Stephen Elop may now be the leader of Microsoft's devices division but before then he was the CEO of Nokia, and a new book about his reign at the Finland company labels him as "one of the world's worst – if not the worst – chief executives."
That's the conclusion made by Pekka Nykänen and Merina Salminen, the authors of "Operation Elop", which was released earlier this week, The duo, who work at the Finnish business newspaper Kauppaleht, interviewed over 100 people, mostly former Nokia employees, for their book. The final result paints a picture of poor decision making by Elop, who was brought in to take over as CEO of Nokia in 2010 following a number of years working at Microsoft.
Some people have believed Elop was actually sent in by Microsoft deliberately to undermine Nokia so that they could later take over the company, and indeed in April Microsoft acquired Nokia's Devices and Services division. However, Nykänen and Salminen don't agree, saying, "Elop's role can be summarized accordingly: he failed in his attempts to save Nokia. He made monumental mistakes – but all in good faith. He took massive risks by placing all of his eggs in one basket (the Windows Phone platform)."
Do you agree with the author's statment that Elop turned out to be one of the world's worst CEOs?
Reader comments
New book looks at Stephen Elop's reign as Nokia and calls him 'one of the world's worst' CEOs
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For the people of findland,,he is THE WORST, I get,I understood it.... But its all about greed with this people,MSFT really MASTERMINDED the acquisition of NOKIA devices and services...by 20016 Nokia is back in the game designing phones for MSFT etc....
Sorry but the title "Worst CEO" has been won already by former CEO of HP Leo Apotheker.
Some people just need to let go of the past. Elop was in a no-win situation trying to bail Nokia out of a situation that they put themselves. If Nokia had gone with Android instead of Windows, they would have been another HTC, high quality devices getting overlooked because of Samsung's marketing muscle and they would have been put up for sale sooner. Microsoft was paying them to use the WP OS exclusively so it was mutually beneficial. If they had gone with Android, they would not have had any money coming in. People need to look at the facts and stop living in some fantasy world.
Stephen Elop's he destroy Nokia we heat him fuking a tidy smallest Trojan horse from MS .. I hope to see him in hill
Steven Flop.
The CEO before Elop is the worst..he always prioritize the Symbian and he know that Symbian is lossing its market share...if Elop didn't sign a partnership with MS...Nokia will be completely lost like a bubble
I am Pekka Nykanen, author of the book.
I'd like to clarify what we mean by "one of the worst - if not the worst".
We have not come across a case comparable to this. A CEO arrives in a company with a worldwide (excl. US) household brand name and a clear number one position in the marketplace (Symbian 36% vs. Android 25% in smartphones, Q32010) and growing sales.
After less than three years Nokia's position in smartphones was 8th and market share 3-4%. That is why we say one of the worst CEOs, if not the worst of all times.
There are of course cases like Enron with criminal acts and horrible mergers but we have not accounted them.
The book is currently only in Finnish. We are working on to get translated.
There are worst CEOs than Elop. But, not opening up Nokia to Android was a mistake. He shouldn't have gone exclusive with Microsoft, or found another way out after WP.
But, as a last ditch effort, he managed to get the Nokia purchased by MSFT.
I think he whas a crap ceo to save nokia if they where staying on meego they would done good
100% agreed,Elop ran Nokia to the ground,Nokia should have gone the android route as well as Windows and should have not sold out,almost every phone 10 years ago was a Nokia and from Next year no more Nokia,and the company was sold for a song,I'm sure Nokia was worth more than WhatsApp
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Good people always end up bashed. How horrible.. just SMH.
Whether Elop or Ballmer is more to blame, Microsoft did not have to screw Finland the way they did. I'm glad Nokia still has the maps division and some other aces up their sleeves - they have the smarts to pull through over the next few years, and they will.
What some forget is Microsoft isn't a company built around the short-term but the long-term.
When they support a company then take them or a major division of them over it is a strategic planning on their part for the long term.
The deal with Nokia was never about "saving" Nokia's mobile division but what patents they were getting out of the deal so Microsoft can recoup their total investment and to be able to turn a profit with. The people who think that Microsoft intended to save Nokia is just living in a fantasy.
Elop was appointed by Microsoft, Nokia couldn't refuse it. Microsoft didn't get everything that they wanted because the Finns realalized what was really happening and saved what they could from the division before it was sold. They also got the time limit inserted into the sale instead of loosing the right to manufacture phones and still retain rights to the name.
It's all a matter of perspective wither you believe Elop was the worst ceo. If you wanted to see Nokia continue its mobile division as it was, then he was.. If you wanted to see it change and adapt to the current market he wasn't.
Personally I think he did the company a favor for the long term. They now have the time to completely reorganize and start over. They can now see what is happening with the world's strongest companies in this and learn from them and from their own mistakes.
Microsoft makes it's money on patents and software not on hardware and that is all they care about . This will never change.
Nokia has a chance to start over if they choose to and can now sell it's software to anyone. If they can make enough profit in the next couple of years we might see them reentering the mobile arena, but if they don't I seriously doubt that we will.
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Yep! Surely agreed
Some sour grapes over there for sure, but hard to argue that he failed. The company ended up having to sell it's phone division to survive. I'd call that a failed attempt to turn the company around.
What can be argued is whether it was inevitable or if someone else, making different choices, could have made a difference. Seems to me the stage was set before he took over with shortsighted decisions by his predecessors.
Nokia was already doomed by the time Elop got on board. They could have gone with Android, but the brand was no longer strong enough to stand up against the lights of HTC, Sony and the beast that is Samsung. At least WP gave Nokia a unique selling point. Its just a shame consumers tend to by what's currently trendy instead of going out of their way to make an informed decision.
He executed perfectly.. well almost since Microsoft didn't get the map services whcih should've been part of the deal.
Elop did everything right, from Microsoft's perspective.
Yes...the worst CEO in history....
I absolutely MUST weigh in on this. All of the mobile devices I have owned were Nokia phones, with one exception - My Samsung Focus. I have been a life long Nokia AND Microsoft Fan. I stuck it out with Nokia nearly until the end. My phones (6340i, 6102, 6555, 6650, e71x, 5230) - the last 3 of which were Symbian S60v3/5 devices. While the hardware of these devices were amazing, and Symbian had NEXT GENERATION features before EVERYONE else... (ie REAL multitasking, Flash support... just to name a few) - they could not match the bling of new devices. The user experience on the Nokia 5230 was WOEFUL. The user interface WAS never going to catch on in the US, it was slow, unresponsive, and buggy. This is at a time the iPhone's experience was butter like (tho lacking many power user type features). Android was catching on QUICK. Developers of major app's wouldn't PEE on the Nokia OVI store if it was on fire. Nokia was LOST. They never could have created a decent GUI or user experience quick enough with Maemo,meego - whatever they called it. The core of Symbian was extremely powerful - but had major issues. Memory leaks, memory/CPU starved hardware... made for a completely unstable experience. The webkit browser was a total disaster. I didn't see a path for Nokia to survive. It was one disappointment after another. N97 anyone? X6? - OPK was to blame (and the other management in Nokia during the 2000s). HE fiddled while Nokia burned. Google and Apple ate Nokia's ENTIRE market share before his eyes. I never understood how Nokia ended up in the position it was when Elop arrived. I couldn't take anymore and needed a new start on phones. I went to AT&T and saw the Samsung Focus. I loved the responsive/smooth interface. The stability was also WAY past anything Nokia was offering. It was for sure hard to let go of some of Symbians great features: Program Manager, REAL multitasking... etc. It was a trade off I was willing to make. I cannot see how Elop is being blamed. I was on the RIDE until nearly the last exit. It was a SAD one.
Amen to that! I totally agree with you, Nokia was offering phones like the 5230 as an alternative to the iPhone, the Galaxy S and the Nexus One. While the user experience with Android was good and even better with the iPhone, it was a total disaster with Symbian. Buggy UI, slow, unresponsive resistive touch screen that also used to get dirty between the two resistive layers resulting in an image quality far from being crisp and sharp, and a web browser and email hub way behind the competition. Nokia was doomed at that time. Going Android was not a sure bet either, we'll never know if it would have worked or not, Nokia had already lost its user base in favor of Apple, Samsung and Htc. Elop might have his responsibilities, but he is not the only one to blame.
I think we probably need to read the book to make up our minds
Depends on perspective; Elop himself is doing just fine, and every MS affiliate will have appreciated his efforts...
IMO Nokia should have presented the Meego-running N9 a year earlier and poured all efforts into what was at the time (and arguably still is) the smoothest UI/OS by far. Chances are they would have made a much bigger impact, and have left WP as the fourth alternative.
I think he did the best he could within the position Nokia were on the ropes as far as smartphones were concerned and android is incredibly crowded and so impossible to get noticed in.
Especially as Samsung are practically taking over android.
So a platform that performs well has little or no competition and friends within Microsoft allowed him to try and do with Nokia what Samsung did with Android.
From a user perspective he did a great job.
Anyone remember Léo Apotheker? Former CEO of HP who thought it would be a good idea to get out of the PC business? He was so bad that he took a multibillion dollar business into record losses and plummeting stocks and was fired after less than a year! He may have been the worst.
people have temporary memory. Now everyone point their finger to elop in case of Nokia's failure.
Infact developers of Symbian destroyed Nokia.
A company is not just some building and people to come in and go out. The strategy of Nokia, even before elop was not good enough to breathe among iOS and Android. Developers for those platforms were almost symbian developers but with more consumer to meet, they left symbian and started playing in those platform field, when they found themselves, realized that android did its job, "Symbian died!" meego, belle or any other thing which popped out from the developer was nothing except "Bada" like fate(No major support, Not many apps to attract, Not any low end market to hold infrastructures of Mother company). Nokia was almost died. in europe there is no second chance as there are many chances in US or Far east. Nokia N96 was the last model which was heard as latest phone from the company in most markets, but in regions without any strategy to hold market and market share li Middle east, even now, too many Nokia models were and are available and those markets are limited to maximum 10% of global marketshare.
Elop accidentally or deliberately did the best choice that in order to recover what is remained from the Nokia, dealt with MS to produce only WP.
Right now there are too many models of android handsets in the world that are unable to be stable for one week steadily and you have to restart the phone every week(in some cases everyday). If microsoft could change brains in the stability direction, Lumia 525 would be able to set a global record of selling.
Advertisement and market controlling of others who absobed the market share to any price, failed both Nokia and Elop to find the right way.
Elop was 50/50 in management and now he is not CEO, he is under supervision of many strategy makers in Microsoft, so he is able to do better here. He is a good manager but a poor executive in chief.
nokia's failure wasn't Elop's fault, it was doomed long before his entrance, people should blame the CEO before him, who made a high end phone(n97) with the same CRAP internals of the lowest one(5230) using questionable tech like resistive touchscreens, and used a decade old OS that wasnt designed with touchscreens in mind, its a hard choice but one that you HAVE to take in order to keep on the race, see what microsoft did with windows 8 for reference
Everyone except Apple was using dated OS'es at the time. As it were, the N9, bad as it was, could outperfom the iPhone at every turn, but had a less intuitive UI and much smaller app-support. Plus a complete lack of publicity! I actually liked the resistive touchscreen, as it allowed me to use my phone during winter without having to remove my gloves! :-)
He might not be one of the best for sure, but he isn't the worst; he just didn't have many options to go with.
Ha! Blackberry CEO rules this ring. Elop tried hard but still managed to sell Nokia handset division alone for 7 billion (for 10 years??)
I agree, I totally agree
WP comes as a lifeline to nokia... Though they are able to pave there own path if they have opened there eyes few years before...
MeeGo!
Yeah...
Without Elop's run Nokia, WP may not be in existence today... He's a better speaker than leader it seems
It's so easy to write a book. Its lots harder to turn around a company that has lost its way, which very few people in Finland will even acknowledge is what had happened to Nokia. At least Nokia is still there, restructured and refocused just as it has done several times since it began 150 years ago. In the tech world alone I can think of a couple of failed HP CEO's who did far worse than Elop but HP still stands. Anyone remember Worldcom? How about Enron? Lehman Brothers? Gil Amelio?
Yes absolutely, we are doing this discussion cause nokia is a company too big to fail, when elop decided to go with WP nokia has nothing in hand except ashas and few Symbian belle devices all having hard time to compete, though at the time of release wp is lacking the basic features that are even present on the mediocre belle phones this even pushed back the wp adoption...
The first iPhone arrived in 2007,this we all know. It took Nokia 3 years to realise that they had fallen behind the times and to start making moves to change that. Enter Stephen Elop and if you ask me, Nokia were already past the point of no return mark! So how good or bad was the then CEO? Major mistakes were made & the then top ranks at Nokia were too set in their ways & not forward thinking enough to keep the number one spot that Nokia once had. So I think its a bit unfair to want to blame it all on Elop.
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Good to see some greedy fellows here, I believe most of them are kids as they might have missed the era when nokia is the most innovative and future forward organization... Other companies just jumped in the cellular ship for profits, a market completely developed by nokia, there only fault is they overlook the competition from android and then ios, those bad words for nokia just shows how ignorant a regular consumer is...... Nokia for ever...
No matter if here still exist, remember two weeks ago there's a new explaining that nokia will slow down development for here maps on WP in favor of iOs and android.
http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-here-maps-will-wind-down-our-windows-phon...
So, calm down the coments that Nokia still alive in WP mobile devices.
So for me that book it's 1000% correct that Elop it's the Worst CEO in history
Whether he was a bad CEO or mediocre is immaterial. For the record I don't believe that he was the worst CEO. What is more important is that, logical as it surely was for Nokia under Elop's reign to adapt WP as their "modern" smartphone platform and even more manifestly logical as it was for Microsoft to choose a marquee Cellphone company in Nokia, the sad reality was that MS has clearly been the problem or culprit from the get-go. From all that I have read, it seems obvious that, at least until the installation of Satya Nadella as CEO, MS' approach in convincing Nokia to support their new mobile reboot platform WP7 was less than a half hearted, poorly focused attempt to show the world that it could compete technologically with its nemesis APPLE and later Google in the world of mobile communications. Even at the time the decision was made to pursue the acquisition of Nokia handset business, they were not truly focused on competing seriously with Android and iOS but merely on launching ever-improving OS (even when that meant sacrificing/alienating early WP7 adopters not to mention App developers) versions for WP. They didn't offer much support to Nokia and there were a number of instances of Elop complaining vociferously about his old employer MS in the dismal marketing of WP by Microsoft. After all Nokia was fulfilling their side/share of the partnership in designing & building excellent handsets (poor battery life notwithstanding) whereas MS was doing d*** all in the marketplace for WP not getting all Carriers to push WP, not fronting the re$ources needed to train personnel at all the North American Cellular Carriers on the advantages etc. of the WP8 platform etc. etc. So maybe Elop may have been a bad CEO at least from the Finnish perspective, but from almost every other keen observers' perspective, it's Microsoft that has truly failed WP and one can only hope that Mr. Nadella's impact will be swift enough to give the great WP OS a fighting chance against the Android and iOS relentless advance.
Well the current Apple CEO isn't doing too well, given bendgate, and hairgate.
What is their opinion of the previous CEO that actually ran Nokia into the ground ? Sorry guys but Nokia was sinking when Elop arrived.
Absolutely not! Elop may have not been a great CEO, but anyone else would have turned Nokia bankrupt. If they had released a high end Android device or stuck with Symbian, very few devices would sell. The whole fact that Nokia = Windows Phones made sure that the company stood out and a had a chance against the higher powers.
I would back him for choosing windows platform but he disappointed with the way he dealt Nokia
it's not like he had an easy job. Symbian was dying fast and had to make a tough choice: jump on the google bandwagon, get help from from old buddies at microsoft, or go his own way.
At the glacial pace symbian moved "go his own way" was probably the first option off the table.
That leave google or MS, one of which he knew people at, but the other had traction. eh... it's kind of a toss up for me. Not very obvious.
Now why I'm sitting here with a lumia 920 waiting for a better phone as my contract winds down? That's all on Nokia. And maybe my love of sub-5" phones but they should've asked me.
I am telling this since begining.
He the worst CEO of the Millennium
He is the Devil in Human flesh
Yeah sure
If Nokia Shares start getting down during Mr Elop's tenor then Yes he is a worst CEO.
If Nokia didn't bring revolution after 3310 and Elop did same then Yes he is a worst CEO.
He sold Nokia to Microsoft and then join Microsoft. Thousands of works got unemployment then yes he is a WORST CEO.
If true, he is in a very large category. I worked for a couple of them.
Objectively speaking,
Supposing Nokia had adopted Android earlier, they would have retained their relevance, maybe even remain ahead of Samsung.
Though I love WP but Nokia made a bad decision by not embracing Android.
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More proof that the previous CEO destroyed Nokia. It was sinking as Elop arrived.
You don't write a book to restate a known fact.;-)
While he is definitely not the best, I don't think he is the worst CEO in the world. Not even the worst CEO in the Nokia itself. The worst CEO in the Nokia is whoever it was when they didn't catch the hint on iPhone hype and playing save with Symbian. If Finnish want to look someone to blame, they should blame this CEO instead.
[DISCLAIMER: This is purely my opinion, and criticism and a healthy discussion is welcome. Let's just deal with it a little maturely. ☺]
I personally don't think he's the best CEO ever, but he made good choices. Nokia as is was not getting anywhere. Going android was no sure way to succeed (see HTC, Sony and where they stand today).
I personally blame Microsoft. They were very slow with the development of Windows Phone in the early years.
WP 8 was what WP 7 should've been. MS has always been playing catch up, in terms of features and support.
I mean their phones didn't have the ability to select multiple pictures or SMSes till late 2012. What the heck is that? And not to mention how phones like the lumia 900 lost support within 2 months of release. Now I understand there were complications in bringing WP 8 to older devices, but wasn't this supposed to be planned?
From late 2012-late 2013, all flagships on WP had only a snapdragon s4 dual-core processor (which was already an year old in 2012 btw). All this happened because MS couldn't offer timely support.
Also, Nokia too was desperately releasing devices at times. I mean the 1520 came in a couple of months since the 1020, with snapdragon 800. Couldn't they have waited and given a proper 1020 with a better processor that could eventually get 4k videos, continuous focus and fast captures - these are features you'd expect from Flagship Camera Phone. And same is the case of the 900. They would've known that MS would not support WP7 devices soon. So they shouldn't have released the 900 at all.
So I guess the only fault by Nokia was releasing some wrongly timed devices.
WP 8.1 was again a catch up, though it did reduce the gap a little.
If MS had developed WP faster and dealt with it better, Nokia would've stayed in the phone business, made lots of profits, while WP itself would've gained a much higher market share than it has today. And yes, you could've played Candy Crush on WP then, too!
Also Nokia should've timed some devices better, so they had a smaller loss.
So ya, Elop is partly to be blamed, but I guess lack of enough support from MS as a partner was the main cause of what happened to Nokia. And that, I believe is the actual conspiracy by MS. Providing half-sized support so Nokia eventually weakens, but WP isn't gone. Then buying Nokia and becoming a devices and services company.
He was awful, there was no way he should not have teamed with Android also to maximize Nokia's chances of survival.
Android is dominated by Samsung in the Marketplace. Hey even a company like Sony (or Motorola under Google's ownership) which makes excellent handsets easily the equal of Samsung is fairing poorly against the likes of Samsung. Nokia extending themselves financially to support Android in a truly competitive manner was likely NOT possible and surely their Board of Directors would have voted down the notion to invest heavily in a Platform that already had too many companies struggling to stay profitable.
He is the WORST ceo ever...i wish no other company gets a Trojan horse like him..
So that means he will not be a good exVP? Do something MS
fate of Nokia with symbian ~ fate of RIM BlackBerry. of course they want whine about it because business went out of finland (nokia history ____________ <--- goes here). He is one of great CEOs imo.
No....not true...he is not worst CEO...and doesn't deserve this rogue statement
I don't know if he was a Trojan horse or not, what I remember though is that Nokia was already going down before his arrival as CEO. Did he fail to save Nokia? Yes, but no one in their right mind can say he was the one that ruined the company. Nokia was already in trouble. They were offering Symbian phones with a resistive touch screen that were a pain to use as their flagship devices against the likes of iPhones, the first Nexus and other Android phones. By the time Elop took over as CEO Nokia had already lost a great chunk of its user base even in a country like mine (Italy), where Nokia was, and to a certain extent still is, the synonym for quality phones.
If you look at the picture of him holding the phone, looks like he is flipping us off :)
So true. Nokia would have been one of the leading brands if it had taken up Android as the major OS instead of WP long ago. Elop lead to the downfall of this giant. Now it lives under the shadow of Microsoft.
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No, he is one of the best ceo. Because of him wp and Nokia survive
Hey! Wait!.. Wait!.. He was not anyway bad from a consumer's perspective. He maintained 'the things Nokia is known about' very well.
And, I think It was Elop when Pureview debuted.
Yeah, but I certainly complain about him if he is responsible for the discontinuation of Symbian.
Its tough to say... On one hand I love my Lumia 820. Nokia was NOT my reason why I went with Windows Phone however. I chose Lumia as my next upgrade BC they were "all in" with WP. I used a HTC HD2 to experiment with WP before the Lumia.
I think Elop made poor decisions while being CEO. We don't know what the other choices were presented in these meetings. They could have built an incredible Android device with high end specs, and built their own services into it (I don't mean MSFT and the "X" line of devices). I would imagine that would have taken a lot more engineering and time, which they didn't have. They could have just taken Google's services with Android but they would be paying Google a license fee and pay Microsoft a patent license fee. I think dangling money in front of a company that needed it helped sway the opinion more so than anything. That's why primarily they went with WP.
I became a Nokia user because of windows phone. I just love the combination of WP with Nokia hardware. I would definitely ditch Nokia if they go fully android.
Same here, but m a old Nokia user. I hate android.
So, two reporters interview 100 ex-employees, and based on that information, come to the conclusion that Elop was a bad CEO. Not saying that he was or wasn't since I'm no expert in business, but I would bet you could find 100 ex-employees of any company, and based on that biased view, come to the conclusion an existing or previous CEO was the worst CEO ever.
It's not only based on the 100 employees. It's their accounts together with the known facts.
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To bad they didn't talk about they guy that killed Nokia, the previous CEO. If anyone says Nokia was fine when Elop arrived then they are just misinformed ballwashers.
I call it as a win-win for Nokia and Microsoft as well. And, the decision did help Microsoft mark their entry into smartphone world. Nokia at the same time has a new direction and vision shredding their losing edge. Some decisions are hard to make and I admire Elop for his guts in doing what he believed was right. While a good number have lost their jobs, he left a ray of hope for everyone by making sure that neither of the companies or their strategies are dead.
Yes he is worst CEO,no doubt. He killed the Nokia. At that time Elop and MS was not showing good interest to Windows phone but after acquisition of Nokia handset division,MS is doing better job.
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And that is my favorite basket, out of the other baskets.
Ouch
Nokia focus needed to go towards Meego, the N9 had a ridiculous amount of intuitive features that were so far beyond phones at the time it was incredible. It was simple enough for the iPhone crowd to get behind and advanced enough that Android tinkerers could do as they please.
The only thing holding it back was that it wasn't given a second chance and that was because of Elop. It was the most critically acclaimed phone at the time, beating Samsung, Apple, Sony, whoever. The only negative of any review was that there was never going to be a successor.
Nokia, under Elop, then refused to release the phone in the major mobile markets, even though demand had it sold out in many places it was released, in favor of the Lumia 800 which was forthcoming.
Everything about your precious Lumia polycarbonate phone designs stemmed from that one technical marvel, complete with the curved front glass (which makes absolutely no sense in Lumia phones as it was a design that came from the swipe interface) and Swype keyboard (in built in the OS long before any other phone had implemented it).
What could have been.
Hardly anyone in the U.S. has ever hears of the N9, or even Meegi, for that matter. It was NEVER going to take the world by storm, because that would have taken developer support, which is financed by $$, which the U.S. market provides, and is what drives IOS, and Android adoption. Get your heads out of the clouds. The most popular Nokia phone, by 2009, was a burner, in the 3100 series, that the Russian mob, and terrorists loved, because they couldn't be traced! Nokia. Was finished (no pun intended). The billion dollar welfare check/year from MS, kept the lights on, and prevented more layoffs in the r&d department. You're all killing me with the nonsense fanboyism/fetishization, of this company. It was DEAD, with mobile phones, as the proverbial boulder, tied around its neck. It is now ALIVE, and refocused on its next century. Nokia didn't begin, with mobile phones, and apparently, is not interested in ending, with them either, and good on them. They can now dominate the GPS market, lime they did phones, and live to fight another day. It's the MS Device Division, now, folks. Its not going to change, for all your annoying whining and moaning. It's like being stuck in that guy's head, that was on YouTube, screaming, "LEAVE BRITTANY SPEARS ALONE!" I've read all the comments, on this thread, and they've made me B**ch-averse...
This article could be subtitled: "The DJCBS Tribute Thread". This is the headline that he's been waiting for with his "Eflop" gimmick. :p
That's what happens when History is on your side. And now I shall rule supreme! ;P
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u got an android phone?
Of course. I've always said that once Nokia was gone from the phone business, I would leave WP for lack of another trusted OEM. I always said I would go where Nokia is. Now Nokia is on Android (with the Z Launcher and HERE maps, both of which already run on my Z3Compact). And so am I.
If there's something you should know about me, that something is: I always fulfill my promises. ;)
None of us can get even close to knowing what happened behind the scenes at Nokia unless we actually worked with Mr. Elop himself. People act like the CEO of a company runs it like a king, but there's plenty of other people involved in big decisions. That said, I'm completely behind what Elop did at Nokia. Nokia clearly didn't want to make any "me too" hardware. They had a beautiful thing going with Meego but it had even less developer support than Windows Phone. They went with what they thought was the next best thing, and they were right, they chose what is now solidly the 3rd largest platform and created some amazing hardware that put Nokia's name back into the general public. That's what they needed to do. The only other thing they could have done to stay alive is stay small, or go with Android, and if I was in his position, I wouldn't have chosen anything other than Windows Phone either. Those writers are just mad that one of the products Finland was most well known for is no longer Finnish.
I'm pretty sure the majority of Nokia's staff, worker's family and most of Finland probably have him as Nokia's worst CEO too.
Brian Driscoll, that was the Hostess CEOs name. Took me forever to remember it.
I don't know if he's the worst CEO or not... At the time Nokia switch to Windows Phone, I didn't like it... I was a owner of a Nokia N9 with Meego and the phone was much, much, much better than the rest... Hardware was fantastic (and that's why they are still using the same design on Lumias) and the OS was way better than Android (I really dislike it, it's a mess, poor memory management, etc, etc). I switch to Lumia and Windows Phone OS ONLY when 8 was out. And with 8.1 it's even better. However, Nokia made some mistakes on Lumias... For example, they did a terrible job on Lumia 1520. I can't admit that the flagship of the Lumias series had flaws like the touchscreen. I had one for 2 month and it became useless because i couldn't even insert my PIN! Also, I don't understand how another flagship like 930 doesn't have Glance or a SD card slot...
I hope that MS can expand the share of market now that they control the hardware... to be honest, I really don't like the alternatives (Android or iOS)
Agree with you entirely about the N9. Lovely looking phone. I wanted one but couldn't have one because they weren't made available in the UK. A shameful decision I thought at the time. Eventually they plumped for Windows & stuck it into the 800, which was more or less the same form factor as the N9. It was this that convinced me to move from Android. The question for Elop was whether to stay with & develop Symbian, or move to Android, Meego or Windows Phone. Nokia was sinking & any choice was fraught with difficulty. Unfortunately for Nokia, Elop chose Windows Phone. Supposedly a brand spanking sparkly new operating system. It wasn't up to the job, because it wasn't ready. The excuses made were that it was new & we would have to wait for all the features the other OSs had. This would have been excuseable had it actually been true. In fact Microsoft had been in the smartphone business longer than most, so there was no excuse for this dud of an OS. And what made matters worse was the seeming lack of effort on Microsoft's part to resolve the issues. They appeared to move at a glacial pace. Had the system been up to scratch in the first place & had it been backed up by a dynamic Microsoft throwing much needed resources at it, Nokia may still have been with us. Perversely it was the other way around. While Microsoft laboured, Nokia made every effort possible to push the platform. It's obvious that without Nokia there would be no Windows Phone now. Microsoft let them down in a big way & one wonders if this was almost on purpose, so that they could take advantage and pick up the pieces when the crash came.
Even if every bad thing said about Elop is true, there are still so many CEOs out there that are far worse. Look at the CEO of Hostess. This guy basically just came in to give bonuses and a golden parachute to himself while running the company into the ground, and then put all the blame on unions.
All in one basket? Asha and nokia x still exist, for now.
The fact remains is that Nokia was haemorrhaging money long before Elop became CEO and their market dominance was gradually being eroded away. Also Nokia never gained a proper foot hold on the US market, if they did the story may have turned out quite differently.Nothing lasts in this volatile world of technology, just look at blackberry - once they had every other teen with a blackberry and dominated the enterprise. Now they are as relevant as word pad on a your PC lol...
He wasn't that bad!!!
Yes, I agree.
I dont think Andriod would of worked, very crowded now already. Even with samsung starting to see down grade in profit this year. To a tune of 60% less with the next report comming out for the phone divison. Other option was meego.
Nokia shouldnt have sold to microsoft it was okay for microsoft to have their OS on Nokia Devices...Nokia days are ending very soon because of that
I knew the Authors are Finnish the minute I read the title. They still live in denial & blame Elop for Nokia's fuck ups.
Nokia's downhill started the day Steve Jobs (RIP) walked to the stage back in 2007 ... They thought they were big enough & bad enough to not play the game ... (Just like BlackBerry) ... Everything went downhill since then & later on they brought Elop to fix a sinking ship & do damage control ... Given the circumstances, I think he did okay, I mean things could've been a lot worse.
To all the Keyboard CEOs who thought Nokia would've been better off with Android ... Things ain't looking good on that side either ... Sony posted Loses, HTC is barely making enough to stay a float, Motorola exchanged hand 3 times since 2010 & Samsung's momentum seems to running out ... They are projecting a 60% decline in profit this Quarter. I don't know about LG though.
______
P.s. No offense to the great people of Finland.
Yeah but Nokia wasnt supposed to be sold to Microsoft even if Nokia was in a down hill
And then what? Leave the mobile arm of Nokia to die it's inevitable death given the obvious trajectory?
The mobile division would've dragged the whole company down with it.
Easy now, Nokia sold one of their divisions to Microsoft, you don't want to piss off DJCBS over a technicality ;)
Nokia needed the Microsoft money ... Look at it that way, they thought Either sell the phone division & become a healthy company ... Or risk the entire company ... If Nokia (entire company) went bust, the results would've been catastrophic.
Well said, well said! This is the bitter core of truth, all other arguments are just last minute blame techniques, can't be the person to take the fall and stuff. It amazes me the way the impression is created that Nokia phones were healthy and strong prior to Elop and he just came in to destroy! I don't mind counter opinions but they should please speak the entire truth, it's not like we can change what's already done!
Thank you :)
I totally agree.
What a load of crap. Let's interview armchair quarterbacks who are upset over Nokia's fall and see if they want to slam their prior boss... great strategy for accurate "journalism". Not.
Tough to argue with results; or, in this case, the lack of results. Maybe it was inevitable, but just a few years ago Nokia was #1, and now they are gone.
What few years ago are you referring to? Before or after the iPhone and Android?
It's funny, because with the Hardware Division sold to Microsoft, Nokia is a healthier company now. That division was driving the company in the red, while other divisions were making profits. Now Nokia is profitable and with 7 billions in the pocket to invest.
Even accounting Elop of every decision Nokia made (simply untrue), the final result is good for everyone: good for Nokia shareholders, good for Microsoft that has full control over Lumia phones, good for WP users that will continue to have the same quality and even better thanks to MS infinite cash.
It's a good way to be the worst CEO in the world.
What could he have done? If Nokia was going to set the world on fire with their Android offerings, they would have needed to do it well before 2010. Symbian clearly wasn't doing the trick, so I imagine these disgruntled employees are the ones that were so in love with Meego that they decided to leave to start up Jolla. Unfortunately Meego had no hope of making as big a dent in the smartphone world as Windows Phone could have. And Jolla's successor to it, Sailfish OS, is just as irrelevant. Like Blackberry, it has to rely on Android apps outside of the Google Play store just to maintain any resemblance of usefulness. Elop did the best he could considering Nokia was very late to the smartphone game and they last time anyone talked about them was to make fun of the N-Gage.
From Nokia point of view he sold a money loosing division to another company. Isn't that good. Does LG is a successful Android smartphone maker? HTC ? Sony ? . Why HP got split now ? I know he didn't become Alan Mulally of Ford for Nokia.
He brought Windows Phone to Nokia. That alone makes him a decent CEO. Screw Android.
Yep, i agree. He pretty much put Nokia out of business. The market power of Nokia was seriously overestimated by him. They switched to WP exclusively when it would have been smart to sell phones on android, WP and their own os.
Nokia was on their way to going out if business before he got there. Without MS infusing then with cash, they would have fallen completely.
As a CEO, Eflop is the worst. Just look at his CV and you'll see what happened to companies he commanded. Be glad he wasn't hired for the job at Microsoft.
As a Trojan horse though, he's great. He did his work exactly as instructed by his overlords.
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I stopped buying Nokia years ago because Symbian was too slow. Now I own three Lumia simply because of WP. If I want Android, I will buy Samsung. Motorola couldn't survive with Android, just saying.
When it comes down to splitting hairs, all CEOs are measured on one thing and one thing only, share price. (of public companies that is)
their underlings manage and report to them the operations by which that company is ultimately valued and traded.
Worst all time CEO, heck no. One you want running your company or large division, perhaps, only temporarily. As others have pointed out, while maybe a good presenter, maybe he is there to be the hatchet man while the company defines the new space,Microsoft doesn't hire dummies, especially twice, more or less.
The poll was like what, 100 people? Seriously,what % worked there and was part of the downsizing?
When that happens to a great company like Nokia, dominant in its day, it is down right distressing.
It's analogous to Digital Equipment Corporation in the 80' with Ken Olsen. Great man, smart, generous, should he have been running the second largest computer company behind IBM, not really. When Robert Palmer was eventually brought in to replace him he did exactly what ELOP, did to Nokia, sliced/diced & sold. For Nokia II can see why they are upset, but he did what he had to do, create value for shareholders instead of bankruptcy. That's the price you pay in a public market economy. I respectfully disagree with the writers of that article.
In the case of Robert (GQ) Palmer he eventually destroyed the entire company not just a part of it as is the case with Nokia. Nokia is still around and _may be_ for a long time. DEC went bye-bye completley when it became Compaq (by purchase) which went bye-bye then it became part of HP (by purchase), which looks to be going in the bye-bye direction too. KO moved DEC to #2 behind IBM. GQ Bob moved DEC the opposite way. All this is ancient history now. Wonder how many folks reading this know ANY of this. My guess - not many.
In closing, I disagree with the premise of the article and how does one define "worst".
Dave,
They went bye bye when Ken addressed sales and others at Brown University and spoke the infamous words "the PC is going nowhere and Unix is the snake oil of operating systems". I wish i was short the stock however, Your right about GQ though, lol sad. It has been my experience engineers don't make the best ceo's. You of all must know after all windows server is basically VMS with a windows front end, cutler assured MSFT that when he went west.
Add 1 letter to the letters in HAL (2001 space odyssey) and you come up with IBM.
Add 1 letter to VMS and you come up with WNT.
With WP 8.x using the WNT kernel, there's VMS in the code - somewhere.
The writers in the Finnish newspaper have a bone to pick with Elop. I bet a dollar to a donut, they sought to find those in that "report" that despised the man for personal reasons more than those who were objective about Elop.
Having said that, the question is do I agree with the assessment. Based on what? These same 200 words all these stories posted here? You really didn't say very much to ponder. I wish you guys would actually say something when you write these drive-by stories and solicit responses.
He's nowhere near the worst CEOs in the past 10 years, not after the US's banking and housing crash, BP's oil spill or even yahoo's CEO lying on their resume. He was ineffective though until the initial MS deal that make Nokia exclusive to WP and brought Nokia billions to stay afloat.
Worst? He's the cooolest CEO!
Nokia was already fucked way before Elop.
Fire can I get the book?
The overall results of Nokia devices from 2010 to the day Microsoft took over were, in my opinion, quite good. I don't think he was the worst. I feel there is a definite bias on behalf of the authors. I think the Finnish people are angry about the buyout, especially those who were with Nokia at that time.
So let's see if I understand correctly. A couple of Finnish writers interview a bunch of ex employees of a Finnish company which had a major division sold off. Just a wild guess, but perhaps they had a bias when they set out to write this book?
To deliberately undermine Nokia? There was nothing to undermine. The brand was dying already and would've been dead if no changes were made. While the development of MeeGo could've been faster, he did make good choices.
I agree that he is not a good CEO and made poor business decisions, Nokia would have dominated the market if they had gone with android. Just like nokia dominates the Wp market, from a business perspective it made sense to develop android phones. Finland would always see it like that. The positive thing is that Microsoft now owns the hardware division. Which benefits us windows phone users.
No they wouldn't. Samsung was already dominating and they would have to pay licensing fees for every device..fees they couldn't afford.
Samsung's dominance was only established in 2010. The decision to move to WP was made in 2009, at which time Nokia was still a powerhouse. It was the fact that Nokia didn't go for Android that allowed and helped Samsung climb to power (that and, of course, shameless ripping off the iPhone)
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+1020
Who would have 'funded' Nokia in the meantime in their climb to 'dominance' in Android? Don't forget Samsung has huge alternative streams of income, make significant parts of their phones like screens and memory etc. Do you really think Nokia could beat Samsung in a race to the top of Android, where the only real differentiating factor is hardware? And at a time of financial stress without excess reserves to pump into accelerated development? And what of the other players HTC, Sony Ericsson, LG? would they have just been staring idly on the sidelines? The game had changed but Nokia was late to react. WP at least gave them a cash cushion via MS which they couldn't get from any other interested party at the time!
The problem with the majority here is that you're evaluating Nokia's finances and value at 2013 state. In 2009/2010, although they were losing money, they still had a lot of value and marketshare to help them make the transition to Android. They were pouring money into MeeGo along with Intel. That same money would have been (and was) poured into a different OS. The problem was that they went with one that at the time had no clear future (actually, had no future at all). So Nokia, instead of jumping from a sinking ship to a lifeboat, jumped from a sinking ship into the Costa Concordia. Worst of all, the complete mess with WP7 and the complete lack of seriousness of Microsoft regarding WP only lead to a worst state.
Add for Sony, LG etc. None of them had our had the weight Nokia had. Sony is doing well in Europe on the high end market. LG I see few people with them because LG isn't particularly recognised for their phones (unlike their TVs). Motorola is practically MIA in Europe since Nokia crushed them in the beginning of the XXI century.
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Look at their profits, cashflow from operations and debt from 2007 to 2008. Do you really think in that big of a downtrend they would have been able to transition at successfully compete against Samsung and at least 4 other OEMs?
The Google option was on the table long before the Windows Phone option, yet the board wasn't convinced. And their then CEO was focused on becoming a "software company" rather than remaining a "devices" company cause he was scared by how much they were already being beat at the high end of the market by Apple.
You wanna talk about bad CEOs, OPK was terrible!
That rise of debt 2007/2008 comes from the acquisition of NAVTEQ and not from any operational losses which is what I guess you are implying.
You guess wrong, all I'm implying is that their profit and cashflow has declined from 2007 level drastically and now they had significant debt to service, granted some of it could probably be serviced by NAVTEQ cashflow.
The question is, if they were doing well and didn't need money, why would they ask for money from MS? Why was it such a big factor?
Transition to Android would have been very costly, the marketing alone would have been a big problem, Apple and Samsung were spending immense money on marketing actually signficantly bigger than what Nokia and MS ended up spending combined on Windows Phone.
Fair enough. I guess I just don't share the sentiment that Nokia was passed the point of no return in 2009/2010. D&S was still profitable for the full year of 2011 by the way.
It was still profitable no denying that, but it was on a significant downtrend from 2007 to 2011. So the writting was on the wall.
But I'm curious, how would you turn it around?
Symbian and Meego were dead, Nokia was getting squeezed by Apple at the top and Android at the bottom of the market.
Switching to Android would mean you had to tolerate a massive burn rate and compete against Samsung and at least 4 others.
In hindsight I would say that Nokia should have gone android in order to stay relevant as a smartphone manufacturer. They could have moved to android earlier and it would have been easier for them to set up a whole line of phones at the get-go which wouldn’t be made obsolete within a year due to another shift of operating system (WP 7 -> WP 8).
A few things where against the Nokia - Microsoft partnership:
Also, they should have eliminated the dividend far earlier. That dividend (still active 2012) should by the way tell you that Nokias financial statement wasn’t as bad as many here seems to think, but that money could have been used far better.
100% agree on the dividend. On Android I partially agree. If this decision was to be made say in early 2009, I think no doubt it should have been Android. Samsung was still not dominating and that's pretty much when the growth of the ecosystem started to spike. Nokia was still in a better position financially, but OPK didn't do anything and neither did the board. I think by late 2010 it was pretty much too late. Yes that doesn't seem to be that much time, but a lot changed during that short span.
I would argue that there still was time for Nokia to go Android route and still be successful, even in 2011. Most likely not dominate, but still be in business.
The amount of money Microsoft has been contributing to Nokia has been well overplayed here at WPC. Nokia got around 1 billion dollars per year from Microsoft which they needed to spend on buying WP-licenses. So after the deal was through the cash vs the minimum amount of licenses that Nokia was obligated to buy was close to a zero-sum-game. You could say that Microsoft is giving that very same deal to any OEM wanting to manufacture WP-devices now since they scratched the license fee.
And just to put 1 billion dollar in perspective, Nokia had around 40-50 billion of dollars in sales per year (2010-2012), hardly a needle mover in my opinion.
Secondly, maybe the biggest benefit for Nokia using android would be that they would be selling a phone which had an operating system people had become comfortable with. With WP they had to push people into the idea that tiles instead of widgets/static icons was a better way of handling your smartphone, not to mention the app-gap.
Another thing to consider was the problem with WPs functionality in certain regions which wasn’t supported (eg. languages), a problem for Nokia which wouldn’t have been if going with android. Add to that the time it took Microsoft to lower the hardware-restrictions in order to make it viable to compete on price with the lowest costing android phones.
And lastly, Nokias Symbian models kept D&S floating until around q1 2012. Since WP didn’t support hardware that enabled a competitive price on lumias Nokia started to work really hard on competing with their Asha-line with initial good results, which kept D&S alive until Q4 2012. In q1 2013 even the Asha-line started to sag and Nokia was effectively left the WP line, and then the D&S was sold to Microsoft.
I do think that if Nokia went android instead of WP in 2011 they would definitely have a shot to compete effectively. Forgot to add the part that if Nokia went with android they might have been more inclined of scratching their dividend sooner. If they would have stopped the dividend in the year of 2011, they would have saved around 1,5B euros
Will have to agree to disagree. 50 billion in sales don't convert to cashflow, you are correct on the dividend though at that point in time that money could have been spent elsewhere to hopefully generate more long term value to the shareholders. The timing of Android could be debated for years, I'm of the opinion that 2011 would be too late, you think it was still possible. I don't think we'll ever know.
What originally started this massive debate was a statement by DJCBS stating that the decision to go WP was made in 2009, which it wasn't. Even if they looked at Windows Mobile before they clearly passed. Previous conversations with Microsoft don't prove that the decision was made and acted on in 2009. It was made in late 2010 after hiring of Elop and at that point regardless of Android or not OPK managed to destroy a lot of Nokia's capabilities by simple inaction. This leads me to belive that Elop was not a trojan horse. The board had plenty of time to go the Android route and went WP route based on his recommendation only after hiring him. So OPK and the board destroyed Nokia. Elop did not destroy Nokia to hand it over to MS. I think his mistake and the board's mistake with regards to the WP decision was being optimistic that MS will manage to exectued on the WP strategy effectively and quickly resulting in a 3rd player in the market and effectively differentiating Nokia from Apple or Samsung by virtue of a different ecosystem backed by a massive player. But MS is MS and they messed up more than once. I dont' think any of it was sinister or intentional to undermine Nokia to then later buy it.
Oh how I sometimes wish for an alternative universe where one could play out different scenarios. :) And you are right, these discussions can be debated endlessly since we don’t have any proof except for the “scenario” that actually happened.
I usually only lurk around WPC and its forums, never write anything myself but have steadily visited here since the Lumia 800 days. The reason for writing now was due to one to many posts of “Nokia was in a death-spiral long before Elop started at Nokia”. That is something I strongly disagree with and I think very few of those who says that have any real clue of Nokias financial wellbeing (D&S in particular) at the time (2009-2011). However, I don’t lump you into that group since you seem to know what you are talking about.
About the subject of Elop working undercover as a Microsoft agent, no that is extremely unlikely. I do however think that Nokia and Microsoft had some previous discussions about using WP before Elop started at Nokia. Though nothing was set in stone, Nokia going WP was more likely than not once Elop started at Nokia.
Thanks by the way for the discussion and for keeping it civil. :)
Molgan, the feeling is mutual on people not knowing what they are talking about. It is frustrating at times. I also appreciate you keeping things civil as well, I think this was an interesting an enlightening debate. Hopefully see you around and we can argue about other topics :)
Definitely
And I just noticed that I didn't answer your questions. Nokia could ask for money from Microsoft since they had the upper-hand. Nokia could've chosen to go with android which they leveraged in their negotiations with Microsoft, hence the money-support.
Going android would however render Nokias 8 billion dollar NAVTEQ acquisition almost worthless. From the managements perspective it wouldn't have looked good if they initialized an 8 billion acquisition which value evaporated in just a few years. Wouldn't have looked good, at all.
Precisely! Also it's improtant to consider that if they really thought that Android was a grandslam for them they wouldn't pass on it simply cause MS threw some money on the table. I think the board looked at the Google offer long and hard, if I'm not mistaken the offer from Google was on the table before WP offer. But they also looked at who they'll have to face in that market and probably didn't think it would be a sure thing.
Elop joined Nokia in September of 2010. WP strategy was announced in February of 2011. Windows Phone 7 was annoucned in October of 2010, Nokia Lumia 800 was annoucned in October of 2011.
Where did you get 2009 from? So Nokia made the decision to move to WP before Elop joined? Yet it's his fault for the strategy?
Nokia's stock was in a nosedive since late 2007 to early 2009
The selection of Eflop was made before he joined.
And as with any CEO, he made the board of directors aware of his plans. Can you say the BoD was also responsible? Absolutely. But he came with a plan and with an offer. It was good strategy. Therefore, even though he was enabled, it's his responsibility.
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There is a nice Bloomberg article, in which Mary McDowell states that the WP plan was introduced to the board only in November of 2010 at that point the "Google" option was still very much on the table, they recommended the WP option and the board voted it in in February of 2011.
Change in strategy, especially as large as this will always require board approval, even if Elop was selected before hand, nothing would be done until the plan was board approved.
So once again where did you get 2009 from? Are you implying that Nokia made the change almost two years before the offical board approval or before the WP option was presented to the board and a whole year before the new CEO who brought in the new strategy was hired? Doesn't make any sesne.
And how was Nokia still a powerhouse in 2009/2010? Stock in a nosedive since 2007, bottoming out in late 2009. You know what else happened in 2007? Steve Jobs announced the iphone.
Funny thing, there is also a bloomberg businessweek article written by Peter Burrows where you can read that Nokia and Microsoft where in negotiations about Nokia using Windows mobile. The negotiations was lead by the microsoft employee Stephen Elop as it happens. It isn't too far-fetched to think that the WP-plan was already set in motion prior to Stephen Elops arrival at Nokia.
Don't think I've come across that one. I'm not sure when you say Windows Mobile what do you mean? Windows Phone 7? Care to share the article as I couldn't find any that refer to what you discribe. Would be curious to know what the timing was around those negotiations.
Hmm, I had trouble with sharing a link to the article. Try searching for Bloomberg Businessweek Stephen Elop's Nokia Adventure and you should find it. (page four is the passage I am referring to)
Going by that article they do mean windows mobile and not windows phone and the negotiations should've taken place somewhere around 2008/2009 guessing from the article.
Sorry, I read that article don't recall that being mentioned. You sure they don't mean Office? That would make more sense since Elop negotiated the use of Office on Nokia devices, which makes more sense since he was part of the Office team and not Windows Mobile. Which page and paragraph?
I think 2008/2009 would have been way too early for Window Phone and the same article mentions the Chairman saying that they only started looking at external candidates in Spring of 2010 and he met with Elop in the summer of 2010. Originally they were considering promoting from withing. So once again not sure how all fo that ties back to 2009 as DJCBS stated.
It's this passage I'm thinking of:
"Two years before, Elop led negotiations with Nokia over many of the same topics, but from the Microsoft side. Back then, Microsoft was trying to get Nokia to make a line of phones using Windows Mobile,"
Honestly I don't think that's correct, I think he negotiated the Office for Symbian. Negotiating Windows Mibile would be irrelevant to the eventual decision to use Windows Phone, drastically different OS, but that's just my opinion.
Well regardless if you think that is correct or not it shows that Elop was in a position in Microsoft where he led earlier negotiations with Nokia.
Sorry let me rephrase, I meant the article isn't clear. There are a few other articles covering the same topic that state that Elop was negotiationg Office with Nokia.
Actually, Nokia was evaluating alternatives to Symbian for a long time after the 2007 announcement of the iPhone. Nokia reacted late, but they didn't wake up late to the problem of the iPhone.
That search for an alternative to Symbian lead them to consider Windows Mobile. Ultimately, they decided to join forces with Intel and create MeeGo. Nokia - and this one you can't blame on Eflop - was convinced that they could create another Symbian but for smartphones to compete with iOS.
Except by the end of 2008, Android showed up. Compeeting against Apple and iOS, for Nokia, would have been relatively easy IF no one else showed. Nokia was still the largest phone manufacturer with a large market share. However, competing with Google AND Apple was harder. And Nokia knew that. MeeGo, as good an OS it was (and it was in many ways way better than WP7), could not resist Apple on one side and a Google consortium on the other (Android was launched as a partnership of Google with Sony Ericsson, HTC and Samsung...two of which were formerly doing Symbian phones).
Nokia had now choices to make. If they had joined the Consortium in 2008, they would have gone Android and at that time, with their position on the market globally, they would have thrived. Because they were joining a force against Apple. Not only that, they would be joining OEMs that used to produce phones with Symbian and whom they knew well.
Problem is, they had already considered Windows Mobile and Microsoft was already sniffing around. Samsung and HTC were part of the Android Consortium and would not be that interested in competing against themselves. So they never took WM or WP very seriously (and they still don't). Microsoft on the other hand needed an OEM. Microsoft had and has no expertise or tradition in hardware making of this kind.
Their only option was to try and get one of the players that was "lost" in the smartphone business. They went with the biggest one, Nokia. They could have turned to Motorola instead, for example. Or Alcatel. But none of them was as appealing as the World's largest phone manufacturer.
That's why I firmly believe that Eflop's arrival at Nokia wasn't innocent. He had previous contacts with Nokia through Microsoft. And he (well, Ballmer's Microsoft) had a plan. They basically pressured Nokia to turn to what would be WP7 with the promisse of obvious financial support in exchange.
That partnership was announced at the beggining of 2011. Eflop was appointed CEO in September 2010 but the replacement of Olli as Nokia's CEO was set in motion way before that, ie, 2009. Since then, Eflop made his plans regarding Nokia very clear, just like when he made his plans for Microsoft clear when they were searching for a CEO to replace Ballmer. The difference is that the BoD at Microsoft was never as soft as Nokia's BoD. Microsoft rejected Eflop for CEO (thank God!). Nokia didn't do the same.
Yes, the downfall of Nokia isn't Eflop's fault alone. Of course not. It's also a fault of that scarecrow of a Chairman, Riisto Siilasmaa. But the decision of hiring Eflop was never EVER peaceful within Nokia's BoD. Many of Nokia's directors were against the plan of turning to WP instead of Android. But when the Chairman and the to-be-CEO decide something, the BoD never opposes. And that's normally true for any coorporation (again, look at Microsoft. Bill Gates and Satya Nadella opposed the purchase of Nokia's D&S division. But Ballmer ranted and screamed and got what he wanted. It costed him his job as CEO, but he got what he wanted)
I agree with this.
Just wanted to add that Nokia more than enough understood what they where getting when they hired Elop from Microsoft. That move from Nokia was to strenghten its tie with another player in the industri that wasn't in the android/ios camp.
DJCBS, the article that Molgan and I are discussing clearly indicates a statement by Ollila that external candidates weren't even considered until Spring of 2010 and he met with Elop in the summer of 2010.
Please point to anything that specifically states that there were conversations with Elop about taking over prior to that.
First you said the decision was made in 2009 to switch to Windows Phone, now you are suggesting it was in 2008 because "MS was sniffing around". When in reality Elop was only seriously considered in the summer of 2010, announced in the fall of 2010 and the board formally started considering options in November of 2010 with both Android and WP on the table, with the eventual decision being made in February of 2011.
A change in strategy is never pre-emptively adopted before formal board approval. Especially withing a public company. It is certainly not adopted before the CEO that recommeneded it was even considred to be hired. They could have thought about it, talked about it and about countless other options, but not action would be taken until the approval.
The rest is just speculation.
2007 iPhone was announced, OPK ignored it and sat on his hands. Then later on Android popped up and Nokia started getting hit at both ends of the market as you've stated, yet the decision was still not made. They could have gone Android in 2008 or 2009, but they were still kicking the tires on everything but Android to Nokia's detriment. So tell me how is that Elop's fault?
By the time Elop was interviewed and WP was considered it was too late for Android, cause Sammy was all over that.
So to conclude, no the decision was not made in 2008 or 2009 it was made in 2010 at the time when 75% of Nokia's market cap was already erased, sales and profits were on a signficant downtrend, large debt to service and as Molgan pointed out somehow Nokia still thought that it's a good time to be issuing dividends. Apple had the high-end, Android had the low-end and Samsung has established itself. Battling against either or both would have resulted in a massive burn rate which Nokia would not be able to sustain as evidenced by HTC, Motorolla, Sony, LG and Blackberry, they had to differentiate themselves or they would have joined this group being stuck between two giants. And no Nokia was no longer a giant at this point, it was a shadow of what it was with massively eroding market share at an alarming rate.
I think in that situation the decision to join WP and partner with MS was a good alternative, especially wtih Nokia getting money. The issue was everything that came after that. MS fucked up with WP7 and then again with WP8, but that's a different conversation altogether and given previous discussions I think we are of the same opinion.
Nokia was destroyed by OPK. By the time Elop came around it was too little too late for anything other than the deal with MS.
Elop was not a trojan horse, unless you think the entire board was in on it as well.
Btw Ollila first met Elop in June of 2010, so that's still nowehere near 2009 as per your earlier statement
Why Microsoft has to hire him back? I am not saying microsoft send him on purpose to Nokia. But he placed all his egg in one basket(Microsoft) he was loyal to Microsoft rather than Nokia. If he tried to save Nokia my bet is he would have went for Android, Megoo, Windows but he prefered something....
Sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about. Megoo and Android strategies were considered before he came on board and the board didn't move on those. The board had to accept a new strategy, sure he did recommend it but the board had to approve it, so it's not like he came in and did all fo that by himself.
No but he got a nice help from a powerful force called money
If he made "monumental mistakes" than clear correct answers should be obvious. They're not, the industry was in a time of massive change and Nokia was going down.
Elop watched Palm, Motorola, Blackberry, and HTC fall or nearly collapse. Those companies choose either their own OS or Android. Elop made a decision to align itself with another industry giant with similar aspirations. What decision would have resulted in a healthy and resergent Nokia today? I don't see one.
I bet Lumia running Android would be massive hit.
Yeah right, as if Sony and HTC phones are 'inferior' to lumias!
I bet Sony, LG, Motorolla and HTC execs said the same thing, worked out well for them didn't it?
From angry Finns, you know what they are going to say. As I said before, Elop is the only qualify to lead Microsoft, no one come close. I don't know BillG is thinking, but it clearly a mistake for choose someone whom no one cares.
But looks like he(Nadella) cares for Microsoft that's important
You know what Nokia was before Elop? Blackberry.... You know what it would looked like today if it continued to develop MeeGo? Blackberry.
Nokia was in a death sprial and one that was quickly accelerating. They could have gone Android, and it might have worked, but they would be directly competing with Samsung. Sony, LG, HTC, all make nice Andriod phones, but they are lost in the noise that is the Galaxy line. That is on the top end, on the bottom end you have lots of no name manufactures creating very inexpensive Android phones.
Microsoft needed, and still needs to keep their moble dream alive, Microsoft has deep pockets, Microsoft gave Nokia a lot of money, this kept them going longer than they probably would have. Google did not want to make the same offer. Google didn't need Nokia.
Look how hard it is for a company with deep pockets like Microsoft to re-establish itself as a player in mobile. Nokia at the time had no chance but to go with either Windows or Android, no way did they have the financial resources to try to create a 5th platform. iOS, Android, WP, Blackberry, Meego.
No, what killed Nokia was the same thing that almost killed Blackberry, the iPhone. Say what you will, but both of these former titans of mobile were too slow to realize the real threat and revolutionary nature of that device. Might as well group Microsoft in with that crowd. Nokia tried to slap touch on Symbian, and Blackberry did the same with their phones. Both were afterthoughts, both failed!
If Nokia still wanted their own platform, they should have bought Palm and webOS, drop all Meego development and focus on a webOS powerd Nokia hardware. This would have given them a modern, viable (at the time) platform for both phones and tablets at a time when Android was still rough around the edges compaired to webOS or iOS. Sadly HP got a hold of them, and well we know how that went.
But the waited too long to respond to the iPhone and Android, it is as simple as that.
Copied and saved your comment, well written!
You should build him a monument!
Nokia pulled out of Japan just before 7.0. I bought an HTC Titan 6 months after Mango. Waited when 8.0 came out because the 8x didn't make sense. Waited and then picked up a 920 just before the 1020 came out. I came to Nokia because of Windows Phone. I now have the 930. Whatever Elop has done, it is now Microsoft.
This boook was written not to tell the truth but to justify the authors sense that Elop is to blame for everything. In order to do this you base your 'research' on 'interviews' with former Nokia staff who would obviously have no reason at all to tell you anything different.
When Elop came on board Nokia was sinking .. fast.. he arrogance of previous management led to their downfall and at the time Elop made the (IMO) correct call to burn the Symbian bridge and go with Windows Phone. Android would not have been a viable replacement and would have made Nokia just another Android OEM. They would not have been able to differentiate themselves as they could with Windows Phone. IMO the major reason why it did not turn out better faster was that MSFT did in fact hold the development back by not working with Nokia deep enough to allow them to do their thing. When push came to shove and Nokia started to put their foot down and started looking at AOSP they could do nothing but buy the S&D devision just to save their own *ss as without Nokia Windows phone is non-existant really.
One thing that proves he wasn't sent by MS is that all the differentiation in the OS that was there to compete with other platforms is now dean and gone, so.............
1: Social network integration (Facebook), GONE! (Making the "smoked by" campaign useless)
2: Dedicated camera button, GONE! (Making the "smoked by" campaign useless)
3: The progress of Creative Studio (5.5), destroyed. Downgraded to an Android clone version with no effects.
4: Live Lock. ABANDONED!
5: Double tap to wake, almost don't work (flaky) on 635, 920, 820, 520, 930. Why??????
6: XBOX music, downgraded and slowed down, for reasons unknown.
7: Search! Music detection, Bing vision (QR scan) and local search/nearby places. GONE!!!!!
Thank you MS/Nokia. You might aswell start doing Android phones now. Sorry.
And all of this incoherent rant has what to do with Elop managing Nokia...??
By the way:
- Social network integration removal was a request by Facebook (pretty much like the YouTube features removal was a demand by Google - they own the damn thing and have the power to do so), with a better app indirectly integrated proposed as a solution (the mobile app is a huge revenue generator for FB, so that's a no-brainer, really)
- The dedicated camera button requirement (along with hardware touch buttons) was made non-compulsory in order to reduce costs and encourage more OEMs into the field to make cheaper handsets. And it still does exist on most high-end WPs anyway.
- Creative studio is one of thousands of photo enhancement apps in the store, of which there are many excellent ones far better and free to download. What is so special about it?
- Live lock has been obviously placed on the back burner in light of much bigger things being worked on and developed. It was never anything quite as amazing as we initially thought anyway, and can only be seen for like 5 seconds at a time on the screen before it goes off. No big deal.
- Double tap to wake was an afterthought brought to WP by Nokia from Symbian. It was never part of the hardware/software plan. It's bound to be like that.
- I don't know where you got your WP from, but Search still works as normal for me - with Bing Vision and Music recognition very much available, except when location is turned on and Cortana appears instead.
As for the music app, I have no idea why MS changed things. They have their reasons, I guess.
Stop whining unnecessarily.
Yes. Hate that arse hole... He killed Nokia... Screw him
Sounds like the authors are bitter over the Microsoft acquisition...the stock market would not agree with their sentiments.
Selling off the devices division occurred after Nokia's stock returned to near "pre-Elop" valuations. If he was sinking Nokia, why wouldn't they sell in 2012 for a third of the price? Why was Nokia's stock falling for two years prior to Elop? Elop took over in the middle of the Nokia decline (2008-2012). Changes take time to implement, and returns take even longer to realize. The decline was the fault of executives decisions (stagnant devices division) some number of years prior to the reflection in it's stock price.
It doesn't make sense...the market also liked the sale of the devices division. It doesn't matter what anecdotal or emotional reasons the book may provide...the idea that he was one of the worst CEO's just flat out does not reflect reality if the function of the CEO is to drive shareholder value. You may not like Windows Phone...but that's a consumer/personal issue...if you owned a piece of the company that was Nokia...then Elop's run worked out.
Wow, well said! Good to read comments with such maturity! Thank you!
Absolutley right ! He's not suited to be in any management role at all, whenever i see him speak in public, i'm sure he has said a thing to piss some people off, whenever i read his memos and mails to empolyees, i just go nuts, i hate the way he talks and acts.As much as i enjoy Satya and his wisdom, i hate everything about this guy. Hope sooner or later they just degrade him, before he screws surface and xbox up too, just like Nokia devices !
I read somewhere that Nokia's board actually wanted Microsoft to buy the phone division. It seems plausible enough to me, Elop couldn't have 'destroyed' Nokia by himself, the Director's board must have had an active role, too...
I started believing in nokia again thanks to Elop. So much that I invested a lot of money in nokia @ 3.5 USD and sold a few months later @ 8.18 USD. All thanks to Elop and Microsoft. I am also vivid lumia user, through my 5th wp phone and a third consecutive lumia. I think Elop and MS saved nokia from a certain doom. But i am very aware of the nastiness they wrecked on the finnish job market. And indian. Etc.
"...conclusion made by Pekka Nykänen and Merina Salminen, the authors of "Operation Elop", which was released earlier this week, The duo, who work at the Finnish business newspaper Kauppaleht, interviewed over 100 people, mostly former Nokia employees, for their book."
I stopped reading here.
Im not saying the windows phone move was bad. But lets admit it, Nokia was once very innovative ( N9, N950 , N8 ) they all had potential but they were slowly killed to make way for the big windows phone move. I am with elop moving to windows phone but not with him killing the other exclusive innovative approaches that Nokia used to make towards the smartphone industry
If Nokia had taken the Android path, their share would be pretty good world wide. I'm not in any position to blame Elop, I just don't have access to relevant info, the complete agreement between Microsoft and Nokia, there are huge amount of info to take into account ! I have had Nokia since 2007 and I'm waiting for the 1020 successor !
I never even thought about buying a Nokia phone til Elop got there and they started the Lumia WP line. If anything im a fan
I'm really sorry for you, you missed a lot man
Actually whatever it is..... Elop made tremendous mistakes..... The authors are right..... He shouldn't have ditched android.....n9 was one of the results of that mistake......
"The duo, who work at the Finnish business newspaper Kauppaleht, interviewed over 100 people, mostly former Nokia employees, for their book."
'nuff said
Not that bad..
Disagree... I suppose they would've named him the best CEO if he had put all his eggs in the android basket instead?
Really? Market tells different story!
Completely agree.
He didn't put all his eggs in one basket. They were still making Asha and prototyping Android at the time.
Then why did they released n9 with meego OS instead of Android......
Nope. Elop was, and is, good!
I have to disagree on this. Elop did the dirty work he was supposed to do, and for which Microsoft hired him. And he did the job fantastically. Nokia is now in Microsoft's hands, and all that at a fraction of its original price.
Motorola goes all in with Android, fails to gain market traction, and is bought by Android's maker Google.
Nokia goes all in with Windows Phone, fails to gain market traction, and is bought by Windows Phone's maker Microsoft.
Blackberry goes all in with their own OS, fails to gain market traction, bolts on Android support, again fails to gain market traction, tries and fails to find a buyer, and goes bankrupt.
I think it unlikely that Elop was a Microsoft plant; he was approved by Nokia's board and retained as he made those bad decisions. Claims that he was a Microsoft plant help deflect the criticism from Nokia itself and helps Finland, Nokia, and Nokia's fans play the victim card. This is an understandable impulse, but not an honest nor respectable one.
Well said! Good perspective! I just feel sorry for Elop been made the scapegoat of huge mistakes long before him!
Well, my first Nokia is Lumia with Windows Phone.
But to be honest, people would like to see Nokia with Android (Nokia X doesn't count). I like Windows Phone mostly because speed.
Elop took over a company that was already dead. Nokia was in a death spiral three years before Elop ever took over. They lost two-thirds of their value as a company during that period, and the only phones they were selling were dumb phones that they couldn't make any money on.
As for Android being their savior, don't make me laugh. Ask every non-Samsung OEM is Android is a savior. They're all losing money with it, and Samsung makes virtually 100% of the profits in Android, despite their falling profits. Even Google makes little to no money on Android. Not to mention Nokia was ill equipped to take on Samsung on their own in the Android world. Nokia was being kept afloat by the billion dollars a year Microsoft was paying.
I won't say he was successful, but absolutely nobody would have turned Nokia around as a phone maker.
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