To Save Nokia Would Take These Steps - Urgently As In Right Now!

Ok. Lets try to save Nokia. What should Nokia do?

There are two gigantic problems. If Nokia was a person, it would be in the hospital in the emergency room, where a little while ago it had stopped breathing, and now also the heart had stopped. Nokia's doctors would need instant emergency assistance to get the heartbeat back, and to get the patient breathing. Then after that, for the patient to stabilize at least that much, that it need not be in the emergency room anymore.

TWO DISASTERS SIMULTANEOUSLY

I explained the two problems. The problem over the past two months or so, has been that the reseller chain (mostly the mobile operator/carrier customers of Nokia) had stopped selling Nokia smartphones. In effect the retail channel has started a Nokia smartphone boycott. What few Nokia smartphones are now selling, are sold with enormous discounts so Nokia's corporate profit engine has stopped performing. As Nokia warned us a few weeks ago, where it was supposed to have something like about 600 million dollars that Nokia projected for profits in Q2 only two months ago, to about zero dollars Nokia now says in its profit warning two weeks ago.

And there is a severe knock-off effect, that Nokia's non-smartphones (ie 'dumbphones') are also selling far less than expected this Q2, partly due to the reseller boycott, and partly due to overall Nokia brand collapse.

The second problem (ie the heart suddenly stopping) is the news in the past few days, that Nokia's share price has fallen well below the critical level, where now Nokia shares are so cheap, that Nokia would be worth more if it was split up and sold in pieces, than if kept together as one entity.

WHAT CAUSED IT

So, Nokia resellers are boycotting Nokia. Why? It all started on February 11, when CEO Stephen Elop stupidly announced that Nokia would replace its current Symbian operating system with the Microsoft Phone 7 (now called Windows Mobile 7 ie WP7) operating system, while Nokia had no such phones to sell or even to demo to prospective buyers. This announcement also included the end of Nokia's evolution path from Symbian to Nokia's brand-new operating system, MeeGo, an open-source, Linux based, touch-screen optimized 'next generation' smartphone OS, that Nokia had been developing with Intel. Nokia's related Qt development tools and the Ovi store lost their value as assets in the Symbian and MeeGo strategic vision. This vision had gained strong Nokia Symbian developer support, and Nokia shareholders had rewarded Elop over the first about half year of his CEO tenure, during which Nokia share price had grown by about 10% up to February 10.

Stephen Elop witnessed the smartphone sales collapse and the severe dive in Nokia share price (which has today lost over half of its value from February 11), and Elop responded with several CEO errors that have further angered his distributor channel, the carriers/mobile operators. Elop has launched dual SIM card phone, said he will not use the traditional Nokia smartphone development teams who have made smartphones that the operators/carriers on all other 5 inhabited continents have loved to sell (except in North America where only about 1% of Nokia's smartphones were sold). Instead he said the first Microsoft WP7 based smartphones from Nokia would be designed 'in California' and would be designed to appeal to US consumers - which obviously is not the preferred way for the 99% of Nokia branded smartphones that used to be sold in the other markets outside of North America. And now, the latest CEO blunder was to talk about Skype for Nokia WP7 phones. The carriers/operators hate Skype. We now hear that since Microsoft announced the Skype deal, apparently several of the carrier stores are now also actively steering buyers of (non Nokia branded) WP7 phone buyers to select rival phones using Google's Android OS. 

Meanwhile today we learned that Nokia's CTO has been sent on indefinite leave because he had disagreed with Stephen Elop's WP7 strategy. And already 3 ratings agencies downgraded Nokia stock. The major analysts are mostly projecting far more decline in Nokia share price value. Some major analysts are now targeting Nokia's share price to fall to less than half where it is now.

NOKIA OBJECTIVE

Nokia needs to achieve two difficult objectives under these very hard times. First, Nokia share price value decline has to stop. Nokia share price has to recover at least about 10%-20% from the current levels (still 30% below the recent peak of early February), for the danger to dimish that Nokia might be sold for its parts and split up.

Secondly, Nokia has to get its reseller channel to stop the Nokia smartphones boycott and recover at least partially the sales of Nokia smartphones and at least partially the lost dumbphones sales, so that Nokia's handset unit can deliver modest profits in the 2% - 5% range for Q3.

So, we have to somehow convince the carriers/operators to stop their Nokia boycott, and also to get the share price to recover at least somewhat for now. That would bring Nokia back from the brink of extinction. This is how I would do it.

FIRE ELOP, CANCEL MICROSOFT

So, obviously, the carriers are boycotting Nokia primarily due to Stephen Elop's idiotic statements from February 11 and since. And what little affection they may have had of the Microsoft WP7 smartphones, clearly vanished when Microsoft bought Skype. Nokia cannot recover smartphones sales (and thus cannot recover profits) until the resellers stop the boycott. And there it is not enough for Elop to apologize or to try to backpedal any of his statements. Now the situation is truly that bad, that Elop has to be fired and Nokia has to cancel the Microsoft phones.

But also, remember, its not enough to get smartphone sales back, Nokia also needs to get the share price to stabilize and turn to a modest recovery. So how to handle Elop firing?

I would have Nokia Chairman Jorma Ollila call an emergency press conference. In it he would make the following announcements: CEO Stephen Elop has been fired (or perhaps it might be worded that Elop has 'left the company') due to disagreements about the smartphone operating system strategy. And that Elop is no longer in Nokia's employ. The job of interim CEO would be taken over by Jorma Ollila in the interim period while Nokia seeks a new CEO on a fast schedule.

Jorma Ollila is the nearest thing to the gold standard, in the eyes of Nokia investors. If he made a 'return' (a little bit like Steve Jobs returning to Apple) - even if only for the interim period - this announcement, to me, combined with the firing of Elop, would help stop the decline in the Nokia share price. But that is not enough obviously. We need the smartphone sales to recover.

Then clearly, Ollila would announce Nokia has cancelled all plans to launch any Microsoft WP7 based smartphones. And that the current smartphone development projects around WP7 would have been terminated effective immediately. These are absolutely vital steps and unless Elop is fired and Microsoft WP7 smartphones cancelled, Nokia cannot recover.

HOW TO RESUME SYMBIAN SALES

Currently, even if Nokia said 'read my lips, no WP7 phones' - that would not restore Symbian smartphone sales. Nokia would have to make a very powerful statement about returning to Symbian (and made by Ollila obviously).

So, first, say Nokia returns to Symbian platform. That is not enough. The only way Nokia carriers/operators and the sales staff at retail stores to return to selling Nokia Symbian smartphones, is if the sales people and carriers/operators truly believe, that Symbian is going to be long-term viable.

How could that be? The Symbian OS had been losing market share. Even after the well-selling latest edition of Symbian, the S^3 version; the overall sales of Symbian had been losing market share. That was all before Elop destroyed the credibility of Symbian.

Here is my 'gimmick'. What if Jorma Ollila announced that Nokia returns to Symbian, but not just to power current smartphones, that to show how totally committed Nokia was to Symbian, Ollila would commit Nokia to migrate all of its dumbphones running Nokia's S40 OS, to Symbian! This would bring over 100 million new handset sales to Symbian - per quarter (after the migration was completed) per quarter. Bear in mind, the nearest rival to Nokia smartphones, Apple's iPhone, only sold 18.7 million smartphones in Q1, Apple's best quarter ever. So this announcement of Nokia's shift of all dumbphones to smartphones, would at least in theory, propel Nokia/Symbian to an almost unassailable lead in smartphones. But understand, that cannot be done in a year or even two. If Ollila committed to migrating its total dumbphone unit to Symbian by a very aggressive year, and I'd say by end of year 2014 - this would be a bold, dramatic and feisty move. Suddenly Nokia would have regained its mojo!

Note, that whether Nokia actually migrates all dumbphones to Symbian by December of 2014, or if Nokia would end up missing that target by some months, it nonetheless would be a massive goal, and if Ollila said it now, that - and perhaps only that - could jump-start the stalled Symbian sales.

Would it be costly? You betcha! But no matter what costs, that was Nokia's long-term goal anyway, for perhaps a 2016-2018 target, so this was not that crazy as it may initially seem. Obviously Nokia would then have to pursue this target very vigorously, and if in 2014 it seemed that some of the cheapest handsets could not be met to this target, Nokia could simply abandon those cheapest phones, to very modest revenue and profit 'damage' while this announcement now in 2011, would help save Nokia.

And the typical 'blah-blah-blah' about this Symbian transition commitment, that this was the unanimous commitment of Nokia's Board of Directors; and that the next CEO would be committing to this target also in public, etc. Note, this bold target - where the scale of how huge Nokia's smartphone production would then become - would change the Nokia smartphone market share picture totally - and would help recover some Nokia share price.

But it is clear, that Symbian is not viable at the high price end of Nokia smartphones into 2012-2013. Nokia needs a new migration strategy now, and Microsoft WP7 cannot be it.

ANDROID NOT AN OPTION

I know that many of my readers would say this is the time for Nokia to go with Google Android OS. Many investors would also welcome Android. But Android now would mean Nokia would have to delay Nokia's next generation smartphones by another year to 18 months from now! Nokia knows Symbian was on borrowed time back before February 11, and is far more wounded now, after the Stephen Elop debacle. No, Android is not it. The only viable migration for Nokia, from Symbian, is obviously to MeeGo. For that Nokia still owns the Qt developer tools which support both Symbian and MeeGo. And Qt will also enable developers to make apps for Android, so in a way, Nokia's MeeGo (and Symbian) would be 'compatible' with Android. Not completely compatible, but MeeGo and Android would be now pitched to Nokia sales channel, developers, investors and employees, as kind of cousins.

Ollila would also reverse the other silly decisions Elop had made, such as the ending of Ovi brand, which Ollila would restore. He would announce Nokia's maps, carrier billing etc would not be made available to Microsoft, nor any WP7 partners/rivals like Samsung, SonyEricsson and HTC. 

ANSSI FOR NEXT CEO?

Ok. Then the 'next CEO' consideration. Ollila should announce that Nokia would seek to hire a new CEO very rapidly. It could have been (and perhaps should have been Anssi Vanjoki. I think Anssi would be a great Nokia CEO, in particular in how he handled the N97 problems, the N8 and Symbian S^3 launches, making sure the two were ready before they were sold to the public. Anssi is far more dynamic and entertaining as a public speaker than most Finnish execs. He's the nearest thing we Finns have of a 'charismatic' executive (but not in a Steve Jobs level haha).

However, this is not the right time for Anssi. Nokia now needs someone who is not seen as a Nokia insider. Nokia now needs to restore its retail channel trust, so the new CEO would need to be particularly favorably received by the mobile operators/carriers.

But I don't think Anssi would even do it. He's plenty wealthy. He has a new job. But Nokia would really need him now. So lets assume Jorma Ollila manages to get Anssi Vanjoki to return to Nokia, temporarily, as co-CEO in the interim period to help run the Nokia in deep trouble, together with Ollila, until the new CEO has been hired. Nice idea? Anssi could for example instantly take over the recall and redesign of the failed E7 flagship phone, and even more importantly, to oversee the rapid launch of Nokia's first MeeGo phone (the N9) which was ready for launch in January but killed by Elop only days from launch.

HOW DO YOU GET ANSSI?

I honestly think that no number of astronomical shares, stock-options, cash, bonuses, would get Anssi Vanjoki to agree to come back to such a lousy job. To fix Elop's mistakes, and then to have step aside when the new CEO is hired. But I have an idea.

Imagine if Ollila would offer Anssi Vanjoki with the ultimate reward. Yes, obviously pay him royally well and give massive stock options and give bonus-incentives. But the gimmick. What if Ollila privately promises Anssi that Nokia will name its next flagship phone after him! The Vanjoki. So Nokia would have two flagships, the Nokia Communicator and the Nokia Vanjoki, released with updated editions on alternate years. And that Ollila would give Anssi carte blanche to design the first edition of the 'Vanjoki' which would be priced in the above-iPhone scale, and Anssi could then use whatever form factor he wanted and put in whatever features he wanted. Imagine, the first phone of the industry, named after the man who came in to help save Nokia... (Nokia really needs Anssi now, this is how to get him)..

SO WHO AS ACTUAL NEW CEO

And what of the new CEO? Not someone from California from the IT industry. We have now seen what a Microsoft guy attempts to do (whether Elop or Steve Ballmer) or someone like Steve Jobs at Apple (I am not suggesting Jobs would ever for one second consider the job, I just mean this is the thinking of West Coast US execs) - they all want to bypass the carriers/mobile operators! So while the investors would like an American, any US IT guy would be seen as another threat.

No, what if Nokia said, half of all mobile phone users are in Asia. And Nokia's distributor chain is the mobile operators/carriers. So wouldn't it be the best way to soothe the hurt feelings of the carrier community now, if Ollila said that the next Nokia CEO will be hired from the top management of a mobile operator/carrier - from Asia. Someone like say Neil Montefiore of Starhub (formerly CEO of M1) of Singapore. A Nokia-friendly CEO who is super-hyper-competent, in ultra-competitive customer-oriented Singapore. A country where already today 75% of all phones are smartphones! Isn't this like the obvious way to restore Nokia's management to the right path, and rapidly heal the rift between carriers and Nokia?

WILL NOT RECOVER NOKIA TO 2010 LEVELS

Note, this is an emergency procedure. Nokia currently is about to die. Nokia needs to get the share price back up, and must get the carriers to stop the Nokia boycott. 

Even before Elop messed up Symbian, there was trouble in selling Symbian based Nokia phones. After the above, there is no way Nokia's smartphone market share could recover to the 29% levels it was before the February 11 silly Elop announcement. But I think Symbian sales would be partially recovered. To what level now? Maybe 10% or 15% or at best 20%. That is still massively worse than what it was in Q1 at 24%. And then in the near term, Nokia would suffer enormous costs of forcing the expedited shift from S40 based dumbphones to Symbian.

Symbian is an old system. Its app development is very hard. The Qt development tools are still under development themselves, so not all things work there yet. But this is now the best strategic option left for Nokia.

Nokia has to fire Elop. Nokia has to end the Microsoft partnership. No ifs, ands or buts. That will only stop the downward spiral of Symbian sales, market share, revenues and profits (ie losses). But if Nokia did all the above moves, I do think Nokia would have some reasonable chances to recover. And Nokia would start to sell MeeGo phones before the end of the year (likely already in Q3) and forcing dumbphones to Symbian, Nokia would actually still potentially challenge Android for biggest smartphone maker. A costly and resource-hungry move, but at this point, there is no other option.

Jorma Ollila has to step in, and in an ideal world, Anssi Vanjoki would join him for the short term. And the next Nokia CEO would come from an Asian mobile operator/carrier. Then in the mid-term, Nokia could actually become quite competitive once again.

But remember, Nokia's problems of the past were mostly execution and marketing, not phone design or software or ecosystem. And even here, an CEO coming from the carrier/operator community (especially from Asia) would bring far more urgency and marketing-customer focus to Nokia compared to what it has had in the recent past.

This is not the way to get Nokia back to a leader position. This is the way to stop the two disasters today, and get Nokia distributors to stop their boycott of Nokia, and to get the stock market and shareholders, to restore some faith and trust in Nokia.. 

Comments

[Antoine RJ Wright]

I know this is fast, but this was one of your easier reads, hence my quick reply on Twitter and its expansion here...

Nokia's previous plan, before OPK was let go, was for Symbian to take over the range where S40 is, and Maemo (before MeeGo came) was to be the high-end platform and place of experimentation. I don't want to dig for the graphic, but it was presented and made quite public when that was brought forth. This was also not long before the efforts to being S40 into the Ovi Store ecosystem more heavily.

Symbian, in its current condition, wouldn't provide much differentiation for Nokia. They'd effectively end up with about 7 models max which which they could play the form factor and internal memory specs game. They'd have to ditch the whole "X series for music" thing, but the other ranges could stand - if optics/camera became no longer associated with Symbian but was a Maemo/MeeGo platform differentiator. Sure, they could (and according to rumors of upcoming devices, will) add faster processors for a spec-sheet game, but the system really doesn't benefit from it - its too optimized *right now.*

The upcoming iterations (Bella and 'C') push the UI further towards what was supposed to be Symbian Touch v4. Also, Qt is supposed to mature by that point and the entire UI shell is supposed to have changed that apps need to be writting in Qt or nothing at all. That might still hold as coming, and that, with declining developer interest, might not be good enough even if Symbian is the one and only Nokia platform.

Here's the gem, and you kind of mention it, Symbian is already operator friendly. Too much so (that was the cause of the problems that led to management issues).

Whew...

Other sticky point, I don't know if Anssi Vanjoki would return. Would be nice (fans and national interest), but I'm not sure that even he would take on this one. They'd need someone a lot stronger, and who knew that they were in for a recovery job, much like Ford's CEO Mullay understood his role to be when he was brought on board there. I could see someone from an Asian cellular company considered though, call it a hunch, but if you were to make that kind of a move, you don't swing slow, but swing just as hard.

Last sticky point, if Nokia pulls out of the MS WinPhone agreement. that might also trickle to other MS partnerships Nokia has. And definitely trickles to the fact that MS paid Nokia to use WP. Would a depleted Nokia have the funds to even take on cutting off MS in such a fashion without selling off NSN, or even having to split anyways? I don't think they can get off without a split even if your suggestion came to pass. They are a bit lower than a hole, and while this would be a pie in the sky and 18mo recoverable action, I'm not sure they'd do it - or even that it wasn't already thought of Feb 12 internally.

[John H]

Let it go Tomi.

Elop had approval from the executive board for their current strategic path.

Should they be fired as well?

[henrique]

tomi, what about the money coming from Microsoft as "marketing incentive" in next years?

[EM]

You are high as a kite. Seriously. Hook me up with some quality Asian narcotics.

Step 1: Fire the handpicked CEO whose plans the board approve of and make the board's Chairman the new CEO.

Step 2: Bring in some random dude who jumped off Nokia because he (correctly) viewed Nokia as a hellhole as co-CEO and name a phone after him as a proxy for constant blowjobs from the interns.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: PROFIT!!! Where Symbian + MeeGo somehow equal profit.

You've lost it. Regardless of whether or not the current plan is right, the alternate plan is from South Park. You ignored profits for something like three years because you were obsessed with market share. You've now been proven wrong, since Apple makes more money off iPhones then every single other entity in the industry (possibly combined, IIRC, and indeed Apple could theoretically buy every other mobile handset maker in the business in cash). If Nokia in 2006 dumped their entire operations and—magically—made the iPhone they'd be making more money then Nokia of 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

Profits matter. Market share doesn't.

[cycnus]

Tomi,

How about china?? china has the most mobile user? would having a CEO from china mobile benefit nokia? or maybe you?? you seems very capable of running nokia.

[German]

They hived off Symbian to Accenture so that train left the station.

In the converged world the same (at least it looks that way) is now running on tablets, computers, and phones -- with some synchronization lock-in through the cloud. Nokia only makes phones so they are missing the two other pieces. I can also not see Symbian powering a tablet nor a computer -- however Meego has that potential. So the only strategic option is to "join" a big computer maker like Dell or Lenovo (most suitable) or -- it can be like the Nissan/Renault partnership which would provide enough $$ to buy Microsoft out -- and then release Meego for tablet, computer, and phone and start in China...

BUT iOS and Android are light years ahead -- so without the China play Nokia would need to adopt Android in any meaningful way + roll out Honeycomb tablets + fast. So they would need to raise $$ and buy some competitor (Motorola?). So

Then you need some CEO crazy & talented enough to pull that all off --

[Sami]

Elop didn't kill Symbian's credibility, he just - finally, I might add - said publicly what everyone already knew.

Nokia is set to decline for perhaps a year longer. If it can defend against any acquisitions, it may survive.

[Matt]

Frankly, I don't think any of this will work. Not to say that Nokia shouldn't try, but the complete destruction of consumer confidence in Symbian over the past 6 months (accelerating a process going back years) has been irreversible. Is it open-source or not? Is it multiple-vendor or not? Does it have a future, or has it been EOLed? If an update is announced, how many months or quarters late will it be delivered?

If Nokia follow through on this plan, they will have to begin a transition to MeeGo from a market share position around 10%, all on low-margin handsets. So the big question for me is: what is the true state of Nokia's MeeGo device group, to be targeted for mass-market handsets? The BusinessWeek (?) article suggested that the MeeGo program would only allow three devices through 2014 - a statement that has not been widely explored. Is it reflecting an inability to push MeeGo down to lower device specs, or a fundamental unsuitability outside the 'geek' market? Or is there some other reason MeeGo is not ready to take over from Symbian?

[Breno Peck]

I loved Nokia shift from Symbian to WP7. I loved Nokia's recent passion for Skype. I hate operators. I hate Symbian. I hate Symbian's slowness. I hate Nokia's slowness. I hated N97.

So now that Nokia is doing everything right someone comes out of nowhere proposing a total retrocess to "save" Nokia.

Hopefully the new Nokia CEO will stay on track and save Nokia from saviors like mr. Ahonen.

P.S: Nokia's two-chip cellphones are selling like hot bread at breakfast time here in Brazil.

[Timothy Meade]

What did Intel ever do for Nokia? Intel didn't license a Nokia baseband for every laptop ala Centrino, MeeGo only made sense as a partnership if Intel could get anybody to build and sell an Atom phone, otherwise it was just rhowing money at the wall in hopes Moorestown would magically work out. MeeGo is Maemo, which is X+a hacked-up GTK+a session manager and window manager orignally designed for the Itsy. It finally got somewhere with Mx and working compositor but it's still limited by X and even with all of the work a Nokia employee has done to improve the situation, X is not quite the experience on ARM that it should be.
The other option is pure Qt, like old Qtopia/QWS it would be on a framebuffer, but this time using a hardware accelerated GL context and compositor. In theory it's a better Android and a better iOS Quartz Extreme. In practice though, Qt is not as portable and the developer tools not as usable on OSs like Symbian.
I'll propose a slightly different path, go back to Brazil and INdT, go back to the earliest Maemo days and start over with a Qt stack, closed and working Nokia GSM stack, a working Wifi daemon (either Intel's or something like Android's against wpa_supplicant directly). Kill Symbian with source-based migration path to Qt and developer tool support. The S40 thing would be nice, but whatever OS would then have to run on one-chip SoC phones, not simple by any means. Maybe binary compatibility with Linux ELF and ABI could be achieved, or stripped down Linux with a hypervisor for the Symbian and RTOS stack, but this been tried before and failed.
More likely, S40 dies a slow death with more and more migration of feature sets up the stack, and an all in one ARM11/9 Nokia dual-core baseband (like MSM7k.)

[Alexander Manu]

Tomi, how is it possible that a traveller such as yourself, can be wrong ALL THE TIME?
EMI has it - and I also posted in this space the same idea last Fall - that "Profits matter. Market share doesn't." The resellers never read the Feb 11 memo that you are so obsessed about. They just go with the magic word "profit" which somehow escapes your vocabulary (and the NOKIA's mindset).
Let it go, really. Use your blog for something useful. Rant in the shower if you must.

[Poifan]

It seems premature to call the WP7 migration a failure when Nokia hasn't even released a single WP7 phone and the OS itself is less than a year old. I'm not convinced it will work (though I love the OS and usually leave my N8 at home now), but I think panicking now is crazy. Anyone who didn't realize the interim months would be a disaster is blind. Wall St. acts like this is a surprise, but anyone who lost money in the market betting on Nokia in the short term shouldn't be trading. This is a bold and risky move, but better than sticking with a dying platform.

[fucykou]

Tomi,

It doesn't matter what kind of operating system Nokia can choose, it can be WP7, Symbian, iOS, Android, Badu, Meego, RIM or whatsoever... but as long as the same guys take in charge, you will stay in the same crisis (I mean from the mid management up to upper management, except the CEO). The real problem is not the platform or OS, it's the guys who manages it.

I have the feeling that everyone can get a lead or responsible position within Nokia even if he/she doesn't have the core competences or know-how experiences (under the condition that he/she can "talk" and do some nice powerpoint stuff). For example:
- a former multimedia VP can be a sales VP and vice versa?
- a marketing lady can lead a technology team full of software engineers and designers?
Everyone can bullshit him with some buz words and he/she will take it. Just imagine that "opportunities" within Google, Microsoft, Apple or any of software company, they will go downhill.
I guess Nokia doesn't have the ability to run a software company yet. They should just concentrate on one thing that they can do the best first (hardware). Just see how many times they do organization changes within Nokia from 2006 until today and see who are still staying in mid or upper management level...
Back to couple of years ago, some of them said that Nokia is a software or internet company, (how funny). They also said, this one will be an iPhone killer, if not then the next flag ship device, if not then the next next one and so on (they were not the iPhone killer, they were actually "helping" end users decide to buy iPhone). And still, you expect that they still lead within Nokia? Or even as the CEO?

The whole software process should be fast, transparent and less red-tape. Just imagine, when you find a bug in one branch of OS version. How long you'll expect to get it fixed within Nokia? Either they will refuse it (because it's not a showstopper) or they will fix it only in the next PR branches (they get scared because they could mess up the branches). And how many clicks you need until it gets approved? e.g. through synergy and a lot of request forms?

Again:
First, the OS is not the real problem, but the guys who manage it. Second, fix the whole internal (software) process.

[Marco]

I wonder if I should buy some Nokia shares. Maybe some execs at Nokia read your blog.

[Joshua]

OK Tomi, just an advice, take your pills, forget your citizenship and the Nokia pride.

At this point you are raving. Seriously.

[So Vatar]

It is interesting to see how many commenter here think that Elop's way is the right way and he should just be given time and we will see that he can perform.

Can we agree on a few things that are obvious?

1) Nokia is on a downward trajectory since 2007. The 2007 peak share price was just shy of $40.
2) In March 2010 the share price is roughly $13. In less than 3 years Nokia lost 2/3 of its value. Reasons for the downfall are multiple. A changing competitive environment, poor software. However I happen to think that execution was their worst problem. Everything self inflicted, no doubt about it.
3) Finally in March 2010 the board gave in and announced a new CEO, apparently to turn the company around. The new CEO came out publicly and embraced the existing Qt/MeeGo/Symbian strategy for Nokia's smartphones. Quarterly results in Q4 2010 were not great, but they made money. Share price recovered about 10% to a peak of about $15.
4) In February 2011 Elop leaks a burning platform memo and announces death of Symbian, and shifts strategy to Windows Phone. Will be available 2012. The stock market reacts and takes out about 20% of Nokia's value after the announcement.
5) Nokia reports Q1 2011 earnings, there are bad market share and unit sales numbers. However, they still make money and reiterate guidance for subsequent quarters and year 2011.
6) Never mind, about 2 weeks later Nokia issues a profit warning and says they have trouble to stay profitable, and they won't provide any guidance any more. Nokia's shares get hammered and lose about another 20% of their value.
7) All taken together Nokia lost 50% of its value within less than 5 months, since the burning platform / WP announcement.

So yes, Nokia fails since 2007.
Additionally, Nokia under Elop fails horrendously. Since Elop announced and executed on the WP strategy investors lost 50% of their money.

Elop's job is to run a company and make money, for Nokia's shareholders. There is just no sugar coating, he failed. Look at the numbers, look at the share price.

So, yes, maybe Elop was on mission impossible. Fine, it does not change the fact that he failed.

Now that this is established, what should the board / the shareholders do? Wait and see? For how long? How much more damage must be done to Nokia to replace a failed CEO? Okay, the previous CEO was allowed to ride the company down for 3 years after its peak. Should Elop also get 3 years?

What more evidence is necessary to come to the conclusion that Elop failed for Nokia?

So,

[So Vatar]

So, no I do not agree with all of Tomi's suggestions. But at least he proposes ideas about a way out.

I just cannot understand that people with an open mind cannot see that Nokia gets destroyed if Elop continues. Change is necessary, and needed fast!

[hc kek]

Nokia's Symbian is a black & white silent movie. MeeGo or whatever is too far away. Like it or not, MS can build OS & have the resources to correct it.

I have been a fan of Nokia Communicator since first launch but hated it a few years ago.

I will buy the first Nokia Windows Phone. I want to give it a last try.

Nokia knows how to build a phone. I use Android now; and I hate it as a phone. But the apps & browsing are acceptable.

I still believe the ecosystem that Nokia can contribute & as a Nokia WP user, I should be able to benefit tremendously from it. That's why I will want to buy a Nokia WP and try it.

[Christian]

I loved symbian, i liked the strategy. But why did nokia not manage to come with an iphone-alternative after three years? Though they invented the smartphone etc. On Nokia World 2009 Anssi announced to fight back. Out came the n900 with an os not ready to use. Nothing has improved since then. Obviously the software development is so complicated and slow that innovation is impossible. Is this due to symbian, meego or due to very bad organisation? I do not know. But yesterday i got to play with Nokia X7 and E6. Besides the browser not much has changed. And they run on 680 Mhz. Compare this with Galaxy S 2 with 2 x 1200 MHz. Speed matters, simplicity as well.

[former N900 user]

Retailers boycotting Nokia superphones, that everybody would happily buy for 600€ a piece? Naming the next communicator "The Vanjoki"? This genius of a man that openly said Android was piss? I am sorry, Tomi, but it's not Elop, who's delusional. That's just you.

Actually I heart a completely different story from a friend of mine here at Nokia Berlin (Ovi Maps Dev). He said now that Symbian has finally been scrapped and he can work together with some top developers from Microsoft his life is worth living again...