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Nokia Chief Elop Is Top Gambling Pick to Be Next Microsoft CEO
- Piskvorrr 13y agoAfter sinking Nokia, Elop returns to Microsoft. Mission: accomplished.
- Clepsydra 13y agoNokia stocks has risen ~40% in the last year. You call that sinking? Aug 29 2012: 2.75 Aug 29 2013: 3.97 Compare that to Apple.
- infocollector 13y agoYou mean a sunk ship is rising - 40%! ? What percentage of the mobile market does Nokia have? Hint: Was Samsung selling anything 5 years ago in this market? Not to mention QT is having a tough time.
- freehunter 13y agoIf I was on a sinking ship that suddenly began to rise when a new captain took the helm, I would consider the captain to be doing a pretty decent job.
- hga 13y agoSee my other comment in this subthread: it rose a bit, then sunk a whole lot. That it's up from its nadir $1.71 a bit more than a year ago is cold comfort when it was doing around $9 3 years ago summer through spring 2011.
- imron 13y agoFirst sentence of the article: "...Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop, who has presided over a 62 percent decline in market value..."
- jsight 13y agoNokia is like a ship with a hole in it, and Elop's job is to get it pointed in the right direction. Except he hasn't. He's just bailed water a little faster, and slightly reduced the sink rate. I give them credit for doing something daring and different (betting on Windows when they knew noone else would). It was a big gamble, though, and at least so far, it hasn't paid off. Android would have been a far safer bet in the short-term at the very least.
- hga 13y agoAccording to Yahoo Finance, it was 10.06 on the NYSE the day before he became the CEO. Went up a bit to 11.06 a couple of times in the next two quarters, but otherwise not good, and 3.94 in pre-market trading today.
- bojan 13y agoThat is not completely fair, though. At the time of his arrival Nokia was a desperately sinking ship. The price would drop before rising no matter what direction the company took at the time.
- hga 13y agoThat's why I gave an overview of the behavior starting with him becoming CEO. He got a couple of quarters of flat stock prices, perhaps suggesting investors were giving him a chance to show he was turning it around, and after that it's essentially all downhill. Look at the last 5 years, you can't really paint it as hopeful right now: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NOK+Interactive#symbol=nok;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined; http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NOK+Interactive#symbol=no...
- pessimizer 13y agoAt the time of his arrival, Nokia was a stagnating dinosaur, with a tiny bit of hope in an innovative operating system that was mismanaged, buggy, and couldn't ship on time. Elop accidentally announced that they were discontinuing support on horrible Symbian, which was at the time the most popular smartphone operating system in the world, and turned Nokia into a desperately sinking ship. Elop wasn't the worst CEO possible, but he was the worst CEO available.
- Piskvorrr 13y agoAug 29 2013: 3.97 Aug 29, 2011: 6.03. You call that rising?
- tjmc 13y agoHow does that make sense? Nokia was in serious trouble before Elop got there and Android was already well established elsewhere.
- chris_wot 13y agoWhy? To finish the job of killing Microsoft?
- infocollector 13y agoTop Qualifications list: 1. Steve Ballmer : Best man in Gates Wedding. 2. Elop : Killed Nokia single-handedly! 3. -- : Doesn't matter: There is no MS anymore?
- andridk 13y agoAnother burning-platform-memo incoming.
- dman 13y agoWill be funny if he retires the win kernel and announces a port to freebsd.
- sker 13y agoProblem is, if MS hires Elop, the new Nokia CEO may embrace Android, as well as some of the other alternatives (Firefox, Ubuntu, etc.). Microsoft needs Elop running Nokia as part of a bigger strategy.
- harrytuttle 13y agoI doubt it. Why would Nokia want to be another Android pusher with no competitive advantage? Value-adds on Android are all shit (crappy launchers and bundled shitware) and the platform is fragmented to fuck. Firefox OS isn't even off the ground and Ubuntu is dead as well. Nokia hit the spot with windows phone. People will realise that in time. The platform is worth it just for Nokia Here+ for a lot of people (myself included) and the fact that the hardware is decent.
- Nursie 13y ago>>Nokia hit the spot with windows phone. People will realise that in time. Ohwaityouwerebeingseriousletmelaughevenharder.jpg That's some great comedy material you have there. How many years before this happens do you think? They've already had several. Elop has been an MS stooge since the word go and nokia has paid the price for it.
- harrytuttle 13y agoHaters will be haters. In 2016 I reckon the market will look like the following: 25% - iOS - Luxury/fashion sector. 25% - WP - business/teenage/student sector. 40% - Android - Mainly generic landfill sector + Samsung 10% - Everything else (probably still mostly S40) Plenty of room for growth and a sensible return. People used to take the piss out of me when I decided to invest in ARM Holdings, Microsoft, Apple and Raytheon. Who's laughing now?
- Nursie 13y agoI don't know why people would take the piss out of those fairly sensible investments, MS has been solid for decades, Apples rise has been unstoppable since the original iPod and ARM has been on the rise for decades too. But your predictions for winphone are hopelessly optimistic, and MS has already lost the business sector for phones. They had a strong position a few years ago and threw it all away...
- freehunter 13y agoIgnoring the ignorant comments here about Elop "killing" Nokia, I would wonder who would replace Elop in the middle of what could very well be a turnaround for the company? Microsoft is still fairly strong, they certainly don't need a savior in the way Nokia still does. Microsoft could certainly buy Nokia and put Elop at the top of the whole thing, but that's not without its risks. Would Microsoft sacrifice their only real friend in the mobile world just to grab their executive back? If Elop comes over, either Nokia follows or Microsoft disappears from the mobile market.
- Zigurd 13y agoI could write a 50 page indictment of Elop for killing Nokia, but Tomi Ahonen already has, so here is the tl;dr: There is no reason Nokia couldn't have had Meego and Android alongside Windows Phone. Other OEMs, including Samsung and LG launch products with alternative OSs because they don't want to be caught out if OS preferences change. Several OEMs tried Windows Phone and/or Windows RT. Those products failed to gain traction and were abandoned. These OEMs and others will launch Tizen, Firefox OS, and Ubuntu products for the same reasons. Sticking with Windows Phone exclusively in light of its failure at other OEMs looks more like career management than strategy. Launching a Windows RT product, as Nokia is rumored to be doing, is recklessness bordering on insanity. As for Microsoft disappearing from mobile, it looks to me that Ballmer's departure anticipates that happening. Nokia can't keep going the way it is for much longer.
- jeswin 13y agoI disagree with every comment you have made here. There is no reason Nokia couldn't have had Meego and Android alongside Windows Phone. Really? How will their marketing handle this? Imagine three entirely incompatible operating systems. Add to that, they need to sell Symbian for a few more years anyway. Samsung and LG launch products with alternative OSs because they don't want to be caught out if OS preferences change. OS preferences don't change just like that. You need apps in the app store. It gets harder if you've already spent money on paid apps. Also, Samsung has gotten nowhere with their alternative OSes. Those products failed to gain traction and were abandoned. Windows RT was lame and deserves to die. Windows Phone is by no yardstick dead yet. It is actually doing a better job than many expected. Several OEMs tried Windows Phone and/or Windows RT. Exactly what Nokia wants. Nokia has become _the windows phone_. As of now, Lumia accounts for 75% of windows phone sales. Microsoft disappearing from mobile, it looks to me that Microsoft is not disappearing from mobile. Lumia sold 7.4 million phones this quarter. Up from 5.5m and 4.4m earlier. How is this a failing company, or a failing product?
- gesman 13y agoMSFT needs young cute girl (well, someone in late 30-ish) as CEO to distract the world from Marissa Meyer's domination :) Old, bald and stubborn is no longer going to cut it.
- 1337biz 13y agoNot sure if she qualifies for cute, but the only other female high profile tech personality that comes to mind would be Sheryl Sandberg.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoAnd who is running HP??? Meg Whitman isn't high profile?
- 1337biz 13y agoShe is more of a grande dame than someone who signals an infusion of fresh thinking. But then again this could be just what MS is looking for.
- ausjke 13y agoSomehow, out of instinct, I feel this guy will ruin Microsoft, which is not necessarily a bad thing. On a "burning platform" he is too interested/risky in changing his behaviour instead of putting off the fire first then bettering things for the long term, MS is blind to say the least.
- seunosewa 13y agoWhy isn't anyone suggesting Eric Schmidt? He has a lot of experience in winning and kicking ass as a software company.
- 1337biz 13y agoSomewhat some time ago he must have decided to become the elder statesman of the technology circus. Not sure if it was such a great decision, but I would be very surprised if he came back into the business of "running" things.
- gjulianm 13y agoApart from the fact that this is a non-story ("a gambling website picked Elop as the favorite", which website? with how many users?), as others have said, Microsoft needs Elop in Nokia to keep getting their support with Windows Phone.
- dlss 13y agoLooks like the website is ladbrokes... http://sportsbeta.ladbrokes.com/Specials/Microsoft-Specials/Next-Microsoft-CEO-N-1z0z7huZ1z0z1etZ1z0ys9q/ http://sportsbeta.ladbrokes.com/Specials/Microsoft-Specials/... Traffic looks like 20k/day visits or so (https://siteanalytics.compete.com/ladbrokes.com/ https://siteanalytics.compete.com/ladbrokes.com/)
- peteri 13y agoLadbrokes is one of the UKs largest bookies profits are in the $300M range. Number of active users is 1,010,000 according to their last annual report. I suspect one of the spread betting sites would actually give a more realistic view. (I have however got £5 on Bill Gates at 50/1 as a real outside chance)
- seshagiric 13y agoWith people like Larry Page, Jeff Bezos leading its competition, MS sure does need someone very technical. May be Bill G makes a comeback.
- dman 13y agoHow about Sundar Pichai?
- unono 13y agoMicrosoft should pick Elon Musk or a famous googler, one of Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt. That would create a tech super-empire. Then one of these should run for president.
- kig 13y agoI can imagine the Elop-to-all-employees memo as MS CEO: Windows 8 is a disaster. Windows 9 is not ready yet and won't be ready for years. We're on a burning oil platform in the middle of the night. The only way to survive is to jump into the icy cold waters of the Puget Sound. We're announcing a platform shift to Symbian, which we'll be licensing from Accenture Consulting at $15/pop. But they're our strategic partners so they're going to give us marketing money to market the new Microsoft Symbian 800, so it's almost like it's free. In order to take advantage of the synergic benefits of outsourcing our core business, I'm going to sell the Microsoft headquarters, fire all the obsoleted software engineers along with 50000 employees who cost too much to employ in our new revenue structure. We will also be EOLing Windows, Xbox, Windows Live, Hotmail and Office and focus on rocking the world with Bing and the Microsoft Symbian range of products, supported by the amazing Accenture Symbian App Store. Our exclusive partnership with Lenovo to sell Microsoft Symbian in countries where we have traditionally done badly is going to form the cornerstone of our new strategy. The new $1999 Lenovo Symbian smart tablets are industrial-strength products designed to make a massive impact from Sichuan to Gansu.
- graycat 13y agoIn the mainstream media there is now the implication, hint, suggestion, claim, etc. that somehow Google, Facebook, Apple, and Samsung beat Microsoft at its own business. I don't buy that. That hint, etc. plays well with consumers who see computing just in terms of consumer client devices. Here are two blunt facts: First, many more client devices need servers, and Microsoft with Windows Server, SQL Server, and many software tools for system installation, monitoring, and management has demonstrated that it knows how to run one heck of a big server farm with surprisingly small staff. Second, people still need to work, at a computer 'work station' complete with a good, physical keyboard, the old kind with keys that move, and one or more screens, hopefully large, and maybe more than one. And they need to run some major software applications in graphics, high end word processing, video creation, editing, and production, engineering, statistics, etc., and for that people still need a high end desktop computer with, from Microsoft, Windows 7 that can run both 32 bit and 64 bit software. That work station may have 32 GB of main memory and 12 TB of disk memory. So, no smart phone or tablet can compete. Yes, Apple sold a lot of iPhones, and McDonald's sold a lot of hamburgers, but that doesn't really mean that Microsoft should get in either the phone or hamburger business or was beaten by either Apple or McDonald's. For the new CEO of Microsoft to push Microsoft into mobile client devices in competition with Apple and Samsung and software for such devices in competition with Apple and Google and to ignore desktops and servers would be huge mistake. Yes, generally if there is a new business opportunity that involves software, Microsoft should consider getting in, e.g., search and Bing. And maybe Microsoft should push mobile client devices and associated operating system and application software, etc., but to ignore desktops and servers would be dumb, dumber than anything Ballmer did.
- josephpmay 13y agoNow that Ballmer and Steven Sinofsky are out, I could see J Allard coming back. (Edit) Reasoning: 1) He's one of the few Microsoft executives (at the time) who saw the rise of the internet in the 90's and the rise of mobile in the early 2000's 2) He spearheaded Xbox, Zune, and Courier, which appear to be the direction Microsoft wants to head towards 3) He must still be somewhat connected with Microsoft, as he appeared in the Xbox One video reveal