4 ms·
Why do you imply that Microsoft is the prime mover in this whole turn of events? I think it's clear that the board, shareholders, and much of the public (witn
by saturdaysaint 16y ago
Why do you imply that Microsoft is the prime mover in this whole turn of events? I think it's clear that the board, shareholders, and much of the public (witness the hemorrhaging marketshare) had lost faith in the ability of Nokia to develop a modern smartphone operating system internally. It's likely that the board brought in Elop (and , yes, some of his former colleagues) to make a deal like this happen under the most favorable terms for Nokia.
- rbanffy 16y agoConsidering the beating Nokia shares took after the announcement, I don't think that same public has any faith on Microsoft's ability to deliver a modern operating system.
- saturdaysaint 16y agoThis falls squarely into the "buy on the rumor sell on the news" pattern we see shortly before every Apple announcement. There was a run-up on Nokia stock in the preceding week, quite possibly out of the hope that Nokia was going to make a drastic move or sell outright to Microsoft or Google. You can't interpret stock signals on such a short-term basis. A better snapshot of the market's confidence in Elop would be to look at NOK performance since his hiring (since many have been predicting this move for MONTHS) - NOK is up over %15 since September 2010.
- rst 16y agoWhat's not so clear is that this strategy was the right one. Particularly since the big, bold move isn't doing Windows Phone 7. (They're late to that party already; LG, Samsung and HTC already have phones out now.) Instead, what distinguishes Nokia so far is what they're not doing: fielding an Android device. And if you think Nokia doesn't have enough resources to do both, why haven't they dumped Meego yet? There may be unannounced considerations that make this deal reasonable. But if you're going to bet your company on a single third-party platform (something that you don't need to do), it seems odd for it to be one that has yet to gain any serious traction in the marketplace. Hence (I think) the suggestions that, to put it politely, Elop's past affiliations have skewed his judgment...
- jsnell 16y agoThe Finnish press is currently having a field day with the fact that according to filings Elop still owns a substantial amount of Microsoft shares, while holding no Nokia shares or options at all. He blames it on insider trading laws :-)
- saturdaysaint 16y agoElop gives a very credible answer to why Nokia shunned Android: http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-windows-phone-over-android/A9024583-EBC9-4817-AD5E-A2569CA55F4B/ http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-wind... In short: Nokia would give Android so much market share that Android would be unstoppable. Which sounds nice, but it would mean that Nokia would very quickly have almost no leverage over the ecosystem.
- rbanffy 16y agoSo, his reasoning is based on the idea that Microsoft depends on Nokia as much as Nokia depends on Microsoft. When WP7 fails completely, life will go on for Redmond, but will be over for Nokia. You have leverage when your partner needs the partnership more than you do. In this case, Microsoft has as much of it as it wants. As soon as Nokia is committed to WP7, Microsoft can do whatever it wants with them and they'll just put up with it, because they need the "partnership". Elop is not dumb. He is screwing Nokia for Microsoft.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago