In your opinion, if there were no “under-the-table quid-pro-quo deal” giving Elop an incentive to make a deal with Microsoft, what would he (or another CEO) hav

In your opinion, if there were no “under-the-table quid-pro-quo deal” giving Elop an incentive to make a deal with Microsoft, what would he (or another CEO) have done instead? The Nokia board fired the previous CEO because, well, his pet strategy was failing. So some kind of radical shakeup was needed. The two most obvious alternatives were “get in bed with Microsoft” and “get in bed with Google”. While Google doesn’t need Nokia’s help promoting Android, Microsoft desperately needs some major player to support Windows Mobile. Therefore Nokia is in a better negotiating position w.r.t. Microsoft than w.r.t. Google.