NokiaPlanB was a hoax
engadget.com
engadget.com
While the author of the plan was not serious it seems there are a lot of people who do actually like his plan, and do take it seriously.
Maybe some of them will organize using this plan as a starting template.
I guess for anyone who was holding onto hope of a non-Olop, non-Microsoft Nokia, there's only one thing left to say:
No, it's not. It's a controversial state of affairs at most.
The reason this plan was given attention is because a lot of people disagree with Plan A. It says nothing about the feasibility of Plan A or how sad the state of affairs is.
This "Nokia Plan B" was no different. It didn't offer anything actionable. Remember that the plan's main proposal was:
Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience.
Is that really an exciting turnaround plan for a company of some 120,000+ employees? The whole plan boiled down to: "Let's keep doing the same thing we've tried unsuccessfully for years, but let's just do it better." Of course, there's always bound to be people who can't let go. (I know someone who bought Nokia shares in early 2000 at more than 10x the current price and is still holding on to them.)
Like Tony Hsieh says, you can't be successful by outsourcing something that should be your core competency.
Seems like it's an extra attempt at extending the 15 minutes.
Put me in the camp that says it didn't entirely start out as a hoax, but that a hoax looked increasingly like a good way of backing out gracefully after someone pointed out the rules.
Shareholders with voting shares have the right to attend shareholders meetings and vote in the board of directors. In such large corporations, shareholders usually appoint a proxyholder who attends the meeting and votes on the shareholder's behalf.
My understanding was that Nokia Plan B was basically soliciting such proxies by asking shareholders to give their votes to them for the purpose of replacing the board.
Corporate law usually doesn't require a proxyholder to be a shareholder, so they actually didn't even need such a (weak) claim to authority.
As a side note, soliciting proxies usually requires following proper corporate law procedure by sending prescribed materials. Nokia Plan B just had a website, which was an early indication this was a fake.
R Scoble still hates me being taken by such an obvious fake claim as he was calling/email MA of TC and TC even had to put a small note on the TC site about ti being fake.
NokiaPlanB was executed better. Just enough small stuff to believe and something real big that was fake.