Open Letter to Nokia Shareholders

I just learned a few hours ago, via Kauppalehti in Finland, that there is now a buzz around the Finnish shareholders association, to consider getting signatures to get Elop fired (special shareholders meeting and all that). I had not in any way thought about writing any Nokiastuff today, but just reading some of the discussion at Kauppalehti's forum had me instantly motivated, that I should say something. Not to my regular readers who on this blog know my views very well - I was one of the first to demand Elop be fired, that is no surprise. But the honest discussion and debate that the Kauppalehti forum had in Finnish, among shareholders, with legitimate concerns. Is this Elop's fault, would removing him resolve anything, etc. So I instantly dived into writing from my heart, an Open Letter to Finnish Nokia shareholders, in Finnish, why I think yes, Elop should be fired and why it actually could result in reasonably rapid improvement in Nokia's predicament.

 

I am definitely not going to attempt a verbatim literal translation. That blog was written in Finnish, the first time I've done that on this blog for a whole article - and I am pretty sure, most who would read that article are not regular readers of this blog, so many points I felt I should be very clear on exactly what it is (and what it is not) about.

So let me more just summarize on this English version, as most who would read THIS version, will tend to be my regular readers and you are probably more than tired of my tirades against Elop by now. So here goes, the abbreviated version of my open letter

OPEN LETTER TO NOKIA SHAREHOLDERS

I have been very vocal about Nokia CEO mismanagement of Nokia and already called for him to be fired a year ago. As there now is a growing interest in removing Elop from office, I would like to offer a few pertinent comments.

WHAT THIS IS NOT ABOUT

Nokia had severe problems already before Elop joined, he did not create them all. Symbian is not the issue either, Nokia had decided to transition away from Symbian well before Elop joined the company. Also the selection of Windows is not the issue here, that was a decision blessed by Nokia's Board.

NOKIA DESPAIR STARTED LAST YEAR FEBRUARY

Elop caused personally the transition for Nokia from profitable business to loss-making business, and he did this in February 2011. Nokia's smartphone business which generated 40% of Nokia's profits and had reported growing sales revenues, growing unit sales, and most importantly, strongly growing profits, was instantly plungedinto declining sales in units and revenues, and became loss-making. The unit has not recovered since and the latest quarter its loss-making worsened. This was the Elop Effect, where Elop combined the fatal communication error of the Ratner Effect, with the fatal communication error of the Osborne Effect. I call this never-before-tested suicide concoction, the Elop Effect. That is where Nokia's current despair originates from. Before that point, Nokia's profit engine, its smarpthone unit, was reporting strongly increasing profits, now ever worsening losses. Elop at least partially admits this was damaging (he admitted to Nokia shareholders meeting that yes, his memo did damage Nokia smartphone sales). Since then he has acted to try to recover the smartphone unit to profits, and has been unable to do so. Since this is a self-induced disaster by the CEO, and in 18 months since he has not been able to fix the costliest communication error in corporate governance, he is clearly unfit to manage Nokia and should be fired now.

TWO EXAMPLES

 

That is not the extent of why. Since then Elop has continued to mismanage Nokia. I have listed on this blog huge strategic blunders and miniscule management mis-steps, but let me only mention two giant errors here. First about the N9. Nokia's N9 the new smartphone running Nokia's new MeeGo OS, was not launched by Nokia into all countries. But the German weekly newsmagazine Der Stern reviewed the N9 to incredibly glowing ratings, with the astonishing endorsement, that the magazine recommended its readers travel to another country like Switzerland or Austria to buy the N9. Understand, this is not a technology magazine, Der Stern is a general weekly newsmagazine like Time in the USA, yet it chose to review a smarpthone not even sold in Germany and so loved it, recommended readers fly to other countries to go get one. You can hardly ask for a better review ever and this may be the best review of any Nokia smartphone ever given by a mainstream non-technical magazine in any country of all time. Nonetheless, Elop refused to let the N9 be sold in Germany!

Any CEO with the slightest amount of sense would understand this is a rare opporunity and if the N9 is so highly thought of by one of Germany's largest papers, Nokia should jump through every hoop to capitalize on this, including having contests whose winners will be flown to Austria or Switzerland to pick up their N9s and of course the smart CEO rushes to launch the N9 in Germany immediately - this was Nokia's most expensive and most profitable smartphone at the time. Only a complete moron would refuse to let the N9 be sold under such incredibly stong reception - while Nokia's smarpthone unit is generating a loss!!! So Elop has decided he rather force Nokia shareholders suffer for bigger losses than let his decision be overturned by the love of Nokia by the German market - mind you, Germany is Europe's biggest handset market by a wide margin. 

A similar management mistake from Britain. The D&AD awards are the 'Oscars' or 'Olympics' or 'Nobel prizes' for technology design. And yes, the N9 won the D&AD awards to prize this year, in Britain, beating out not just other Nokia Lumia devices but get this, the Apple iPad 2 !!! Who beats Apple at design? This is a rare moment of Nokia handset design heroism. Any high school graduate would understand to instantly celebrate this massively in all major markets - Nokia beat Apple for goodness sake, in design of all things - and then launch the N9 in Britain immediately! You don't need to be a company desperately making losses, any profit-making company would jump at this opportunity - but far more so should Nokia, whose smartphone unit dives deeper into losses. The most profitable smartphone in Nokia's portfolio beats Apple in the UK and for some uncomprehensible reason the CEO refuses to let the N9 be sold in the UK. He is making decisions that clearly are not in Nokia's best interest. He must be fired for this.

Lets take my second example since the Elop Effect, this is from now just a few weeks ago, when Nokia gave its latest profit warning. Nokia ended its Meltemi project. Meltemi was an OS for low-cost smartphones. Deloitte tells us that this year over 300 million smartphone with an end-user unsubsidised price of under 100 dollars (no contract) will be sold. Windows Phone will never fit this price range but here is where most of Nokia's current Symbian based are sold. This is where Nokia's actual mass market customer base exists. And this market will also include the transition from top-end 'featurephones' now and into this decade. As Mary McDowell talked so often, this was Nokia's next billion customers, and the smartphones for them. No competitor to Windows Phone, and equally, a price point where Windows Phone cannot be made now or in the foreseeable future, If Nokia is to have a mass market position, Nokia needed Meltemi. Elop just killed it. Here is the rough part - the Meltemi project was at most only 2 months from - some say as little as 2 weeks from - launch !!! He killed Nokia's future, that was within weeks of ready. Why? There is no conceivable reason for this and it destroys essentially the whole Nokia strategy for the Emerging World markets where 5 out of 6 humans of the planet live, and where Nokia's smartphone market share still last year was around 50%

Stephen Elop pushed Nokia from a healthy growing-profits profit-making growing company into a loss-making shrinking company. Since then he has tried but not been able to fix that problem he personally caused. But he has since made a long series of mistakes to make Nokia's situation far worse, like the N9 and Meltemi examples I showed here. There is no question Elop is a horrid CEO who is damaging Nokia continuously. He has to be fired if for no other reason, for the sake of Nokia employee morale.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN 

Would changing the CEO matter at this point. Actually yes. For all its current problems, there is one overarching problem that Nokia has. Look at Elop's statements at Nokia profit warnign last year in the spring, and Nokia Q2 results, and Nokia Q3 results, and Nokia Q4 results, and Nokia Q1 results, and Nokia's shareholder meeting, and Nokia's new profit warning, and Nokia's Q2 results. What has Elop said every single time is a huge problem (often its the first problem he mentions)? the problem with Nokia sales channel and its lack of support of Nokia sales and/or the carrier/operator lack of support to Nokia sales. Its not a problem that competitors have crated superphones with antigravity levitation and time travel. Its not production problems that have Nokia batteries exploding or causing cancer in pussycats. Its not problems by natural disasters like floods or fires or whatever. No, time and again, Elop says his problem with Nokia is the sales problem. 

Nokia used to have by far the best sales channel support and best carrier support in the handset industry, the envy of all rivals, a source of competitive advantage cherished in business papers. Nokia sales was legendary. And it suddenly vanished what? When? On February 11, 2011. The Elop Effect caused the sales crisis. And Élop has now tried and tried and tried to fix it. He's fired his sales staff, he's brought in new guys (from Microsoft). He's intervened personally and brought in Microsoft's Ballmer too, into those delicate carrier negotiations to try to restore sales. And what do we hear from every single major financial statement form Elop? The problems with sales and/or carriers. He has tried and he has spectacularly failed, in fixing this problem. A problem that will kill Nokia. If your sales channel refuses to sell your product, you die, its that simple. This is not open to any kind of debate. Elop states it very cleary this is the biggest problem Nokia faces and 18 months since he caused it, he has not been able to solve it. In fact, he's only made it worse.

Don't take my word for it. Did you see what S&P, Moody's and Fitch have written about Nokia? Just before the Elop Effect they so loved the new CEO and his management of Nokia, that Nokia's rating was by each of the three ratings agencies one notch below perfect! This right as we emerged from the deepest economic crisis of our lifetimes. But since then each of the three have issued only one type of update on Nokia - downgrades. Nokia is now so poisonous for them, that all three rate Nokia as junk. What was it they said why they downgraded Nokia? Not that Nokia had too much staff or old factories or its operating system or handsets were not modern, no. Every single time, every one of these three ratings agencies, stated that a reason - in most cases the biggest reason for the latest downgrade - was the sales problem.

I have explained on this blog many a time what various mistakes Elop has made that has angered and infuriated and enflamed those carrier relationships and the vital sales channel. He has made these worse. He is now seen as the personification of Nokia's sales and he is hated for it. The carriers have seen how Elop tries to use Microsoftian tactics from lies to deceat to bullying to threats - including the ultimate red flag waved at Nokia clients - Skype. Elop actually threatened he'd put Skype on Lumias even if the carriers said no. And this Microsoft Muppet then drags Microsoft's very own dictator-bully-in-charge, Steve Ballmer into some of those carrier meetings. And again, to rub more salt into the wounds, Elop hires ex Microsofties to push his sales to the same carriers. He is the very embodiment of poison. No carrier will now deal with him.  Elop is to Nokia carrier relations what water is to fire. He is now personally the cause of carriers punishing Nokia - because the carriers have all the time in the world and they know Elop will be gone, so they now just wait it out and every week that goes by, Samsung picks up more of Nokia's loyal customer base. 

So I am 100% convinced that if Elop is fired, the poisoned carrier relations that stiffle Nokia sales can start to heal. How to heal them the fastest, obviously, is to hire the next CEO not from inside Nokia or from the West Coast, but from - of course - the carrier community! One of their guys, who truly understands carrier business, to come run Nokia which serves those carriers. This is not rocket science.. And I'd add, get one from here in Asia, as half of the global market is here, obviously a current CEO and therefore, likely from one of the local operators/carriers, not a global carrier group CEO. Still a far more competent CEO level exec than what Elop was when he was hired far above his skills to take over Nokia.

If Nokia fired Elop now, immediately, and Nokia chairman Siilasmaa perhaps steps in for the interim while Nokia announce they will seek a replacement, and then Siilasmaa would call the top CEOs of hte 50 biggest carriers/groups over the follwoing week - and in every case tell them he, Siilasmaa is personally guaranteeing they will hire a CEO from a carrier/operator - it would restore the trust and faith in Nokia and the carrier sales boycott would end very fast. Not total happiness in every case, but the worst would instantly be over and Nokia would start to heal. The point is, that these current sales problems - are indeed caused by the very specific person of Elop, he is seen as the evil at Nokia by the carrier community and until he goes, Nokia will continue to be punished. The sooner Elop is fired, the sooner the healing can start to happen. (I am adding some relevant links to the deeper analysis for those who might be interested, here to the end of this blog)

So I urge all Nokia shareholders to join together to fire CEO Stephen Elop. He made massive mistakes, his management judgement cannot see the obvious best interests to Nokia and the current sales crisis cited not just by obscure bloggers such as myself but by Elop himself in every major financial position of Nokia for the past 18 months - and also by each of the three rating agencies every single time they downgraded Nokia. Elop started this mess, he has not been able to clean it up, and Nokia is only getting worse and worse into trouble. He has to be fired now.

I have always been, and always will be a big Nokia fan

 

Tomi T Ahonen   :-)

ADDITIONAL LINKS TO RELATED ARTICLES

SMARTPHONE MARKET

Full market analysis of the world smartphone situation now, Q2 of 2012 and if you need earlier data, here is world market situation in Q1 of 2012 and here is the full year analysis of smartphone market in year 2011.

A comparison of the performance of the four biggest smartphone makers, Samsung, Apple, Nokia and RIM (ie Blackberry) over the past few years, with illustrative graphics.

And here is my analysis of the preview to this year 2012 in the smartphone market share battles, where you may want to read how I previewed Nokia, Windows Phone, Symbian and MeeGo for what I expected to see.. 

NOKIA MARKET

Latest analysis of Nokia Q2 results by me including my views to the near future

Graphical illustration of how Nokia smartphone sales have collapsed from February 2011 with historical pattern showing past few years of strong growth, including comparisons to Apple iPhone and Samsung smartphones

My latest analysis why the hope that Nokia could climb back to 20% (or 19%) with Windows is not utterly completely impossible with all the latest data and facts that we know - please note, I did accept a year and a half ago, that this was possible for the Nokia-Microsoft partnership while I thought it unlikely. Now it is utterly impossbile. Read why. 

Reality of all those hyped USA and China market surges powered by Windows Phone and Lumia are now revealed to be lies. The truth about Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone performance in USA, China and other markets.

ELOP AS CEO

Comprehensive (truly epic length, 30,000 word 'essay' or in fact online mini-book about the strategic blunders of Stephen Elop as Nokia CEO but before you start to read that (will take you probably an hour to read that) start with the humorous and short 'summarize Ahonen' contest winners, where that 30,000 word blog was summarized into 140 characters of one Tweet. Very funny and still factual comments there and as a bonus - there were two original cartoons created based on my blog, that are very funny in summarizing some of the biggest blunders of Elop's time as CEO. Read the Summarize Ahonen blog first.

My view to the latest changes Elop has announced about Nokia's strategy now and into the near future.

The 'final analysis' on the true effect of the Burning Platforms memo and how it wiped out 13 Billion dollars of Nokia revenues and destroyed 4 Billion dollars in Nokia profits, indeed the costliest memo ever written. 

Here is Stephen Elop himself admitting to the Nokia annual shareholders meeting that yes, the memo did damage Nokia smartphone sales.

My 'last' blog to discuss what was wrong before Elop took over at Nokia and specifically what was not wrong, with all the evidence, graphics and facts, showing that Elop decided to fix something that was not broken (and broke it while doing so)

Elop's infamous world record - he has achieved a true world record in destroying market share of a global market leader in just 12 months, not just in mobile handsets, mind you, in any industry ever, cars, TVs, PCs, airplanes, anything. A true world record in management failure. Here my blog recognizing this Stephen Elop achievement in world record in market share destruction.

And what of the very latest strategy we heard about at Q2 results a few weeks ago? This will only make Nokia's situation worse, not better. This is a strategy that even Apple ran away from and Samsung would never be dumb enough to try, yet Elop is now embracing in desperation.

NOKIA RETAIL PROBLEM

My latest big article outlining the Nokia retail problem and explaining it in great detail, how this is strangling Nokia and that Elop's actions are making things worse.

My latest blog updating Nokia's retail problem and how Elop is making things worse, not better (the retail specific part is last in the blog)

And for those who can't believe this is such a big deal - here is the analysis of the ratings agencies, S&P, Fitch and Moody's in each of their downgrades of Nokia and why they did so (every time, it is because of sales channel problems).

And I have not invented this massive problem, as its verified by the CEO himself. Here are Stephen Elop's comments to the Nokia shareholders meeting verifying retail problem is true is here.

MICROSOFT VIEW TO NOKIA

The view from Microsoft's side, first, here is how Microsoft lost its mobile future now with Windows Phone and Nokia its last attempt, that also has failed. 

And here is the very latest on that angle, with graphics, showing why Microsoft 'threw Nokia under the bus' abandoning Nokia Lumia with no upgrade path to Windows 8.

LUMIA LINE

Then on the Lumia line specifically. Here is my definitive analysis of why the Lumia line is failing and cannot succeed even in the US market, from marketing to product design: 13 reasons why Lumia failing.

To add to that, here is my latest analysis of why Lumia is failing, with links to the infamous '101 faults in Windows Phone' (With more Windows! See, now upgraded to 121 faults!)

The blog discussing how poorly Lumia received, cannot even sustain 1-to-1 conversion of existing Nokia smartphone customer base

Here is my latest analysis of the Lumia troubles in the US market specifically.

SKYPE AND CARRIERS

I have often mentioned Skype as a cause of friction between Nokia sales and the carrier relations. Here is the big picture article explaining why carriers oppose Skype specifically, even more than other OTT services like Blackberry Messenger or Apple's iMessage or Whatsapp etc.

And this too, that carriers hate Skype, is something Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop himself has fully openly admitted such as to the Nokia annual shareholders meeting (with links not just to his transcript but to his video from the shareholders meeting) 

OTHER RELATED

My blog is not a 'hate blog' about Nokia. I tell the truth here, when things are bad - and they are really bad for Nokia, I do call it. But I have also been critical here of other companies in trouble from Motorola to Palm to Sprint. And I am also of course happy when things are good for Nokia. Here is for example my very positive blog story about the 808 Pureview earlier this year.

If you'd like a more theoretical 'big picture' view to the industry and Nokia's troubles, in the context of other mobile handset industry giants who collapsed like Motorola, Siemens and Palm, you may want to read this essay on The Cliff Theory.

Also some have said Nokia is like Kodak. That sounds nice but is not a strong analogy. Kodak is like Motorola, and Nokia's nearest analogy is IBM.

I have from time to time given my views of how to 'save Nokia' or earlier when the situation was not so bad but still Nokia had problems like under previous CEO Kallasvuo, how to 'fix Nokia'. I do not have such a blog out now, that is current, but here is my latest from April of this year. If you read that article honestly, and imagine it was followed in April, you probably will agree with me, that today Nokia would already be far more healthy than it is under Elop's continued management. My April 2012 solution to how to save Nokia (which is partly no longer valid today) 

And there are some rumors that Nokia might be bought, we heard a few weeks ago about possible Lenovo or Samsung interest. I speculated who might be interested to buy Nokia and what parts of Nokia might be valuable to whom, if Nokia were to be split by the new buyer. 

Comments

[Vinicius]

This is, by far, the most moderate commentary you've made in a while. And I think it might be one of your better ones.

I don't think any CEO change can help Nokia now, nor any other kind of change. The only thing to save Nokia would be an unprecedented success in WP8.

The decision to fire Elop should have occurred while the N9 was still manufactured and shipped, so it could have lived and be supported.

The decision to fire Elop should have occurred before the launch of the 808, with HUGE marketing backing up. Most people don't even know such a thing exists outside the geek community.

The decision to fire Elop should have occurred before the closing of every single factory in Finland, the firing of most staff not related to Asha or WP, and the murder of old Nokia. No one associates Nokia to the n95, or the great hardware from the past now, they associate it with "failure" of Symbian, with the early termination of support for their phones (n9, Lumias with WP7) and with general lackluster support.

Nokia today is kind like a spaceship, an Apollo "n". You have already launched onto space (WP), and you can only hope for the best, because if you can't make the turnaround on the Moon you will end up without any oxigen, food or support, and will dead. Simply because Nokia went to far away from any other safeguard it could have used.

I mourn Nokia for about 4 to 5 months now. Me and my 808.

[Jamie]

Tomi,

Well stated, though I think you have spelt out the minimum of a myriad of fatal decision that Elop has made. All is not yet lost for Nokia, there is a large user base that can be still tapped on but that also is dwindling very fast. I don't blame the couriers and this fight to save Nokia is as well their own. Many would like to embrace Nokia but once there is a leadership that is prepared to address their concerns. And it is not only the Carriers/Operators but the end users as well. Many feel disillusioned and disgusted with the way they have been treated - not offered the choice (N9, No upgrade path with Lumias, etc). A level of trust has been lost and no hype (Sept marketing act for select few) will change this.

I disagree with your notion here that "to hire the next CEO not from inside Nokia or from the West Coast, but from - of course - the carrier community!".. This is looking for messiah to come from the skies. No, it is no solution. Nokia's new CEO needs to understand the Mobile phone business, production marketing and readiness to market, latest trends and product development. He may need an able marketing and sales VP, possibly from the carrier community but CEO needs to understand the challenges right from start and not be learning this on the job - this was possibly part of Elop's problem.

I would suggest that Nokia appoints next CEO from a veteran of Nokians, either still with Nokia or one who has moved to other challenges. I am certain there are many who would do a sterling job as CEO and for a fraction of what Nokia pays Elop. It has to be someone with an undevided loyalty to Nokia not through Stock options but through shared company values, which distinguished Nokia. There is need to re-discover the strengths that once made Nokia one of the top 10 companies, possibly the only one outside of USA. Also this would boost Nokians morale and that would strengthen the company. I would say a Finn or European with a Nokia background would be best suited to quickly turn the company around. Nokia is bleeding cash and does not have 4 - 5 years, it needs to turn around in 3 - 4 quaters, months not years. An external CEO will be learning on the job and will be prone to same Elop mistakes.

It is not necessary that a person from the carrier community takes over. What the carrier community wants is someone who will be honest and be willig to listen to their concerns ! One that will be an ally not sabotage their efforts.

Another CEO experiementation in Nokia would mean certain destruction. There are many good directors who left the company during JO and OPK's reign. Some due to the same frustrations that led to these issues. However the appointment of Elop, a greenhorn in mobile phone business, a competitor mole and a loose canon was the worst decision by Nokia management.

It is possible that Microsoft will create a 3rd Ecosystem, but that can not come soon enough for Nokia. It will come too late. But Elop stewardship is nothing short of a Titanic monet for Nokia. Throw in WP8, 3rd Ecosystem etc, wont save Nokia with current state of Sales channels, mistrust and hamouraging user base.

[DA]

There is still money and resources within Nokia to turn the company into profits if Elop will be fired now. A CEO change would allow Nokia to go for Android or pick up MeeGo again as there is simply not big enough interest in WP.

Nokia should concentrate on producing and selling phones and should not be in the frontline of the MS crusade against Google and Apple as neither Google or Apple is Nokias real competitors. Nokia has to compete where the sales is and getting a few percents of the Android market would be a lot more profitable than getting 80-90 percents of the tiny WP market. Marketing resources should not be spent on selling the WP concept as these resources is needed to sell phones for which OS there already is a demand for.

[Fabio Correa]

The new CEO will not be the messiah of Nokia. Getting him from the carrier community is only one of the many things that have to happen for the healing to succeed. Obviously such a CEO will not be the best option to manage a handset company because a carrier company has a different structure than a handset company. So the new CEO will need good advice from good staff that understand the handset business.

A CEO from the carrier community will undoubtedly be the messiah of the carrier relationships, but he will have to do more than that to recover Nokia.

[jo]

CEO change may not save nokia,

but it will stop the bleeding

regarless nokia on the smartphone sector have to start from scratch.

new CEO have to be REALLY GOOD, it gotta try to put the titanic into float after being assaulted by microsoft

[geektech]

The first thing the new CEO have to do is to reopen the online store, u would not like to buy a Nokia at Amazon or other online store.
My last Nokia was a N9, what an amazing thing, but I really gave up on Nokia, waiting for an inside change now, maybe I could get 808.
Maybe users can support here too.
http://www.change.org/petitions#search/fire Elop

[ssdh]

Tomi, I agree with Jamie..

The next CEO should most likely be a Nokia veteran, who will be brave enough to immediately stop all WP related projects, fire all MS moles and microsoftians inside nokia, deeply understands the handset operation process as well as handset design, and has very good reputation among carrier community..
But the VPs and execs relating to sales and carrier relations must be a person from the carrier community, who knows exactly how to work out carrier relations..

[tired]

Another great post, moderate and to the point. Even though it might be a bit late, it will help Nokia's reputation in the short term. Probably the only thing that is gonna bring Nokia back from the brink is bringing back the old roadmap for OS that Nokia had. The one elop was hired to implement in the first place. let wp die the slow death it was always meant for. Bring back the trust consumers had in Nokia and save Nokia from the wp suicide pact

[tired]

Would it be possible to to reverse the meltemi decision and outsource Meego harmattan dev to jolla mobile as a way of bringing back customer confidence in Nokia after elop is fired?

[karlim]

Been away a while. But all in all, not getting into data disagreements. Nokia has a single chance to survive. WP success. That's it.

Symbian is dead. People moved away.

Meego is dead. People moved away. Some of them are trying to resurrect Maemo with 50 to 100 people. Really wish them success, but Nokia can't have them. For any price. If they want to survive. Jolla will die in Nokia bureaucracy. Even today

Meltemi is dead too - people are fired and found new jobs.

What is left from old Nokia? WP8 and S40 + Navteq+Imaging. That's it.

Less then a half on what Elop bet in Feb. 11th

New CEO's won't change anything. Nokia still has one slim chance. To succeed with WP8 or die. That is it.

And please let Elop own it fully. One way or the other. They already interfered with OPK in the middle of stuff. And we are still arguing who's at falt for Nokia downfall.

If WP8 fails, it'll now be 200% Elop's fault

[tired]

@karlim

There's no if anymore.. wp is a failure. Even msft knows it. At best wp will maybe garner a foothold in the US. That's it.
Symbian in the form of Asha and Belle are still alive and well. The only thing the new CEO has to do is commit to it. As long as it's still owned by Nokia, there is a way back.
Bring back customer confidence in the brand, stop breaking promises to consumers as well as developers etc. Everyone and their grandmother knows that Nokia doesn't own wp, hence can't control it. Nokia fans by and large do not want/like wp (as demonstrated by lumia failure). So use what you have, what your clientele like/want and survive.
If your waiting for wp8 to save Nokia, by the time wp8 comes out and fails, Nokia will be dead and buried. wp8 has different OEMs, Nokia only has wp.. Village idiot of a ceo's fault.

[Przemysławw Lib]

@karlim
Symbian is profitable and on rise in China. Symbian is dead in mind of current CEO.
MeeGo is profitable and on hold. MeeGo is dead in mind and decisions of current CEO.
Meltemi is dead or on hold. Meltemi is dead in mind and decisions of current CEO.

Nokia have Android ready smartphone N9 which can be sold as soon as manufacturing and logistics are acquired.
Nokia have QWERTY ready smartphone N95 which can be sold as soon as manufacturing and logistics are acquired.

WinP8 will not succeed till early 2013 at best. That is there is no chance that WinP8 will be successful and profitable in firs Q of sales. And for being profitable Nokia MUST HAVE good relations with carriers. Exclusives will not do.

Even if next CEO will focus on WinP8 there are lots of things to clean up after current one. And there are still lots of options to check if are still valid. There is no way that Elop would be even thinking about possibility of releasing Android on the same hardware that is currently manufactured by Nokia.

Also this Open Letter is not full. This is to understand points and conclusions we would need to know what was talked about on this finish forum.

Anyone from knowing finish can give us gist of that talk ???

[Spawn]

@DA

> There is still money and resources within Nokia to turn the company into profits if Elop will be fired now.

Exactly. What Nokia needs most once new CEO and better sales, executives, etc. are in place are products in the market. We are talking here of a timepspan of just some months. This has a few implications.
- Nokia needs to focus.
- They cannot start something new or refresh something not ready yet. They need to pickup and optimize products and sells of what they have foremost.

They need to expand Asha and Pureview, S40 and Symbian, and sell more of them. They need to decrease the huge loses and there are only two ways which need to be applied in parallel.
- Increase and focus sells of what brings in the money. That are S40 and Symbian. No time now for long term stratgies.
- Cut anything that generates cost and is not direct related to bringing more money in short term. That means WP.

This are the short term actions. Long term they need to grow again and it may mean pick up more options.
They have MeeGo and its ready. Commit bare minimum to sell devices running that OS. Small steps forward from here.
Bring Android devices to the market long term and try to get some pieces back from Samsung.

Explanation:
Nokia STILL has knowledge and products in house. They have access to Accenture, Digia and other partners and did not abort everything yet.
The fastest way to stop shrinking, grow again is to turn what they have inhouse into products again. Sell devices, as more as better. Shrink that bleeding process and stop the downfall.
Only once that happened Nokia can focus again on a long term strategy like extending the STILL existing own ecosystem by enhancing it with another (e.g. Android compatibility and own customized Android devices).
Now is the wrong time to start or.continue ecosystem wars with an uncertain end. Now is the time to increase sells again and fix the cash burning.

[NoNameRequired]

A new, sane CEO would turn to Google, and ask them to do the same to whatever successor they have planned for the 808 as Google did to the Asus tablet that became the Nexus 7. In the space of two months, the Google-Asus joint skunkworks turned that tablet into a huge success, and the only current real challenger to the iPad. A joint Google-Nokia cooperation to produce a new camera-Nexus-mobile could shake the industry and revitalize Nokia in less than six months. It is possible, but would require a CEO with real guts who can be trusted by new partners, and the entire current board and probably most of the new management would have to be fired just to restore trust in the organization.

[Spawn]

@tired

> it will help Nokia's reputation in the short term.

That is what they need most right now. If the problems are not solved short term then there is no long term for Nokia.

> bringing back the old roadmap for OS that Nokia had.

That does not make sense any longer. The old roadmap was about extending the own ecosystem to multiple platforms.
Today, after Elop, the own ecosystem is near dead. The need to focus to keep it alive, grow to make enough profit and only then, WHEN they can survive, enhance.

First survive, second work on the future. In that order else they are dead.

> let wp die the slow death

Its generating lose. It needz to be aborted as soon as.possible so Nokia can recover, survive. If they keep that cash burner they are dead.

@Baron95

> The stock is doing great in the past few weeks.

Thanks to Asha, Pureview and the assumption Nokia will be bought or split. Nokia's stock was/is so low that the companies assets like patents are more worth then the shares. Naturlly the stock grows loser to reality if the market assumes the compan may be slaughtered and assets sold in pieces.

@tired

> outsource Meego harmattan dev to jolla mobile

Why should Jolla give up on there own product? Jolla Mobile is, as we know, near to be ready and its there product. No dependency to Nokia, no share of profits, no danger to sink with them or get aborted.if Nomia applies its monthly strategy change.

No, it would not make sense. Jolla Mobile has expertise, focus, a business plan, partners, investors and is healthy. Nokia not. Nokia has nothing to offer Jolla wdoes not have right now or will have soon.
Maybe when Nokia fixes its sales problems they have something from interest for Jolla: a huge sales channel. But till Nomia fixed there.problems they have nothing but problems to offer.

@Salim

> Nokia has a single chance to survive. WP success.

First even when WP8 succeeds it says nothing about Nokias share on the success.
Remind you that for example Samsung is offering WP8 mobiles too and as of today Samsung is doing everything right and Nokia everything wrong. That will very likely not be different with WP8.
Microsoft itself says that Samsung is there preferred WP8 mobile partner. Not Nokia. Nokia was WP7 and they failed. Microsoft likes WP8 to succeed and Nokia is not helping there. Nokia has to fight for surviving and cannot fully commit on WP8. Samsung can. Also its just a matter of time till Microsoft offers an onw WP8 mobile phone like they do with tablets now.

Second WP8 already failed in that the conditions are even morw difficult tgen with WP7, in that there are very less partners left and the Android and Apple competition did win the smartphone bloodbath already.
Microsoft had to do Surface cause they are riscing to have the same happen on tablets. Compared.to mobile there is room and Microsoft has the possibility, through the x86 variants, to bring its Windows desktop ecosystem and partners into the landscape. With Win8 RT they don't. With WP8 its even more worse and there are no investors, partners with focus on that platform, developers left.
Under that conditions I, as many other, doubt that WP8 can earn mich more market share then WP7 did. Very likely even less now that the conditions are so difficult and now that the main compitors did took over the battlefield.
Microsoft WP8 is a lost offer. Win8 RT on tablets is going to be the new.battlefield and.Microsoft puts all its focus there to not be.doomed.to a desktop only platform that is done over time when the attention shifts to other.forn factors.like tablets, fablets, lapblets (laptop like tablet like surface is a owrfect example of) and other hybrids.

As of now WP8 or the mobile smartphone world is just one of many fronts. Microsoft does not need to and does not fight on all fronts. They focus on Surface for now and put all they have into that. WP8 will get very lwss attention compared to Win8 and Win8 RT on hybrids.
Fight the battles you can win. Leave the battles you cannot win up to others. Hello Nokia. Sure do wr take your free.contributions and offers to fight out battles. Here some $. Thanks Nokia. RIP

[Tomasz R.]

The new smartphone processors Arm Cortex A15, that are going to be available on the market at the end of this year contains virtualization technology. This means they can run multiple operating systems at once. This way Nokia could keep Symbian as an OS that manages featurephone functions (voice calls, SMS, maps, battery management, ringtones, playing mp3 etc.), while having a second system that is optimized exclusively for running computing applications, limited to TCP/IP communications. This could be a winning combination.

[Cyan]

The problem is not "just" Stephen Elop,
above Nokia's CEO, there is Nokia's Board.

It is the Board which selected Elop, accepted its decisions and strategy, supported its blunders, and continue doing so even today. They will prefer to let Elop destroy Nokia entirely rather than admitting they made a fatal decision mistake, which would damage their miserable career.

So, how come Nokia's Board responsability is not even mentioned ?
If the Board is the sick part of Nokia, reponsible for Elop's free reign, it has to be fixed even before firing Elop.

Who are they, by the way ?
Who are its members, what are their personal agenda ?
Who, among them, are Microsoft agents, acting against the interests of Nokia ?
Is there a law in Finland which consider a deliberate harmful decision from within and against a finnish company as a sentenceable crime ?
As far as i know, a little employee with no or little power can be charged nad sentenced if it willfully does anything against the interest of its company. So how come a CEO or a Board member does not ?

[aikoN]

@Cyan
I guess that board of directors as we know it today is a bunch of people assigned by the largest Nokia shareholders. All of board members have their positions in different companies (like norwegian Statoil, L'Oreal, Procter&Gamble and so on).
http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/about-us/governance/board/meet-the-board/
Most likely none of them even uses nokia phones at all (I can guess that most of the board members are on iPhone).
Majority of them are new members from 2011/2012.
Their job is to meet up a couple of times to hear what Mr.Elop tells them and vote for what they were told. They don't have time to care about. They are probably members of other boards as well, so their time is golden. And they got paid for that too, well paid, I guess. And they don't care about Nokia at all. It's just business and nothing personal.
So, who set those people to the "board"?
well
It must be that hidden "big" (american?) shareholder(s), who probably have more interest in Microsoft part of their stock. Nokia is just a tool for them. Nokia is used to lift Microsoft Windows Phone up. No mater what outcome it gives for Nokia.

So Elop is actually doing a good job, damn good job, not for Nokia, but for someone else.

I remember he was asked why is he talks so much about Windows and almost nothing about Nokia, journalist was wondered why Mr. Elop sounds like he is working for Microsoft and not for Nokia.
Elop's answer was, - "I don't speak finnish". Do I need to say more?

[vladkr]

@Baron95 : NSN is the only profit making part of Nokia right now, so don't hurry getting rid of it.

About the stock, as it's pure speculative, it doesn't mean anything any more, it's just toy for brokers.

[aikoN]

@vladkr
Are you sure about the stock?
Minor shareholders have nothing to say, right.
But isn't it biggerst shareholders who decide over board and CEO?