Nokia’s CEO Has a Bad Case of the Brutal Honesties

Stephen_Elop.jpg

Brutally honesty can be a good quality in a CEO. Too often top executives don’t do much more than cheerlead their company and products. It’s hard to get a straight answer. You’ve got to hand it to Nokia’s new CEO, Stephen Elop–at the very least, the guy seems to be a straight-shooter. The company’s first non-Finnish CEO sent out a memo to employees that really didn’t cloud his sentiment about the state of the company.

The letter opens cold with a parable about a guy standing on a burning oil platform. Forced to choose between being consumed by flames and plunging into the icy waters of the Atlantic, the man chooses the latter. Naturally, the guy lived to tell the tale. (No, so far as I can tell, that man wasn’t Stephen Elop–though that would be a pretty good punchline, right?)

“We too, are standing on a “burning platform,” and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.”

Nokia kills N9-00, its first MeeGo handset?

We’ve been hearing this one for awhile now, primarily around the Twitterverse thanks to Eldar Murtazin. Now Reuters has jumped in with a couple of sources close to the company claiming that Nokia has ended development of its first MeeGo handset, presumably the device pictured above. It’s not all bad news though. Reuters tosses in a bullet claiming that the next MeeGo device could be unveiled this week, meaning Nokia’s highly anticipated event on Friday or even at Mobile World Congress next week. Of course, Nokia has never gone official with any handset, only saying that the first MeeGo device will be a 2011 event (after missing the planned 2010 launch). So really, this is a lot like saying something that didn’t exist still doesn’t exist. Nevertheless, it jibes with what we’ve heard that the N9-00 QWERTY slider (aka, RM-680 codename “Dali”), leaked with gusto back in August, has been scrapped as a consumer device with all emphasis now on releasing the N9-01 touchscreen slate, dubbed “Lankku” (Finnish for “plank” or “board”) internally. Just another reason for “Nokia CEO” to continue trending on Twitter. No, really.

[Thanks, Tuomas]

Nokia kills N9-00, its first MeeGo handset? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 07:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia Finally Faces the Hard Truth [Smartphones]

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is pissed the Finnish cellphone maker relinquished their market dominance to Apple and Google. Real pissed. Fearing the company has reached a point of no return, Elop issued a no-holds-barred 1,300-word memo to employees, and seems primed to make some bold moves in the next week to help Nokia regain some of its former glory. More »

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest ‘burning platform’ memo? (update: it’s real!)

“The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.” This is just one of many, many pieces of stark knowledge allegedly dropped by recently-appointed Nokia CEO Stephen Elop — formerly of Microsoft — in a roughly 1,300-word memo to the company’s employees that we’ve received today. Though we can’t vouch for the authenticity, it’s notable that the memo contains a portion previously reported by The Register and heard by sources at TechCrunch Europe, so it would seem that we’ve simply received the whole thing. Elop goes on to suggest that his company is “standing on a burning platform” and must “change [its] behavior,” suggesting that the adoption of a non-homegrown platform like Android or Windows Phone 7 is a more realistic possibility than ever before.

Update: We’ve now heard from multiple trusted sources that this memo is indeed real, and was posted to an internal Nokia employee system. That makes it one of the most exciting and interesting CEO memos we’ve ever seen — and we’re absolutely dying to see how Elop plans to shake things up.

Overall, the communique laments Nokia’s lateral movement while Apple and Google have started eating its lunch on the mid- and high end and Shenzhen-based off brands have started to cut into its traditional dominance in emerging markets, leaving Espoo with virtually zero market leadership. It’s a stark revelation that seems befitting of a man brought in from the outside — he’s neither Finnish, nor raised in the Nokia system — and he promises to start revealing the way forward this Friday at the company’s Capital Markets Day event where grandiose plans have been unveiled in the past.

Whether the memo is legitimate or not, the frequency and intensity of big-time rumors floating around Nokia ahead of Capital Markets Day (and MWC next week) have been pretty wild: we’ve heard they’ll be announcing a partnership with Microsoft possibly revolving around Windows Phone 7, that a boatload of executives would be shown the door, and that Elop would start looking to Nokia’s new Silicon Valley campus as its center of gravity, with execs and senior management expected to start spending more time outside Finland.

We’ll know far, far more about what’s going on over in Espoo in the next few days, but in the meantime, here are some choice quotes from the memo:

  • “…there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.”
  • “They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.”
  • “Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry’s innovation to its core.”
  • “We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.”
  • “…Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements…”
  • “Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem.”
  • “We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally. Nokia, our platform is burning.”

Read the full memo after the break.

Continue reading Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest ‘burning platform’ memo? (update: it’s real!)

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest ‘burning platform’ memo? (update: it’s real!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia Moving to the Silicon Valley?

Nokia-E7-00.jpg

Nokia is the most popular smartphone manufacturer in the world. You wouldn’t know that living in the US, however. The company’s mobile OS, Symbian, really doesn’t have much of a presence on our shores, thanks to the dominance of iOS, BlackBerry, and Android.

Still, word is that the company is looking to leave its Finnish homeland, shifting its headquarters to the greener pastures of the Silicon Valley in California. The move is reportedly the brainchild of Stephen Elop–the Canadian is the first-ever non-Finn to run the handset giant.

Elop is looking to shake up the company in a major–and arguably much needed–manner, frustrated with the bureaucracy and general lack of competitiveness. To deal with the latter, Nokia is expected to dump Symbian. The company’s stocks jumped recently at the suggestion that it adopt Windows 7 moving forward.

After 150 years in Finland, a move to Northern California would certainly constitute a “shakeup.” 

Nokia E7 starts shipping to ‘select markets’

Better late than never” has been Nokia’s rallying cry when it comes to releasing high-end devices, but we can’t begrudge the delay we’ve experienced with the E7, this phone was gorgeous back in September and it’s still a beauty today. The QWERTY-equipped sibling to the N8 brings a 4-inch Clear Black Display — whose name is no exaggeration, it’s as sharp and vibrant as any AMOLED screen we’ve seen so far — together with the latest version of Symbian, an 8 megapixel camera round the back, 16GB of onboard memory, and a finely crafted aluminum body. The slideout keyboard on this device is easily among the best we’ve ever handled, although the same can’t be said about the mechanism for opening it up. Nokia hasn’t been specific about the markets the E7 will be arriving in over the coming days, but the UK seems a lock and distribution should expand rapidly from there. Jump past the break for Nokia’s press release and a sweet little video promo.

Continue reading Nokia E7 starts shipping to ‘select markets’

Nokia E7 starts shipping to ‘select markets’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia E6 in the wild?

Considering rumors we’ve heard of a VGA display, we’d assumed that Nokia’s E6 would probably have a large touchscreen — but these shots we’ve just received look… well, a little different. Instead, it seems that Espoo’s planning to gently massage the winning portrait QWERTY formula already well established by the E71 and E72, bumping out a proper big brother to the E5. Around back, you see an 8 megapixel camera (possibly the same EDoF unit that’s in the E7) along with a dual LED flash; on front, that could very well be a VGA display, we suppose, considering the uptick in pixel density that everyone’s been pushing the past year. If we had to guess, this puppy is a lock for MWC — but in light of the crazy rumors floating around Nokia the past few days, all bets are off.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Nokia E6 in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget Podcast 231 – 02.05.2011

This podcast is so disgusting that #1 Digitimes bestselling author Paul Miller wants to take a shower. JK, not disgusting at all! Lots of cool stuff, actually. Just look at that topics list! It’s a real beauty, right? We’re not sure we COULD fit any more platforms into a podcast if we tried. Hang out with it. It’s the Engadget Podcast, just the way you like it, with especially special guest Chris Ziegler.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller
Guest: Chris Ziegler
Producer:
Trent Wolbe
Music: Sexy Chick

00:08:24 – Live from Google’s Android event!
00:08:37 – Android in-app purchases hands-on (video)
00:08:55 – Android Market gets a web store with OTA installations, in-app purchases coming soon
00:11:00 – Android Market web store hands-on
00:20:47 – Motorola Xoom first benchmark: 1823 in Quadrant
00:21:47 – Google shows off Fragments API for Android 3.0
00:25:00 – Motorola teases Xoom Super Bowl ad: ‘2011 looks a lot like 1984’
00:36:30 – Motorola’s Atrix 4G coming to AT&T on March 6th for $200, bundled with Laptop Dock for $500
00:51:35 – Verizon iPhone review
00:52:23 – Verizon can now throttle top five percent of bandwidth hogs, downres multimedia transfers
00:53:12 – Verizon breaks first day sales record with iPhone 4 pre-orders — in only two hours
01:01:43 – Nokia, Microsoft announcing partnership next week, possibly involving Windows Phone 7?
01:10:19 – Palm creating palmtop computer with detachable, dockable cellphone?
01:12:15 – HP CEO: New webOS products shipping weeks after February 9 reveal, another big announcement March 14
01:13:35 – Palm ‘Think Beyond’ teaser shows off glimpses of… something (updated with longer video)

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Engadget Podcast 231 – 02.05.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 15:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia reportedly planning ‘organizational changes,’ mobile phones exec on the outs

Looks like Capital Markets Day is shaping up to be quite the barnburner for Nokia. In the wake of news that Microsoft and Nokia may have some sort of tie-up in the works, Germany weekly Wirtschaftswoche is reporting that newly appointed CEO Stephen Elop will be bidding adieu to a number of high-ranking officials. Citing “company sources,” the paper stated that Mary T. McDowell, a bigwig in the mobile phones unit, as well as Niklas Savander, the manager of the markets unit, could be on the outs. Moreover, Kai Oistamo (Chief Development Officer) and Tero Ojanpera, the manager responsible for services and mobile solutions, may also be enjoying their final weekends as Nokia employees. It’s all part of a monumental strategy shift, and if it all pans out, it’ll be Elop’s first major move since taking over as CEO last September. Of course, Anssi Vanjoki more or less left on his own accord, and the company has essentially forged ahead with little to no change since. We’re told that Nokia has hired headhunters to scout top people to fill said slots, but it’s hard to say why Elop feels that new brains are needed. Here’s hoping it’s the start of something… competitive.

Update: Having had a few minutes to digest this news, it’s worth pointing out that neither Alberto Torres (exec leading MeeGo Computers) nor Jo Harlow (head of Symbian Smartphones) are rumored to be at risk. So if the report is true, then these organizational changes appear focused on, 1) rectifying Nokia’s inability to quickly execute upon its corporate strategy and, 2) the recent walloping Nokia received in emerging markets like India where Nokia’s S40 feature phones once ruled the land, but are increasingly under attack by aggressively priced cellphones from Chinese and Indian handset makers.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Nokia reportedly planning ‘organizational changes,’ mobile phones exec on the outs originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 11:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia Bubbles lets you intelligently unlock your N8 in a pop

Nokia Bubbles lets you intelligently unlock your N8 in a pop

The humble unlock screen gets ever fancier, and Nokia Bubbles is one of the fanciest we’ve seen yet. Like a variety of aftermarket lock screens it enables you to control your media player or initiate calls before you even unlock your handset, but does so in an interesting way. You just grab the bubble for what you want and drop it on what you want to do. A simple unlock entails dragging the key onto the lock, and if you have a missed call you can grab that person’s bubble and drag it to a phone to call them right back. Grab the music bubble to go straight to the music player and, well, you get the picture. Okay, so it’s not quite as much fun as playing Puzzle Bobble, but it is ever so slightly more useful. Check it out in the video below, or go ahead and give it a download if you’re on Symbian.

[Thanks, pyry]

Continue reading Nokia Bubbles lets you intelligently unlock your N8 in a pop

Nokia Bubbles lets you intelligently unlock your N8 in a pop originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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