Stephen Elop, Nokia, Microsoft, and the Trojan War
“What happened to Nokia” I was just wondering. Obviously the answer is like BlackBerry they were blinded by the magnificence of their own operating system and didn’t realize that they are a hardware company and can’t write an OS for shit.
And also Stephen Elop happened: What company will Stephen Elop steal for Microsoft next?.
I was in the audience when he spoke at McMaster University shortly after he left Microsoft to become CEO of Nokia. It was a lot of nostalgia (he’s alum there) and he was visibly annoyed when I got up during the Q&A and asked if it wasn’t obvious that he was going to switch Nokia over to Windows Mobile and merge the two companies.
I didn’t get an honest answer, in case you’re wondering.
In case you missed the excitement, he was head of Microsoft’s business division, where he seemed to be in his element. Nokia hired him as CEO when they finally realized they were unbelievable screwed because they had no workable plan to compete with the iPhone. He wrote an infamous “Burning Platform” memo, switched them to the second-worst mobile OS, drove Nokia phones into the ground and arranged for it to be bought out by Microsoft — all in the brief period of 2 years.
He’s now putting in some in-between time at McMaster waiting for people to forgive and forget.
And now, the good news: apparently Nokia is thinking about bringing out new phones. Yay!
What can I say. I owned a lot of Nokias and they were great phones. Crap OS. Great phones.