Microsoft's Myerson and Nokia's McDowell named as Top Mobile Movers for 2012

Venture Beat has put out their list of "Top Mobile Movers for 2012" defined by them as "The kind of people who thrive in this world are disruptive individuals. Troublemakers. Shakers-up of the status quo" and perhaps not so surprisingly two folks from Microsoft and Nokia are named on the top-ten list.

First up is someone we haven't mentioned much around here, Mary T. McDowell, Vice President, Nokia. While Elop gets a lot of praise and the spotlight (he's does have great stage presence), McDowell is busy behind the scenes concentrating on the mobile phone business aka the Asha S40 line as opposed to the more attention-getting smartphone business. Although she plays little role within Windows Phone, Nokia's future strategy seems to eventually merge the mobile phone (aka "dumb phone") business with the smartphone one. After all, if an Asha phone can be cheap and run S40, why can't it run Windows Phone?

Next up is someone you should at least heard of: Terry Myerson. He took over as corporate vice president of Windows Phone division back in December when Andy Lees was reassigned by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Although he doesn't have the title of President of the Windows Phone division, he still oversees every aspect of the platform and where it's going. Venture Beat credits Myerson's "no-nonsense" approach for having reset Microsoft's mobile strategy a few years back i.e. when Microsoft threw out Windows Mobile 7 "Photon" and instead went with the more risky Windows Phone 7 OS.

Venture Beat goes on to note that "Windows Phone is early in its lifecycle, but it’s an attractive, responsive operating system that’s getting a lot of notice. You can count on it to make big waves in the mobile market this year." Indeed and Microsoft (and Nokia) seem to have the right people on board.

Source: Venture Beat; Power Man image via Shutterstock

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.