): Same as preorderers-edition but with aliendalvik
supporters-perk (any amount): For the ones who don't want to buy anything but want to support the project.

PS: Prices were just estimated. Take what it really needs in a serious calculation.

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I like to see it to. And the price is ok for an phone out of confict free zone and that you can repair on your owne. With SFOS as a OS that doesn't need an account to use the phone and with securety measurements included, i will pay that price.

Linus Kasch ( 2015-12-04 13:00:39 +0300 )edit

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Issue #1: Jolla Survival Plan (failure is not an option) [released 2015-12-18] [released]

The question has been closed for the following reason "released in a software update" by nthn
close date 2017-03-06 12:44:07.959738

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Issue #1: Jolla Survival Plan (failure is not an option) [released 2015-12-18] [released]

The question has been closed for the following reason "released in a software update" by nthn close date 2017-03-06 12:44:07.959738

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The question has been closed for the following reason "released in a software update" by nthn
close date 2017-03-06 12:44:07.959738