

Stephen Elop's Nokia Adventure - wallflower
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm

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martijn_himself
"Elop later told the Salo employees that Google "acted like they'd already
won"

That is because they _have_ already won.

Very few people are buying WP7 phones at the moment (even though big
manufacturers have put their weight behind it, think HTC, LG). What would make
people buy Nokia phones with WP7? Its camera?

~~~
radioactive21
Here's more of it.

"But Google was riding so high that it essentially refused to negotiate,
offering no concessions to Nokia despite its global presence. Elop later told
the Salo employees that Google "acted like they'd already won. Apple and
Android deserve some real competition."

Pretty much he's saying Google acted like Apple in how it views everyone below
them.

~~~
metachris
_He tried to negotiate a deal with Google to run Android, but Google refused
to give the world's biggest phonemaker any advantages over its smaller
partners, meaning Nokia's corps of 11,600 engineers would have next to no
ability to add their own innovations to Google's software. "It just didn't
feel right," Elop says to the crowd. "We'd be just another company
distributing Android..."_

Sounds kind of fair of Google to not give Nokia special concessions their
other Android partners don't get. Nokia could have used Android anyway, just
without Maps and the Android market.

~~~
recoiledsnake
And then fall behind the curve as Google makes new builds available
exclusively to partners? Fork it and risk another Meego/Maemo fiasco?

Without Google apps and Android Market, its hard to sell a phone. To make the
requisite alternate software, it will take a year plus, all while parallelly
developing hardware, might be a bit too much even for a huge company like
Nokia especially seeing that they seem to lack software dev skills.

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bakbak
"If you live in the U.S., you can't really understand their power," says Paul
Jacobs, CEO of chipmaker Qualcomm

Very well said ... i guess north-american critics sometime have difficulty in
understanding emerging markets and the brands that are popular there - the
power of those brands and the market itself is greater than the rest of the
world combined ... whoever wins these markets (emerging and yet-to-emerge)
will be the ultimate winner (in long term of course).

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ansy
I wrote this elsewhere, but Elop betting it all on Windows Phone 7 over
Android is kind of like backing OS/2 Warp over Windows for desktop machines in
the 1990's.

Sure, you might have gotten a big check from IBM and OS/2 Warp was
technologically better than Windows 3.11, but that isn't enough to make it a
smart business move. There is more to a mass market product than that.

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toyg
Nokia's doom was the deal with Intel, brokered by OPK, which basically dropped
Maemo for Moblin and set their plans back two years. Without that, they would
have produced at least three Maemo models by now, with big chances of one
being a strong competitor.

Elop is now trying to make the best of a losing position, but he's too
predictable and "corporate" to succeed in the smartphone market. He should
have kept silent on the MS deal until he had a working WP7 model, then make
the announcement -- give the press a story about a new wonderful gizmo, so
that they won't talk about failure and layoffs. As it is now, by the time
"Microkia" devices hit the market, share prices will be so low that any Gordon
Gekko under the sun will be ready for a takeover.

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plinkplonk
From the article

"Elop's first stop is the research and development facility in Tampere, the
town that houses most of the MeeGo engineers—many of whom left early as a sign
of protest on the day the Microsoft deal was announced. After apologizing for
the effect layoffs will have on many—Nokia announced on Apr. 28 that it would
lay off 4,000 people by the end of 2012 and transfer 3,000 to Accenture (ACN),
which will handle Symbian updates for existing models—Elop implores the
attendees to wait before meeting with recruiters from Apple or Google."

so he has already decided to lay off thousands of people but wants them to
wait till he actually swings the axe and they end up jobless before meeting
recruiters? Iow "I plan to fire most of you but please don't try to get
another job till I get around to it"

Maybe I am just reading this wrong (corrections welcome) but this makes no
sense to me.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Do you have experience working in companies where layoffs take place? This is
what happens, one fine day, everyone picked for layoffs are informed, the next
day there is a company meeting in which the executives claim there are no more
layoffs in the near future so that they don't start shopping for jobs.

It makes sense because Nokia(as well as any company) would want to keep the
best and fire the rest. The problem is that the best have an easier time being
lured or hired, so no wonder Elop said what he said. It's just textbook style.

~~~
bakbak
i have seen even funnier (or say worst) situation where they called a VPs and
asked him to select the people to layoff by the end of the week, the VP fought
back trying to save jobs of the team members but somehow management forced him
to pick maximum number of members whom they then laid off on friday --- come
monday they gave pink-slip to the same VP... the person was stunned !!!

they didn't laid-off VP for fighting back but it was pre-planned & scripted by
HR.

~~~
tryp
It's _textbook_ HR. You don't want your staff to hate their new manager
because their first day was spent handing out pink slips. You make the old
manager carry out the reduction, then you get to fire the bad guy.

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pessimizer
subtitle: "Market share dwindling, stock cratering, persistent takeover talk.
How the CEO is trying to lead Nokia past its epic fail"

"Epic fail"? Is this really English to the the demographic that reads
Businessweek?

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teyc
Here's a barb Elop pulls on Ballmer.

 _"That upsets me—not because some of you are using iPhones, but because only
a small number of people are using iPhones. I'd rather people have the
intellectual curiosity to understand what we're up against."_

Compared with this:

[http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/ballmer-
makes-...](http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/ballmer-makes-a-
scene-over-employees-iphone.ars)

 _Then he put it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it, before walking
away._

This kind of reminds me of a criticism of the US towards Afghan insurgents/OBL
etc. That they conflate underestimating the opposition with loyalty.

