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February 20, 2013

Comments

daz

Hi Tomi, you might want to prefer using the correct english form "Who's your" instead of "Whose your"

Will Finley

Why do you have such a hard-on for Nokia and Microsoft? Sure it's quite evident that both have failed miserably in the mobile space, but you seem to enjoy dancing on their graves.

Spawn

@Will Finley

This forecasts are about hard numbers. I would say those being closest to the actual result is those who managed to keep away from subjective preferences most and was able to read between the lines, evaluate the facts and project them into the future best.

That MicroNokiaSoft failed so miserable isn't caused by the forecasters but if you, as forecaster, managed to be such clear closer to the actual result then any competing forecaster including the big analyst-houses and that again and again then yes, its a good reason to be happy and party. But the reason is your way more accurate forecasts and not that MicroNokiaSoft failed.

In fact most of us knew if will fail long ago. The signs where written in big letters on the wall. Article by article, comment by comment, on this blog. So, are we happy it turned out like expected? No! Many of us are angry to knew this would happen, to see it happen and to have it happened now. That while the Pyramids of the world praised the success. It sucks they get off, Nokia is dead, Microsoft moves on and nobody of thise who wrote long praise-articles the past years reflects. Its like you know something haooens and you cannot prevent it. Others say you are crazy and once it happened nobody cares. Nokianis dead, and? WTF :-(

Spawn

@Will Finley

But it becomes better. Read the last articlea related to this specific Elop MicroNokia case. Lots ofmthe articles reflect and project. But also give concrete hints what to do, what needs to be done to get out of the cold water back onto the (non-burning) platform before the sharks are there. Productive suggestions how to save Nokia. Even why Microsoft/Nokia failed and how they need to improve.

No, thats not a rant. That's you crying "sharks, sharks! Grt out of the water!" while the Elop-Pyramid answers "That are not sharks but opportunities! We will wait till they turn into Gold. Gold I say you!!!"

Interested to know

It's amazing that Nokia's board of directors continue to let Elop ruin Nokia for Microsoft's benefit.

Henry Sinn

Tomi,

I think a word of recognition is in order.

Knowing and following you and your blogs / books for years, nothing Microsoft or Nokia has done or doing is coming as a surprise [except the Burning Platforms memo and the continued madness].

Reading countless comments on countless blogs over the last few years I've been quietly saying to myself "watch this space so-and-so, Tomi is [probably] right"

Bill [Gates] has just ratified everything you've been saying.

Well said.
Well done.

Congratulations "Godman of all things mobile" [quote R.B.]

Silence is golden.

Tester

@Matthew:

If you can't read between the lines of business speak, better don't make any comments.

These people rarely talk frankly - but if they admit mistakes it's normally very, very serious.

Firecracker

I think that the reason Elop isn't fired yet is because his golden handshake would cost Nokia more then they have i.e. More then 10.9 Billion €. This proves that if you're on the board of directors at any large corp you better watch out what the contract with your CEO says!

MadNokian

The internal emails at Nokia keep on coming, telling us all about every tiny incremental step in the "growth" of WinPhone market share. At the same time, Nokia is slashing and burning staff big style. I'm one of the several hundred IT people being transferred to HCL. I think HCL don't have the first goddamn clue what they've taken on and so they don't realise that they can't possibly deliver what they promised, at the no doubt very agressive price they offered.

But I'm not here to rant about HCL. This outsourcing of 99.99% of Nokia's IT is the last gasp of a clearly failing and failed strategy which flies in the face of all the available evidence. Was it Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over again, but to expect a different result every time? Well if you can't see the evidence in front of your face and you carry on doing the same thing, you must be mad, just like Elop is with his public insistence the WinPhone is right for Nokia. Look at your brilliant success Mr Elop! How proud you must be! Don't you have nightmares that your strategy might actually be failing? Or perhaps you've secured yourself such a generous package that Nokia's success or failure doesn't matter to you at all since you're going to come out of it much better off either way? After all, you've got a record of this sort of thing with your mercenary behavior at other companies where you've been in the leadership team.

vladkr

@MadNokian :

I'm really sorry for you; I hope you'll find a new and stable job soon. I was disgusted of how people were moved from Nokia to other companies (ie Accenture) then fired after less than one year. What Nokia did in Romania wasn't better either.

About Elop, of course he's proud of himself; his priority is not Nokia, but his personal wealth. He controls stock's value, and that's the perfect way to make easy and fast money; even if it's illegal, it's very hard to prove.

That's certainly why a guy like Elop, who failed in any company he used to work at, is still a millionaire.

B a r o n 9  5`

@MadNokian - let me clue you in on why you are being outsourced.

Nokia wants to split up and sell some pieces - like the nightmare NSN. Investors will NOT touch Nokia and carry the crazy and ridiculous employment guarantees in Sweden and other European countries. They are demanding a thinning out, before the deal can be done.

Nothing more, nothing less. You can safely assume, that under HCL, about 1/3 of your colleagues will be laid off, and about 1/3 will quit, because now they will have to work hard. That will leave about 1/3 employed. The same thing will happen with the developers outsourced to Accenture, and the factory workers in Europe being sold off.

It is just smart business. That is the job Elop was hired to do. End the Nokia jobs program.

Sander van der Wal

@Baron95

European employee laws are no crazier than the ones in other parts of the world. One gets very high productivity (much higher than in the States), loyalty and very little strikes. There is always more than one way to skin a cat.

Spawn

Mister "Call me the General Failure" Elop was hired to improve execution, grow Nokia. He failed, of course, misserable. Not only failed but achieved the opposite. Not only a decline but he killed Nokia in just 2 years.

I tell you what's happening with the layoffs. Its the last step to make sure Nokia cannot change strategy. Its the final step to bind Nokia forever to its fate to die.

What is left now in Nokia are different levels of failed management. Those are the first to leave once there is not enough cash any longer. No production, no R&D, nothing that actually executes. This is Elop's optimization of Nokia's execution.

What stays for all those that made Nokia a success in the past and are moved out latest now is to move on to other companies and help make them successful. Nokia, through its management, does everything to notcome back, to not gain success.

Here you see what happens if you lose control of an unique company to US investors and put US ppl in charge (rant directed to Baron95).

Winter

@Baron95
"Investors will NOT touch Nokia and carry the crazy and ridiculous employment guarantees in Sweden"

What is the relevance of Swedish laws to Nokia?


Or should Finland look at USA laws to see how not to build a phone industry?

B a r o n 99

@Winter - Sorry - I mistyped. I was thinking about Ericsson (which is in the same boat, being pressed by investor to thin out its ranks and get rid of its own boat anchors like ST-Ericsson), and typed Sweden instead of Finland.

Same thing though. I'm not making any judgements on their labor laws and practices. That is up to their electors and politicians.

I'm simply telling you that investor are balking at taking European companies with bloated employment. Nokia, Ericsson, Peugeot are all in the same boat. Untouchable till they thin out the employment count.

Europe is at an inflection point, and it is very likely that many countries will enter a high-unemployment spiral very soon.

Watch out.

JJ

Great Nokia leader, Mr Elop is mixing model numbers :-) But this is only small mistake if you compare it to his previous mistakes.

http://kuvat.kaleva.fi/default/28c8f9ae-7f26-11e2-bd48-12313b053908/large-elop.jpg

vladkr

@Baron95 :
"Investors will NOT touch Nokia and carry the crazy and ridiculous employment guarantees in Sweden and other European countries"

The countries you mention ( I suppose you mention Scandinavia + Finland, I would add Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria etc.) are actually doing well economically, and that's because there social packages are well managed.

Be honest, look at the ruin the US became, despite the absence of any descent social care or any public service. From Honolulu to Bangor, poverty is alarmly increasing, and you suggest that's the example to follow ?

vladkr

@B a r o n 99 or any other number:

if Nokia, Ericsson, Peugeot are all in the same boat, on what boat are Veolia, St-Gobain, Vivendi, ABB, Michelin, Airbus, Eurocopter, Volkswagen ?

cycnus

Nokia Asha...
Smartphone or FeaturePhone?

http://www.globalmobileawards.com/winners-2013#cat_id23

B a r o n 9 5

@Vladkr - No. The countries you mentioned, are doing relatively (as in relative to Spain, Greece, Portugal, etc) well, because they have homogeneous populations with no minorities.

What do you think would happen to Finland if they had the equivalent of millions of Mexicans crossing into their borders illegally? Or had another set of millions of disadvantaged ex-slave blacks living there?

You can compare Finland, Austria, Netherlands to any homogeneous primarily white place in America, and you will see a hugely higher standard of living in those US postal codes.

So be careful with you chest pumping.

Some social "democracies" in Europe simply haven't run out of other people's money to spend *yet*. But they are all getting closer.

Greece, Spain and Portugal are there.

Italy, France are close - less than a decade away.

Germany was spared by integrating East Germany cheap labor and lower expectations, and, of course, they are hard working and innovative.

As messy as the US economy is, and with the huge poverty in the minority population problems, the US can still print money with impunity for another 20 years or so to take care of the baby boomers and achieve energy independence.

Then it is likely smooth sailing :)

You would not want to live in France 20 years from now - trust me.

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