

NokiaPlanB was a hoax - lid
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/nokia-plan-b-was-just-a-hoax-all-along/

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ars
Sometimes these things take on a life of their own.

While the author of the plan was not serious it seems there are a lot of
people who do actually like his plan, and do take it seriously.

Maybe some of them will organize using this plan as a starting template.

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danilocampos
It's a sad state of affairs for your company when an anonymous guy can put up
a blog offering a fake plan to turn things around and get a _boatload_ of
attention and excitement. On the other hand: we're living in interesting
times. A guy with an interesting idea can, overnight, capture the imagination
of tens of thousands of people for very little time and money.

I guess for anyone who was holding onto hope of a non-Olop, non-Microsoft
Nokia, there's only one thing left to say:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A>

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pavlov
False hopes and vague handwaving concepts have always been suitable vehicles
for attracting attention and excitement, if that's all one is looking for.

This "Nokia Plan B" was no different. It didn't offer anything actionable.
Remember that the plan's main proposal was:

 _Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit
margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled
user experience._

Is that really an exciting turnaround plan for a company of some 120,000+
employees? The whole plan boiled down to: "Let's keep doing the same thing
we've tried unsuccessfully for years, but let's just do it better." Of course,
there's always bound to be people who can't let go. (I know someone who bought
Nokia shares in early 2000 at more than 10x the current price and is still
holding on to them.)

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danilocampos
Eh, I dunno, there was some sensible action in there. Reducing to two
locations the enormous, global oilslick that is Nokia's R&D seems like a good
idea. Gutting all the outsourcing seems like a good idea. De-bureaucratizing
and de-cluttering the organization seems, to me, a lot more sensible than
outsourcing the very soul of your product's user experience and becoming
little more than a commodity electronics manufacturer.

Like Tony Hsieh says, you can't be successful by outsourcing something that
should be your core competency.

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nhangen
A hoax, or is it only being called a hoax because it failed?

Seems like it's an extra attempt at extending the 15 minutes.

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brc
Congrats to those here who were skeptical of the initial announcement due to
the lack of details.

Put me in the camp that says it didn't _entirely_ start out as a hoax, but
that a hoax looked increasingly like a good way of backing out gracefully
after someone pointed out the rules.

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aaronsw
What would be really cool is if "NokiaPlanB was a hoax" was a hoax -- anybody
could register a NokiaPlanB Twitter account and claim this.

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raufrajar
But that twitter account won't enjoy redirection from nokiaplanb.com

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jawee
Being a shareholder is kind of a weak claim to authority when anybody can be
anyway, isn´t it? If he picked up a couple of NOK stock is he able to be taken
exponentially more seriously?

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Frazzydee
They didn't even need to be a shareholder.

Shareholders with voting shares have the right to attend shareholders meetings
and vote in the board of directors. In such large corporations, shareholders
usually appoint a proxyholder who attends the meeting and votes on the
shareholder's behalf.

My understanding was that Nokia Plan B was basically soliciting such proxies
by asking shareholders to give their votes to them for the purpose of
replacing the board.

Corporate law usually doesn't require a proxyholder to be a shareholder, so
they actually didn't even need such a (weak) claim to authority.

As a side note, soliciting proxies usually requires following proper corporate
law procedure by sending prescribed materials. Nokia Plan B just had a
website, which was an early indication this was a fake.

~~~
jarek
The beauty of the hoax was that in this situation, fake plan and real, well-
intentioned but ill-conceived plan are basically indistinguishable.

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toolate
I'm still holding out for <http://nokiaplanxp.com/>

~~~
jarek
I love the design of the 6300.

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Vivtek
I guess that explains the lack of bios, then.

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Bossman
Crazy that it got so far. I have to admit, I was pretty much convinced when I
saw it almost 2 days ago now (even if I was a tad bit skeptical). Crazy that
print media picked it up today, too. Though, it does say something about what
people think of Nokia's decisions lately...

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Natsu
Is it bad that I never realized that anyone thought the site was anything
except a joke?

~~~
cap10morgan
No. That's all it ever was. You get a "basic critical thinking" merit badge
for realizing it.

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markstahler
My last epic fail was a hoax too, I promise.

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barista
Only goes to show the state of tech reporting. So superficial and trigger
happy.

~~~
natnat
You can easily remove the word "tech" from that comment.

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shareme
My only hoax fail was the rumor that MS was buying Mahalo..

R Scoble still hates me being taken by such an obvious fake claim as he was
calling/email MA of TC and TC even had to put a small note on the TC site
about ti being fake.

NokiaPlanB was executed better. Just enough small stuff to believe and
something real big that was fake.

